The Case of the Demure Defendant

Chapter Five

Hermann Korbel, the consulting chemist, wore a black skull cap on his high forehead, beneath which bright, twinkling eyes peered out from behind thick-lensed glasses. His full-moon face beaming with cordiality, he extended a hand in warm greeting to Perry Mason.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “It has been a long time since I have done work for you, no?”

“Not so very long,” Mason said. “A couple of years.”

“Too long. And what is it this time?”

Mason said, “Mr. Korbel, this is Arthur Felton. Arthur Felton has something he found. I’d like to have him tell you in his own words where he found it.”

“Yes, yes,” Korbel said, leaning forward. “And what have you, my little friend?”

Arthur Felton was just a little frightened but his voice was firm. Events had been moving fast for him and he was trying his best to take them in his stride.

“I and some other boys were swimming up at Twomby’s Lake,” he said, “and Mr. Mason came along and said he thought somebody had thrown a bottle off the end of the pier and he wanted us to find it.

“He gave us five dollars apiece to swim out and dive and the one who found it was to get twenty dollars.

“I dove down the seventh time, found it and got the twenty dollars.”

“And where’s the bottle?” Mason asked.

“I have it right here.”

“You took it out of the water with you?”

“Yes.”

“And where has it been ever since that time?”

“Right here in my hand.”

“You stopped at your home with me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And dried off and changed your clothes, that is, you got out of your swimming trunks and into your clothes?”

“Yes, sir, that’s right.”

“During all of that time what did you do with the bottle?”

“I had it right where you told me to keep it.”

“Where?”

“Right in my hand, right here.”

“That’s right. Now I want that bottle fixed so you’ll know it again.”

Mason glanced at Hermann Korbel.

Korbel reached in a drawer, took out a flask of colorless liquid and a small camel’s-hair brush. “Don’t get any of this on you,” he warned.

“Now then, my young friend,” Korbel said, “this flask has acid in it. Be very careful not to get any on your skin. Just dip the brush in here very carefully, bring it out gently, turn it around against the neck of the flask until you’ve got most of the acid out — just like that — let the brush smooth itself to a fine point — now we turn up this glass bottle and you write something on it — on the very bottom of this bottle you mark something, a figure, an initial, something you can remember, right on the bottom of the bottle.”

The boy marked the initials A. F. on the bottom of the bottle.

The acid turned the bottom of the bottle a milky white.

“Now, Korbel,” Mason said to the chemist, “if you’ll etch your own initials on that bottle so that you can always recognize it, I’d like to have you tell me what’s in it.”

“One thing I can tell you that’s in it — lead shot are in it.”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “What are the other things?”

“Some kind of white pills.”

“Find out what they are.”

“How soon?”

“Just as fast as you can.”

“And how do I reach you?”

“I’ll be telephoning you every hour until we find out.”

“In a matter of hours one can’t find out.”

“Perhaps if one is lucky?”

“If one is very lucky, yes.”

“Then,” Mason told him, “you’d better be very lucky because we haven’t much time.”

Mason drove Arthur Felton back to his home, detoured around the block, making certain no one was following him, then drove to Della Street’s apartment.

He rang the doorbell.

Della Street flung the door open.

“Any news?” she asked breathlessly.

“Some,” Mason said noncommittally.

Dr. Denair got up and came forward. “Perry, these damn laws of yours — they make me feel like a criminal.”

“Not the laws,” Mason said, “the police.”

Nadine Farr came forward to give Mason her hand. “I’ve made trouble for all of you, haven’t I?”

Mason grinned. “Trouble is my middle name. Della, Dr. Denair and I are going out to your kitchen for a private conference. You sit here with Miss Farr.”

Della regarded him anxiously. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

Mason said, “We’re making progress, Della — and other people may make progress. At the present time we’re one jump ahead.”

He motioned to Dr. Denair, led the way into Della Street’s kitchenette.

Dr. Denair said, “Mason, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. This girl isn’t one to commit murder. She didn’t—”

“You think there was no poison?” Mason interrupted.

“No,” Dr. Denair said slowly, “I think there was poison, but there was no murder.”

“Explain that more fully,” Mason said.

“I have not yet got all of the facts,” Dr. Denair said. “In dealing with a patient of this sort it is necessary to proceed slowly. One must win her confidence, then probe gently, gently, gently, but steadily, until it all comes out.

