Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

“How?”

“By a .38 caliber bullet in the left side of his head, fired while he was sitting in an automobile waiting to keep an appointment with us.”

“You mean he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“Murdered?”

“Apparently.”

“When did it happen?”

“We don’t know exactly.”

“Where?”

“By a reservoir up back of Hollywood in the mountains.”

“Who was Leech? I mean how does he fit in?”

“Apparently, he was a friend of your husband.”

“What makes you think so? I never heard of him.”

Gerald Shore said, “When Franklin telephoned Helen, he told her to get in touch with Mr. Leech, that Leech would take him to Franklin.”

Matilda motioned to Helen. “Get these men out of here. Get my clothes out of that closet. I’m going to dress and go home. If Franklin’s around, he’ll be pussy-footing out to the house, trying to wheedle me. I’ve been waiting ten years for this, and I’m not going to be shut up in any hospital when it happens. I’ll show him he can’t walk out on me! ”

Mason made no move to leave. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get your doctor’s permission. I think the nurse has gone to telephone him.”

“I don’t need anybody’s permission to get up and go out,” Matilda said. “Thanks to that emetic I took, I got off with a very light dose of poison. I have the constitution of an ox. I shook it off. I’m all right now. I’m going out under my own power.”

Mason said, “I wouldn’t advise you to get up and put any strain on your heart. We wanted to let you know about your husband, and we wanted to find out what had happened, and what you intended to do about this poisoning.”

“I tell you it was an accident, and I don’t want the police...”

A knock sounded on the door.

Gerald Shore said, “That’s probably the doctor or a couple of husky attendants called on by the hospital to eject us forcibly.”

Matilda Shore called out, “Well, come on in. Let’s get it over with. Let them eject me.”

The door pushed open. Lieutenant Tragg and a detective entered the room.

Mason greeted them with a bow. “Mrs. Shore, may I have the honor of presenting Lieutenant Tragg of the Homicide Squad. I think he wants to ask you a few questions.”

Tragg bowed to Mrs. Shore, turned, and bowed again to Mason. “Rather cleverly done, counselor. The more I see of you, the more I am forced to respect your very deft touch.”

“Referring to what this time?” Mason asked innocently.

“The manner in which you threw me off the trail, temporarily, by insisting that you and your friends should be permitted to accompany me to the Castle Gate Hotel. It wasn’t until after I’d left you that it began to occur to me you’d tossed me a bait and that I’d very credulously grabbed at it.”

Mason said, “Putting it that way makes it sound very much like a conspiracy.”

Tragg said, “Draw your own conclusions. I started checking all angles of the case just as soon as I realized that your insistence on accompanying me had led me to let you go. Now, Mrs. Shore, if you don’t mind, I’ll hear about the poisoning.”

“Well, I do mind,” Mrs. Shore snapped. “I mind very much.”

“That is unfortunate,” Tragg announced.

“I ate something that disagreed with me, that’s all.”

“The hospital records indicate that you took some medicine by mistake,” Tragg pointed out.

“All right, I went to the medicine cabinet and took some medicine by mistake.”

Tragg was suavely solicitous. “That’s unfortunate. May I ask what time this was, Mrs. Shore?”

“Oh, about nine o’clock, I guess. I didn’t notice the exact time.”

“And, as I understand it, you had prepared for bed, had your regular nightly glass of stout, turned out the light, and went to the medicine cabinet in the dark?”

“Yes. I thought I was taking sleeping tablets. I got the wrong bottle.”

Tragg seemed particularly sympathetic. “You didn’t notice any difference in the taste?”

“No.”

“Your sleeping medicine is in the form of tablets?”

“Yes.”

“Kept in the medicine cabinet?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t notice any difference in the taste of the tablets you took?”

“No. I washed them down with water. Had a glass of water in one hand, tossed the tablets into my mouth with the other, and washed them right down.”

“I see. Then you were holding the glass of water in your right hand as you tossed the tablets into your mouth with your left hand?”

“That’s right.”

“And you put the cap back on the bottle and returned it to the medicine cabinet?”

“Yes.”

“That took both hands?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I’m simply trying to find out. That’s all. If it was an accident, there’s nothing to investigate.”

“Well, it was an accident.”

“Of course,” Tragg said soothingly. “I’m simply trying to get the facts so I can make a report that it was an accident.”

Mollified, Mrs. Shore explained, “Well, that’s what happened. I screwed the top back on this bottle.”

“And put it back in the medicine cabinet?” Tragg asked.

“Yes.”

“And then picked up your glass of water, holding the tablets in your left hand?”

“Yes.”

“Tossed them into your mouth and drank the water immediately?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t notice a bitter taste?”

“No.”

“I believe it was strychnine poisoning, wasn’t it, Mrs. Shore?”

“I don’t know.”

Tragg’s voice showed his sympathy. “Most unfortunate,” he said, and then asked casually. “And what were the strychnine tablets doing in your medicine cabinet, Mrs. Shore? You were using them for some particular purpose, I suppose?”

Her eyes studied the detective’s countenance. “They’re a heart stimulant. I kept them there in case I needed them.”

“On a doctor’s prescription?” Tragg asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“What doctor prescribed them?”

She said, “I don’t think that has anything to do with you, young man.”

“How many tablets did you take?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Two or three.”

“And you put the bottle back in the medicine cabinet?”

“Yes. I’ve told you that before.”

“Right next to the bottle of sleeping tablets?”

“I guess so. I tell you it was in the dark. I reached up in that general vicinity and got down the bottle which I thought contained the sleeping tablets.”

Tragg said, “It’s most unfortunate.”

“What is?”

“The fact that a search of your medicine cabinet reveals that there are neither sleeping tablets nor strychnine tablets in it.”

Mrs. Shore straightened up still further. “You mean that you’ve been to my house and searched my medicine cabinet?”

“Yes.”

“What authority did you have to do that?” she demanded.

Tragg said, without raising his voice, “Perhaps, Mrs. Shore, I’d better ask you a question instead. What do you mean by lying to the police about an attempt which was made to poison you?”

“There wasn’t any attempt to poison me.”

“I believe that a kitten was poisoned at your house this afternoon and taken to Dr. Blakely’s small animal hospital?”

“I don’t know anything about a kitten.”

Tragg smiled. “Come, Mrs. Shore, you’ll have to do better than that. Falsifying evidence, you know, constitutes a crime. There are two attorneys in the room who will bear me out in that. If there was poison in that bottle of stout, the police want to know about it, and it would be exceedingly unwise for you to hamper their investigation.”