The Case of the Crooked Candle

Chapter 18

A low, thin mist hung over the midnight waters. Above the mist the stars were pale pin-points.

Mason helped Della Street from the car. Their feet echoed along the boards of the float which led to the caretaker’s cabin of the yacht club. The silhouettes of the small pleasure yachts tied to the float seemed ghostly and unreal in the damp chill of the night.

A light glowed in the little cabin at the end of the pier, and as the man who was sitting in the warm interior of the office heard the pound of Mason’s heels and the quick staccato tap tap tap of Della Street’s feet, he opened the door and grinned a greeting.

“Hello, Cameron,” Mason said.

“Evenin’,” Cameron greeted them.

“Is everything all ready?”

Cameron’s eyes twinkled in quiet humor. A short, stubby pipe was gripped in his teeth firmly. He removed this pipe, said, “Better come in for a few minutes and get warm. It’s going to be mighty cold out there on the water. There’s a stove in the cabin of the yacht, but you’ll be plenty cold getting out there. I’ve got a kettle of hot water on the stove and some rum. If you folks would like a hot buttered rum, I...”

Mason didn’t even wait for him to finish. “What is holding you back?” he demanded.

Cameron smiled and, glancing at. Della Street, asked Mason somewhat diffidently, “Two glasses or three?”

It was Della who answered the question. “Three,” she announced.

“And you can make ‘em just as strong as you like,” Mason said.

Cameron put a generous portion of butter into three cups, adding boiling water, sugar, spices, and then poured in the rum. “Got a brother in the dairy business,” he said. “Manage to keep myself supplied with enough butter to take the edge off my rum toddies. You folks want to take your coats off?”

“No,” Mason said. “We’ll get started as soon as we’ve finished our rum, and it won’t do us any harm to get good and warm before we start.”

Della and Mason silently toasted each other over the rims of the thick porcelain cups, then sipped the hot beverage.

“That,” Mason announced, “is a lifesaver.”

“Uh huh. Kind of crisp tonight. It gets chilly along about midnight down on the water eight or nine months out of the year. I have to get out and make the rounds ever so often. I’m telling you, it certainly feels good to come back to my cozy little cabin.”

“Don’t you get lonely?” Della asked.

Cameron puffed contentedly on his pipe. “Nope,” he said, “I’ve got books and — well, I don’t know. You get lonely in a big house, but in a little cabin like this with everything ship-shape, you don’t get lonesome. You get so after a while you can get along with yourself better than with anybody else.”

“How long will it take us to get out to the yacht?” Mason asked.

“Oh, not over ten minutes. Now as I get it, you want to have me take you out there with my outboard motor, and leave you there. Then I’m to come back for you around two o’clock. That right?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay,” Cameron said, “I’ll be there. Just wanted to get the time straight in my mind because I hate to leave this place alone. I really ain’t supposed to, but I guess a short trip like this won’t hurt anything. But I’d like to time things so you’ll be ready to start back soon’s I get there. You found some clue?”

Mason laughed. “Not a clue. We’re just looking around.”

“Humph!”

“Of course we might find something.”

“That’s right. How’d I do on the witness stand today? Didn’t hurt your case any, did I?”

“Not a bit.”

“That’s good. I hope you get both of them off. They’re fine people. Mr. Burbank is a good friend of mine. And that daughter of his. Say, there’s a live wire for you! A regular little thoroughbred, that girl! Well, anytime you’re ready to start.”

Mason and Della Street placed their empty cups on the drain board of the little sink. “Let’s go,” Mason said.

The outboard motor sputtered into life. The bow of the boat moving through the water pushed ahead of it a bow wave which broke out into a series of ripples on each side. The cold night air brushed moist, chill fingers against their faces. The little boat chugged out into the channel, then after a minute or two rounded a point and started fighting against the tide up the black waters of the estuary.

“Rather hard to navigate here?” Mason said.

