Erle Gardner - The Case of the Drowning Duck

“From the police viewpoint,” Mason said, “it’s a perfect case. You were about the only one who had the opportunity. How about motive?”

Witherspoon became embarrassed.

“Go ahead,” Mason told him. “Let’s have the bad news. What about the motive?”

“Well,” Witherspoon blurted, “Mrs. Burr is a very peculiar woman. She’s as natural as a child. She’s affectionate and impulsive and — well, lots of things. You’d have to know her to understand.”

“Never mind beating around the bush,” Mason said. “Specifically what’s the motive?”

“The police think I was in love with Mrs. Burr and wanted to get her husband out of the way.”

“What makes them think that?”

“I’ve told you. Mrs. Burris natural and demonstrative and affectionate, and — well, she’s kissed me a couple of times right in front of her husband.”

“And sometimes not in front of her husband?” Mason asked.

“That is the hell of it,” Witherspoon admitted. “No one has been present when she’s kissed me in front of her husband except the three of us. But a couple of servants have seen her kiss me when her husband wasn’t there. Most natural thing in the world, Mason. I can’t explain it to you. Some women are just naturally affectionate and want to be fondled and kissed. I wasn’t making any passionate love to her, the way it sounds when the servants tell it. Mexicans don’t understand anything except passion in lovemaking. I simply slipped my arm around her in a fatherly sort of way — and, well, she put her face up to be kissed, and I kissed her.”

“Can the police trace any of the poison to you?”

“That’s another bad thing,” Witherspoon admitted. “The acid is stuff I keep on the ranch, and I always use cyanide for poisoning ground squirrels and coyotes. Ground squirrels are a terrific pest. Once they get into a field of grain, they eat the grain off. They hang around the stable and eat the horses’ hay. The only way you can get rid of them is to poison them. It’s customary all over California to poison ground squirrels, and cyanide is one of the things that’s used. They use quite a bit of strychnine and other stuff. I’ve got poisoned barley on the ranch, keep it there all the time. I also have a stock of cyanide. Well, there you are. Just a plain damn case of circumstantial evidence, without a thing on earth for the police to go on except those circumstances. It puts me in a hell of a spot.”

“Doesn’t it,” Mason said.

Witherspoon flashed him an angry glance.

“You might turn back the hands of the clock eighteen years,” Mason went on dryly, “and think about how Horace Adams must have felt when the police put him in jail, charged him with murder, and he realized that circumstances had conspired to weave a web of evidence around him. I remember when I told you that circumstantial evidence could be the greatest perjurer on earth, not because the circumstances lied, but because men’s interpretation of the circumstances lied. You were inclined to be rather skeptical then.”

“I tell you,” Witherspoon said, “this is something unique. Dammit, this couldn’t happen again in a hundred years.”

“Well, make it eighteen,” Mason said.

Witherspoon glowered in impotent rage.

“Do you want me to represent you?” Mason asked.

“Hell, no!” Witherspoon roared angrily. “I’m sorry I ever sent for you. I’ll get myself a lawyer who isn’t trying to teach me some moral lesson. I’ll get myself a good lawyer. I’ll get the best money can buy. I’ll beat this case hands down.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said, and walked out.

Lois Witherspoon regarded Mason with flashing eyes. “You can’t do that to my dad,” she said.

“Do what?”

“You know very well what I mean. If it hadn’t been for me planting that second duck, Dad wouldn’t have been in this.”

“How did I know that your father was going to get a fishing rod for Burr and then claim he hadn’t done it?”

“Don’t you dare say my father is lying.”

Mason shrugged his shoulders. “The force of circumstantial evidence is against him.”

“I don’t care how much circumstantial evidence is against him. I guess I’d believe my own father. He has his faults, but they don’t include lying.”

“It would be nice if you could convince the police of that,” Mason pointed out.

“You listen to me, Mr. Perry Mason. I’m not going to stand here and bandy words with you. I want some results. You know just as well as I do that my father never killed Roland Burr.”

“The problem is to convince twelve men in a jury box,” Mason said.

“All right, I’m going to start convincing them right now. I’m going to the police and tell them about planting that duck in Marvin’s car and about the fact that you got me to do it.”

“What good will that do?”

“That will explain how the duck got in Marvin’s car and... and...”

“And that it was the duck that Marvin had taken in his car that was found in Milter’s apartment,” Mason said.

“Well... even supposing...”

“And that, of course, would point straight at Marvin.”

“Well, Marvin has a complete alibi.”

“For what?”

“For the murders.”

“What’s his alibi for Milter’s murder?”

“Well... well, I’m not certain he has an alibi on that, but he was in Los Angeles in custody of the police when Burr was murdered. So,” she finished triumphantly, “the evidence on that duck isn’t gong to hurt him in the least.”

“It may not hurt him,” Mason said, “in the way that you mean, but it will hurt him in another way.”

“How?”

“Don’t you see? The minute the police begin to investigate him, they’ll start asking questions about his past. They’ll want to find out about his background. The newspapers will go to town on that.”

“In what way? You mean about his being kidnaped?”

Mason said, “Don’t you know the truth back of that kidnaping story?”

“I...the kidnaping story is all I ever heard.”

Mason smiled at her. “Your father gave me some typewritten transcripts, some old newspapers. I took them out to the house with me so I could work on them. While we were at dinner, someone got in my room and went through them.”

“Mr. Mason, are you accusing me of being a snoop like that?”

“I’m not making any accusation at all. I’m merely making a statement.”

“Well, I had nothing whatever to do with it. I never saw any transcripts, as you call them.”

“And you don’t know the true facts back of that kidnaping story?”

“No. All I know is what Marvin’s mother told him on her deathbed.”

“That was a lie,” Mason said. “It was a lie which she told to insure her son’s happiness. She knew he was in love with you. She knew that your father was the sort who would want to know all about Marvin’s family. She knew that once your father started investigating, he’d find something which was rather unsavory.”

“What?”

“Marvin’s father was convicted of murder in 1924. He was executed in 1925.”

Her face froze into lines of horror. “Mr. Mason!” she exclaimed. “That can’t be!”

“That’s the truth,” Mason said. “That’s why your father employed me. He wanted me to investigate the record and see whether I could find some proof in it of Horace Adams’ innocence.”

“Could you? Did you?”

“No.”

She looked at him as though he had hit her.

“Your father wasn’t going to tell you until he handed it to you all at once,” Mason went on.

“What do you mean by that?”