The Case of the Drowning Duck

Chapter 13

Della Street was waiting in Mason’s car outside the depot. The lawyer slid in behind the wheel.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Talk with the girl on the train?”

“Uh huh.”

“Get anything out of her?”

“More than she wanted to give — not as much as I wanted to get.”

“Was Marvin Adams on the train?”

“Uh huh.”

“I looked around to see if I could spot any plain-clothes men hanging around,” Della Street said.

Mason deftly spun the steering wheel, guiding the car out of the parking place. He flashed her an amused, sidelong glance. “Did you?” he asked.

“No.”

“What made you think you could?”

“Spot a plain-clothes man?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t they — well, aren’t they sort of typical?”

“Only in fiction,” Mason said. “Your real high-class detective is altogether too intelligent to look like a detective.”

“Was one of them there?”

“Uh huh.”

“Did he arrest the blonde from the detective agency?”

“No,” Mason said. “He arrested Marvin Adams.”

She looked at him as though she might be seeing his face for the first time. “They arrested Marvin Adams!”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t...”

“Didn’t what?” Mason asked as she paused, groping for words.

“Didn’t stay to help him out?”

“How could I help him out?”

“By telling him not to talk.”

Mason shook his head.

“I thought that was one of the reasons you were so anxious to get on the train.”

“It was.”

“Come on, loosen up, stingy,” she chided. “Don’t be like that!”

Mason said, “As it happens, the best thing he can do is to go ahead and tell his story in his own way. Just so he leaves out one particular thing, and I’ve already arranged for that.”

“What’s that thing?” Della Street asked.

Mason took the letter from his pocket, and handed it to her. She read it while Mason was guiding the car through the early morning city traffic.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Nine hundred and ninety-nine chances out of a thousand, it means Gridley P. Lahey is a purely fictitious individual. The telephone number will probably be that of some large department store or some factory which employs several hundred or more workers.”

“Then it means that...”

“That the murder was premeditated,” Mason said, “that it was worked out to a split second in its timing. Whoever did it planned things deliberately so that Marvin Adams would take the rap.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Lots of things. Among others, it means that the search for the murderer can be narrowed into a very small circle.”

“How?”

“In the first place,” Mason said, “Marvin Adams was picked for a particular reason. That reason is that the person who picked him knew something Marvin doesn’t know himself.”

“You mean about his past?”

“That’s right. That person must have known about Marvin’s father, must have known that Milter had been working on the case.”

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Yes. It means the person knew about the experiment of the drowning duck.”

“What else?”

Mason said, “This is something that puzzles me. He knew somehow that the duck that was left in Milter’s apartment was going to be identified. Now, how did he know that?”

“He must have known that Witherspoon was going in to El Templo.”

“Witherspoon himself apparently didn’t know that until after I’d started. It was something he did on impulse unless...”

“Unless what?” she asked.

Mason’s lips tightened. “Unless the whole thing was deliberately planned in just that way by the one man who knew that the duck could and would be identified.”

“You mean — that it was—”

“John L. Witherspoon,” Mason finished for her.

“But, Chief, that’s preposterous.”

Mason said, “It might not be preposterous. He might have laid his plans to get Adams in a spot. He may have wanted to make Adams think he’d committed a murder.”

“But not an actual murder?”

“Perhaps not.”

“Then something must have miscarried about this man’s plans.”

“That’s right.”

“Where would that leave this man — in case he had made a mistake?”

“Right on the spot,” Mason said. “Legally, he might be able to show it wasn’t first-degree murder. It might be manslaughter. But he might have a hard time proving his point to a jury.”

Della Street’s voice was vibrant with feeling. “Well, why keep beating around the bush? Why not call a spade a Witherspoon?”

“Because of the laws about slander and libel. We won’t say anything until we can prove it.”

“When will that be?”

He said, “I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll sit tight, and let the district attorney at El Templo say it.”

They were silent for the rest of the trip to the office. Mason swung the car into the parking lot across the street from his office building. They crossed over, and Mason asked the elevator starter, “Is Paul Drake in his office?”

“Yes, he came in half an hour ago.”

