The Case of the Drowning Duck

Chapter 10

Lois Witherspoon came to the door of the big house as Mason rang the bell at the outer gate. The dogs, setting up an uproar at the sound of the bell, came running into the oblong shaft of brilliance which was thrown out from the hallway and against which the slim figure of the girl was silhouetted.

A moment later she turned on the switch which flooded the area in front of the iron gate with brilliance.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Mason. King — Prince — Be quiet! I haven’t a key. I don’t know where the watchman is... Oh, here he is. Pedro, open the gate for Mr. Mason.”

A somewhat sleepy-eyed Mexican servant fitted a key in the huge lock, and said, “Wait one moment, señor, until I fasten the dogs.”

“It won’t be necessary,” Mason said, opening the door.

The dogs rushed toward him, the circled as Mason walked calmly toward the house. The younger dog jumped up and placed his forepaws on Mason’s arm. The older dog trotted along quietly at the lawyer’s side. Both had upright wagging tails.

Lois Witherspoon said, “Eventually, they get acquainted with the guests, but you’re breaking all speed records.”

“They’re nice dogs,” Mason said. “Peculiar thing about canine psychology. They hurl a challenge at you, and you stand still and look at them, and, as we lawyers say, ‘the issue is joined.’ You keep right on going about your business, and show absolutely no fear, and almost any dog is inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your father in?”

“Why, no. Didn’t you see him?”

“No.”

“I understood from the servants he left just a few minutes after you did. I believe he said there was something he wanted to see you about, and that he’d catch you before you got to town. I wasn’t here.”

Mason circled her slender waist, pulled her to one side, kicked the door shut. While she was still startled, he asked, “Do you know a Leslie L. Milter?”

“Why, no.”

“Anyone been trying to blackmail you?”

“Me? Good heavens, no!”

“You’ve been out. Where were you?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Lots. Don’t stall. We haven’t time. Seconds are precious. Where were you?”

“I went into town — wanted to do an errand — and to see Marvin before he left.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. I caught him at the depot.”

“I didn’t see you there.”

“You wouldn’t. We were around by the express shed on the far side.”

“How long before the train came in?”

“I got there about ten minutes before train time. Marvin came about a minute or two after I got there.”

“You were in the dark there, saying good-by?”

“Yes.”

“And what else?”

“What do you mean?”

“What was the reason you said good-by to him here, and then went rushing into town?”

She met his eyes. He could feel her muscles stiffen under his arm. “I wanted him to drive me to Yuma — and marry me.”

“When?”

“Tonight — now — at once.”

“He wouldn’t do it?”

“No.”

Mason said, “That’s better. He had a little duck when he left here. Talk fast and keep your voice low.”

“Yes, he did.”

“What did he do with it?”

She said nervously, “Why, he... he picked the duck up and asked if he could borrow it for a day or two. He promised to return it. Said he wanted to perform that experiment for a friend.”

“Where did he get it?”

“From out in the compound. There’s a mother duck and a brood of young ones... I don’t know what he finally did with it. He didn’t have it with him at the train... I had forgotten about it.”

Mason said, “Now listen, get this straight. Get out into the compound with a flashlight. I don’t care what excuse you make. Pretend you’re looking for one of the servants, or that you saw someone prowling around the place. Take one of the dogs with you on a leash. Get another young duck out of that same batch.”

“I...” she broke off as the dogs started barking once more.

Mason glanced out through the diamond-shaped window in the door. “Another car,” he said.

“Father!” she exclaimed as Witherspoon called to the dogs and they ceased barking.

“Get out through the patio,” Mason said. “Get that duck. Get into town. You’ll find the car Marvin was driving parked at the curb in front of the house where he has his room. It’s unlocked. Slip the duck into the back of the car — under the footrail. Mind you now, not in the front. In the back, under the footrail — and get back here as soon as you can make it.”

She sucked in a quick breath. “Can you tell me what...”

“No,” Mason said. “There isn’t time, and don’t tell anyone, including your father, about that drowning business. Now, get busy.”

She turned wordlessly, running lightly as Witherspoon’s steps came pounding down the corridor.

Mason turned and said casually, “Hello. Understand you were out looking for me.”

Witherspoon said, “My God, Mason, did you hear what happened?”

“About Milter?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “I was there when the officers got in the place.”

“It’s terrible... I want to talk with you. Come on down to my study. Mason, we’re in a terrible predicament.”

“What do you mean?”

“I... hang it, you know as well as I do what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I don’t get you.”

Witherspoon said, “You remember I told you that Marvin Adams had a duck with him when he left here.”

“Yes.”

