Erle Gardner - The Case of the Drowning Duck

Witherspoon said, “There’s been another one.”

“Another what?” Mason asked.

“Another murder.”

“You mean someone in addition to Leslie L. Milter has...”

“Yes, yes. Good God, it’s preposterous! The damnedest thing you ever heard! They’ve all gone crazy. They...”

“Who was murdered?” Mason asked.

“The man who was staying in my house, Roland Burr.”

“How?” Mason inquired.

“Same way. Somebody left a vase of acid in his room, dropped some cyanide in it, and walked out. The poor guy was laid up in bed with this broken leg. He couldn’t have got out even if he’d wanted to. He just had to stay there and take it.”

“When?”

“Just an hour or so ago.”

“Who did it?” Mason asked.

Witherspoon almost shouted into the telephone. “That’s why you have to come down here at once!”

“Who did it?” Mason repeated.

“These damn fool police claim that I did,” Witherspoon shouted.

“Are you under arrest?”

“I guess it amounts to that.”

Mason said, “Say nothing. Sit tight. I’m on my way down.”

He hung up the telephone, motioned to Della Street, said, “Get your things, Della. We’re headed for El Templo.”

Della Street said, “You’re forgetting Allgood. He’s on his way down.”

Mason had pushed back his chair, and was starting for the coat closet. He stopped abruptly, standing by the corner of the desk. “That’s right. I’d forgotten all about Allgood.”

The telephone rang. Della Street, picking up the receiver, said, “Just a moment,” held her hand over the mouthpiece, and said, “He’s in the office now.”

Mason settled back in his swivel chair. “Bring him in, Della.”

Allgood tried to look frowningly impressive as he followed Della Street into the office. His glasses were pinched on his nose. The black ribbon, hanging down until it merged in the lapel of his coat, gave his face a certain stern severity.

A smile twinkled at the corners of Mason’s mouth. “Sit down, Allgood,” he said.

Allgood made something of a ceremony of seating himself. “Thank you, Counselor.”

“What about this visit your secretary made to Milter?” Mason asked.

“I am most distressed by it, Counselor. I wanted to explain to you.”

“Explain what?”

“How it happened.”

Mason said, “I have only a few minutes. Go ahead.”

Allgood’s index finger twisted itself nervously around the narrow silk ribbon which dangled down from his glasses. “I want you to understand that Miss Elberton is an exceedingly loyal young woman,” he said.

“Loyal to whom?”

“To me — to the business.”

“Go ahead.”

“It happens that Milter had kept in touch with her. Milter has the annoying habit of persistence in such matters.”

“Even when he’s not wanted?” Mason asked.

“Apparently.”

“All right,” Mason said impatiently, “she knew where Milter was. How did it happen she was listening in on our conversation?”

Allgood admitted, “That was due to an inadvertence on my part and a certain amount of natural curiosity upon hers. There’s an interoffice communicating system in my office, and just before you came in I happened to have been conversing with her. I left the lever in such a position that our conversation was audible in the outer office. She took it upon herself to communicate with Milter — that is, to try to do so.”

“She didn’t do it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She says that Milter was otherwise engaged when she arrived at his apartment.”

“Was he alive?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“Why not?”

“She didn’t go up. Someone else was up there.”

Mason said, “Baloney! She had a key to his apartment.”

“Yes, I understand that. She explained how that happened. It seems that...”

“Never mind,” Mason interrupted. “If you fall for those explanations, I don’t. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Milter was a blackmailer. I took your word for it when you told me that you were very much distressed at his talking and had dismissed him from your employ. In view of what’s happened since, I’m not so certain.”

“Not so certain about what?” Allgood asked, his eyes looking all over the office, except at that particular portion of it which was occupied by Perry Mason.

Mason said, “Your agency seems to be mixed in it right up to its necktie.”

“Mr. Mason, are you intimating that I...”

Mason said, “I haven’t time for the dramatics. I’m simply telling you that at first I took your word and your explanation. I’m not taking either, now, without checking up. There’s altogether too much coincidence. I talk with you about one of your operatives who’s gone in for blackmail. You ‘inadvertently’ leave the intercommunicating office system on so that my conversation is audible to your secretary. She goes down to El Templo. She has a key to this man’s apartment. You know, Allgood, it could be that you were engineering a little shakedown. Having got all the money you could legitimately gamer from Witherspoon, you used Milter as a stalking horse to put the finger on Witherspoon and get some more.”

Allgood jumped to his feet. “I came here to make an explanation, Mr. Mason, not to be insulted!”

“All right,” Mason said, “that’s why you came here. You’re here. You’ve made your explanation. Please consider the insult as a purely gratuitous interpolation which was not on the original program as planned.”

“It’s not a joking matter,” Allgood said blusteringly.

“You’re damn right it isn’t.”

“I’ve tried to be fair with you. I’ve put all of my cards on the table.”

“You put a deuce spot on the table,” Mason said. “The picture cards didn’t get there until I shook them out of your sleeve. When I entered your office, your secretary went in to your office to tell you I was there. I couldn’t hear your conversation because at that time the interoffice communicating lever wasn’t thrown over. You must have done that after she went out and while I was on my way in. That means you did it deliberately. How about this column in the Hollywood scandal sheet?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

Mason nodded to Della Street. “Get me Paul Drake on the line.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Della broke it by saying, “He’s on the line, Chief.”

Mason picked up the telephone. “Paul, Allgood is here in the office. The more I think things over, the more I think that whole blackmailing business may have been thought out in advance — sort of a sequel to employment, if you know what I mean.”

Drake said, “I see.”

“Allgood’s here in the office now. I’m wondering if that Hollywood scandal sheet didn’t get its tip through Allgood. You said they didn’t pay anything?”

“That’s right, not in money. They pay in advertising and hot tips.”

Mason said, “See if they’ve been boosting Allgood’s agency, will you? And don’t leave the office. I’m going out. I’ll stop by on my way to the elevator and give you some interesting news. Check up on that scandal sheet and see if it looks as though Allgood is the fair-haired boy-child.”

Mason dropped the receiver into place, said to Allgood, “Well, I won’t detain you. I just wanted you to understand the way I felt about it.”

Allgood started for the door, paused, turned, and jerked his head toward Della Street. “Get her out of here.”

Mason shook his head.

“I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead and say it then.”