“Now when this girl came to my office today she was ready to talk. Unfortunately this other development made for complications. I had to talk with her in the taxicab. That was the devil of a place for a professional conversation. The information I got was necessarily very sketchy.”

“But you got some?” Mason asked.

Dr. Denair nodded.

“Okay,” Mason said, “shoot.”

“Nadine Farr was in love with John Locke. In some way that I haven’t as yet found out, Mosher Higley put his foot down on that match. He insisted that Nadine Farr must disappear, that she must go away, that she must never again communicate with John Locke.”

“He was related to her?”

“She called him her uncle. It was a courtesy title. There was no blood relationship. She was living with him prior to his death, taking care of him, nursing him. He was a sick man.”

“How old?” Mason asked.

“In the sixties.”

“Any romantic entanglements — I mean with Nadine?”

“Definitely not! They hated each other.”

“How long had she been with him?”

“About two years prior to his death.”

“All right, what happened?”

“He had some hold on her. I have not as yet found out what it was. It may be necessary to examine her once more under the influence of narcotics. I should have followed up the lead that she gave me during that first examination. I would have done so if I had been absolutely confident of my nurse, but I didn’t like the expression on her face. She is engaged to be married. Her future husband is a police detective.”

“Oh-oh!” Mason exclaimed.

“Exactly,” Dr. Denair commented dryly. “Now then, Perry, here’s the story. Mosher Higley was cruel, overbearing, obstinate and obdurate. He gave Nadine a deadline. She must disappear and never communicate with John Locke again. The poor girl couldn’t take it and decided to kill herself. She got cyanide tablets.”

“Where did she get them?”

“Strangely enough,” Dr. Denair said, “she got them from, or rather through, John Locke, the young man she loved.”

“How come?”

“Locke is a chemist. He works in a chemical laboratory. One night shortly before Higley’s death she had a date with young Locke. Locke found that he had to work that night. He took her up to the laboratory. He showed her around, as a young man would, and she was interested in where he worked, as a young woman naturally would be under those circumstances.

“At the laboratory, Locke was busy so he warned her about certain bottles, particularly he warned her about a jar of small white tablets. They contained cyanide of potassium. They were, of course, deadly. He told her so she wouldn’t go lifting lids and smelling.

“Locke, of course, had no way of knowing that the girl was desperate. Higley had given her a deadline of forty-eight hours, during which time she had to disappear completely, stepping out of Locke’s life for good.”

Mason said, “Higley must have had terrific power over her. Any idea what it was?”

“Probably she has a past.”

“She seems a nice kid,” Mason said.

“You can’t tell. You should hear some of the stories I have heard from these young girls.”

“Oh, I know,” Mason said, impatiently. “Times change. There are different standards of personal conduct now from those you used to have, but regardless of what she has or hasn’t done she looks sweet, fresh — dammit, she looks like a nice kid.”

Dr. Denair said, “She probably is a nice girl according to your standards and to mine, but one never knows. Perhaps—” He broke off and shrugged his shoulders.

“All right, go ahead,” Mason said. “Give me the background.”

“Mosher Higley was a sick man. He was confined to his room. He had been a very obese man. He was taking off weight rapidly in accordance with the doctor’s orders. He was on a strict diet but he didn’t always adhere to that diet. He cheated when he thought he could get away with it.

“One of the things he craved was hot chocolate. He had sense enough to know that he couldn’t continue drinking hot chocolate while he was trying to take off weight, but he worked out an expedient that seemed to be satisfactory. He used unsweetened chocolate, mixed it with a dried milk powder, and put in several tablets of a chemical sugar substitute. Nadine cooked the stuff for him. She kept this unsweetened chocolate and the sugar substitute concealed in the kitchen underneath certain shelves in an obscure corner.

“Now Nadine Farr was desperate. She was going to commit suicide. John Locke had showed her the jar of poison tablets. She wanted that poison. She waited for the right opportunity when John was busy in another part of the laboratory, dipped into the poison jar and put a whole handful of those tablets into her handkerchief. She knotted the handkerchief and put it in her coat pocket. When she got home she thought at first she would take the tablets immediately, but Higley had given her a forty-eight hour deadline. She decided that she would squeeze every ounce of happiness she could out of life, that she would wait until the last minute, that she would see John Locke as frequently as possible during those forty-eight hours.