“That duck was in Milter’s living room in a goldfish bowl.”

“Same duck?” Mason asked.

“Absolutely. I identified it.”

“What’s his name?” the lawyer inquired as Witherspoon led the way down the corridor.

Witherspoon turned with a quick, jerking motion. “The detective?” he asked. “Milter, Leslie L. Milter.”

“No, the duck.”

Witherspoon stopped walking. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“The duck’s name,” Mason said, taking a cigarette calmly from his cigarette case.

“Good God, the duck doesn’t have a name! He’s a young duck. Duck. D-u-c-k. A young bird. A little duckling.”

“I understand,” Mason said.

Witherspoon, apparently under terrific nervous tension, knitted his brows together. There was an angry glint in his eye. “Then what the hell do you mean by asking what the duck’s name was? Ducks don’t have names.”

“You identified him as being the same duck that Marvin Adams took away with him,” Mason pointed out.

Witherspoon thought that over for a moment, then completed his journey down the corridor, and unlocked the door of his den and clicked on the light. Mason snapped a match into flame with a quick motion of his thumb, lit the cigarette, and shook out the flame.

Witherspoon said, “This is a hell of a time to be funny.”

“Isn’t it?” Mason agreed.

Witherspoon’s den was a huge room, furnished with mission-type furniture. There were paintings of bucking horses in action, of cowboys galloping after steers. There were mounted heads on the wall, rifles suspended from pegs, six-shooters in worn, shiny holsters hanging from well-filled cartridge belts. A pottery bowl was filled with rattles cut from rattlesnakes. The walls of the room were knotty pine; and over and around the big fireplace at the far end of the room some of the more famous brands of Western history had been burnt into the wooden wall.

Worried as he was, the old pride of ownership asserted itself. Witherspoon said, “This is where I come when I want to get away from everything. I even have a bunk over there where I can sleep. I’m the only person who has a key to this room. Not even Lois — or the servants — can unlock that door, except when I have someone in here to clean. Those are some very nice Navajo rugs there on the floor. Now sit down, and tell me what the devil you were trying to do about that duck — kid me?”

Witherspoon flung open a cabinet, disclosing a shelf of bottles and glasses. Below the shelf, cunningly concealed behind a door, was an electric icebox.

“Scotch and soda?” he asked.

“Not now,” Mason said.

Witherspoon poured a huge shot of Scotch into a glass, dropped in ice cubes, hissed in soda, and gulped down a good half of the mixture. He sat down heavily in one of the big, rawhide-backed chairs, opened a humidor, took out a cigar, bit the end off nervously, and scraped a match on the underside of the table. His hand was steady enough as he held the flame to the end of the cigar, but the ruddy glow of the match emphasized the network of worry lines about his forehead and eyes.

Mason asked, “Still want to talk about the duck?”

Witherspoon demanded irritably, “What are you getting at?”

Mason said, “Simply that when you identify a duck, you have to know that duck when you see him. There must be something about the duck to enable you to recognize it. There must be something which gives it a personality, something which distinguishes him from all other ducks.”

Witherspoon said, “Don’t be silly. I warned you this thing might happen. That damn kid is a rotter. He’s no good. This is going to be a bitter pill for Lois, but she’ll have to take it. It’s better for her to have it happen this way than after he had become one of the family.”

“The duck?” Mason asked.

“Adams,” Witherspoon shouted at him. “I’m talking about Adams. Lois has no intention of marrying a duck!”

“Did you make any comments to the police about the duck?” Mason inquired.

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“I told them it was my duck.”

“Did you tell them how it got there?”

“I told them that young Adams took it off the place with him when he left this evening,” Witherspoon said in surly defiance. “Damn it, Mason, I’m willing to go just so far to protect my daughter’s happiness, but there comes a time when you have to quit kidding yourself. As it is, there hasn’t even been an announcement of an engagement.”

“You think that Marvin Adams murdered this detective?”

“Of course he did.”

“And just what gives you that idea?”

“Do you know what killed him?” Witherspoon asked, his voice rising in excitement. “A neat little experiment in chemistry,” he rushed on, answering his own question. “Milter was out in the kitchen, apparently fixing up a drink of hot buttered rum for himself and his guest. The murderer took a small water pitcher from the cupboard, slipped it on the back of the stove, poured in some hydrochloric acid, said, ‘Well, so long, Leslie, I’ve got to be going now,’ dropped in some cyanide lumps and walked out. The gas burner was going on the stove, heating the water with sugar in it. There were two cups on the cupboard with rum and a chunk of butter in each cup. The sound of the gas jet on the stove prevented Milter from hearing any hissing noise which might have been made by the cyanide dissolving in the hydrochloric acid. The deadly gas filled the room. By the time Milter knew something was wrong, it was too late. He started for the door, and fell over dead. The gas kept burning beneath the aluminum pan in which the sugar and water were being boiled. When the water boiled away, the sugar burned, filled the room with smoke and with a peculiar odor. That’s about all that saved the officer’s life when he looked into the room. The first thing he got was a whiff of the burnt sugar and the burning pan.”

