The Case of the Crying Swallow

Chapter eight

The last task Mason had given Paul Drake turned out to be simple. Mrs. Drummond had been trying to locate her husband in the nearby trailer camps all the evening before, and she had arranged with a police officer who was off duty to accompany her.

Locating the rented car in which the girl in the checkered suit went to the trailer camp was another matter.

Despite all of Drake’s efficiency, it was nearing eight o’clock when his detectives uncovered the lead Mason wanted. A man who operated a car rental agency in one of the coast cities, some twenty-five miles from Silver Strand Beach, had rented a car to a young woman who wore a checkered suit and who answered the description of Marcia Winnett.

Drake looked up from the telephone. “Want my man to try to pick up the trail from there or do you want to do it, Perry?”

Mason said, “I’ll do it, Paul. And it might be best to let your man think that that isn’t the trail we want.”

“Okay,” Drake said, and then into the telephone, “Describe her, Sam. Uh-huh... uh-huh, well, that’s not the one. Keep working. Cover those other agencies and then report.”

Drake hung up the phone. “Want me to come along, Perry?”

“Della and I’ll handle it,” Mason said. “Start calling your men in. Let them feel it turned out to be a false lead. And you’d better start checking on Mrs. Drummond, Paul. I wouldn’t like to have her show up right now.”

Drake nodded and said solicitously, “Watch your step, Perry.”

“I’m watching it. Come on, Della.”

The man who operated the car rental agency which had furnished a car to Marcia Winnett was not particularly communicative. It took diplomacy to get him in the mood to talk. Even then he confined his information to bare essentials.

He had never seen his customer before. She gave her name as Edith Bascom. She said her mother had died and it was necessary for her to use a car in connection with handling the estate. She was registered at the local hotel.

“Do you check on these stories?” Mason asked. “Or do you just rent cars?”

“Sometimes we just rent cars. Sometimes we check.”

“What did you do in this case?”

“Cars are scarce now,” the man said. “We checked.”

“How?”

The man picked up a daily paper dated the day before and indicated the obituary column. Mason followed the man’s finger to the stereotyped announcement of the death of Mrs. Shirley Bascom and the statement that funeral arrangements would be private.

Mason said, “I guess that covers it all right.”

“What’s your interest in it?”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“I see. Well, she’s okay. Rather upset on account of her mother’s death, but a nice girl. You’ll find her in the Palace Hotel, two blocks down the street.”

“You checked on that?”

“I told you cars are scarce,” the man said. “I checked on it.”

It was but a matter of routine for Mason and his secretary to get the number of the room which had been assigned to Edith Bascom. Two minutes later Mason was knocking on the door.

There was no answer. Mason tried the knob. The door was locked.

Mason made a swift survey of the hall, stooped and held out his hands. “Step on my hands, Della. Take a quick look through the transom.”

She braced herself with a hand on his shoulder, caught the lower ledge of the transom and peered through.

Mason, with his right hand on her hip, steadying her, felt her body stiffen. Then she was scrambling to get down.

“Chief,” she said in an ominous whisper, “she’s stretched out on the bed. She’s... terribly still.”

“Lights on?”

“No, but the shade is up and there’s enough light coming in from the electric sign in front to make out the form on the bed.”

Mason said, “There’s a spring lock on the door... Better take another look, Della. See if she’s breathing and... hold it. Here comes a chambermaid.”

The chambermaid who wearily approached was aroused only momentarily from the lethargy of overwork by the bill Mason pushed into her palm.

“My wife and I seem to have left our key downstairs. If you could let us in, it would save us a trip down...”

“It’s against the rules,” she said, then added tonelessly, “but I guess it’s okay.” Producing her passkey, she clicked back the latch on the door.

Mason boldly pushed open the door, stood aside for Della to enter, then followed her into the dimly lighted room and closed the door behind him.

Della Street crossed over to the woman lying on the bed, as Mason groped for her pulse.

“She’s alive!” Della Street said.

“The light,” Mason said crisply. “Pull the curtains first.”

Della Street jerked down the shades, ran over and switched on the light.

Mason glanced at the bottle of sleeping tablets by the side of the bed, picked up the newspaper on the floor and glanced at it.

“She must have taken them yesterday,” Della said. “We’ll need a doctor and—”

“This afternoon,” Mason interrupted curtly. “This is a late edition of the afternoon paper.”

He dropped the paper, shook the sleeper and said, “Towels, Della. Cold water.”

Della Street grabbed towels and turned on the cold water in the bathroom. Mason slapped Marcia Winnett with cold towels until the eyelids flickered open.

“What is it?” she asked thickly.

Mason said to Della Street, “Run down to the drugstore, Della. Get an emetic. Have room service send up some black coffee.”

“How about a doctor?”

“Not if we can avoid it. Let’s hope she hasn’t had the tablets down long enough to get the full effects. Get an emetic.”

Marcia Winnett tried to say something, but the words were unintelligible. She dropped back against Mason’s shoulder.

Mason calmly started removing her blouse. Della Street dashed from the room, headed for the drugstore.

Thirty minutes later Mason and Della Street assisted Marcia Winnett from the bathroom. There was a dead, lackluster look about her eyes, but she could talk now, and the coffee was beginning to take effect.

Mason said, “Concentrate on what I’m telling you. I’m a lawyer. I’m retained to represent you.”

“By whom?”

“Your husband.”

“No, no, he mustn’t... he can’t...”

Mason said, “I’m your lawyer. Your husband retained me to help you. I don’t have to tell him anything.”

