Erle Gardner - The Case of the Drowning Duck

Judge Meehan nodded, and there was an almost imperceptible nod from the district attorney.

“It was as logical as you could hope to plan out anything in advance,” Mason said.

“But how did they know that young Adams was going to take a duck off the ranch?” Judge Meehan inquired.

Mason took the letter Marvin Adams had given him from his pocket. “Because they held out a bait of one hundred dollars,” he said, “by the simple expedient of signing a fictitious name to a letter.”

Judge Meehan read the letter out loud. “I suppose Marvin Adams gave this to you?” he asked Mason.

“Yes.”

“Well,” Copeland said, his tone thoughtful, “suppose you tell us what did happen, Mr. Mason.”

Mason said, “Burr was being blackmailed. He sent for Mrs. Dangerfield to come out and bring money. She had a way of her own that was a lot better than paying money. Witherspoon had some acid and cyanide there on the ranch. Burr got ample supplies of both, wrapped them up in a package, checked the package at the Pacific Greyhound stage office, and mailed Mrs. Dangerfield the check at her El Templo hotel. Then he went back to the ranch.

“Doubtless, he intended to do something else which was either connected with the murder or which would pin the crime on young Adams. But something happened he couldn’t foresee. He got kicked by a horse. He was put to bed, given hypodermics, and found himself flat on his back with his leg sticking up in the air and a rope attached to a weight tied around it. That was something he couldn’t possibly have foreseen.”

“What happened there in Milter’s apartment?” Judge Meehan asked. “How do you figure that out?”

“The girl who was working for Allgood telephoned that she was coming down. She had something important to tell him. So Milter, who was playing along with two women — his common-law wife and this blonde — told Alberta Cromwell he was having a business visitor at midnight, and made her think his relationship with the blonde was purely a business one. But it happened that Mrs. Dangerfield came in before the girl from the detective agency. Mrs. Dangerfield probably said, ‘All right, you’ve got us. You want umpty-ump thousand dollars. We’re going to pay it, and no hard feelings. We just want it understood that it’ll be one payment and no more. We don’t want any future shakedowns.’

“Flushed with triumph, Milter said, ‘Sure, I was just mixing up some hot buttered rum. Come on back and have a drink.’ Mrs. Dangerfield followed him into the kitchen, poured the hydrochloric acid into a water pitcher, dropped in the cyanide, perhaps asked where the bathroom was, and walked out, closing the kitchen door behind her. A few seconds later, when she heard Milter’s body fall to the floor, she knew her work was done. It only remained to plant the duck in the fish bowl, and get out. Then the complications started.”

“You mean Witherspoon?” Judge Meehan asked.

“First, there was the blonde from the detective agency. She had a key. She calmly opened the door and started climbing up the stairs. That was where Mrs. Dangerfield thought fast. You have to hand it to her.”

“What did she do?” Copeland asked.

Mason grinned. “She took off her clothes.”

“I’m not certain that I follow you on that,” Copeland said.

“Simple,” Mason said. “Milter had two women in love with him. One was his common-law wife. One was the girl from the detective agency. Each one of them naturally thought she was the only one, but was jealous and suspicious of the other. The blonde had a key. She started up the stairs. She saw a semi-nude woman in the apartment. She had come to warn Milter that Mason was on his trail. What would she naturally do under those circumstances?”

“Turn around and walk out,” Judge Meehan said, spitting tobacco juice explosively into the cuspidor, “and say, ‘to hell with him.’”

“That’s it exactly,” Mason said. “And she was so excited she didn’t even bother to pull the street door all the way shut. Then Witherspoon came along. He started upstairs, and Mrs. Dangerfield pulled the same thing on him, making him retreat in embarrassment. Then, with the coast clear, Mrs. Dangerfield walked out.

“Milter’s common-law wife had been lulled into temporary quiescence, but she was suspicious. She watched and listened. When Mrs. Dangerfield, standing half undressed at the head of the stairs, argued with Witherspoon about coming up, Milter’s common-law wife heard the feminine voice, decided it was her chance to see who the woman was, and poked her head out of the window. She saw Witherspoon leaving the apartment and got the license number of his automobile.”

Judge Meehan thought things over for a few moments, then said, “Well, it could have happened just that way. I suppose the common-law wife came downstairs, and saw you at the door. She didn’t want to stand there and ring the bell. And, anyway, you were ringing the bell and not getting any answer. She wanted to get to a telephone, so she started uptown. That gave Mrs. Dangerfield a chance to put on her clothes and leave the apartment.”

“That’s right, because I left then, too.”

“All right,” Judge Meehan said. “You’ve advanced an interesting theory. It isn’t any more than that, but it’s interesting. It accounts for Milter’s murder, but it doesn’t account for Burr’s murder. I suppose Mrs. Dangerfield decided she wasn’t going to have a pin-headed accomplice who was always getting her into trouble, so she decided to eliminate him in the same way. But how did she get past the dogs out at Witherspoon’s house? How did she get the fishing rod for Burr?”

Mason shook his head. “She didn’t.”

Judge Meehan nodded. “I was sort of thinking,” he said, “that just because both murders were committed with acid and cyanide isn’t conclusive evidence they were both done by the same person. And yet that’s the theory on which we’ve been working.”

“It stands to reason,” Copeland said.

Judge Meehan shook his head. “The means are unusual. Not many people would have thought of committing the first murder that way, but after all the publicity, it’s reasonable to suppose the second murder could have been committed by any one of ten thousand people — so far as the means are concerned. Just because two people are killed three or four days apart by shooting, you don’t think they must have been killed by the same murderer. The only reason you fall into a trap here is because the means were a little unusual.”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “And in that connection, here’s something that’s very significant and very interesting. When I came to Witherspoon’s ranch, I was carrying with me a transcript of the evidence in that old murder case and some newspaper clippings. I left them in a desk there at Witherspoon’s house during dinner, and someone opened that desk and moved the transcripts — someone who evidently wanted to know the reason for my visit.”

“You mean Burr?” Judge Meehan asked.

“Burr was then laid up in bed with a broken leg.”

“Marvin Adams, perhaps?”

Mason shook his head. “If Marvin Adams had known anything about that old murder case, he’d have probably broken off his engagement to Lois Witherspoon. He most certainly would have been so emotionally upset, we could have detected it. John Witherspoon wouldn’t have done it because he knew why were were there. Lois Witherspoon wouldn’t have done it; first, because she isn’t a snoop, and second, because when I finally told her what we were there for, she turned so chalky white that I knew she’d had no previous intimation. That leaves one person, one person who left the dinner table while we were eating and was gone for quite a few minutes.”