Mason said, “Very, very interesting, as far as it goes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Mason settled back in the rawhide chair, elevated his feet to a stool, and smiled at Witherspoon. “Two cups,” he said, “with rum and butter in each.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And at the very moment he fell over dead, Milter was heating the water to pour into this mixture.”

“That’s right.”

“Your idea is that the murderer simply placed the pitcher of water on the back of the stove, said, ‘So long, Leslie,’ and dropped in some cyanide.”

“Well, something like that.”

“Don’t you get it?” Mason asked. “If Milter was preparing a drink for two people, the person who dropped the cyanide in the hydrochloric acid must have been the person for whom the second drink was intended. Therefore, he would hardly have said, ‘So long, Leslie,’ and walked out — not while his drink was cooking on the stove. He must have had some excuse other than that.”

Witherspoon frowned through his blue cigar smoke, at the lawyer. “By George, that’s so.”

“And that brings us back to the duck,” Mason said. “Why did you jump at the conclusion this was your particular duck?”

“Because it is my duck. It has to be. You remember I told you young Adams had taken a duck from the ranch when he left — a bit of damned impertinence. I’m going to have to ask Lois about that. She’s got to learn the whole story sooner or later, and she may as well begin now.”

Witherspoon reached for the telephone.

Mason held up his hand. “Just a minute. Before you get Lois,” he said, “let’s talk about the duck. Now, as I understand it, you’ve already told the police that the duck came from your ranch.”

“Yes.”

“How did you know? Where was he branded?”

Witherspoon said, “Dammit, Mason, you and I can have trouble over that duck. Every time I start talking about it, you make these nasty, sneering wisecracks. You don’t brand ducks.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Hang it! Because you don’t need to.”

“You brand cattle, don’t you?” Mason inquired, indicating the wall back of the fireplace with a gesture of his hand.

“Yes, of course.”

“Why?”

“So you can tell them from your neighbor’s cattle.”

“Very interesting,” Mason said. “In China, where the families live on houseboats and raise ducks, I understand they dye the ducks different colors so they can be told apart.”

“What’s that got to do with this duck?”

“Simply this,” Mason said. “You yourself admit you have to put a brand on your steers so you can tell the difference between those and the steers of your neighbors. How, then, are you going to identify this duck as being yours, instead of one belonging to someone else?”

“You know damn well this was my duck.”

Mason said, “I’m thinking of when you get up in front of a jury. It’s going to be rather embarrassing for you personally. You’ve stuck your neck out now. You’ll say, ‘Yes, this is my duck.’ The lawyer for the prosecution will say, ‘Cross-examine,’ and the lawyer for the defense will start asking questions. What is there about this duck that you identify?”

“Well, his color and size for one thing.”

“Oh,” Mason said. “And the lawyer for the defense will ask, ‘What’s distinctive about his color and size?’”

“Well, it’s that yellowish color which young ducklings have. And he’s just the same size as the other ducklings in the brood.”

“How many in the batch?”

“Eight or nine — I’m not certain which.”

“Which one of the eight or nine is this?”

“Don’t be silly. You can’t tell that.”

“So,” Mason said, smiling, “you yourself are admitting this duck looks exactly like eight or nine other ducks of similar size and color, which you have on your place.”

“Well, what of it?”

“And that you can’t tell which of the eight or nine it is.”

“Certainly not. We don’t give them names, or baptize them.”

“And, doubtless,” Mason went on smoothly, “in other parts of the valley there are other ranches that have ducks, and it is quite possible that there are several other ranches where the young ducklings are of exactly this size, age, color, and appearance?”

“I suppose so.”

“And, if those ducklings were all brought into your compound and mixed up with your ducklings, in the absence of some brand or other marking, you couldn’t tell which were yours?”

Witherspoon puffed away on his cigar silently, but the rapidity with which the puffs of smoke were being emitted indicated the nerve tension under which he was laboring.

“So you see,” Mason went on, “you’d cut rather a sorry figure when you endeavored to identify this duck.”

“The officer said there was something wrong with the duck when he came in,” Witherspoon said. “You should know something about that.”