“So we have the spectacle of this young woman, very much in love, preparing to kill herself. She needed a bottle for the cyanide tablets. She had no bottle but there was an empty bottle in the kitchen which had contained this sugar substitute.

“So she took this empty bottle, put the cyanide tablets in it, and placed the bottle in her room.”

“Then what?” Mason asked, his voice showing some skepticism.

“Then,” Dr. Denair said, “she saw John Locke every minute of the time she could. Came the morning of the fatal day. Her time was up at seven o’clock that night. Shortly before noon Higley reminded her of the deadline. He also ordered a cup of chocolate. She went down to the kitchen and prepared it for him.

“She brought the chocolate to him. He drank it, suddenly started to choke. He looked up at her and said, ‘You damn little bitch. I should have known it. You’ve poisoned me!’ He tried to shout but made only an inarticulate gurgling sound. He groped for the electric bell which summoned the nurse. The cup, with the remaining chocolate in it, fell from his hand to the floor and was broken. He clawed for the bell, had a spasm, fell back on the bed, then got back to a sitting position, grabbed the bell.

“By the time the nurse got there, which took a few minutes because Nadine was taking over during the noon hour, Higley was unable to speak. Nadine rushed to the phone and called the doctor.

“The doctor came, pronounced Higley dead, and signed a death certificate giving the cause of death as coronary thrombosis. The spilled chocolate was mopped up. The broken cup was thrown out. Higley was buried.

“Nadine Farr took the first opportunity to rush to her room and look for the bottle of cyanide tablets. They were gone. In a panic she hurried down to the kitchen. She found two bottles. The nearly full bottle of sugar substitute was toward the back of the shelf. Another bottle, apparently containing the cyanide tablets she had stolen from the laboratory, had been placed in front of that other bottle. Someone had engineered things very neatly so that she had killed Mosher Higley.”

“And so she took the bottle of cyanide tablets and disposed of it?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. She slipped the bottle of cyanide in her purse. She felt certain that the doctor was going to find that Mosher Higley had been poisoned. She was on the verge of confessing everything but fortunately decided to wait because she was afraid it might make trouble for John Locke if she told about the tablets.

“The doctor gave her a sedative and put her to sleep. When she wakened she found that the doctor and the nurses all believed Higley had died a natural death. It seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to her.

“Higley had a gun room. Before he was taken sick he used to do quite a bit of hunting. There were guns hanging in racks on the walls and shelves containing ammunition. So Nadine went into this room, used a small pair of long-nosed pliers to pull back the wadding on two shotgun shells. She dumped the shot from the shells into the bottle. That afternoon she took the bottle out to Twomby’s Lake and—”

“How did she know about that lake?” Mason asked.

“It’s a place where young couples go to neck. She and John Locke had been out there from time to time. It’s sort of a lover’s lane affair. She threw the bottle out as far as she could throw it.

“But, of course, Nadine Farr was tortured by conscience. Her instinct told her to keep quiet. Her conscience told her to speak.

“So she built up an internal emotional conflict which had unfortunate repercussions. She couldn’t sleep. She became nervous, jittery. She lost her appetite, lost weight, became apprehensive, worried, and ill. John Locke insisted that she consult a physician. She consulted a general practitioner, who referred her to me.

“There you have the story.”

“And what a hell of a story,” Mason said.

“What do you mean by that crack?”

“Look at it the way a jury would,” Mason said. “She has told you that she hated Mosher Higley, that Higley hated her, that she poisoned him and threw the poison in the lake. That was when she was under the influence of drugs in a so-called truth serum test.

“Now it appears that Mosher Higley had the power to wreck her romance. Apparently he possessed information so sinister that she didn’t dare to stand up and fight for her rights. He told her she had to disappear, to give up the man she loved. He gave her a deadline of forty-eight hours. Before that deadline was up Mosher Higley met his death. He was poisoned. He was poisoned by the girl’s hand. The poison that was used was cyanide which she had stolen from the laboratory where her fiancé worked. Higley’s dying words accused the girl of poisoning him. She knew what she had done. She took the remnants of the poison, weighted the bottle with shot, drove out to Twomby’s Lake and threw the bottle away.”