“Oh, you get so you know your way around. Learn a few simple landmarks and you’re okay. Keep the tip of that point outlined against that little glow of light on the other side. Keep ‘em right in line. See, I’ve got ‘em dead astern.”

Mason laughed, “You’ll have me applying for a pilot’s license directly.”

Della Street said, “Something ahead.”

The outboard motor promptly slowed its speed.

“That’s the yacht,” the boatman said.

They swung around the yacht in a circle, came up close to the rail. The boatman said to Mason, “Now if you can just get aboard...”

Mason nodded, reached up, caught the cold, clammy, iron handrail of the yacht, and clambered aboard. The boatman tossed him a rope, said to Della, “Now, Miss, I’ll give you a hand.”

They boosted Della Street up to the deck of the yacht. Cameron moved over to cling to the handrail, holding the skiff up against the yacht. “She’s aground already,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Well, watch your step when she settles. Shell go over part way, then sort of stick and then go way over with a lurch. Now, you want me back here at two o’clock. That right?”

“That’s right,” Mason said.

“Okay, I’ll be here. You watch your step now. Don’t get hurt.”

“We won’t,” Mason promised.

Cameron still seemed reluctant to shove off. He continued for several seconds to stand holding the rail, the idling outboard motor pop-pop-popping, a faint odor of burnt gasoline clinging to the water. “Well, I’ll be on my way. Right around two o’clock, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Think you’ll be all done and ready to start back by that time?”

“I think so.”

“Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

Cameron pushed the skiff clear, settled back in the stern. The outboard purred into activity and within a matter of seconds the skiff was lost to sight, although the sound of the motor continued to drift back through the misty darkness.

“Well,” Mason said, taking a flashlight from his pocket, “let’s go below. Watch your step, Della, the deck’s slippery.”

Mason took a key from his pocket, unlocked a padlock, slid back the hatch, assisted Della Street down the companionway and into the main cabin.

“How cozy,” Della exclaimed.

“It is, all right,” Mason agreed, lighting a candle.

“What did they do for heat?”

“There’s a little stove that burns wood and coal,” Mason said. “They used it for cooking as well as for heating. I told Cameron I wanted a fire laid in it. Yes, it’s all ready to start going.”

Mason lit a match, tossed it into the stove. The paper and kindling crackled into cheery flame. Mason said, “Now then, all we have to do is to wait for the tide to run out.”

Della Street looked at her wrist watch. “The boat is aground now?”

“Yes,” Mason said, “the keel’s resting on the mud.”

The yacht gave a slight, all but imperceptible list.

“Not only aground,” Mason said, “but it’s going to start tilting in a few minutes. Well, it won’t take us long now. I want to see just exactly how long before low tide a body would roll to the lower side of the cabin, and just how the yacht starts listing as the tide runs out.”

Della shivered slightly.

“Getting nervous?” Mason asked.

“A little,” she admitted. “It’s creepy here. Let’s blow out the candle and wait here in the dark. The stove will give out enough light... I feel sort of conspicuous... Anyone could... Well, you know... through the porthole...” She broke off and laughed.

Mason promptly blew out the candle.

“There, that’s better,” Della said. “I had the feeling that eyes were peering through the portholes.”

Mason slipped his arm around her, “Forget it,” he said. “No one even knows we’re out here.”

She laughed, a little apologetic laugh, and pressed herself close to his protecting shoulder.

The fire crackled merrily. Little ruddy reflections of flame flickered out from the draft in the front of the stove. Silence descended upon them, a silence broken only by the gurgling sound of tide water swirling past the grounded yacht.

The yacht swung a little more over to the side, moving almost imperceptibly.

Mason consulted the luminous dial of his wrist watch, said, “Well, here’s where I lie down on the floor and pretend I’m a dead body.”

Della Street glanced over in the direction of the dark red stain on the carpet and said, “I don’t like to have you lie there.”

“Why?”

“It seems too sinister. It might bring... Can’t you lie in another part of the yacht just as well?”

