The Case of the Careless Kitten

Chapter 16

Helen Kendal sat dry-eyed in the waiting room at the hospital. It seemed she had been there for endless hours, so nervous she couldn’t sit still, so physically weary that she couldn’t summon the energy to get up and pace the floor. A hundred times in the last hour she had looked at her wrist watch. She knew now that it simply couldn’t be much longer.

She heard the sound of quick, nervous steps in the corridor. Her tortured mind wondered if that might be someone coming to take her to the bedside of a dying man. Her heart choked up her throat with the thought that if it was only to tell her everything was all right, the messenger would be walking more slowly. These staccato footsteps could only indicate one thing, that they were coming for her and that seconds were precious.

White-lipped she came up out of the creaking rattan chair, started running toward the door of the reception room.

The steps turned into the door. A long, overcoated figure smiled reassuringly at her. “Hello, Miss Kendal. I guess you remember me.”

Her eyes widened. “Why, Lieutenant Tragg! Tell me, have you heard... anything...”

Tragg shook his head. “They’re operating on him. They had some delay getting donors for blood transfusions. They should be finished about now,” Tragg said. “I’ve been talking on the telephone with the nurse.”

“Oh, tell me, how’s he standing it? How’s he coming? Is it going to be...”

Tragg placed a hand on her quivering shoulder. “Take it easy,” he said. “Take it easy. Things are going to be all right.”

“They... they aren’t sending for you because it’s the last chance he’ll have to tell...”

“Now listen,” Tragg said, “take this thing like a soldier. You’ve been through so much tonight you’re all unstrung. They’re operating on him, and the last I heard was that he’s taking it all right. I’m here right now to get just one thing.”

“What?”

“That bullet — and a statement from him if he’s able to talk.”

“Not what they call a dying declaration?”

Tragg grinned. “You’ve been here all alone fighting your nerves, and you’re jumpy.”

She said, “I can take it! I want to know how he is — that’s natural. And I’d be lying to you if I tried to tell you I wasn’t frightened. But I’m not getting any heebie jeebies over it. I guess we used to think we were entitled to happiness as a matter of right. Now, people are dying all over the world and... well, I’ve got to learn how to take it — and so has everyone else.”

Tragg’s eyes were sympathetic. “You haven’t been crying?”

“No — and don’t you make me — either. Don’t sympathize with me, and don’t look at me like that. But, for heaven’s sake, if you can really find out how he’s coming and what his chances are, go to it.”

“You engaged?” Tragg asked abruptly.

Helen’s eyes dropped and she flushed. “I... I... honestly don’t know. He never — quite — asked me, but on the way over here in the taxi— Well, I guess I let him see how much I cared. I didn’t mean to, but I was so frightened that everything broke down. He was so game — and brave — I shouldn’t have, of course.”

“Shouldn’t have what? You love him, don’t you?”

Helen raised her head and looked at him defiantly. “Yes, I love him. And I told him so. I belong to him, and always shall, no matter what happens. I told him that, too, Lieutenant Tragg. And I told him I wanted to marry him now.”

“What did he say to that?”

Helen turned away. “He didn’t say anything,” she replied dully. “He fainted.”

Tragg controlled his twitching mouth. “Jerry lost a lot of blood, you know. I’m not surprised. Tell me, Miss Kendal, how long had you been home last night before Jerry arrived?”

“I don’t know. Not very long.”

“How did he happen to call — so late?”

Helen laughed nervously. “He said he tried to telephone me earlier, but of course I was out. He was passing and saw the house all lit up, so he just dropped in for a minute. We were talking, and then we heard this sound from Aunt Matilda’s bedroom...”

“You said the noise sounded as though someone had knocked something over. The room was dark?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain about that?”

“Yes. Unless whoever was in there had a flashlight. That may have been it, because the lovebirds started chirping.”

“But there was no sign of a flashlight when you opened the door?”

“No.”

“And the lights were on in the hall?”

“Yes. I never thought about not putting them on. I guess it would have been better if we’d kept the hallway dark and turned on the lights in the bedroom.”