“Yes,” Mason said, “the duck was partially submerged. But that’s not unusual. Ducks dive, you know.”

“The officer said it looked as though — looked as though — well, it looked as though the duck were drowning.”

Mason raised his eyebrows incredulously.

“Drowning?”

“That’s what the officer said.”

“Oh, well,” Mason said, his voice showing infinite and exaggerated relief, “there’s nothing to it then. You don’t need to worry in the least.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Then you can identify your duck. You won’t have any trouble,” Mason said.

“How?”

“Why,” Mason said, his smile patronizingly superior, “your duck is distinctive. If this is your duck, you have the only duck in the entire Red River Valley, probably the only duck in the world, that can’t swim.”

Witherspoon glowered at him. “Damn it. You know what I mean. Marvin is a chemist. He’d put something in the water.”

Mason raised his eyebrows. “There was something in the water, then?”

“Yes, of course, The duck was drowning.”

“Did it drown?”

“No. It recovered — and, I believe, started to swim.”

“Then it couldn’t have been something in the water that was making the duck drown.”

“Well, then it was something about the gas that disabled him. With the room cleared out, he started to swim.”

“I see — most interesting. By the way, you have a lot of guns here, Witherspoon. I take it you do quite a bit of hunting.”

Witherspoon said, “Yes,” in the voice of a man who doesn’t care particularly about having the subject of conversation changed.

“These heads are some that you’ve bagged?”

“Yes.”

“Some nice rifles there.”

“Yes.”

“I see you have some shotguns.”

“Yes.”

“And there are other shotguns, I take it, in those cases?”

“Yes.”

“Do some trapshooting occasionally?”

“Yes.”

“There are doves down here. You shoot those?”

“Well, not doves.”

“Do some duck hunting occasionally?”

“Quite frequently.”

“Good duck hunting around here?”

“Yes.”

“When you hit a duck in the air with the center part of the charge of shot, I presume it kills him instantly.”

For a moment, the glint of enthusiasm lighted Witherspoon’s eyes. “I’ll say it does! There’s nothing that gives you more satisfaction than to make a good clean kill. You take one of these twenty-gauge guns with a good heavy load, and when you hit the duck with the center of the string of shot, he never knows what struck him. One minute, he’s flying along, and the next minute, he’s crumpled — absolutely dead.”

“Falls down in the water quite frequently?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“And how do you get them off the bottom?” Mason asked. “Do you have some sort of a drag that you drag along the bottom?”

Witherspoon’s smile was exceedingly patronizing. “For a lawyer who is supposed to be so brilliant, Mr. Mason, you certainly are ignorant about things which are more or less common knowledge.”

Mason raised his eyebrows. “Indeed!”

“Ducks don’t sink. When they’re shot, they float on the surface of the water,” Witherspoon said.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Then, the fact that this duck was being overcome by gas wouldn’t make him sink,” Mason said. “That drowning condition which the officer referred to must have been something else.”

Witherspoon, realizing the trap into which he had been led, moved forward in his chair as though preparing to get to his feet. His face turned a dark shade of reddish-purple. “Dammit, Mason,” he said, “you...” He checked himself.

“Of course,” Mason went on suavely, “I was merely trying to point out to you the position in which you have placed yourself. Rather an embarrassing position, I should say. You identified a duck to the police. Doubtless, you’ve started the police on the trail of young Adams. Have you?”

“Well, I told them about the duck and told them Adams had had it last. Well, you can draw your own conclusions. Adams went up there, and he’s pretty apt to have been the person for whom Milter was fixing the hot buttered rum.”

Mason shook his head sadly. “Too bad you’ve turned the officers loose on Adams. They’re going to arrest him for murder on no evidence other than that of the duck. The officer has said that the duck was drowning. Poor little chap. He had doubtless become very much attached to Marvin Adams, and when Adams went away and left him in the fish bowl up there at Milter’s place, the duck decided to commit suicide by drowning. I suppose all the excitement incident to the discovery of Milter’s body made him change his mind. He decided that life was, after all, worth living. He...”

“Stop it!” Witherspoon yelled. “I don’t give a damn what my arrangement is with you. I’m not going to have you sit there and treat me as though I were — as though I were—”

Mason took a deep drag at his cigarette and announced, “That is a mere foretaste of what you’ve let yourself in for. A good attorney for the defense will rip you wide open in front of a jury. If there was something in the water to have made the duck drown, he’d have gone ahead and drowned. Evidently the duck changed its mind. The lawyer who tries this case is going to get you in rather a hot spot.”

