Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

“That’s quite all right,” Mason said, “just so we get the facts straight, then we can adjust them later.”

“That, of course, is the big thing in a homicide. Get the evidence, preserve the facts. Now what were you going to suggest?”

Mason said, “I think you’ll find that Loring Carson had a complete set of keys to this house. He built the house, you know, and then turned it over to Morley Eden. First he sold him the lots, then he went ahead and contracted to build the house on a basis of progress payments.”

“I see,” Tragg said. “Well, ordinarily we don’t take anything from the body until after a representative of the coroner’s office gets here, but in a situation of this kind time is of the greatest importance. I think we’ll go through his pockets, men, and just make a list of the things we take out. We should have an official photographer here any minute and representatives of the coroner’s office.”

Tragg turned to Eden. “Could I trouble you for a sheet or a pillowcase, or something that we could put on the floor and into which we could put the things we take from the man’s pockets?”

“I can get you a pillow slip right away.”

“That will be fine,” Tragg said.

He stood a few paces back from the body, surveying it with thought-troubled eyes.

“Something bothering you, Lieutenant?” Mason asked.

“A lot of things are bothering me,” Tragg said. “Look at the man’s shirt, a very expensive shirt, French cuffs; cufflinks that are enameled black, but you can see that they are diamond cuff links. Some substance was put over the diamonds and then the whole thing was enameled black.”

Eden appeared with a pillow slip. “Will one be all right, Lieutenant?”

“One will be fine, thank you,” Tragg said.

He knelt by the body, then started removing articles from the pockets.

“Well, well,” he said, as he opened a folded book of traveler’s checks, “five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar traveler’s checks in the name of A.B.L. Seymour. It looks as though our man had an alias for purposes of his own, perhaps fooling the income-tax department. Perhaps we’ll find he has a little love nest somewhere with all the complications that go with a dual life.

“Now in this wallet,” Tragg went on, “are thousand-dollar bills, fifteen of them. And here’s a wallet in his hip pocket with hundred-dollar bills. This man was what you might call well heeled. Now let’s see. You are interested in the keys... Here are the keys.”

Tragg extracted a leather key container.

“Now, Mr. Eden, if you’ll step down this way with your house key, I’ll check it with the keys in this key container and see if perhaps Mr. Carson had, as you suggested, retained a key to your house. Pardon me, the suggestion didn’t come from you, it came from Perry Mason. Not, of course, that it makes any great difference in one way, but in another way it makes all the difference in the world. I have found that suggestions made by Mr. Perry Mason are nearly always pertinent but quite frequently tend to confuse the issues rather than clarify them, at least for the moment.”

Morley Eden produced his keys.

“Now, let’s see,” Tragg said, “this is the key... to what? The front door?”

“The front door.”

“There seems to have been a key removed from your key container. There’s a vacant space there. Would you know anything about that?”

Eden glanced uncomfortably at Perry Mason.

Tragg said, “Well! Flashing signals of distress to your attorney, eh? So this vacant spot in the key container may well become quite significant. Perhaps we’ll look into that first, Mr. Eden, if you don’t mind. And if your attorney doesn’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Mason said. “I asked Mr. Eden for the key to the other side of the house, which he took rather hurriedly from the key container and handed to me. With that particular type of key container, it’s easier to pull the little lever and take out the key clips one at a time than to remove the key from the clip itself.”

“I see,” Tragg said thoughtfully. “And this key that was removed and given to you, Mr. Mason, what door does that fit?”

“The door to the other side of the house; that is, the side door.”

“The side that was awarded to Mrs. Carson?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right.”

“Perhaps if you’d be good enough to produce that key, Mason, I’ll check that key also and see if Carson perchance had keys to both sides of the house.”

Mason handed over the key.

“Thank you,” Tragg said with exaggerated courtesy. “You’ll pardon me for rambling along here, just sort of thinking out loud, but I’m wondering if perhaps you didn’t walk into your own trap. When you suggested that Carson had keys to the house and therefore could get in at any time you overlooked the fact that I’d ask Morley Eden for his keys in order to make a comparison. Of course when he produced, his keys, the vacant place in the key container became readily apparent and so you were called upon to produce the key to the other side of the house. However, never mind. I take it the other side of the house is unoccupied at the moment?”

“Mrs. Carson lives there,” Eden said.

Tragg, his shrewd eyes making a quick comparison of the keys he had taken from the body of Loring Carson with the keys in Morley Eden’s key container, said “And why would Mr. Mason want the key to Mrs. Carson’s side of the house?”

“I don’t know,” Eden said.

“I didn’t think you would,” Tragg said. “Mason, in his more subtle moments, seldom confides what he has in mind to anyone, least of all to his clients. Doubtless he thought he could protect your interests in some way, but perhaps Mr. Mason will be good enough to explain.”

“I wanted to take a quick look in that side of the house to see if the murderer might be there,” Mason said.

“That was brave of you, Mason.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mason said casually, “the murder was committed with a knife. After a murderer uses a knife, he’s finished with his weapon. It isn’t like a gun which shoots one bullet after another.”

“Now that’s logical, very logical indeed,” Tragg said. “And perhaps you thought the murderer was a woman? It’s nice to have you civilians usurping the prerogatives of the police, but rather embarrassing at times. You do have a way of contaminating evidence, you know. Now I think, Mr. Mason, if you have no objection, you and I will walk right over to the other side of the house and we’ll just see what it was you wanted to inspect.”

“I think you’ll find Mrs. Carson there now,” Mason said.

“Oh, you do,” Tragg said. “I take it that that use of the word now indicates that she wasn’t there when you first went over, Mason.”

“That’s right, she’d been shopping.”

“Well, well, we keep getting more and more information,” Tragg said. “I think we’ll now go talk with Mrs. Carson before she has a chance to do any more thinking about the instructions Perry Mason doubtless gave her.”

Tragg turned to one of the men. “Now look,” he said, “I want to get this moisture up from the floor; every drop that we can save. When the squad car comes and delivers these sterile vials and pipettes, I want you men to use them carefully. First you uncork the vial. Then you take one of these pipettes and insert it in the pool of moisture and gently suck on the other end of the pipette. That draws the moisture up into the pipette. Don’t let it come up far enough to touch the end of the pipette or mingle with the saliva. Then remove the pipette from the puddle, put the end in the vial and blow gently until you have expelled the contents. Keep doing that as often as is necessary until you get both puddles absorbed.