“It would,” Tragg said, “but that’s all done now. No use bothering about it. What I’m getting at is that the lights were on in the hall and there were no lights on in your aunt’s bedroom.”

“That’s right.”

“And who opened the door? You or Jerry?”

“Jerry.”

“And then what?”

“We knew, of course, someone was in there. Jerry was groping for the light switch and didn’t know where it was, and I suddenly realized how terribly important it was to get the light on, so I ducked under his arm and reached for the light switch. It was then it happened.”

“Two shots?”

“Yes.”

“You never did get the lights on?”

“No.”

“Was your hand near the light switch when the first shot was fired?”

“I think it was, but I can’t be certain. That bullet whizzed right past my head, and smacked into the woodwork around the door. It threw splinters or plaster or something into my face, little stinging particles. I jumped back.”

“And the next shot came how soon?”

“Almost at once.”

“What happened after that?”

White-faced, she shook her head. “There’s just a lot I can’t remember. I heard that peculiar sound of the bullet — hitting Jerry.”

Tragg said, “You’re a brave kid. Don’t think about Jerry. Just think of facts. Remember that’s all we’re interested in. That second shot came right after the first one, with hardly any interval in between, and it hit Jerry.”

“Yes.”

“Did he fall down immediately?”

“He seemed to spin right around as though something had hit him, you know, a blow.”

“Then he fell?”

“I felt his knees buckle; then he was a dead weight against me. I tried to ease him to the floor, but he was too heavy. We both went down in a heap.”

“What happened to the person who was in the room?”

“I don’t know. All I can remember is seeing that awful pallor on Jerry’s face. I put my hand down to his side, and it came away all bloody. He was unconscious. I thought he was dead. Naturally, I didn’t think much about anything else. I talked to him — and told him things — and then his eyelids fluttered — after a while, then he smiled up at me and said, ‘Let’s see if I can get my legs under me, Babe.’”

Tragg frowned. “Has it occurred to you that the person who was standing in that room wasn’t shooting at Jerry?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Tragg said, “he was shooting at you. He shot at your head the first time, and almost hit it; then you jerked back, and in jerking back, you swung around so that your body was behind Jerry’s; and when he took that second snap shot at you, he hit Jerry. Remember, the person who was there in the room could see you very plainly.”

Her eyes were wide and startled. “I hadn’t thought of that. I just thought that someone was in the room and didn’t want to be discovered, and...”

“And you haven’t any idea who that someone might have been?”

“No.”

“Anyone who would find it to his advantage to have you out of the way?”

She shook her head.

“Not even if your aunt should die?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“Someone had made an attempt to poison your aunt earlier in the evening. He perhaps had reason to think he’d been successful, and that she was dying or dead. He might have come to the house to get you out of the way.”

“No, I can’t imagine anything like that.”

“You can’t think of anyone who would have stood to gain if...”

“No.”

The efficient tread of rubber heels sounded just outside the door. The rustle of a stiffly starched uniform brought a nurse to the doorway, smiling. “He’s down from the operating room, Miss Kendal. You are Miss Kendal, aren’t you?”

“Yes, oh, yes! Is he going to live? Is he conscious? Is he...”

“Of course he is, and you can go up if you want.”

Tragg moved along at Helen Kendal’s side. The nurse looked at him inquiringly.

“Lieutenant Tragg. The police,” Tragg explained.

“Oh, yes.”

“I came to get the bullet.”

“You’ll have to talk with Dr. Rosllyn. He’ll be down from the operating room very shortly.”

Tragg said to Helen Kendal, “I hate to butt in on this, but I’ve got to ask him a question if the doctor thinks he can answer it.”

“He’s conscious,” the nurse said. “They used a spinal anesthetic.”

Helen Kendal looked up at him pleadingly as they reached the elevator. “Aren’t you more interested in that bullet, Lieutenant? That’s awfully important. You know doctors are sometimes careless. He might throw it away or lose it — or something — unless you went right up.”

Tragg burst out laughing. “All right, you win. Go in and see him alone. But don’t get him tired, because I’m coming down in just a minute to talk to him.”