“No,” Mason said, “I’m going to conduct the experiment right here.”

Mason stretched himself out on the carpeted floor of the cabin, his head within a few inches of the brass door sill of the cabin in the rear of the boat.

“Okay, Della?”

“Well, its sort of creepy. Makes you think of ghosts.”

“If Milfield’s ghost could only come back and tell us exactly what happened,” Mason said, “it would be a break for us.”

Della came over to sit on the floor beside him. Her hand slid down Mason’s arm, her fingers found his hand, and closed about it.

Mason patted her shoulder, said, “Remember, I’m supposed to be a corpse.”

She laughed, “Don’t you feel like a corpse?”

“No.”

The boat moved sluggishly, taking a little more list.

“Not enough slant as yet to roll me down to the other side,” Mason observed, “—when that happens, we’ll take a look at the watch and notice the exact time. Where’s the flashlight, Della?”

“On the table.”

Mason sighed wearily. “It certainly was quite a day in court. Hard as this floor is, it feels nice and restful.”

Della took her hand from his, let her fingertips stroke his forehead, “You should take things easier.”

“Uh huh,” Mason agreed somewhat drowsily, asked a few minutes later, “What time is it now, Della?”

She looked at his wrist watch. “Getting along toward one-thirty.”

“Another ten or fifteen minutes should tell the story,” Mason observed.

Abruptly Della Street shifted her position. “You don’t need to be so darned uncomfortable,” she said. “Here, lift up your head.”

She placed his head on her lap. “There, that’s better. Now, you can tell just as much about it as you can with your head lying on that hard floor.”

“I can’t,” Mason protested drowsily. “I should have my head down there... on the floor... I want to know the exact time... Oh well... perhaps this will do if I keep completely relaxed.”

Her fingers moved along his forehead, the fingertips caressed his eyebrows and the closed eyes, smoothed back his hair.

“You just lie there and relax,” she said softly.

Mason raised his hand to hers, moved it to his lips, held it there for a moment, then released it.

A moment later, his regular breathing showed that he was asleep, and, in his sleep, his hand once more groped for Della’s, held it close.

Minutes passed with no change in the situation. Della Street sat motionless. The boat, firmly aground now, seemed to have ceased tilting.

Della Street herself became drowsy. The warmth of the cabin, the utter quiet which enveloped them, the relaxing of taut nerves after a hard day in court, coupled with the lateness of the hour, made her head nod in little snatches of welcome sleep.

Abruptly the cabin floor gave a peculiar lurch. The yacht hesitated for a moment, then suddently heeled way over.

For the moment, Della Street, startled to wakefulness, was too frightened to say anything. She grasped instinctively at the doorway of the cabin for support. Perry Mason’s limp body rolled over and over. The lawyer, wakened from a sound sleep, clawed at the carpet in a sudden automatic reflex action. Then Della heard a thud as Mason banged up against the starboard wall of the cabin.

A moment later, she heard his laugh from the darkness. “Well, Della, I guess I went to sleep and that did it. The time seems to be exactly one-forty-three. According to my mental arithmetic, that’s almost exactly four hours and one minute after high tide. Of course, there’s a slight difference in the height of the tides which we’ll have to take into consideration, but it’s only a few inches and...”

“What’s that?” Della Street asked, startled, as Mason abruptly stopped talking.

“Listen!” he cautioned.

They listened. From the outer darkness came a peculiar rhythmic thumping sound which grew momentarily louder — a sound which had a peculiar jarring undertone that seemed to strike the hull of the boat with a distinct impact.

“What is it?” Della Street whispered.

“A rowboat,” Mason announced in a low voice.

“Coming this way?”

“Yes.”

“Do you suppose it’s the man coming back for us? — Perhaps his outboard motor went wrong and...”

“Too early,” Mason said. “Keep quiet, Della. Where are you?”

“Over here by the stove, getting the poker,” she said. “If this should be the murderer...!”

