“It’s in the hall,” Mason answered.
He went to the reception hall, found his coat and hat. Almost at once they were joined by Lucille Mays. Kent opened the door. There was the sound of a purring automobile motor. The beams of headlights crept around the curve in the driveway. A shiny Packard sedan slid smoothly to a stop. Coulter climbed from the driver’s seat, opened the car doors, handed in the two light bags. Mason slid in behind the wheel, laughed and said, “There should be one or two more. I feel as if I were chaperoning a honeymoon.”
“You,” Kent told him, “are Cupid.”
“It’s a new role,” Mason said, “but I’ll try to live up to it.” He slid back the shifting lever, eased in the clutch and as the car purred into smooth motion, said, “Let’s go over things now to be sure we have everything straight.”
Kent pulled up one of the folding seats, sat in it and leaned forward so that his head was within a few inches of Mason’s shoulder. “I’m to go directly to the courthouse in Yuma,” he said. “Is that right?”
Mason nodded and for a few moments gave his attention to shifting gears. Then he said, without taking his eyes from the road, “Yes. Hunt up the telephone operator if they have a private switchboard, and, if they don’t, find out who answers the telephone in the clerk’s office. Tell them you’re expecting an important call and make arrangements so it’ll come through without delay. I’ll telephone you as soon as the final decree has been granted.
“After that, you can make headquarters at the Winslow Hotel at Yuma. Wait there. If you don’t hear from me again by six o’clock in the afternoon you can start on a honeymoon, but let me know where I can locate you.”
“You’re going to file action against Maddox?” Kent asked.
Mason’s jaw squared. “I’m going to take that boy down the line,” he promised, “but I think we’ll file the action in Chicago. There’s a matter of venue I want to look up.”
“You’ll let him know that there’ll be no compromise?”
“You can leave Maddox to me,” Mason said grimly, pushing the accelerator down almost to the floorboards.
Chapter 8
Perry Mason tapped gently on the door of Edna Hammer’s bedroom. She opened it and said, “How did you leave the honeymooners?”
“Very much up in the air,” he answered, grinning, “and I hope you don’t throw me out for that one.”
“Come in and tell me about it. Remember, I’m a woman, and marriage means a lot to us, so don’t you omit one single detail.”
Mason seated himself, grinned and said, “We went to the airport. A pilot with a helmet dangling in one hand came forward and introduced himself. There was a cabin plane drawn up. The motors were running. Your uncle and Miss Mays entered the plane. We did a little wisecracking back and forth. Miss Mays blew me a kiss. The pilot got in, taxied the ship down the field, turned around, tested first one motor, then the other, came back into the wind and took off. The sun was just rising. The hills back of Burbank were a beautiful blue, and… Oh, yes, I nearly forgot, the weather report said there was clear visibility, gentle shifting winds, unlimited ceiling and good flying conditions all the way to Yuma.”
“Oh, you unromantic lawyers!” she exclaimed.
“And what did you do?” Mason asked.
“I was simply ravenous,” she said. “As soon as you folks had left I telephoned for a taxicab to come to the corner and wait. I sneaked out the back door, took the cab into Hollywood and got myself a light breakfast. Then I came sweeping back to the house in a taxicab, and announced I’d taken a bus back from Santa Barbara and was famished. I’ve ordered breakfast. It’s coming up in a few minutes.
“The butler,” Mason said, “wondered what happened to my coffee cup. I strolled off with it and he missed it.”
She frowned. “It’s here in the room. I’ll take it out on the patio and leave it on one of the tables. Perhaps we’d better go now.” She picked up the cup and saucer from the dresser. “My, I really feel like a criminal. Do all lawyers make people so delightfully furtive?”
“I’m afraid you can’t blame your capacity for intrigue upon your counsel… not after the way your stars told your uncle he should consult an attorney whose name contained five letters and stood for a stone or something similar.”
She giggled delightedly and said, “I don’t know what I’d do without my astrology. And the funny part of it is my uncle claims he doesn’t believe in it.”