They rode up in the elevator. Mason paused to poke his head into Drake’s office, said to the girl at the switchboard, “Tell Paul I’m on the job. Ask him to drop in and see me as soon as he gets a chance.”

Mason and Della Street walked down to the lawyer’s private office. Della Street was still opening mail when Drake’s steps sounded outside the door. His knuckles tapped a distinctive code knock.

Mason let him in.

Drake walked across to the big overstuffed leather chair and squirmed around in it so that he was sitting sideways, his legs drooped over the arm of the chair.

“Well, Perry, you called the turn on that one.”

“On what?”

“On the fact that after a case gets just so old, people begin to get careless and certain things come out in the open.”

“What have you uncovered?”

“Miss X is a Corine Hassen.”

“Where is she now?”

“Darned if I know, but we’re on her trail and it’s almost a cinch that we’ll be able to find her.”

“Is it a warm trail?”

“No. It’s cold as a frog’s belly, Perry. I can’t find anyone who saw her after the time of the trial. That’s a long time.”

Mason nodded. “The prosecutor managed to keep her out of it by reaching an agreement with the defense, that she could be referred to as Miss X. Under the circumstances, she was almost certain to get out from under and sit tight until it had blown over.”

Drake said, “Where there’s so much smoke, there must have been a little fire.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that Latwell must have been playing around with her a bit. Incidentally, I can produce two witnesses who can give us something on that angle. Latwell knew her.”

“Intimately?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. I do know that he’d been seen with her several times. Of course, the theory of the prosecution was that Adams knew about this, and therefore had dragged her name into it.”

“How old was she?” Mason asked.

“About twenty-five.”

“She’d be about forty-five now.”

“That’s right.”

“Attractive?”

“My correspondents telephone that her pictures, taken twenty years ago, indicate she was rather good-looking, not a knockout, you understand. As I understand it, her face was a little pinched around the eyes. Her figure was the distinctive thing about her. It was swell — twenty years ago. She was a cashier in a chocolate shop, candies, ice cream, light lunches, and things of that sort.”

“Just how did this Hassen girl disappear?” Mason asked.

“Well, she was living with her aunt. Her father and mother were both dead. She said she had an opportunity to get a job out on the Pacific Coast, that she had a boy friend who was always hounding her to marry him, that he was intensely jealous, and she was tired of the whole business, and intended to skip out and not leave any forwarding address, that she’d get in touch with her aunt after a while — more or less the same old story.”

Mason frowned. “I’m not so certain it is. When did she leave, Paul?”

Drake consulted a memorandum book. “Just about the time of the murder.”

Mason said, “Start on it as a regular disappearance, Paul. Look over everything, hospital records, unidentified bodies, and all that.”

“Around Winterburg City?” Drake asked.

“No,” Mason said. “Around Los Angeles and San Francisco for a start... and try Reno, particularly.”

“I don’t get you,” Drake said, frowning.

Mason said, “Let’s look at this thing logically. The big trouble is we get hypnotized by facts and start placing a false interpretation upon those facts because of the sheer weight of circumstances.

“Now in this case the evidence looked very dark against Horace Adams. Somewhere during the trial, his attorney got panic-stricken and became convinced that his client was guilty. No matter what happens, Paul, a lawyer should never become convinced of the guilt of his client.”

“Why?” Drake asked. “Are lawyers’ consciences that brittle?”

“It isn’t a question of a lawyer’s conscience,” Mason said. “It’s a question of doing justice to a client. Once you become convinced your client is guilty, you interpret all of the evidence in a false light and weigh it by false standards. You can see what happened in this case with the mysterious Miss X. Now, I’m acting on the theory that Horace Adams was innocent. In that case, the story he told about Miss X may well have been the truth. Then it’s quite possible Miss X did go to Reno to join Latwell.”

Drake said, “I can’t figure that, Perry. Adams may have been innocent; but when he felt he was caught in a mesh of circumstantial evidence, he tried to lie out of it. If this gal had gone to Reno, she’d have read of Latwell’s murder in the papers, and...”

“And what?” Mason asked, as Drake hesitated.

