The Case of the Careless Kitten

Chapter 9

Matilda Shore, propped up in the hospital bed, surveyed her visitors, her eyes showing her anger.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

“Why,” Gerald Shore explained, “we heard you were ill, and naturally wanted to see if there was anything we could do.”

“Who told you?”

“Mr. Mason learned about it.”

She turned to Mason. “How?” she demanded.

Mason bowed. “Just casually.”

Gerald Shore put in hastily, “We had to see you, Matilda. Some things have happened which you should know about.”

“I’ve been sick. I don’t want visitors. How did you know where I was? Why did you bring these people?”

Gerald Shore said, “Perry Mason, the lawyer, and Della Street, his secretary, are interested in certain matters which are important to you.”

Matilda Shore swung her big head on its thick neck, surveyed Perry Mason, and said, “Humph!”

“How did you know where I was?” she asked after a moment.

Helen Kendal said, “Komo was very much alarmed about you. He said you’d been poisoned, that you acted just like the kitten. You told him to drive you to a hospital.”

“Why, the little slant-eyed hypocrite,” Matilda Shore said. “I told him to keep his mouth shut.”

“He did,” Mason said, “until after he learned that we knew all about it. I am the one who found out about what had happened. I didn’t talk with Komo. Your niece talked with him after I had told her where you were.”

“How did you find out?”

Mason merely smiled. “I must protect my sources of information.”

Heaving herself up to a more erect sitting position, Matilda Shore said, “And will you kindly tell me why my whereabouts and my physical condition should be any of your business?”

“But, Matilda,” Gerald interrupted to explain. “There’s something about which you have to know. We simply had to reach you.”

“Well, what is it? Stop beating around the bush.”

Gerald said, “Franklin is alive.”

“That’s no news to me, Gerald Shore. Of course, he’s alive! I’ve always known he was alive. Ran off with a trollop and left me to twiddle my thumbs. I suppose this means you’ve heard from him.”

“You shouldn’t condemn him too hastily, Aunt Matilda,” Helen Kendal said in a voice which failed to carry the least conviction.

“No fool like an old fool,” Matilda grumbled. “Man who was almost sixty running off with a woman half his age.”

Mason turned to Gerald Shore. “Perhaps you’d better tell her how it happens you know he’s alive.”

“He telephoned us this afternoon — rather, he telephoned Helen.”

The bedsprings heaved as Matilda twisted her big body around. She opened a drawer in the table near the bed, took out a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, adjusted them to her nose, and looked at her niece as though she were examining a bug through a microscope.

“So — he telephoned — you. Afraid of me, I suppose.”

The door opened. A nurse glided into the room, her starched uniform giving forth a businesslike rustle.

“You mustn’t excite the patient,” she warned. “She really isn’t supposed to have visitors. You can only stay a few minutes.”

Matilda glared at her. “I’m all right. Please leave us alone.”

“But the doctor...”

Matilda Shore motioned imperiously toward the door.

The nurse hesitated a moment.

“I’ll have to notify the doctor,” she murmured, then withdrew.

Matilda swung back to Helen Kendal. “So he telephoned you, and you didn’t say a word about it. That’s gratitude. For ten years I devote myself to your—”

Gerald Shore spoke hastily, “You see, Matilda, she thought she might be dealing with an impostor, and she didn’t want to disturb you with the news until she had made certain.”

“Why did he telephone her?” Matilda demanded.

“That’s just it,” Gerald said placatingly. “Everything indicated that we were dealing, not with Franklin, but with some impostor who wanted to impose upon the family. We thought it would be better to establish a preliminary contact before telling you anything about it.”

“I’m not a child.”

“I understand, Matilda, but we thought it was better this way.”

“Humph!”

Helen Kendal said, “He told me particularly that I couldn’t see him unless I followed his instructions to the letter.”

“Did you see him?” Matilda asked, peering through her spectacles at her niece.

“No, we didn’t. A man by the name of Leech was to lead us to him — and something happened so that Leech couldn’t do it.”

Matilda Shore said, “It was Franklin all right. Sounds just like him — trying to sneak in the back way — wants to get hold of Helen, play up to her, get her sympathies aroused, and get her to intercede with me. Tell him to stop hiding behind a woman’s skirts and come out in the open and meet me. I’ll tell him a thing or two. I’ll file suit for divorce the minute he shows his face. I’ve been waiting ten years for this.”

Mason said, “I trust your poisoning wasn’t serious, Mrs. Shore.”

She rolled her eyes toward him, said, “Poisoning is always serious.”

“How did it happen?” Gerald asked.

“Got hold of the wrong bottle, that’s all. Had some heart medicine and some sleeping tablets in the medicine cupboard. Had a bottle of stout before I went to bed. Then went to get some sleeping tablets. Got the wrong bottle.”

“When did you suspect it was the wrong bottle?” Mason asked.

“Had a little spasm,” she replied. “Rang for Komo, told him to get out the car, to notify my doctor, and get me up to the hospital. Had enough presence of mind to drink a lot of mustard water and to get rid of as much of the stuff as I could. Told the doctor about how I’d gone to the medicine cabinet in the dark to take some sleeping medicine after I’d had my stout, told him I’d got the wrong bottle by mistake. Not certain he believes me. Anyhow, he got busy and fixed me up. I’m all right now. Want you to keep your mouth shut about that poisoning. I don’t want to have the police interfering in my business. Now then, I want to find Franklin. Let’s get him out into the open.”

Mason said, “Has it ever occurred to you, Mrs. Shore, that there might be some connection between the return of your husband and the two instances of poisoning which have occurred in your household?”

“Two?” she asked.

“The kitten and you.”

Matilda Shore studied him for the space of several seconds, then said, “Fiddlesticks! I got the wrong bottle, that’s all.”

“I’m asking you if the idea has occurred to you that the drink was poisoned.”

“Bosh! I tell you I got the wrong bottle.”

“Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to do something about it?”

“What should I do?”

Mason said, “At least, you should take steps to prevent a recurrence. If someone has made an attempt on your life, you certainly should do something about it.”

“You mean the police?”

“Why not?”

“The police!” she exclaimed scornfully. “I’m not going to have them messing in my life and giving out a lot more stuff to the newspapers. That’s what always happens. You call in the police to protect you, and some idiot who wants to see his picture in the paper rushes out to the reporters and tells them the whole story. I won’t have it. Besides, I just made a mistake.”

Mason said, “Unfortunately, Mrs. Shore, after what’s happened tonight, there is going to be a lot of publicity.”

“What do you mean, after what happened tonight?”

“This man Leech who was to lead us to your husband failed to do so.”

“Why?”

Mason said, “Because someone stopped him.”

“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.”

The door of the room pushed open. A man, entering hastily, said, “What’s going on here? I’m the doctor in charge of this case. This patient isn’t to be disturbed. She’s had a severe shock. I’m going to ask you all to leave — immediately.”

Matilda Shore looked at him and said, “I guess you mean well, Doctor, but you got here just five minutes too late.”