“Do you believe in it?” Mason asked.
“Why not?”
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
Sun was peeping into the patio. Edna Hammer sat down in one of the reclining chairs, placed the cup and saucer on a coffee table, inspected it critically and said, “It doesn’t look exactly right there, does it?”
“No,” Mason said. “Frankly, I think your butler was just a little suspicious—not that it makes any great difference now your uncle has gone.”
“Oh, but it does,” she said. “I couldn’t run out on Helen Warrington. You don’t know Bob Peasley. My heavens, he’d tear Jerry limb from limb—that is, he’d try to.” She paused to laugh at the idea of the somber Peasley becoming physically violent with the big, broadshouldered Harris. She picked up the cup and saucer, moved a few steps to one of the tiled coffee tables and pulled a catch. The hinged top swung upward, disclosing an oblong receptacle underneath the top. “I presume it was originally designed for holding knives, forks, spoons and napkins, but it makes a fine place to ditch things,” she said.
Mason watched her. Turning, she caught his eye and asked, “Why the expression?”
“What expression?”
“The peculiar look in your eye.”
“I didn’t know there was one.”
“What were you thinking of?”
“I was just thinking how little chance a clumsy man has when it comes to dealing with the finer mind of a woman.”
“In other words, that’s a nice way of saying that you think I keep bamboozling my uncle?”
“It depends on what you mean by bamboozling.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with using such mental faculties as you have in order to get what you want, do you?” she asked.
He shook his head and added, “Particularly when those mental faculties are accompanied by beauty.”
She said wistfully, “I wish I were beautiful. I’m not. I’ve got a swell figure, I know that. But my features aren’t regular. There’s too much animation in my face. I think a girl, to be beautiful, has to keep her face in repose. It makes for that virginal, dolllike something men like in their women, don’t you think so?”
“I hadn’t given it any particular thought—not along those lines,” Mason replied.
“I’ve given it lots of thought. I’d like to use my beauty. That’s what it’s for. Lots of people think I deliberately dress to show my figure. I do. I’m proud of it. Perhaps I’m a pagan little animal. Bob Peasley says I am. But I revel in having a goodlooking figure. I guess I don’t know what modesty…”
“I think,” Mason interrupted, “your butler seems to have something on his mind. He’s approaching rather purposefully.”
She broke off, stared at the butler and said in swift, low tones, “Remember, he mustn’t know I was here last night.”
She faced the butler, said, “What is it, Arthur?”
“Beg pardon,” he said, “but the sideboard drawer—I can’t get the top drawer open. It seems to be locked.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, then, after a moment, “are you sure you looked all around for the key, Arthur?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you look in the little brass bowl over to the right of the pitcher?”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t look there.”
“Well, let’s go look. It must be around there somewhere.” She gave Mason a meaning glance, started walking rapidly. Mason fell into step at her side and the butler followed, a deferential pace or two in the rear. At the side
board, she tried the drawer, said, “It’s locked all right,” and then started looking around on the top of the sideboard, her hands fluttering swiftly about various places. “It must be here somewhere, Arthur,” she said, in the tone of a magician handing out a line of “patter” by which the attention of an audience is kept from his hands. “The key was in the drawer yesterday, I know. Someone must have inadvertently locked the drawer and placed the key somewhere nearby. It’s inconceivable that anyone would have carried it away. There can’t be anything in that drawer which… Why, here it is! It was right under the fold of this throw.”
The butler watched her as she fitted the key to the drawer and turned the lock. “I’m sorry that I bothered you,” he said. “I couldn’t find it. I thought perhaps you knew where it was.
She turned the lock, pulled the drawer open, suddenly gasped, and stood staring downward at a plushlined receptacle for a carving set. A smoothfinished black hornhandled fork glittered in its hollowed receptacle, but the place which should have held the carving knife was empty. She glanced significantly at Perry Mason, her eyes dark with panic. Then she said, “Just what was it you wanted, Arthur?”