“Hush,” Mason warned.

He groped toward her in the darkness, whispered, “Let’s find that flashlight.”

“I’ve been looking for it,” she whispered. “When the boat heeled over, it must have rolled off the table. Here, Chief, you take this poker. It’s heavy and...”

Abruptly the jarring impact ran through the yacht as a rowboat thudded against the side of the yacht’s hull.

Heavy feet pounded on the deck above them. The hatchway made noise as it slid back along the metallic guides.

Mason pulled Della Street toward the doorway leading to the rear cabin. “Quick,” he said in a whisper, “in the cabin!”

As Mason pushed Della Street into the rear cabin, a flashlight sent a brilliant circle of light down into the cabin, then was promptly extinguished. A leg swung over to the companionway and stopped. For a few seconds the intruder was motionless, then the leg was withdrawn. The hatch slammed back into position. Steps made sound across the sloping deck, thudded into the rowboat. Oars made a frantic splashing.

“Quick,” Mason said, groping toward the companion way, “get that flashlight, Della. Feel along on the low side of the cabin. It will have rolled down there. Get it and give it to me.”

Mason pushed up the companionway, thrust his head and shoulders out into the chill of the night air.

The mist had settled into a damp fog which hung over the water like a fleece, blanketing sounds, distorting perspective.

Panic-stricken oars were splashing vigorously out in the milky darkness.

“Hey, you,” Mason called, “come back here!”

The frenzied speed of the oars was redoubled, but no other answer came from the fog-filled darkness.

“Here’s the light. Chief.”

Della thrust the metallic cylinder into the lawyer’s hand. He pressed the button, sent a beam of light out into the fog. It was no more effective then if the beam had tried to penetrate watered milk.

The sound of oars was growing momentarily fainter.

Mason muttered his impatience.

“What frightened him?” Della asked. “We didn’t make any noise.”

“The stove,” Mason explained. “He slid back the hatch above the companionway and the heat came rushing up to meet him. He knew then someone was aboard.”

“Gosh, Chief, I was so scared! My joints are all jelly — particularly my knees.”

Mason drew her to him. He switched off the flashlight, stood with Della pressed close, listening.

There was a faint dripping sound as fog condensations dropped from the yacht. Otherwise, there was no sound.

“He may have quit rowing and is letting the tide take him out,” Mason said, disappointment in his voice. “Lord, how I wish Cameron would show up with that outboard!”

They stood straining their ears, then Della stirred uneasily, “Chief, I think I hear it!”

Once more they listened. A peculiar undertone of sound grew in volume, became unmistakably the staccato of an outboard motor.

“He’s coming from the direction where that rowboat disappeared,” Mason said. “He may run right on it. Let’s get him to hurry.”

He snapped the flashlight, elevated the beam, swung it in a series of circles, signaling the boat into greater speed.

Within a minute or two, the skiff came gliding toward them out of the darkness, the outboard motor ceasing its pulsations as an expert hand guided the skiff up to the low side of the yacht.

“Come on, Della,” Mason said. “Let’s go.”

Bracing himself, he placed his hands beneath her shoulders and swung her clear of the deck and into the skiff. A moment later, Mason was in beside her.

“Quick,” he said to Cameron. “There’s a rowboat we want to catch. Its back in the direction you came from. Give it all you’ve got for about two minutes, then shut off the motor and we’ll listen.”

“A rowboat?” the boatman asked. “I haven’t rented any boats. I...”

“Never mind,” Mason said, “let’s get started.”

The outboard motor roared into action once more. Water churned up in the rear of the skiff and as the little craft gathered headway, the moisture-beaded air struck against the faces of the passengers.

“All right,” Mason said after a couple of minutes. “Let’s stop and listen.”

Cameron shut off the motor. The boat glided along through the water, the gurgling sound which accompanied its motion for the moment making it impossible to hear anything else. Then gradually as the boat lost momentum, the silence gripped them — a fog-filled silence broken only by a very faint lapping of water against the bow of the boat. There were no sounds of oars in oarlocks.