“We don’t have lawyers like that down here,”Witherspoon said, with an ugly look, “and I have some position in the community. When I say that’s my duck, my word will be taken for it. There won’t be all of this cross-examination.”

“And when the officer says the duck was drowning, the lawyers down here won’t question that statement?”

“Well,” Witherspoon said, and hesitated, then added, “Well, the officer said the duck looked as though it were drowning.”

“But no local attorney will give you a cross-examination such as I have just outlined?”

“Definitely not.”

“Why?”

“In the first place, an attorney wouldn’t think of it, and in the second place, I wouldn’t stand for it.”

“But if young Adams is charged with crime,” Mason said, “he might not be defended by a local lawyer. He might be defended by a Los Angeles lawyer.”

“What Los Angeles lawyer would take the case of a young kid of that sort who has no money, no friends, no...”

Mason took the cigarette from his mouth, locked his eyes with those of Witherspoon, and said, “I would.”

It took three or four seconds for the full effect of Mason’s remark to soak into Witherspoon’s consciousness. “You would! But you are employed by me!”

“To solve the mystery of that old murder case. Nothing was said about any other case. Could I quote you, to your daughter, for instance, as saying you have any objections?”

Witherspoon smoked nervously. “I guess I have no objection, but... well, of course, you’ll understand that I can’t be placed in an undignified position. All this business about the identification of a duck.”

Mason got to this feet. “There’s just one way to avoid that.”

“How?”

“By not identifying the duck.”

“But I already have.”

Mason said, “Call up the police and tell them, now that you’ve thought it over, you realize one duck looks very much like another, that all you can say is this duck is similar in size, color, and appearance to one which you were advised Marvin Adams took with him when he left your ranch this evening.”

Witherspoon rubbed his fingers along the angle of his jaw while he considered that suggestion. “Hang it, Mason, it’s the same duck. You can quibble as much as you want to, but you know as well as I do it’s the same duck.”

Mason smiled down at his host. “Do you want to go over all that again?” he asked.

“Good Lord, no! We don’t get anywhere with that.”

“You’d better get in touch with the police, then, and change your mind about the identification on that duck.”

Witherspoon shook his head obstinately.

Mason regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “They told me you left here shortly after I did.”

“Yes. I chased you all the way into town, but couldn’t catch you.”

“You probably passed me on the road,” Mason said. “I had a flat tire.”

Witherspoon frowned as though trying to recall some event, then said, “I don’t remember having seen any car by the side of the road. I was going pretty fast.”

“A car went past me,” Mason said, “doing about eighty.”

“That must have been where I missed you.”

“Where did you go?” Mason asked.

“To town.”

“Looking for me?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s how you happened to go to Milter’s place?”

“Yes.”

“The only reason?”

“Yes.”

“You must have been in town about thirty minutes before you went there.”

“I doubt if it was that long.”

“You didn’t go there first?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Witherspoon hesitated perceptibly, then said, “I did drive past that address as soon as I got to town. I didn’t see your car parked there, so I cruised around town for a while looking for you. I thought I saw... someone I knew. I tried to find her... I doubt if it was as much as thirty minutes.”

“Wait a minute. Let’s get this straight. You thought you saw someone you knew — a woman, but you couldn’t find her?”

“It was a case of mistaken identity. I was driving down the main street cruising around, looking for you, when I caught a glimpse of this woman, just as she was turning a corner. I’d already gone past the intersection, so I turned the corner at the next block and tried to find her by running around the block.”

“Who was this woman?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said she was a friend.”

“No. I only thought she was a friend.”

“Who?”

He hesitated a moment, then said, “Mrs. Burr.”

“It wasn’t she?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I asked the night nurse if Mrs. Burr was out. She said Mrs. Burr had gone to bed early.”

“She and her husband have separate rooms?”.

“They do now — after the accident. Before that, they occupied the same room.”

“A nurse is with Burr all the time?”

“Yes, for the present — until after he gets back to a normal state of mind.”

“What’s the matter with his mind?”

“Oh, the usual irresponsibility which follows the use of morphia in some cases. The doctor says it isn’t unusual. He got pretty flighty for a while. His leg’s tied up to a weight though a pulley in the ceiling. They caught him trying to untie the rope. He said he had to get out of there because someone was trying to kill him. The doctor says it’s a post-narcotic reaction, and that it’s all right, but he has to be watched. If he’d managed to get out of bed, he’d have got that fracture out of position and it would have had to be set all over again.”

Mason looked at his watch. “Well, I’ve got work to do.”

“Aren’t you going to stay here tonight?”

Mason shook his head, started for the door, then paused to say, “I’m telling you for the last time — ring up the police and change your identification of that duck.”