Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

The realization that she was disarmed gave her the strength of panic. She jerked her arm, trying to free her hand. When Mason held tight, she raised her right leg high, and kicked out at him hard, driving the heel of her shoe toward the pit of his stomach.

Mason swung to one side, jerking on her wrist as he moved. He threw her off balance and toward him. Then as she lowered her leg to keep from falling, Mason grabbed her around the waist with his left hand, circled her shoulders with his right, pinning her arms to her sides. “Now let’s be sensible,” he said.

He could feel the resistance drain out of her. The slender body crushed up against his grew limp.

“No kicking now,” Mason warned, and relaxed his grip·

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name’s Mason. I’m a lawyer. You didn’t telephone me?”

“You’re — you’re Perry Mason?”

“Yes.”

She clung to his arm. There was something of desperation in that grip. He could feel the tremor of tortured nerves in the tips of her fingers. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“You’re the one who telephoned for me?” Mason asked.

“No.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I... I came here — to meet someone.”

“Whom?”

“It doesn’t make any difference. I think now it was a trap. I want to get out. Can’t we leave here?”

Mason said, “I was to meet someone here. Suppose you tell me who you are?”

“I’m Opal Sunley — the one who called the police yesterday morning.”

“Whom were you going to meet here?”

“Mrs. Perlin.”

“So was I,” Mason said. “Suppose we wait together? I think perhaps she wanted to see us both together. She told me she was going to make a confession.”

“She won’t make it now,” the girl said.

“Why not?”

Mason could feel her trembling. It was more than mere nervousness. It was trembling of one who’s in the grip of a fear which threatens momentarily to become blind panic.

“Go on,” Mason said. “Where is she?”

The girl’s fingers were digging into his arm. “She’s — she’s in the bedroom. She’s dead.”

Mason said, “Let’s look.”

“No, no! You go alone!”

“I’m not leaving you at the moment. You’ll have to come along.”

“I can’t. I can’t face it. I can’t go back there!”

Mason slid his arm around her waist. “Come on,” he said. “Buck up. It’s something you’ve got to do. The quicker you start, the easier it will be.”

He accompanied his words with a gentle pressure, urging her toward the door at the other end of the kitchen. He opened this door, and struck a match. The flickering flame showed him a light switch. He pushed it. The room blazed with a light which seemed dazzling. The furniture was of that nondescript variety which robbed the room of personality. He knew then that this was merely a house, cheaply furnished, and rented furnished.

“Where is she?” Mason asked.

“Down... the corridor.”

The dining room had two doors. One of them opened into a corridor, the other into a living room. The corridor then ran the length of the house to broaden into a reception room by the front door. Mason switched on a light in the hallway. On the right were two doors which apparently led to bedrooms with a bath in between. Mason moved cautiously along this hallway.

“Which bedroom?” he asked.

“The front.”

Mason kept gently urging her forward. He opened the door of the bedroom, pushed a light switch, and paused, surveying the interior. Opal Sunley jerked back away from the door.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t! I won’t! Don’t try to make me!”

“Okay,” Mason said, “take it easy.”

The woman who lay sprawled on the floor in front of the dressing table had quite evidently fallen from the padded bench. She was dressed for the street, even to her hat, which had been pushed to one side of her head when she fell. She was lying on her left side, her left arm stretching out, her left hand clutching at the carpet. The fingers were short, stubby, and competent. The nails were close-cut, uncolored. The right arm lay across the body. The fingers of the right hand still clutched the handle of a grim snub-nosed revolver. She had evidently been shot once, just slightly to one side of the left breast.

Mason walked across the room, bent over, and placed his forefinger on the woman’s left wrist.

The young woman in the doorway stood staring as though torn between a desire to run screaming from the house, and an urge to see every move that was made.

Mason straightened from his examination. “All right,” he said, “we’ll have to notify the police.”

“No, no, no!” she cried. “You mustn’t! You can’t!”

“Why not?”

“It... They wouldn’t understand. It...”

“Wouldn’t understand what?”

“How I happened to be here.”

“How did you happen to be here?”

“She telephoned me, and told me to come.”

“She telephoned me, and told me to come,” Mason said.

“She — she said she had something she wanted to confess.”

“When did she telephone you?” Mason asked.

“About an hour ago. Perhaps not quite that long.”

“What did she say?”

“Told me to come to the front door, walk in, switch on the lights, and wait for her in case she wasn’t here.”

“Did she say where she was, or what she was doing?”

“She was keeping an eye on someone. I didn’t get all there was to it. She didn’t talk with me herself.”

“She didn’t?”

“No... Let’s get out of here. I can’t talk here. I can’t...”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “Do you know this person?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“Who is it?”

“Mrs. Perlin, Hocksley’s housekeeper.”

“Did she live here?”

“No. She lived in the flat with Mr. Hocksley. I don’t know how she happened to come here.”

“Had you seen her at all today?”

“I’m not going to be questioned about this.”

Mason said. “That’s what you think. You’re going to be questioned about this until your eardrums get calloused. Who telephoned you?”

“I don’t know. It was a woman with a nice voice, who said Sarah had given her a message to pass on to me, that I was to leave my car about half a block beyond the house up the hill. I was to walk back to this house and come right in. In case Sarah wasn’t here, I was to switch on the lights and make myself at home. She said Sarah would be here within a very few minutes of the time I arrived. She said Sarah was keeping a watch on someone who might be trying to double-cross her, and she couldn’t break away long enough to talk with me herself.”

“Did you think it might be some sort of a trap?”

“Not then.”

“Did the one who spoke to you say anything about not telephoning the police?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think of this as being a trap of some sort to get you? In other words, didn’t you feel somewhat diffident about coming out into a residential neighborhood and simply walking into a strange house at two o’clock in the morning, switching on the lights, and making yourself at home?”

“I tell you, I didn’t at the time. I did later.”

“How much later?”

“When I got near the house and began to think over the things I was supposed to do. This woman told me the front door would be unlocked. I decided that I’d see if the front door actually was open. If it was, I’d go in. Otherwise, I wasn’t even going to try to ring the bell or do anything about it.”

“So you tried the front door and it was open.”

“Yes. I came in. No one seemed to be home. I thought I’d find the bathroom...”