After two or three minutes of tense listening, Cameron said, “You can’t do anything this way unless you happen to run right on him. He’ll hear you coming, get out of the way, quit rowing when you shut off the motor and then start rowing again when he hears the motor.”

“All right, then,” Mason said. “There’s only one thing to do. That’s zigzag back and forth. He must be around here somewhere.”

Immediately Cameron started the motor. The little skiff zigzagged back and forth through the fog. Mason sat up in the bow, his face straining through the darkness, searching for the vague indistinct shape on the water that he hoped would glide by, or, perhaps, loom up directly in front of the skiff.

He saw nothing.

Once more the motor slowed to almost silence. Cameron called out, “I don’t dare to do any more, Mr. Mason. I’m going to get lost. You can’t see your landmarks here. I’m not too certain where I am right now.”

“All right,” Mason conceded. “I guess it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Which way is the yacht? I want to go back again.”

“Well,” the boatman conceded, “I’m not just exactly certain, but I’ll see if I can find it. It should be around here.”

He swung the bow of the skiff, held it steady. “I can’t leave my place there for too long a time,” he said. “I’m really not supposed to leave at all. What would anyone want aboard that yacht?”

Mason said, “I’m beginning to wonder about that myself. He’d hardly have been trying to remove something. Perhaps he knew we were aboard— Say, wait a minute. Perhaps we don’t want to go back to that yacht. He may have been...”

Off to the right and perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead, a sheet of flame mushroomed into an exploding pattern that ripped apart the night with a concussion that all but knocked them flat in the boat. A half moment later, the roar of sound crashed against their eardrums.

Instinctively the boatman shut off the motor. The boat drifted for a moment in a silence that seemed as a tangible wall blocking all sensation from their eardrums.

High overhead, there was a whirring sound in the air — a sound which grew in intensity and was followed by a splash some hundred yards off to the left. A moment later, other splashes sounded all around them.

“Falling debris,” Mason said.

Cameron shifted his pipe in his mouth. “That there explosion” he said, “must have been what you was thinking of when you changed your mind about going back.”

“And that’s that,” Mason said grimly. “Let’s get back.”

The outboard motor snarled into high speed. The little skiff fairly leaped ahead in the water then swung in a wide half circle. The particles of fog moisture misted against the faces of the passengers until the fog seemed to have turned to a drizzling rain. The cold damp chill which lay along the water penetrated through their garments to the very bone.

“Won’t be long,” Cameron said. “Just hope I’m not lost, that’s all.”

There followed an interval of several minutes during which the three persons in the little boat were too chilled and uncomfortable to do any talking. Then a sparbuoy loomed up out of the darkness almost dead ahead. Cameron swung the skiff so as to just miss the buoy, then after a few moments, swung the boat hard to port. A vague shadowy mass of land loomed against pale stars as the fog suddenly thinned. A light appeared ahead with a halo of moisture surrounding it. The little skiff swept around in a curve and, seemingly without warning, the darkness ahead resolved itself into mist-enshrouded outlines of yachts moored to the float at the yacht club.

Even in the short time that the journey had consumed, the cold had cramped Mason’s limbs, and it was with an effort that he jumped to the float, carrying the painter.

Cameron shut off the motor, took the painter from Mason and tied it to a ring in the float. “How you coming?” he asked Della Street.

“B-r-r-r!” she said and laughed.

The three of them walked down the float and Cameron opened the door of his snug little cabin. The welcome warmth from the stove enveloped them with a silent hospitality. The singing teakettle was as homelike as the purring of a cat in front of a fireplace.

Without a word, Cameron switched on the lights, poured hot water over spices, butter and sugar, in three cups, and added lots of rum.

“This,” Mason announced, “hits the spot.”

