The Case of the Crying Swallow

Chapter four

In the patio, Della Street caught Perry Mason’s eye, gave him a significant signal and moved casually over to the driveway where she climbed into the car and sat down.

Mason walked over. “I think Paul Drake has something,” he said. “I’m going down and look him up. He’s just coming in on the bridle path. What have you got?”

“I can tell you something about the nurse, chief.”

“What?”

“In the first place, if a woman’s intuition counts for anything, she’s in love with the major — one of those hopeless affairs where she worships him from a distance. In the second place, I think she has a gambling habit of some sort.”

“Races?”

“I don’t know. I was up in the cupola just after you were. There was a pad of paper in the drawer of the little table up there. At first it looked completely blank. Then I tilted it so the light struck it at an angle and I could see that someone had written on the top sheet with a fairly hard pencil so it had made an imprint on the sheet under it. Then the top sheet had been torn off.”

“Good girl! What was on the sheet of paper? I take it something significant.”

“Evidently some gambling figures. I won’t bother to show you the original at this time, but here’s a copy that I worked out. It reads like this: These numbers on the first line, then down below that, led; then down below that a space and 5″5936; down below that 6″8102; down below that 7″9835; down below that 8″5280; down below that 9″2640; down below that 10″1320.”

“Anything else?” Mason asked.

“Then a line and below the line, the figure 49″37817. That looks like some sort of a lottery to me. I learned Mrs. Winnett has been up in the cupola lately, and since she’d hardly be a gambler, I assume the nurse must have written down the figures.”

Mason said thoughtfully, “Notice the last three numbers, Della, 5280, 2640, 1320. Does that sequence mean something to you?”

“No, why?”

Mason said, “5280 feet in a mile.”

“Oh, yes, I get that.”

“The next number, 2640 feet is a half mile, and the last number, 1320 feet, is a quarter mile.”

“Oh, yes, I see now. Then that double mark means inches, doesn’t it?”

“It’s an abbreviation of inches, yes. What does this nurse seem like, Della? Remember I only barely met her.”

“Despite her muddy complexion, straight hair and glasses, her eyes are really beautiful. You should see them light up when the major’s name comes up. My own opinion is this nurse could be good-looking. Then Mrs. Winnett would fire her. So she keeps herself looking plain and unattractive so she can be near the major, whom she loves with a hopeless, helpless, unrequited passion.”

“Look here,” Mason said, “if you’ve noticed that within an hour and a half, how about Mrs. Victoria Winnett? Doesn’t she know?”

“I think she does.”

“And hasn’t fired the nurse?”

“No. I think she doesn’t mind if the nurse worships the ground the major walks on but doesn’t presume to raise her eyes to look at him, if you get what I mean.”

“I get it,” Mason said thoughtfully, “and I don’t like it. Wait, here comes Paul now.”

Drake, walking stiffly, joined them.

“Find anything, Paul?” Mason asked.

“I found something,” Drake conceded, “and I don’t know what it is.”

“What does it look like, Paul?”

“In the first place,” Drake said, “you can easily follow her tracks. She took the lower bridle path. After the first quarter mile, there’s only one set of tracks going and coming. They were made when the ground was soft and they go down to a road and a gate that’s locked. I didn’t have a key, but I could see where the horse tracks went through the gate and down onto the road, so I tied up my horse and managed to squeeze through the fence.”

“Any tracks around those trees, Paul?”

“An automobile had been parked there,” Drake said. “There must have been two automobiles. That’s the only way I can figure it out, but I still can’t figure the tracks right.”

“How come?”

Drake took a small thin book from his pocket. “This is a little pocketbook which gives the tread designs of all makes of tires. Now an automobile that had some fairly new tires was in there. One of the wheels was worn too much to identify, but I identified the track of a right front wheel. Then the track of the other front wheel and the other hind wheel and... well, there I bogged down, Perry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Of course, you have to understand it’s a little difficult trying to get those tracks all fitted into the proper sequence. They...”

“What are you getting at?” Mason said.

“Hang it, Perry, I got three wheels.”

“And the fourth was worn smooth?”

“Not that — what I mean is, Perry, that I got three wheels on a single side.”

Mason frowned at the detective. “Three wheels on a side?”

“Three wheels on a side,” Paul Drake insisted doggedly.

Mason said rather excitedly, “Paul, did you notice a circular spot in the ground, perhaps eight or ten inches in diameter?”

“How the deuce did you know that spot was there?” Drake demanded, his face showing bewilderment.

Mason said, “It was made by the bottom part of a bucket, Paul. And the three tracks on each side were all right. That’s the way it should be.”

“I don’t get it.”

“A house trailer,” Mason explained. “An automobile and a house trailer were parked under the trees. The waste water from a trailer sink is carried out through a drain to the outside. A bucket is placed there to catch the water as it runs off.”

“That’s it, all right,” Drake admitted, then added morosely, “I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it, Perry.”

Mason said, “It now begins to look as though Marcia Winnett had kept an appointment on Monday with someone in a house trailer. And that seems to have been very much a turning point in her life.”

Drake nodded. “On Monday — that’s a cold trail, Perry.”

“It’s the only one we have,” Mason pointed out.