“I’ll get it, Miss Edna, it’s quite all right. I just wanted the drawer opened.” He took out some salt dishes, and closed the drawer.
Edna Hammer raised her eyes to Perry Mason, then slipping her hand under his elbow, gripped his forearm and said, “Do come back out in the patio. I love it out there in the early morning.”
“What time are you going to have breakfast?” Mason asked. “I think we should go up and arouse Dr. Kelton.”
“Oh, we sort of singleshot on breakfast. We have it whenever we get up.”
“Nevertheless,” Mason said significantly, “I think Dr. Kelton would appreciate it if we called him.”
“Oh, I see,” she exclaimed quickly. “Yes, yes, you’re quite right. Let’s call Dr. Kelton.”
They walked toward the stairs. She said in a low voice, “I didn’t get you for a minute. You want to look in Uncle’s room?”
“We might as well.”
“I can’t understand it. You don’t suppose there’s any possibility… that…”
As her voice trailed away into silence, Mason said, “You didn’t look in the drawer last night before we locked it.”
“Nnnno,” she said, “I didn’t, but the knife must have been there.”
“Well,” Mason said, “we’ll see what we’ll see.”
She ran up the stairs ahead of him, her feet fairly flying up the treads, but when she had approached the door to her uncle’s bedroom she hung back and said, “Somehow, I’m afraid of what we’re going to find here.”
“Has the room been made up yet?” Mason asked.
“No, the housekeeper won’t start making beds until around nine o’clock.”
Mason opened the door. She entered the bedroom a step or two behind him. Mason, looking around him, said, “Everything seems to be in order—no corpses stacked in the corners or under the bed.”
“Please don’t try to keep my spirits up, Mr. Mason. I’ve got to be brave. It’s under the pillow, if it’s anywhere. That’s where it was the other morning. You look, I don’t dare.”
Mason walked to the bed, lifted the pillow. Under the pillow was a long, blackhandled carving knife. The blade was discolored with sinister reddish stains.
Chapter 9
Mason dropped the pillow, jumped backwards and clapped his hand over Edna Hammer’s mouth. “Shut up,” he said, stifling the screams she had been about to emit. “Use your head. Let’s find out what we’re up against before we spread an alarm.”
“But the knife!” she half screamed as he lowered his hand from her lips. “It’s all bbbbloody! You can see what’s hhhhappened. Oh, I’m so ffffrightened!”
“Forget it,” Mason told her. “Having hysterics isn’t going to help. Let’s get busy and find out where we stand. Come on.”
He strode out into the corridor, walked down to the door of his room, tried it, found it locked, banged on it, and, after a moment, heard the sound of heavy steps, the clicking of a bolt, and Dr. Kelton, his face covered with lather, a shaving brush held in his right hand, said, “I’m already up, if that’s what you came for. The smell of broiling bacon filters through that window and…”
“That,” Mason told him, “isn’t what we came for. Get the lather off your face and come in here. You don’t need to put on a shirt, just come the way you are.”
Dr. Kelton stared steadily at Mason for a moment, then went to the washstand, splashed water on his face, wiped off the lather with a towel, and, still drying his face and hands, accompanied them across the corridor to Peter Kent’s room. Mason raised the pillow. Dr. Kelton leaned over to stare at the bloody blade, so eloquent in its silent accusation. Kelton gave a low whistle.
“It’ll be Maddox,” Edna Hammer said, her voice hysterical. “You know how Uncle Pete felt toward him. He went to bed last night with that thought in his mind… Oh, hurry, let’s go to his room at once! Perhaps he isn’t dead—just wounded. If Uncle Pete was groping about in the dark… perhaps he…” She broke off with a quick, gasping intake of her breath.
Mason nodded, turned toward the door. “Lead the way,” he ordered.
She led them down the corridor, down a flight of stairs, into a corridor on the opposite wing of the house. She paused in front of a door, raised her hand to knock and said, “Oh, no, I forgot Maddox changed rooms with Uncle Phil. Maddox is over here.”