“This,” Della Street supplemented, “is saving my life. I thought I wouldn’t make it. Clothes don’t seem to be any good at all against that cold fog.”

Cameron lit his pipe. “Goes right through you,” he admitted.

He raised the lid of the stove, thrust in two sticks of heavy oak, and was refilling the teakettle when he paused, his eyes peering out through the window.

“Car coming.”

“What time is it?” Mason asked.

“Two-fifteen.”

“Seems like it’s been ages,” Della Street laughed.

Mason took pencil and paper from his pocket. “I want to look at your tide table,” he said. “I want to find out just how much difference there was between the tide tonight and the night of the murder. I...”

“Coming this way,” Cameron reported. “A couple of men. Look like officers.”

Feet pounded along the float with a strange booming note.

“Sounds like a drum,” Della Street said, and coughed nervously, “an ominous drum.”

Two men opened the door of the cabin without knocking. For the moment, they ignored Mason and Della Street, their eyes fastened on Cameron. “What was that explosion?” they asked.

“Burbank’s yacht blew up.”

“That’s what we thought. You take anyone out there tonight?”

Cameron gestured toward Perry Mason and Della Street.

“You can swear they were aboard the yacht?”

“That’s right.”

“How long after they left did the explosion, take place?”

“Between five and ten minutes. Not over ten minutes.”

The officer regarded Mason with square-jawed belligerency. “Get your things, buddy. You’re going to Headquarters.”

“Don’t be silly,” Mason told him. “I’ve got to be in court tomorrow. I’m Perry Mason.”

“I don’t give a damn if you’re Pontius Pilate, you’re going to Headquarters.”

Mason explained patiently, “There was a rowboat that came out to the yacht. I thought at the time it was someone who wanted to get something that was on the yacht, but that he became frightened when he opened the hatch and found there was a fire going in the cabin stove. I realize now that what he wanted was to plant a time bomb. He didn’t know just how soon we were leaving the yacht, and thought that was a good chance to blow up both us and the yacht. That business of opening the hatch and starting down to the cabin, then turning and running from the yacht and rowing frantically away into the darkness was just part of the stall to keep us from getting suspicious as to what he had really been after. He probably planted the bomb within a matter of seconds after getting aboard the yacht.”

“What did this man look like?”

“We didn’t see him.”

“What sort of a boat?”

“We didn’t see that.”

The officer grinned — a tantalizing, superior grin. “You’ve got to do better than that,” he said, and then added reproachfully, “And you a lawyer, too.”

Mason said, “For the love of Mike! Get Headquarters on your radio. Have them cover the entire waterfront. Try and pick up anyone who’s prowling around. See if you can’t locate that rowboat when the man comes ashore — if he hasn’t landed already.”

“And make a monkey out of myself falling for a story like that and turning the department upside down. No, Mason, I’m sorry, but as far as we’re concerned, you’re elected. You and this lady went out to the yacht. What did you go out there for?”

“To study the action of the tides.”

“Nice stuff,” the officer said sarcastically. “You carry along a time bomb. You wait until just when you’re leaving and then press the button and start the thing going. You’ve timed it so you can get clean away.”

“Don’t be silly,” Mason said. “Why would I want to blow up the yacht?”

“Why would anybody want to blow up the yacht? You’ve got more reason than anyone.” The officer turned to Cameron. “Did he come straight back, or did he make some excuse to hang around somewhere near the yacht until the thing blew up?”

Cameron hesitated.

“Go ahead,” the officer said.

“It wasn’t that,” Cameron finally blurted. “We were looking around in the fog for this rowboat, zigzagging back and forth.”

“Somewheres near the yacht?”

“About quarter of a mile.”

The officer exchanged glances with his companion, then sniffed audibly and looked at the empty cups. “What you got there,” he asked Cameron, “rum?”

“We did have,” Cameron said dryly, filling his pipe and making no move toward the rum bottle.

The officer jerked his head at Perry Mason. “Okay,” he said, “come along — you and the lady, both.”