The nurse frowned. “He’s full of hypos, you understand, Lieutenant. He’s groggy, and you can’t rely too much on what he says.”

“I know,” Tragg said. “I only want to ask him a couple of simple questions. What floor is the operating room?”

“Eleven. Mr. Templar is on the fourth. I’ll show Miss Kendal the way.”

Tragg gave Helen an imperceptible nudge when the elevator stopped at the fourth floor. Then he turned to the nurse. “Couldn’t you let Miss Kendal find Mr. Templar’s room by herself, and take me up to the operating room?”

“Why, yes. His room is 481 — just down the corridor.”

“She can find it.”

Helen flashed Tragg a grateful glance. “Thanks,” she breathed, and sped down the corridor.

The elevator door slid shut, and the cage started on its upward journey.

“What are his chances?” Tragg asked.

The nurse shook her head. “I wouldn’t know.”

At the eleventh floor, she led the way to the operating room. Dr. Rosllyn, stripped to the waist, was drying his arms on a towel.

“Lieutenant Tragg,” the nurse announced.

“Oh, yes, Lieutenant. Got that slug for you. What the devil did I do with it? Miss Dewar, where’s the bullet?”

“You put it in a tray, Doctor, and said you didn’t want it touched.”

“Damn it,” Rosllyn said, “bet I put some bandages in on top of it. Here, wait a minute... Here, come this way.”

He led the way into a room which opened off the operating room. The peculiar acrid smell of blood assailed Tragg’s nostrils. A nurse pulled blood-soaked bits of cloth from an enameled container, handed it, not to Tragg, but to the doctor. The doctor took a pair of forceps, reached in, and pulled out a red stained chunk of metal. “Here you are, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks. You’ll have to swear that this is the bullet you took from the body of Jerry Templar, you know.”

“Sure, this is the one.”

Tragg turned the bullet over. “Make some identifying mark on the base here so you’ll know it again.”

The doctor took out his pocket knife, scratched three parallel lines on the base of the bullet, then put crosses on each line. Tragg slipped the bullet in his vest pocket.

“How are his chances?” he asked.

“Pretty good, so far. I’d have given him fifty-fifty before I started working on him. I’ll give him nine out of ten now. Barring complications, he’ll be all right. Strong, rugged type. That Army training does wonders for ’em, Lieutenant. That lad has the stamina of a billygoat. Came through the operation in fine shape.”

“All right for me to talk with him for just a minute?”

“I think so. He’s full of dope, of course. Don’t tire him, and don’t ask him complicated questions. Simple things that he can hold his mind to. He’ll start rambling if you let him keep on talking, but if you hold his mind to it and ask him simple questions, he’ll give you the answers. Don’t have any stenographer there, though. Some of his talk will be rambling and an isolated answer or two may be incorrect.”

“All right,” Tragg said. “Now, if there’s any change, I want to know about it. And if it looks bad, I’ll want to get a death-bed statement.”

Dr. Rosllyn laughed. “I don’t think you’re going to have the chance. That boy wants to live. He’s nuts over some girl or other, and, until I put him under with a whiff of gas, was rambling on how glad he was he got shot because that way he found out how much she loves him! Can you beat it? The only thing that’s bothering him is that the bullet knocked him over and he couldn’t get the man who did it. All right, Lieutenant, let me know when you want me to be a witness and identify that bullet.”

Lieutenant Tragg made his way down to the fourth floor, tip-toed down the corridor to 481, gently pushed open the door.

A nurse was standing in the far corner of the room. Helen Kendal, self-conscious and embarrassed, was seated on a chair by the foot of the bed. “I’m so glad,” she was saying as Lieutenant Tragg opened the door.

Jerry Templar frowned at the new interruption standing in the doorway.

Tragg smiled at him cheerfully. “Hello! You don’t feel much like talking now, but I’ve got a couple of questions to ask you. Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide.”

Templar closed his eyes, let the lids flutter open, looked at Tragg for a moment as though having some difficulty getting his eyes in focus, then grinned back and said, “Shoot!”

“Not twice in the same night,” Tragg protested. “Now you answer as briefly as you can, because you’re not supposed to talk much.”