“Well, when you look at it that way it sounds pretty bad,” Dr. Denair admitted. “But, hang it, Mason, I’m inclined to believe the girl.”

“Unfortunately,” Mason told him, “I can’t get you on the jury.”

“You put it that way and it sounds bad,” Dr. Denair admitted.

“It is bad,” Mason said. “We may as well face it. Della keeps some Scotch out here. Let’s have a good double Scotch-on-the-rocks and then go in and take our medicine.”

Dr. Denair said, “I don’t know as we have to take any medicine. We were investigating the case and—”

“I’m afraid,” Mason said, “it’s a little more of a jam than you may think it is, Bert.”

“How come?”

“When I got your telephone call and realized the urgency of the matter I knew that the whole case would stand or fall upon one thing.”

“What was that?” Dr. Denair asked.

“Whether there could be any corroborating evidence. Whether that bottle of poison could be recovered.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Dr. Denair said. “They could use divers and—”

“So,” Mason interrupted, “I dashed out to Twomby’s Lake. I found some boys swimming out there. I had them explore the sandy bottom out from the boat landing. I had four boys making a series of dives out there. The water is about ten feet deep. It’s a sandy bottom. The lake is, of course, placid. It isn’t big enough to have enormous waves, even in a storm. I felt that if these boys couldn’t find any such bottle we would be reasonably safe in assuming the police couldn’t find it — then there wouldn’t have been any case.”

“A splendid idea,” Dr. Denair said. “I hand it to you for quick thinking, Mason. After all, that’s our best bet. We’ll sit tight and—”

“No we won’t,” Mason said. “We found the bottle!”

“The devil!”

“That’s right.”

“And where is it now?”

Mason said, “I’ve rushed it in to Hermann Korbel, the consulting chemist.”

“He’s a good man,” Dr. Denair interpolated.

Mason nodded. “One of the best in the profession. I wanted him to find out what was in the bottle. Now then, in view of the story your patient has told you, there isn’t much we can do. We now know it’s poison.”

“Look here,” Dr. Denair said, “you found that bottle. Couldn’t you simply dispose of it, take it out to the ocean somewhere, toss it—?”

“Not a chance,” Mason said. “It’s a crime to conceal or destroy significant evidence. Moreover, I had to take precautions to see that the bottle could be identified. Remember I had four kids out there diving for a bottle. When the bottle was recovered I had to disclose my name and identity. I had to take the young fellow who discovered it to Hermann Korbel. In order to get him to go with me I had to reassure him by taking him to the home of his parents and identifying myself. He changed out of a wet bathing suit into his clothes. I’ve left a back trail as broad as a boulevard. It was the only thing to do.”

“I guess we need that drink all right,” Dr. Denair said. “Where’s the Scotch?”

Mason said, “She keeps it up here in this cupboard.”

The lawyer opened the cupboard door, found a bottle of Scotch and produced two glasses. He took ice cubes from the refrigerator, poured out two good stiff drinks, said, “Well, lets enjoy life while we can. We’re going to have some explaining to do.”

“Of course,” Dr. Denair said, “I was following the course that you suggested. We were simply trying to verify the statement this young woman made.”

“Exactly,” Mason said, “and now that we have it verified, there’s only one thing for me to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Go to the police, tell them that I uncovered this piece of corroborative evidence, that I placed it in the hands of Hermann Korbel.”

“They’ll give you the devil,” Dr. Denair said.

“Of course they will,” Mason told him.

“They’ll claim that you were intending to suppress the evidence.”

“That’s where I’ll fool them. That’s where my leaving a wide back trail is to my advantage.”

“Well, let’s hope you can get away with it,” Dr. Denair said.

“I don’t give a damn whether I get away with it or not,” Mason said, “as far as the police are concerned. I want to keep my nose clean as far as the grievance committee of the Bar Association is concerned and as far as a jury in a criminal court is concerned.”

“What do I do?” Dr. Denair asked.

“You, Della Street and Nadine Farr wait right here until you hear from me,” Mason said. “I’m going up to police headquarters and beat them to the punch.”

“I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes,” Dr. Denair said.

Mason shrugged. “They pinch a little, Bert. Well, here’s looking at you.”

“Down the hatch,” Dr. Denair said.

Mason said, “We have one chance, and only one chance. It’s about one in a million.”

“What’s that?”

