Erle Gardner - The Case of the Postponed Murder

“Do you think she...”

“That she what?” Mason asked as her voice trailed away into silence.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Della said. “Forget it. We’ll see what we can find here. I can talk about Mae Farr later.”

Mason said, “We’re licked before we start. Hang it, I never saw such an orderly darkroom.”

“We might try running through those negative files,” she said.

“Yes, we could,” Mason agreed dubiously. “I don’t think we’d get anywhere.”

“What’s that big thing that looks like a toy freight car?” Della Street asked.

“Horizontal enlarging camera,” Mason said, “nine inch condensers, takes up to a five-by-seven negative. That screen over there on the track holds the enlarging paper. Let’s find the switch for that enlarger, Della. I want to see about how much of a blowup there was on the last negative in there.”

Mason clicked switches near the work shelf, turning on first a red light in a printing box, then a white light, then, on his third attempt, clicking the huge bulb of the enlarger into light.

Della Street gave a quick, involuntary gasp.

On the white surface of the easel which held the enlarging paper was thrown the image of an enlarged negative, held in the big enlarging camera. Save for the fact that blacks and whites were reversed, it was as though they stood looking down through the skylight of a yacht into a cabin beneath.

A man, with his face half turned as though he had twisted it suddenly to look upward, was struggling with a woman whose face was concealed from the camera. Much of her body was shielded by the man’s body. Her arms and legs showed in arrested motion as though the figures had suddenly been frozen into immobility.

Mason said, “That’s it, Della.”

“I don’t understand, Chief.”

Mason said, “Wentworth wasn’t shot when he was struggling with Mae Fair. What she saw wasn’t the flash of a shot, but the flash of a bulb that was synchronized with the shutter of a camera. Those flash bulbs are instantaneous, just a quick burst of light synchronized to the fraction of a second with a camera shutter.”

“Then you mean...”

“That Eversel took that picture,” Mason said. “You can figure for whom he took it and what he wanted with it.”

“And that’s why no one heard the shot?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that in advance, Chief?”

“I suspected it,” Mason said. “Gosh, I’d like to mix up some developer, put in a sheet of bromide paper, and pull a print of that negative. We could—”

His words were interrupted by the reverberating boom of a slamming door on the lower floor.

Mason looked at Della Street. “In case you don’t know it,” he said quietly, “this is a felony.”

“Of course I know it,” she said. “What do you think I’ve been working in a law office for?”

Mason grinned, pulled up the slide in the enlarging camera, took out the negative holder, removed the negative, and slipped it in his pocket. He switched out the lights and said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

They ran on tiptoe down the corridor to the back stairs, down the back stairs and through the kitchen to the basement.

MacGregor was waiting for them at the foot of the stairs. “Eversel just drove into the garage,” he said quietly.

“Can you get Miss Street out of the grounds?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know,” MacGregor said. “I can if something occupies his attention. If he happens to be looking out of the window, we’re sunk — it’s moonlight, you know.”

Mason slipped the negative from his pocket. “Let me have your purse, Della.”

She gave him her purse. Mason slipped the negative between the leaves of the small notebook which she carried in the purse. “Think you know what to do with this?” he asked.

“The thing you said you’d like to do up there?”

“Yes. You and Paul Drake beat it. Get that done on the largest scale possible. I’ll join you in town.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Pay a social call,” he said. “I’ll get back.”

Mason nodded to MacGregor.

MacGregor let them out of the basement door. Mason walked quietly around the house. MacGregor waited for his signal to cross the yard.

Lights blazed on in the front of the house. Mason, walking around the corner, signalled MacGregor, climbed the front steps, and rang the bell.

For a moment there was no response, then Mason heard the sound of quick steps in the hallway. He stepped back a few paces to look out across the moonlit yard. He glimpsed two fleeting shadows as MacGregor and Della Street made a dash for the break in the hedge. He glanced back toward the ocean. In a low, white building at the far end of the garage he saw lights come on, then go off. A moment later he heard the sound of a door rolling back on a steel track.

Abruptly the porch light flooded him with brilliance. A wicket in the front door swung back. Mason was conscious of a pair of intense eyes staring steadily at him. A voice, ominously calm, said, “Who are you and what do you want?”

“My name’s Mason,” the lawyer said. “I want to talk with you.”

“Are you Perry Mason, the lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want to talk with me about?”

“About Penn Wentworth.”

“I don’t care to discuss him with you.”

Mason said, “I think you do.”

“Well, I don’t,” the voice said. “This is private property. I don’t allow trespassers. I’ll give you thirty seconds to get started for the gate. At the end of that time, I’ll telephone the police.”

The lights on the porch switched out. After a moment the lights in the front of the house went out. Mason was left standing on the front porch in the moonlight.

“Very well,” Mason said. He turned, walked down the front steps, but instead of turning to the right toward the gate, turned to the left and strode rapidly toward the hangar.

He was almost at the door of the hangar when he heard the slam of a door in the house behind him and running steps on the graveled walk.

Mason entered the hangar. His flashlight explored the interior, showed a trim, white amphibian plane. Seated in the cabin was a beautiful, olive-skinned woman with dark eyes.

Mason climbed up on the step of the plane and opened the cabin door.

The woman’s voice said reproachfully, “You blinded me with that flashlight, dear.”

Mason entered the cabin. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wentworth,” he said.

At the sound of his voice, she stiffened to attention. Mason saw her lips twitch with emotion. The cabin door jerked open, and the voice of Eversel behind him said, “Get the hell out of here.”

Mason calmly sat down in one of the seats.

Eversel said, “Get the hell out.”

Juanita Wentworth switched on the lights in the plane, illuminating the cabin, showing Eversel, a bronzed, young giant with reddish brown, excitable eyes, holding a gun in his right hand.

Mason said, “Better put away the gun, Eversel. Don’t you think we’ve had enough gun play?”

Eversel said, “This is my property. I’m ordering you out and off. If you don’t go, I’ll treat you as I would any other trespasser.”

“I wouldn’t advise you to,” Mason said. “You’re in deep enough already. A witness has identified you as the man who climbed aboard Wentworth’s yacht just before the shooting.”

He settled back in the seat.

“That’s a lie,” Eversel said.

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

Juanita Wentworth said, “Please, Sidney — no trouble.”

After a moment Eversel asked, “What do you want?”

“A complete statement,” Mason said, “admitting that you were the one who boarded the Pennwent while Mae Farr was struggling with Wentworth in the cabin.”