The Case of the Deadly Toy

Chapter Three

Perry Mason latchkeyed the door of his private office to find his secretary, Della Street, waiting for him.

Mason made a little grimace of distaste. “Saturday morning,” he said, “and I have to drag you out to work.”

“The price of success,” Della Street told him smilingly.

“Well, you’re good-natured about it, anyway.”

Della Street made a sweeping gesture, which included the office, the desk with its pile of correspondence, the open law books which Mason was to use in the brief he was about to dictate. “It’s my life and it’s yours. We may as well face it.”

“But it’s work,” Mason said, watching her face. “There are times when it must be sheer drudgery for you.”

“It’s more fascinating than any type of play,” she said. “Are you ready?”

She opened her notebook and held a pen poised over the page.

Mason sighed and settled into his chair.

The private unlisted telephone rang.

There were only three people in the world who had the number of that telephone. Perry Mason himself, Della Street, his confidential secretary, and Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, which had offices on the same floor with Perry Mason.

“How does Paul know we’re here?” Mason asked.

“He saw me coming up in the elevator,” Della Street said. “He told me he had something he might bother us with. I warned him that you wouldn’t interrupt dictation this morning for anything short of murder.”

Mason picked up the telephone. “Hello, Paul. What’s the trouble?”

Drake’s voice came over the wire. “Despite the fact Della told me you are working on an important brief this morning and don’t want to be disturbed, Perry, I thought I should call you. There’s a young woman in my office who insists she must see you. She’s really worked up, almost hysterical, and...”

Mason frowned. “I can’t see anyone this morning, Paul. Perhaps this afternoon... how did she happen to come to you?”

“The telephone directory,” Drake explained. “Your office number is listed for daytime calls and then my number is given for night calls and on Saturdays. She called the office and sounded so worked up that I decided I’d talk with her. I hadn’t intended to pass her on to you, but I think you may want to talk with her, Perry.”

“What’s her name?”

“Norda Allison.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s quite a story. You’ll like her. She’s good-looking, clean-cut, fresh and unspoiled. And this trouble of hers has engulfed her. She feels she should go to the police, she thinks she’s probably in danger, and yet she doesn’t know just what to do.”

Mason hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, Paul, send her down. Tell her to knock on the door of the private office and I’ll let her in.”

“A young woman, I take it,” Della Street said. “I gather Paul Drake told you she was very good-looking.”

Mason raised his eyebrows in surprise. “How did you know that? Could you hear what he said?”

Della Street laughed. “You impressionable men! She’s sold Paul Drake and now she’s selling you.”

“It’ll only be a short time,” Mason promised. “We’ll give her fifteen or twenty minutes to tell her story, and then we’ll get on with the brief.”

Della Street smiled knowingly, made it a point to close her shorthand notebook, put the cap back on her pen.

“I see,” she said demurely.

A timid knock sounded at the door of Mason’s private office.

Della Street crossed over and opened the door.

“Good morning,” she said to Norda Allison. “I’m Della Street, Mr. Mason’s secretary, and this is Mr. Mason. What’s your name, please?”

Norda Allison stood in the doorway, seemingly in something of a daze. “I’m Norda Allison,” she said, “from San Francisco. I... oh, I’m so sorry to bother you this morning. Mr. Drake told me you were working behind closed doors on a most important matter, but... well, I’d always heard that if anyone got into trouble — that is, real serious trouble, Mr. Mason was the man to see, and...”

Her voice trailed away into silence.

Della Street, giving the visitor the benefit of a swift and professional appraisal, indicated her approval. “Come in, Miss Allison. Mr. Mason is very busy, but if you can tell your story just as succinctly as possible, perhaps he can help you. Please try and be brief.”

“But give us all the facts,” Mason warned.

Norda Allison seated herself, said, “Are you acquainted with the Selkirk family?”

“The Selkirks?” Mason asked. “Horace Livermore Selkirk?”

She nodded.

“He owns about half the city down here,” Mason said dryly. “What about him?”

“I was engaged to his son, Mervin.”

Mason frowned. “Mervin is in San Francisco, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “I’m from San Francisco.”

“All right, go ahead,” Mason said, “tell us what happened.”