“That Hermann Korbel has found out what’s in the tablets and so I can make a grandstand play by having him telephone the police telling them that I instructed him to report immediately to the police as soon as he had discovered the nature of the tablets and that I’m on my way to police headquarters.”

Mason reached through the swinging door to the kitchen, said, “We’re raiding your Scotch, Della, and I want to use the telephone.”

“The cord is long enough so you can take it out in the kitchenette,” she told him.

“Could I have a drink of that Scotch?” Nadine Farr asked.

Mason shook his head. “Not yet. I want you to keep all of your faculties.”

Della Street handed Mason the telephone. Mason pulled the instrument on its long cord out into the kitchenette, set it on the drainboard of the sink and dialed Hermann Korbel’s number. When he heard the chemist’s voice on the phone, he said, “Perry Mason. Any progress yet?”

Korbel was so excited that for a moment he lapsed into German. “Ja, ja,” he said.

“Hey, what’s the excitement?” Mason asked.

“The police.”

“The police?” Mason echoed, dismay in his voice. “What about the police?”

“They have been here.”

“What did they do?”

“They took the bottle.”

“Oh-oh!” Mason exclaimed.

“All of the bottle, the pills, the shot, the evidence.”

“How did they know anything about it?”

“I think they have gone to the lake. They have learned that you had divers to get a bottle. They found the parents of the boy who had the bottle. They located the boy. They work fast, those police.”

“I’ll say they work fast,” Mason said. “And they took everything away from you?”

“Everything except one small bit of a tablet which already I had crushed. That they don’t know about.”

“Enough for an analysis?” Mason asked.

“Not for the best analysis, but enough to tell perhaps what the substance is.”

“Cyanide?” Mason asked.

“As yet I do not know what it is. If you think it is cyanide, that I can soon find out. But the police are looking for you.”

“Yes, I imagine,” Mason said. “Okay, I’ll call you back.”

Mason hung up the phone, turned to Dr. Denair. “All right, the fat’s in the fire,” he said. “The police went out to Twomby’s Lake. They must have arrived there not too long after I left. They found I had divers looking for the bottle, that we had located it and that I had taken it away. They learned the name of the boy who had found the bottle. They went to his home. His parents told the police about my having been there. Police located the boy, Arthur Felton. He must have told them about Hermann Korbel. Police used the phone and radio cars. They swooped down on Korbel and nailed the evidence.

“Now we’re in a fix. Now that police know that I’m involved and that I’m protecting Nadine Farr, they’ll know at once that the probabilities are that she’s with Della Street. They’ll start looking for Della—”

“You mean they’re coming here?”

“Probably they’re on their way now,” Mason said.

“What do we do?”

Mason said, “We get out. I don’t want Nadine Farr to become a fugitive from justice. On the other hand, I don’t want her questioned until I’ve had a chance to talk with her, and I can’t waste a second now.”

Mason kicked open the swinging door from the kitchenette, said, “We have to leave. Get your things.”

Della Street looked at him apprehensively. “Is it—?”

“It is,” Mason interposed.

“Come,” Della Street said to Nadine Farr. “No, you haven’t time to powder your nose. This is an emergency.”

“What’s happened?” she asked, getting to her feet. “Can’t we wait and—”

“We can’t wait,” Della Street said, pushing her toward the door.

They were out of the apartment within a matter of seconds. Mason glanced apprehensively about as they crossed the lobby.

“Do we all go in one car?” Dr. Denair asked.

Mason shook his head. “We go in separate cars, and we go fast.”

“Where do we go?” Dr. Denair asked.

Mason said, “We want to be certain that there is nothing in what we are doing that indicates flight. Bert, you make a round of the clinics. Be hard to find, but make certain you’re not placed in the position of running away from anything.

“Della, you and Nadine take your car. Drop Dr. Denair at the first place where you encounter a taxicab. Then you and Nadine drive to the High-Tide Motel at the beach. You get two units. Register under your own names.”

“And what about you?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned. “I understand the police are looking for me. I always believe in co-operating with the police.”

“Are you going to let them find you?”

“With luck I’m going to be at police headquarters before they can release any story to the newspapers.”

“Wouldn’t it be more dignified if they talked with you in your office, Perry?”

“Dignity, hell!” Mason exclaimed. “I’ll be lucky to get out of this without an indictment.”