She sighed wearily and said, “Let me go. It’s better this way.”

Mason shook her once more into wakefulness. “You went riding Monday morning. You talked with a man in a trailer. He made demands on you. You had to have money and have it at once. You didn’t dare to ask your husband for it.”

Mason waited for an answer. She made none. Her eyelids drooped and raised as if by a conscious effort.

Mason said, “You went back to the house. You canceled the insurance on your jewelry because you were too conscientious to stick the insurance company. You arranged to have some repairs made to a window on the side of your bedroom so a ladder would be handy. You got up in the night, went out to the balcony, and dumped your jewelry into the swallow’s nest. Then you started screaming.”

Her face might have been a wooden mask.

Mason went on, “You had waited until Tuesday to stage the burglary. You knew that it would be too obvious if it happened Monday night, the day you had canceled the insurance. Wednesday morning you found an opportunity to get most of the jewelry out of the swallow’s nest. There was one piece you overlooked. Now then, suppose you tell me what happened after that.”

She said, with the drowsy calm of one who discusses a distant event which can have no personal bearing, “I wanted to kill him. I can’t remember whether I did or not.”

“Did you shoot him?”

“I can’t remember a thing that happened after... after I left the house.”

Mason glanced at Della Street, said, “If I’m going to help you, I have to know what hold that man had on you.”

“His name is Harry Drummond. He was my first husband.”

“You were divorced?”

“I thought I was divorced. There were reasons why I couldn’t go to Nevada. I gave him the money. He went to live in Nevada.

“From time to time he sent me reports of how things were coming. Twice he asked for more money. Then he wrote me the divorce had been granted. He was lying. He’d gambled the money away. There never had been a divorce.”

“When did you find this out?” Mason asked.

“Monday morning,” she said. “He was clever. He’d kept in touch with me. He knew I rode down along that bridle path. He parked his trailer there. Mrs. Victoria Winnett doesn’t like to have people camp there, so I rode down to ask whoever was in the trailer to please move on down to the public campgrounds.”

“You had no idea who was in the trailer?”

“Not until Harry opened the door and said, ‘Hello, Marcia. I thought it was about time you were showing up.’ ”

“What did he want?”

“Money.”

“And he threatened you with — what?”

“The one weapon Claude couldn’t stand, notoriety.”

“So you promised to get him money?”

“I promised to get him my jewelry. He had to have money at once. He said someone was putting screws on him for cash.”

“You were to meet him there when?”

“Wednesday morning.”

“So you manipulated this fake burglary on Tuesday night after canceling your insurance on Monday. Then you took him the jewelry. Did he ask you how you had managed to secure the jewelry?”

“Yes. I told him the whole story. I told him it was all right to pawn it because the Winnetts wouldn’t report the burglary to the police.”

“And then what happened?”

“I can’t remember.”

“What can’t you remember?”

“I can’t remember a thing from the time... from the time Harry took the jewelry. He made some sneering remark, and I remember becoming very angry and then... then my mind went entirely blank.”

“Did you have a revolver with you when you went down to the trailer Wednesday morning?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From a bureau drawer.”

“Whose gun was it?”

“I don’t know. I think it was... Mrs. Winnett’s gun — pearl-handled. I thought I might need some protection. It was a crazy idea. I took it along.”

“Where is that gun now?”

“I don’t know. I tell you I can’t remember a thing that happened after I gave him the jewelry and he made that sneering remark.”

“Did he make some further demands on you? Did he tell you you had to meet him at an isolated trailer park last night?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Did you meet him there?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Did you,” Mason asked, “rent an automobile from a drive-yourself agency about two blocks down the street?”

Her forehead puckered into a frown. “I seem to have some faint recollection of doing something like that, but I...” She shook her head. “No, it eludes me. I can’t remember.”

Mason said impatiently, “Why don’t you come clean? You were clever enough to read the obituary notices and pretend to be the daughter of a woman who had just died. I’m trying to help you. At least tell me what I’m up against.”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

Mason motioned toward the bottle of sleeping tablets. “And you thought you could take this way out and it would help?”

“I don’t know. I guess I must have been... perhaps I was nervous. Perhaps I hadn’t been sleeping at all and I just took too large a dose. I can’t remember.”

Mason turned to Della Street. “Willing to take a chance, Della?”

She nodded. “Anything you say, chief.”

Mason said, “Put her in a car. Take her into Los Angeles. See that there’s plenty of money in her purse. Take her to a private hospital. Under no circumstances give your name or address. Put on the rush act. Tell the first nurse you meet that this woman accosted you on the street and asked you to help her find out who she was. That you think it’s a racket of some sort, but that she seems to have money, and if she needs any assistance, the hospital is the place where she should be able to get it. Then turn and get out of the door fast.”

Della nodded.

Mason turned to Marcia Winnett. “You heard what I said?”

“Yes... I... you mustn’t take chances for me. I know that I must have killed him. I can’t remember the details, Mr. Mason, but I killed him. I think it was in self-defense. I can’t remember.”

“I know,” Mason said gently. “Don’t worry about it. Remember you’re a widow now. Don’t get your memory back, and the next time you see me remember I’m a stranger. I’m going to try to help you. Get started, Della. Drive with the window open. Let her get lots of cold air. Get her to a hospital.”

“How’ll you get back?” Della asked.

“I’ll have one of Drake’s men pick me up.”

Della looked at Marcia with cold contempt. “If you ask me,” she blurted indignantly, “this act of hers...”

Mason gently closed one eye in an owlish wink. “Take her to the hospital, Della... and be sure you get out from under.”