She said, “Mervin has been married before. His wife, Lorraine, is now married to Barton Jennings. There was one child of the first marriage, Robert. I am very fond of him and I was, of course, fond of Mervin.”

Mason nodded.

Swiftly, Norda told Mason of her experiences with Mervin Selkirk, of her trip to Los Angeles, of spending the night at the Jennings’ house.

“I take it something happened at the house last night that upset you?” Mason asked.

She nodded. “I was nervous. I went to bed and took a sleeping pill. The doctor told me this campaign of sending me newspaper clippings was doing me more harm than I realized. He gave me some quieting pills to take at night when I felt on edge.

“Last night, after I found out what Lorraine really wanted, I was terribly upset. When that first pill didn’t quiet my nerves, I got up and took another. That really did the trick.”

Mason watched her shrewdly. “Something happened during the night?” he asked.

She nodded. “It was this morning. However, I did think I heard — a shot in the night.”

“A shot?” Mason asked.

She nodded. “At least I thought it was a shot. I started to get up, and then I heard a boy crying. I guess that must have been Robert, but that second sleeping pill really laid me out. I kept thinking I should get up, but put off doing so, and then I guess I just went back to sleep.”

“All right,” Mason said. “What happened when you finally wakened?”

“It was this morning, really early — I guess it must have been before six o’clock. I got up and there was no one around the house. I dressed and walked downstairs and opened the front door. I walked back to the patio. Robert’s tent was there, the flaps of the tent were open. There was a camp cot inside with a sleeping bag, but the tent was empty. Robert had left for his camping trip. The dog went with him.”

“What happened?” Mason asked. “Please tell me what upset you.”

“I saw an envelope on the grass under the cot in the tent,” she said. “It was an envelope exactly the same as the ones I had been receiving. My name was printed on it. Robert had started a letter to me.”

She opened her purse, handed Mason a sheet of paper which had words penciled on it in a childish scrawl:

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “Go on. What did you do after you found this envelope?”

Her lips tightened. “The stamp was uncanceled. My name and address were printed on it. It was exactly the same as the envelopes I had been receiving. Robert’s letter said he had found it in the basement. I tiptoed to the back door. There was a flight of stairs from the porch leading down to a rumpus room. Back of the rumpus room was a storeroom... well, it was there I found it.”

“Found what?”

“The printing press.”

“Do you mean the printing press that had been used to print the envelopes that you had been receiving in the mail?”

She nodded. “My name and my San Francisco address were still set in type on the press. The press was really a good grade of printing press, not just a toy. It had a round steel plate on top and there was printer’s ink on this plate. Every time the handle was depressed, the rubber rollers would move over this inked table and the table would make a part of a revolution. Then the rollers would go down over the type and back out of the way, and the envelope or paper would be pushed up against the type.”

“You examined the press?” Mason asked.

“Of course I looked at it. As I said, I’d been trying to find a printing press of that sort. After I’d complained to the postal authorities and... and it turned out Robert’s mother had given the child a press of that sort to play with and it was still in San Francisco... Of course, I went ahead and made the natural assumption that the envelopes had been printed on that press. That’s typical of the way Mervin loves to play with people.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Tell me about the press you found this morning.”

“Well, this press had been freshly used. The ink was still sticky on it.”

“How do you know?”

She looked at the tip of her middle finger. “I touched it and fresh ink came off on my finger.”

“Then what?” Mason asked.

“Then,” she said, “I looked a little further and there was a box with a lot of freshly printed envelopes, the same kind of stamped envelopes that had been used in forwarding those threatening clippings to me. Don’t you see? It’s Lorraine Jennings who is back of all this. She has been trying to poison my mind against Mervin so I would cooperate in giving testimony when she tried to get full custody of Robert.”

“Now wait a minute,” Mason said. “You’re all mixed up. First you’re talking about Mervin’s diabolical ingenuity in having a printing press that would throw the authorities off the trail, and now you’re making it appear that the whole thing was Lorraine Jennings’ idea.”

Norda thought that over for a moment, then said, “I guess I am confused, but... but whether I’m confused or not, I’m right. Now I suppose you’ll say that sounds just like a woman — I don’t care if you do — there are other things.”

“All right,” Mason said. “What are they?”

