Erle Gardner - Case of the Beautiful Beggar

She shook her head. “Not Uncle Horace. He wouldn’t do anything like that. He wouldn’t kill a fly.”

“Then,” Mason said, “unless we can involve Borden Finchley, there’s only one other suspect.”

“Who?”

“You,” Mason said.

“Me?”

Mason nodded.

She shook her head and said, “This is what Uncle Borden would have done, but not what I would have done and not what Uncle Horace would have done.”

“We’ll also investigate your Uncle Borden,” Mason said.

“When?” she asked.

“Now,” Mason said and, putting his car into gear, drove out of the motel parking lot.

“What am I to do?” Daphne asked.

“You,” Mason said, “are going to go back to your hotel and stay there. If you cut any more capers or have any more unauthorized absences, you’re going to find yourself charged with murder.”

“Ralph Exeter?”

“Yes.”

“But why in the world should I have murdered him?”

“I can think of half a dozen reasons,” Mason said. “One of them is that he is the moving force against your Uncle Horace. He was the one who was putting on the pressure. And if I can think of one good motive, the police can think of a dozen.

“You aren’t out of the woods yet, young lady. You’re suspect right now. There are those who think that underneath that shell of cherubic innocence you’re a shrewd, scheming individual trying to look out for your own future at all costs.”

She said, “I’ve been perfectly frank with you, Mr. Mason.”

“Yes, I know,” the lawyer said. “You’ve told me all the things you wanted me to know. You’ve put all the cards on the table that you wanted me to see. But I’d feel a lot better about you, Daphne, if you hadn’t sneaked out of that hotel, shown such ingenuity in going to that sanitarium and getting a job, then spiriting your uncle out of there.

“I don’t know whether you’re doing it for you or doing it for him, but you certainly aren’t being very considerate of me.

“I stuck my neck out getting some money for you, and I’m entitled to your cooperation.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “And don’t think I don’t appreciate all you’ve done.”

“If you gave that money back to your uncle,” Mason said, “it’s one of the good things to be put on the credit side of the ledger as far as you’re concerned. But don’t kid yourself, before the night is over the police are going to be hot on your trail.

“If they call on you, I want you to insist that you telephone me. I’ll give you a night number where I can be reached. Don’t answer any questions, under any circumstances, until I get there.

“And, in the meantime, don’t question anything that I do.”

“Why should I question anything that you do?” she asked.

“Because,” Mason told her, “if I have the chance, I’m going to use your Uncle Horace as a red herring.”

“What do you mean ‘a red herring’?”

Mason said, “I’m going to let the police get the idea that your Uncle Horace murdered Ralph Exeter, and that he was medically if not legally insane at the time he did it. ”

It was well after ten o’clock that evening when Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door of Mason’s office.

Della Street opened the door.

A bedraggled Paul Drake, his face oily with weariness, came in, slumped into a chair, said, “I tried to make it sooner. I knew you people wanted to go home, but it’s been one hell of a job.”

“What did you find out?” Mason asked.

“Something that the police have been suppressing,” Drake said. “I found out how they really knew about the barbiturates.”

“How come?”

Drake said, “In the bathroom in the apartment where they found the man lying dead — Unit 21 of the motel — they found a tumbler, one of those heavy glass tumblers that go with motel rooms, you know the kind they wrap up in a wax paper package with an antiseptic label.”

Mason nodded.

“Inside the tumbler was the glass tube of a toothbrush case and a little white powder,” Drake said “Lieutenant Tragg treated the glass for fingerprints.”

“Did he get any?”

“He got some prints. Probably those of Horace Shelby, but they don’t know for sure.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“Someone had used the glass tube of the toothbrush case to grind up some sleeping pills, using the tumbler as an impromptu mortar, and the toothbrush case as an improvised pestle.”

“How do they know about the toothbrush case having been used as a pestle?”

“Some of the powder had been ground into the rounded end of the glass case hard enough so it stuck there.”

“Tragg’s a thorough cuss,” Mason said.

Drake nodded.

“What was the powder?” Mason asked.

“It’s a barbiturate preparation called Somniferone. It’s a combination preparation that is very quick in its action and is combined with another barbiturate derivative which is more lasting. The result is a combination which takes effect quickly and lasts a long time.”

“How’d they get it identified?” Mason asked.

“One of these X-ray analytical machines. Tragg got fingerprints from the glass and then rushed the whole thing up to the police laboratory.”

“All right,” Mason said, “I can see you’re leading up to something. Hand it to me.”

“Somniferone,” Drake said, “is the barbiturate that was prescribed for Horace Shelby by the doctor who was called in by Borden Finchley after they moved in. He is the same doctor who prescribed the sedative for Daphne to take with her on her long ocean voyage and just before she left they filled the prescription for her. She had a whole three months’ supply of Somniferone.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“The police don’t know it yet, but they’re investigating,” Drake said. “They’re getting on the right track.”

“What’s the right track?”

“Your client,” Drake said. “That girl certainly can put on an act. She poses as little Miss Sweetness, little Miss Innocence, but she’s a deep one.”

“What did she do?”

“She went to a Chinese restaurant. She got some Chinese food. She went to Unit 21. She took her sleeping pills and ground them up in the glass tumbler with the toothbrush case. She invited Ralph Exeter in for a conference.- She drugged his food, dumped all the food that was uneaten down the toilet and washed out the pasteboard containers. After he slipped into a drugged sleep, she disconnected the gas pipe so the gas was on, and left. She knew that, one way or another, she wasn’t going to be bothered any more with Ralph Exeter.”

Mason shook his head. “I won’t buy it, Paul.”

“You don’t have to buy it,” Drake said. “The police are going to buy it.”

“She bought the Chinese food for Horace Shelby,” Mason said.

“No she didn’t,” Drake said. “Shelby was long gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve found a cabdriver who received a call to pick up a passenger at the street corner where the Northern Lights Motel is located.

“He went there. An elderly man, who seemed somewhat confused, was waiting. He got in the cab and seemed a little uncertain about where he wanted to go. He started for the Union Station then changed his mind and said he’d go to the airport. The cab took him to the airport. The man seemed to be loaded with cash. He took a roll of bills from his pocket. A hundred-dollar bill was the smallest he had. The cabdriver had to go with him into the airport to get the bill changed.”

“That man was Horace Shelby. The description fits.”

“The time element?” Mason asked.

“The time element was a good hour before Daphne went to the Chinese restaurant, got the food in pasteboard containers then went to the Northern Lights Motel.”