Jerry nodded.

“Who fired the shots?” Tragg asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Could you see anything at all?”

“Just a little motion — a blurred figure moving.”

“Tall or short?”

“Couldn’t say... a corner of the room moved, then came the shots.”

“Could this person have been shooting at Helen instead of you?”

That thought galvanized Templar into hard-eyed attention. “How’s that? Shooting at Helen?”

“Could that have been the case?”

“Don’t know. Can’t think that out. Yes... yes... might have. I never...”

“I’m sorry, but the patient mustn’t be excited,” came a droning voice from the nurse in the corner.

Lieutenant Tragg looked at Helen Kendal’s proudly stiff figure, thought of the baffled, thwarted expression on Templar’s face as he opened the door. He grinned at the nurse, and said, “Sister, I’ve been talking with the doctor, and I can tell you right now you’re in the right church, but in the wrong pew. This shooting, mysterious as it is, has started to clear up some mighty important things that would get all cleared up once and for all if you’d just relax and go and get yourself a cup of coffee. I may not know a darn thing about medicine, but I know something of human nature, and if you’d get out of here for about five minutes and leave these two people alone, it would do your patient more good than anything in the world. He was telling the doctor all about it during the operation. Why not give him a chance to tell her about it now?”

The nurse glanced at Templar, then her garments rustled as she moved quietly around the foot of the bed toward the door.

Lieutenant Tragg said, “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

“You only have a minute,” the nurse warned Helen Kendal.

Tragg held the door open for the nurse, caught the glint of Helen Kendal’s eyes, and pushed the door shut behind him. “Give her as long as you can,” he said to the nurse.

She walked with him down toward the elevator. “You certainly spoke your piece.”

Tragg grinned. “I had to. Pride has busted up more romances than jealousy. Guy didn’t want to say anything because he’s in the Army. Girl shows how she feels when she’s riding up to the hospital with him, and then becomes suddenly self-conscious, thinks she’s been forward, and waits for him to make the next move. He’s afraid perhaps she’s changed her mind. Neither one of them want to say anything, and you standing there...”

“I stood back in the corner out of the way.”

Tragg grinned and said, “Well, I’ve started something, anyway.”

Whistling a little tune, Tragg pushed the button for the elevator, went down to the street floor, walked through the long lines of hushed corridors out into the cold, stinging tang of the night air.

He got into his police car, and drove rapidly to headquarters. An irritable Scotchman in the laboratory said, “I dinna suppose this could a’ waited until nine o’clock.”

“It couldn’t,” Tragg said. “You’ve got the bullet the autopsy surgeon gave you from the body of Henry Leech?”

“Yes.”

Tragg handed him two bullets from his vest pocket. “The one with the three straight lines on it was recovered in an operation performed on Jerry Templar. The other one was dug out of some woodwork beside the door in which Templar and the girl were standing when Templar was shot. Now then, how long will it take you to tell me whether those three are from the same gun?”

“I don’t know,” the Scotchman said with singular pessimism. “It’ll all depend. It may take a long while. It may take a short while.”

“Make it take a short while,” Tragg said. “I’m going down to my office. Give me a ring. And don’t mix those bullets up. Perry Mason’s on the other side of this case, and you know what he’ll do to you on cross-examination.”

“He’ll na do a thing to me in cross-examination,” the man at the laboratory bench said, adjusting the eyepieces on a comparison microscope. “He’ll have no chance. I’ll take micro-photographs, and let the camera speak for me. A man’s a fool to talk wi’ his tongue when he can get a camera lens to do it for him.”

Tragg smiled, then pausing in the doorway, announced, “I’ve declared open season on Mr. Perry Mason. I’m going to teach that boy not to cut corners.”

“You’d better be buyin’ yourself an alarm clock,” Angus MacIntosh grunted as he settled himself to his task. “Ye’ll be gettin’ up early in the morning, Mister Lieutenant.”

Tragg paused in the act of closing the door to say, “I’ve already got one.” Then he gently slipped the door shut and walked down to his office.