She said, “I know that a shot was fired during the night. I heard it.”

“You might have heard a truck backfire.”

“I heard a shot,” she said, “and after that there was a sound of a boy crying. It must have been Robert. A woman was trying to comfort him. When I... well, when I went to the tent and looked around, I found an empty cartridge case, the kind that is ejected from a .22 automatic, lying there on the grass.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I picked it up.”

“Where is it now?”

“I have it here.”

She opened her purse, took out the empty .22 cartridge case and handed it to Mason.

The lawyer looked it over, smelted it then placed the empty cartridge case upright on the desk. “Did you take anything else?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Some of the envelopes that had been printed with my name on them. I took two of them out of the box.”

She took two folded stamped envelopes from her purse and handed them to Mason.

Mason studied the printed address. “Well,” he said, “that’s your name printed on there, and the address I assume is accurate?”

She nodded.

“And you think those are the same envelopes that...”

“I’m sure of it, Mr. Mason. I have here one of the envelopes which came through the mail with one of the newspaper clippings.”

She handed him another envelope.

Mason compared the envelopes for a moment, then shook out the newspaper clipping which had been contained in the envelope. It had headlines, JILTED SUITOR KILLS WOMAN.

The clipping had a New York dateline and told of a jilted suitor who had waited until his ex-fiancée, who had become engaged to another man, had left the place where she was working. It was the lunch hour. He had accosted the woman on a crowded sidewalk. Frightened, the woman had turned to flee. The man had drawn a revolver, fired four shots into her, then as she lay dying on the sidewalk in front of a crowd of horror-stricken spectators, he had turned the gun on himself and blown his brains out.

Mason took a magnifying glass and compared the printing on the envelope that had been mailed, with the printing on the stamped, addressed envelope that Norda Allison had handed him.

“They seem to be the same, all right,” Mason said thoughtfully. “What did you do after you made this discovery, Miss Allison?”

She said, “I suppose I was a coward. I should have gone in and confronted them with the evidence but I was so disgusted at their double-crossing and... and I was a little frightened... I guess in a way I lost my head.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t go through the house. I walked back out into the patio, around through the gate, into the front door which I had left unlocked, tiptoed up to the room where I had been sleeping, packed my suitcase and came downstairs. There was a telephone in the hall and I called a taxicab.”

“You didn’t encounter anyone in the house?”

“No one. I think they were all sleeping.”

“What did you do after you took the taxicab?”

“I went to the Millbrae Hotel, registered, got a room, had breakfast and — well, at first I intended just to catch the first plane back to San Francisco. Then I kept thinking that... I can’t explain the apprehension that I have, Mr. Mason, the feeling that something is impending that... I think they’re intending to say I... I did something... I have that feeling.”

“All right,” Mason said. “There may or may not be any reason for it but there’s only one thing for you to do.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Strike first,” Mason told her. “When you’re worried and apprehensive, assume the offensive. No one knows that you found this printing press or the envelopes?”

She shook her head. “I’m certain they don’t. They were either asleep or else they had both gone with Robert to start him on his trip. There were no noises at all in the house. They told me to sleep as late as I could, that they’d call me in time to go see the lawyer.”

Mason thought the situation over.

“Well, anyway there’s the printing press and the stamped, addressed envelopes,” he said. “That’s one clue we can accept as a tangible fact — that is, if you’re being completely truthful with me.”

“I am. What are you going to do?”

“Call the postal inspectors. In the meantime we’ll see that nothing happens to that printing press,” Mason said. “Then we’re going to let Lorraine Jennings explain how those threatening letters came to you in the mail.”

“I thought that’s what I should do,” she said. “But it seemed so... so abrupt. I thought perhaps I should ask them for an explanation. I thought perhaps you could call them and—”

“And by that time the evidence would be destroyed,” Mason said. “No, we’ll go out there and pick up that evidence right now, and then Mrs. Jennings can explain how she happened to be sending you those letters.”

“Do I have to go along to show the officers where it is?”

“You have to go,” Mason told her, “and I’m going with you. We’ll get there before the officers.”

Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, thank you, thank you!” she exclaimed. “Thank you so much, Mr. Mason, you’re... you’re wonderful.”