“Probably taken a run-out powder,” the detective said, after a moment’s thought.

Mason smiled. “Well, Paul, we need a point of beginning, and we haven’t time to plod along on a cold trail. Have your correspondents see what they can do in Winterburg, but start some men working at Reno. That may make a good short cut. Let’s cover the hospital records and do all of the routine in connection with a disappearance case. Then let’s consider your suggestion. Suppose you were in Reno, wanted to disappear, and were running away from something in the East? Where would you go? Nine times out of ten it would be Los Angeles, or San Francisco, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” Drake admitted, after thinking the question over.

“All right, while you’re covering Reno, cover Los Angeles and San Francisco. Look for a trace of Corine Hassen, either under her own or an assumed name.”

“An assumed name isn’t going to be easy,” Drake said.

“Oh, I don’t know. She must have used her right name on occasion, at the post office, at banks, on her driving license. See what you can do.”

“Okay, I’ll start men on it right away.”

Mason pushed his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, sunk his chin on his chest, and stared moodily at the pattern in the carpet, “Hang it, Paul, I’m making a mistake somewhere — I’ve already made it.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s just the feeling I have when I get off on a wrong trail. Perhaps it’s my subconscious trying to warn me.”

“Where could you have made a mistake?”

“I don’t know. I have a feeling it has something to do with Leslie Milter.”

“What about him?”

Mason said, “When you once get the correct master pattern, every single event fits into that pattern. It dovetails with every other event which impinges upon it. When you get a master pattern which seems to accommodate all of the events except one, and you can’t make that event fit in, it’s pretty apt to mean that your master pattern is wrong.

“Now take Milter. Milter was undoubtedly trying to get blackmail. Yet he passed the word on to that Hollywood scandal sheet. By the way, have you found out anything about that?”

“I’ve found out that the thing came as a leak. I can’t get Milter’s name in connection with it, but it’s a cinch that’s who it was.”

Mason said, “Yes, even without any information from the scandal sheet, it stands to reason Allgood fired Milter for talking. Therefore, Milter must have talked to someone. To whom? Apparently not to Lois. Not to Marvin Adams. He could have talked to Witherspoon all he wanted. No, he must have talked to that Hollywood scandal sheet.

“Now put yourself in Milter’s position. He was a blackmailer. He was carefully stalking his prey. He was in the position of a submarine that has one torpedo and is lying in wait for a dangerous destroyer. He must be certain to make a hit with that one shot in a vital spot. Under those circumstances, you can’t imagine him frittering away his ammunition. Yet that’s what the tip-off in the scandal sheet amounted to. If he got anything at all for it, it was only pin money and...”

“They never pay for tips,” Drake said. “They sometimes grant favors, but they don’t pay.”

For several seconds, Mason was thoughtfully silent; then he said, “Also note that he must have been the one who sent this special-delivery letter to me. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d been blackmailing Witherspoon or getting ready to blackmail Lois or Marvin or... by George!”

“What?” Drake asked.

Mason regarded him thoughtfully. His brows pulled together in a level line over his eyes. “Hang it, Paul, there’s one solution that would make things hang together. It’s a weird, bizarre solution when you look at it in one way, and when you look at it in another, it’s the only logical solution.”

“What are you holding out on me?” Drake asked.

“Not a thing,” Mason said. “It’s all there right in front of us. Only we haven’t seen it.”

“What?” Drake asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Roland Burr!”

“I don’t get you.”

“Get this,” Mason said. “Burr met Witherspoon. Apparently that meeting was fortuitous. Actually, it could have been arranged very nicely.

“Apparently all you have to do is to run across Witherspoon in El Templo, be interested in fly-fishing or color photography, and Witherspoon starts talking. A clever man could make a very favorable impression and... yes, by George, that’s it. That must be it. Burr, or his wife, must have picked up something. They could have tipped off the scandal sheet — or they may be planning to shake Witherspoon down, and this column was the means they used to soften him up.”

Drake pursed his lips, gave a low whistle.

Mason said, “Make a note, Paul, to find out something about Mr. and Mrs. Roland Burr.”