Tragg made a little grimace, as the dead odor of stale smoke assailed his nostrils. He went to the windows, opened them, and shivered slightly as the dry cold of the before-dawn air stole into the room. He rubbed exploratory fingers across the angle of his jaw, feeling the stubble, and frowned as he noticed the oil which had been transferred from his skin to his fingertips. He felt sticky, dirty, and tired.

He crossed to the coat closet which contained a wash stand, turned on hot water, washed his hands and face, and was drying himself with a towel when the telephone rang.

Tragg walked over to pick up the receiver.

“Yes?”

The voice of the Scotchman in the laboratory department said, “I havena got ’em in the most advantageous positions yet so that I can make the best possible photograph, but I can tell you one thing. The three bullets came from the same gun. Now then, how soon will ye be wantin’ photographs?”

“Just as soon as I can get ’em,” Tragg said.

The Scotchman groaned. “Ye was always an impatient lad,” he observed, and hung up the receiver.

Tragg grinned his satisfaction.

Once more the telephone rang. The man on duty at the switchboard said hurriedly, “Here’s an anonymous tip for you, Lieutenant. Won’t talk with anyone else. Says he’s going to hang up in exactly sixty seconds, and there’s no use trying to trace the call.”

“Got it so you can listen in?” Tragg asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, put him on.”

A click came over the line as the operator plugged in a key and said, “Here’s Lieutenant Tragg on the line.”

“Hello,” a peculiarly muffled voice said. The man at the other end of the line might well have been holding his fist cupped between his mouth and the transmitter. “Is this Lieutenant Tragg?”

“This is Tragg. Who is this talking?”

“Never mind. I’m just telling you something about Perry Mason, the lawyer, and the girl who drove him out to the Shore place a while after midnight.”

“Go ahead,” Tragg invited. “What d’you know about ’em?”

“They picked a man up. He’s an important witness, one you want. They spirited him away where they’ve got him sewed up.”

“Go on,” Tragg said impatiently. “Who’s the man, and where is he?”

“I don’t know who he is, but I can tell you where he is.”

“Where?”

The voice suddenly speeded up its tempo as though anxious to get the conversation terminated.

“Maple Leaf Hotel under the name Thomas Trimmer. Registered about quarter past four this morning. He’s in room 376.”

Tragg said quickly, “Now, wait a minute. Let me get one thing straight. Are you absolutely certain that Perry Mason, the lawyer, is the one who put this man in the hotel? Is he back of that?”

“Back of it, hell,” the voice said. “Mason was the one who came in with him, carrying a canvas-covered telescope bag. The girl wasn’t with him then.”

The receiver abruptly slammed up at the other end of the line.

Lieutenant Tragg jiggled the hook. “Able to trace that call?” he asked.

“Pay station, block from the hotel,” the exchange operator said. “I got the call traced, and two radio cars rushing out there with instructions to pick up anyone they see within three blocks of the place for questioning. We’ll know in fifteen minutes if they get any results.”

There was the glint of a triumphant hunter in Tragg’s eyes. “I’ll wait fifteen minutes just on a chance.”

It was twenty minutes before the report came in.

Two radio cars had converged on the place. It was an all-night restaurant with a phone booth near the door. There was only one man on duty behind the counter, and he had been busy waiting on some customers. He had vaguely noticed a man enter the phone booth, but he couldn’t describe him. The radio cars had picked up two men within a radius of four blocks of the place. It didn’t seem probable that either man had put in the call, but the police had secured names and addresses from driving licenses. Then the officers, stopping at the Maple Leaf Hotel, had found that a Thomas Trimmer had been checked in about four o’clock. He was a man in the late fifties with a slight stoop. He weighed a hundred and forty pounds, was about five feet six, wore somewhat shabby, but clean clothes, had high cheekbones, and a gray drooping mustache. His only baggage had been an old-fashioned canvas telescope case, fairly heavy. Trimmer had been brought in by a tall, well-dressed man.

A little pulse in Lieutenant Tragg’s forehead began to pound as he listened to the report.

“Keep the radio cars on the job,” he ordered. “Sew the place up so Trimmer doesn’t get out. I’m on my way out there right now.”