“Who’s Uncle Phil?” Dr. Kelton asked.
“Philip Rease, Uncle Pete’s halfbrother. He’s something of a crank. He thought there was a draught across his bed and asked Maddox to change rooms with him last night.”
She moved down to another door, knocked gently and, when there was no answer, glanced apprehensively at Perry Mason and slowly reached for the door knob. “Wait a minute,” Mason said; “perhaps I’d better do this.” He pushed her gently to one side, twisted the knob and opened the door. The room was on the north side of the corridor. French doors opened onto a cemented porch some eighteen inches above the patio. Drapes were drawn across these windows so that the morning light filtered into the room, disclosing indistinctly a motionless object lying on the bed. Mason stepped forward and said over his shoulder to Dr. Kelton, “Be careful you don’t touch anything, Doctor.”
Edna Hammer came forward a doubtful step or two then walking rapidly to Perry Mason’s side, clung to his arm. Mason bent over the bed. Abruptly the figure below him stirred. Mason jumped back. Frank Maddox, sitting up in bed, stared at them with wide eyes, then, as his surprise gave way to indignation, he demanded, “What the devil’s the meaning of this?”
Mason said, “We came to call you for breakfast.”
“You’ve got a crust,” Maddox said, “invading the privacy of my room this way. What the devil are you trying to do? If you’ve been through any of my private papers, I’ll have you arrested. I might have known that Kent would resort to any underhanded tactics. He poses as a bighearted, magnanimous individual, but it’s all pose with him. Dig below the surface, and you’ll find out just what a damn skunk he is.”
Mason said in a low voice, “How about Mrs. Fogg, Maddox—is she a skunk, too?”
Maddox’s face showed sudden dismay. After a moment he said, “So you know about her?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what you came to see me about?”
“On the contrary,” Mason said, “we came to call you for breakfast. Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait a minute.”
Maddox thrust his feet out from under the covers, groped for his slippers. “About this Fogg business, Mason, don’t believe everything you hear. There are two sides to that.”
“Yes,” Mason remarked, “and there are two sides to a piece of hot toast. Right now I’m interested in both of them. We’ll discuss the Fogg matter later.”
He led the way from the room, holding the door open until the others
had stepped into the corridor, then pulling the door shut behind him with a bang. “What’s the Fogg case?” Edna Hammer asked.
“An ace I was keeping up my sleeve; but when he started making a fuss I had to play it. He’ll be a good dog now.”
“But what is it?” she asked. “If it concerns Uncle Pete, I…”
“While we’re here,” Mason said, “I think we may just as well take a complete census.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just make certain none of the others are—indisposed. Who sleeps here?”
“Mr. Duncan.”
Mason pounded his knuckles on the door. A booming voice said suspiciously, “Who is it?”
Mason smiled at Dr. Kelton and said, “Notice the legal training, Jim. When I knocked at your door you opened it. When I knock at a lawyer’s door he wants to know who it is.”
“Perhaps he’s hardly presentable to ladies,” Dr. Kelton pointed out, but Duncan, fully dressed, even to his necktie and scarf pin, flung open the door, saw who it was, and glowered at them in belligerent appraisal.
“Well,” he asked, “what do you want?”
“First call for breakfast,” Mason told him.
“Is this,” Duncan asked, adjusting his spectacles, and raising his head so that he could regard them through the lower part of the bifocals, “a new innovation which Mr. Kent has instituted?”
“You may consider it such,” Mason replied, turning away from the door.
“This room,” he asked Edna, “is, I suppose, where your Uncle Phil sleeps.” He indicated the door before which she had first paused.
“Yes. Maddox slept there until last night, then Uncle Phil changed with him.”
“Well,” he said, “let’s call your Uncle Phil.”
He tapped on the panels. There was no answer, and he tapped more loudly. Duncan, who had been standing in his doorway, came striding out into the corridor and said, “What’s the big idea?”
The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece пм-9 Page 5
