Erie Gardner - The Case of the Lazy Lover

“Well, I...”

“Is it right, or isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Well, what did you do further?”

“Well, I... I made a careful investigation to prove that it was blood, and then that it was human blood.”

“And then you classified it?”

“Yes.”

“And found out it was type O?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And found out that the defendant had type O?”

“Yes.”

“And don’t you know, as a matter of fact, that between forty and fifty percent of the entire white race has blood of type O?”

“Well... yes.”

“And you felt certain even before you had made the test that the result of this test would show that this blood came from the body of the defendant?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then why did you type the blood of the defendant and the blood on the carpet, which you have mentioned?”

“Well, I wanted to show that it could have come from the defendant. Having shown that, there was nothing further that I could show.”

“And you didn’t type the blood of the decedent?”

“Wait a minute, I did, too. I have some notes on that. If you’ll pardon me just a moment.”

The witness took a notebook from his pocket, said, “The blood typing was incident to other matters and... yes, here it is. The decedent also had blood of type O — that isn’t particularly significant because as you yourself have pointed out, between forty and fifty percent of the white population of the world has blood of this type. The idea of my tests on the matter was not to show that the blood did come from the defendant, but that it could have come from the defendant.”

“And could also have come from anyone comprising fifty percent of the population.”

“Yes.”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

One of the traffic officers described inspecting the automobile with Allred’s body inside, mentioned that the automobile had been locked in low gear when it went over the embankment, and apparently had been deliberately driven off the road and over the bank.

Mason asked no questions.

“Robert Fleetwood, take the stand,” Danvers said.

Fleetwood was sworn, took the stand and testified, giving a full account of events leading to Allred’s meeting him and Mrs. Allred at the Snug-Rest Auto Court around ten o’clock Monday evening.

“Then what happened?” Danvers asked.

“He seemed cordial enough. He was still posing as my brother-in-law. He shook hands, asked me how I was feeling and if I was regaining my memory. I said I wasn’t and then Allred said we’d have to leave this court because he had much better accommodations down the road a piece.

“I didn’t have any baggage except a razor and some toilet articles Bertrand Allred had given me. Mrs. Allred had a very small suitcase. We were able to leave the court almost at once.

“Well, he’d raised the turtleback to put Mrs. Allred’s bag in there, and suddenly he whipped out a gun and ordered her to crawl in there. She refused. He hit her hard in the face, and she knew he meant business. She crawled in. At that time I noticed her nose was bleeding.”

Convincingly he went on with his story, through the overpowering of Allred and starting for the Overbrook ranch. His recital tallied almost word for word with the story he had told Tragg and Mason previously.

“Did you know Overbrook?”

“Not personally, but I knew quite a bit about him from the books. He’d had some correspondence with us over a mining deal. I knew he wouldn’t sell me out to Allred.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well,” Fleetwood said, “I’d been pretending that I had amnesia. I thought it would be a pretty good thing to keep right on pretending. I drove the car up the road to Overbrook’s property, and about a quarter of a mile before I came to the house, I turned off the road in what seemed to be a nice open spot where I could get the car off the road and leave it. It turned out to be a soft spot where there was a certain amount of drainage from high ground on either side, which, coupled with the recent rain, had left the ground quite soft, but the car went in there all right.”

“In low gear?”

“In second gear, I believe.”

“Then what happened?”

“I moved the car off the road and stopped it.”

“Then what?”

“Mrs. Allred had evidently used a jack handle to pry back the catch on the door of the turtleback...”

“You don’t know she had used a jack handle?”

“No. All I know is that when she was put in there, the catch was shut, but when I stopped the car, she had got the catch open.”

“And what happened?”

“Almost as soon as I stopped the car, she pushed up the turtleback of the car and jumped out of the luggage compartment to the ground and started to run.”

“In which direction?”

“Back. Toward the road we had just left.”

“Did you say anything?”

“I called to her and said, ‘You don’t need to run. He’s knocked out. He’s absolutely unconscious.’ ”

“Did she say anything?”

“No. She just kept on running.”

“But your voice was loud enough so she must have heard you?”

“Sure, she heard me.”

“Then what?”

“I didn’t bother with her any more. I remembered Allred’s gun that I was still holding. I threw that gun just as far as I could throw it.”

“In which direction?”

“I think in a general north — well, a northeasterly direction from the car.”

“Then what happened?”

“There weren’t any lights in Overbrook’s house, but I could hear the barking of a dog, and that guided me. I walked directly to Overbrook’s house.”

“Did you go back to the road?”

“No. I just hit a beeline for where the dog was barking.”

“Then what happened?”

“I got Overbrook up out of bed. I asked him if he could put me up. I told him I didn’t know who I was or anything about myself.”

“He agreed to?”

“Yes. He gave me a bed.”

“Did you go to bed?”

“Yes.”

“And did you at any time during the night leave that bed?”

“No. I couldn’t have. The dog was watching.”

“By the dog, you mean Overbrook’s dog?”

“Yes.”

“Where was he?”

“In the living room.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I sat up and sort of thought I’d look around. I heard the automobile start up, and wondered if Allred had regained consciousness. I tried to open the door and look out, but the dog was there and he growled.”

“Wasn’t there a window?”

“That’s the point. The room was on the other side of the house, so I couldn’t see in the direction in which I’d parked the car. I wanted to get out and look through the windows of the other room in the house.”

“That was a rather simple house?”

“Yes.”

“Consisting of two rooms?”

“Four rooms. There was a room where Overbrook slept, a little kitchen, a room where I was sleeping and a living room.”

“Overbrook was there alone?”

“Yes. He was batching there.”

“What happened after that?”

The witness grinned and said, “I was trapped by my own device. Mr. Perry Mason drove up to the house and identified me and had a girl along who claimed I was her long lost husband. There was nothing I could do about it, without showing Overbrook that I’d been lying all along about the amnesia and I wasn’t in a position to do that. I still thought it would be a lot better for me to pretend that I couldn’t remember anything that had happened after that blow on the head, so I went along with them.”

“And what happened?”

“Mr. Mason took me to police headquarters.”