Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

“I don’t know,” she said, looking him straight in the eye, “because I don’t know just when the murder was committed.”

“Quite right,” Tragg said. “That’s a very good answer. One might almost think it had been suggested by Perry Mason’s coaching. If you don’t mind,” Tragg went on, “we’ll just go through to your part of the living room. By the way, just how is the house divided?”

“The fence runs through the living room. Most of it is on my side of the fence due to the dining area,” she said. “I have the utility room, the kitchen, the showers and dressing room for the pool and the servant’s quarters. I’ve been living in the servant’s quarters.”

Tragg said. “You have the kitchen?”

“That’s right.”

“May we look in the kitchen, please?”

She started to lead the way, when suddenly Tragg stopped and inspected the waxed tiles of the entranceway.

“Now you’ll forgive me,” he said, “but there’s a spot here which has much less gloss than the rest of the tile floor. The refraction of light is not nearly as great — has something been spilled here?”

“I came in with groceries,” she said. “Mr. Mason told me of my husband’s death and I dropped the groceries. They were heavy and the strength just seemed to drain out of my arms.”

“I see, and what happened?”

“Milk and salad dressing,” she said. “The milk carton came open and the bottle of salad dressing broke. I cleaned the mess up.

“I see. Now, where was Mason standing?”

“At the telephone.”

“And what was he doing at the telephone?”

“He was phoning someone.”

“And did you hear the conversation?”

“I heard part of it, perhaps just about all of it.”

“What did he say?” Tragg asked. “I’m very much interested in why Mr. Mason found it so necessary to get to a telephone that he would violate the restraining order of a court of law. After all, you know, an attorney is an officer of the court and is supposed to uphold the dignity of the court. What did you hear him say?”

“He was evidently giving instructions to someone on the telephone. He wanted to have someone shadowed.”

“Did you get the name of the person he wanted shadowed?”

“Nadine Palmer.”

Tragg’s notebook was whipped out and his ball-point pen hurried across the page. “Nadine Palmer,” he said. “Now do you know who she is?”

“Nadine Palmer,” Vivian Carson said, “is the woman my husband’s detective shadowed and reported to have been caught in indiscretions.”

“Well, well,” Tragg said, “and Perry Mason was telephoning someone to have her shadowed.”

“That’s right. He said that he wanted her tailed. I remember the expression quite clearly.”

“Yes, yes, wanted her tailed. Now did he mention the name of the person he was talking to?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Perhaps the first name,” Tragg said, “... perhaps Paul?”

“Yes, yes, that was it!” she exclaimed. “I remember now, he called him Paul. That was just as I came in the house.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then I think Mr. Mason sensed my presence and looked around, and I was very sarcastic and told him to make himself right at home and help himself to anything he wanted.”

“And that sarcasm, I take it, rolled off Mason like water off a duck’s back. But what did he say — what did he do as far as the telephone was concerned?”

“He simply hung up and at that time he told me my husband had been murdered.”

“And you dropped the groceries?”

“That’s right.”

“You picked them up?”

“Yes.”

“And where did you put them?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Well, if it’s all right with you, we’ll take a look in the kitchen,” Tragg said. “And, by the way, where did you buy the groceries?”

“At the supermarket.”

“The one near the top of the hill?”

“No, that’s a rather small market. I said the super market.”

“Oh yes, and where was that?”

“That’s down in Hollywood.”

“You have the ticket?”

“Oh yes, I have the ticket from the adding machine.”

“That’s fine,” Tragg said. “Those tickets are usually numbered and we can find out a lot about the time you were there by checking the number on the ticket and checking with the records of the cash register. Now if you’ll just lead the way, please.”

Vivian Carson went into the kitchen.

Tragg’s eye caught the groceries piled on the sink.

“ Four bags of groceries,” he said. “Four big bags.”

“Yes.”

“Now let’s see,” Tragg said, “since Mason was in the house when you arrived and since you dropped two bags of groceries, those must have been the first two bags. Then you returned and got the second two bags and...?”

“Mr. Mason got the second two bags for me.”

“Oh,” Tragg said. “I should have realized Mason would be very considerate. And where were you while he was getting the groceries? Did you perhaps go to the living room or open the door a crack so you could peek in and see what was happening?”

“No. I simply collapsed. I sat in that chair until after Mr. Mason returned.”

Tragg’s eye roving around the kitchen caught the knife rack.

“Now here’s an interesting situation,” he said. “A knife rack with all sorts of knives attached to it by a magnetic bar — since the murder was committed with a knife... You’ll pardon me, Mrs. Carson, if I make an inspection.”

Tragg stepped over to the knife rack.

“You can see,” she said, “that they’re all there.”

“I can, I can indeed,” Tragg said. “At least they seem to be all here. All evenly spaced and... What’s this?”

Tragg reached up and removed a wooden-handled butcher knife from the rack.

“Just one of the knives,” she said.

“Well now, is it?” Tragg asked, turning it over in his hand thoughtfully. “It’s a knife all right, but it seems to have been unused. It has a price in crayon written on the blade, three dollars and twenty cents.”

She said, “I just moved in you know, Lieutenant. I’ve only been here a short time. I haven’t had a chance to get fully provisioned and I—”

“But you’ve been here since — since when?”

“Since Sunday. I moved in Sunday. We put the fence in Saturday afternoon and I moved in Sunday morning.”

“All this time and haven’t had occasion to look at the knives,” Tragg said. “By any chance, Mrs. Carson, while you were out shopping you didn’t deliberately buy a knife that would replace the one that had been plunged into your husband, did you?”

Vivian Carson started to answer the question, then suddenly stopped and caught herself. “I... I...”

Mason interposed smoothly, “You don’t have to answer Lieutenant Tragg’s question, you know, Mrs. Carson.”

Tragg turned to regard Mason with considerable displeasure. “And we don’t have to have your company here, Mr. Mason,” he said. “You’ve performed the introductions, you’ve served your purpose here. Now you just don’t need to bother to hang around. Mrs. Carson and I are going to get along perfectly.”

“I believe it is Mrs. Carson’s house,” Mason said. “I think she can decide who she wants to have present.”

“That’s not the way you were talking a moment ago,” Tragg said. “You thought it was Morley Eden’s house and, as I remember it, there’s a restraining order preventing anyone from coming on these premises and as an officer of the law I might have to forcibly eject you, Mason. You wouldn’t want to be put in the position of resisting an officer — and furthermore, I could take Mrs. Carson up to headquarters for questioning, you know.