The Case of the Drowning Duck

Chapter 14

It was shortly before noon when Della Street came hurrying into the office. She said, “Mrs. George L. Dangerfield is waiting out there, says she simply has to see you on a matter which she can’t even discuss with anyone else.”

Mason frowned. “I thought Allgood was going to telephone and tip me off before she came down here.”

“Want me to get him on the phone?” Della asked.

Mason nodded.

A few moments later, when Allgood came on the line, his voice sounded distinctly worried. “Your secretary said you wanted to talk with me, Mr. Mason.”

“Yes, about that leak out of your office. You’ve heard about Milter?”

“Yes. Most unfortunate... When the police telephoned me, they tipped me off that he was dead, so I could cover up a lot of stuff.”

“I was there,” Mason said. “It was a swell job. Did you know that your secretary listened in on our conversation and went down to see Milter last night?”

“Yes. She finally told me everything. I could see something was on her mind this morning. She kept worrying about it, and about half an hour ago she came in and said she wanted to talk with me. She told me the whole story. I was just on the point of ringing up to ask you if I could get in touch with you. I didn’t want to call you from the office.”

Mason said, “You were going to let me know before Mrs. Dangerfield came down.”

“Yes, I will.”

“She’s here now.”

“What? The devil she is!”

“Waiting in my outer office.”

“I don’t know how she got any information about you. It certainly didn’t come through my office.”

“Nor through your receptionist?” Mason asked.

“No. I feel quite certain. That young woman made rather a complete confession. I don’t want to tell you the details over the phone. I’d like to come down to your office.”

“Come ahead,” Mason said. “Can you start right away?”

“Yes. It will take me about twenty-five or thirty minutes to get there.”

“All right, come along.”

Mason hung up the phone, said to Della Street, “Allgood says she didn’t get the tip through him. Let’s get her in here and see what she has to say. What does she look like, Della?”

“Well, she’s pretty well preserved. She’s taken care of herself. As I remember it, she was about thirty-three at the time of the trial. That would make her over fifty now. She doesn’t look it by ten years.”

“Heavy? Dumpy?” Mason asked.

“No. She’s slender and — flexible. Her skin’s in good shape. She’s taken good care of herself. I’m giving you the points a woman would notice. The externals, the style.”

“Blonde or brunette?”

“Decidedly brunette. She has large, dark eyes.”

“Glasses?”

“I think she has to wear them in order to see well, but she carries them in her purse. She was just putting the spectacle case away when I went out to talk with her. She uses her eyes to advantage.”

Mason said, “Tell me something about women, Della. Could she have let herself go to seed, and then brought herself back this way?”

“Definitely not,” Della Street said. “Not at the age of fifty-odd. She’s a woman who has taken care of herself all her life. She has eyes, and legs and hips, and she knows it — and uses them.”

“Interesting,” Mason said. “Let’s have a look at her.”

Della Street nodded, withdrew to escort Mrs. Dangerfield into the office.

The woman came directly toward Mason, walking with smooth, even rhythm. When she gave the lawyer her hand, it was with warmth and friendliness, and she raised long, dark lashes, and let him have the full benefit of her eyes. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I thank you for seeing me. I know you’re a very busy lawyer and that you see people by appointment only, but my business is particularly important, and,” she said, glancing at Della Street, “highly confidential.”

Mason said casually, “Sit down, Mrs. Dangerfield. I have no secrets from my secretary. She takes notes on conversations and keeps my records straight for me. I seldom trust anything to memory that can be put in writing. Make notes of what Mrs. Dangerfield has to say, Della.”

Mrs. Dangerfield took the rebuff with good grace. For a moment she stiffened; then she was smiling at Mason once more. “Of course! How stupid of me,” she said. “I should have known that a lawyer who handles as much work as you do, must systematize these matters. The reason I was concerned is because what I have to say is so very, very confidential. The happiness of others depends on it.”

Mason asked, “Did you wish to retain me to do something for you, Mrs. Dangerfield? Because if you did...”

“No, not at all. I wanted to talk with you about something you’re handling for someone else.”

“Sit down,” Mason invited. “A cigarette?”

“Thank you, I will.”

Mason gave her a cigarette, took one himself, and lit first one, then the other.

Mrs. Dangerfield sat down in the big chair, studied Mason for a moment in sidelong appraisal through the first puffs of her cigarette smoke, then said abruptly, “Mr. Mason, you’re doing some work for Mr. John L. Witherspoon.”

“What leads you to make that statement?” Mason asked.

“Aren’t you?”

Mason smiled. “You made an assertion. I’m asking a question.”

She laughed. “Well, I’ll change my assertion into a question.”

“Then I’ll still answer it with a question.”

She moved her long, well-manicured fingers in a nervous, drumming motion on the arm of the chair, took a deep drag from the cigarette, looked at Mason, and laughed. “I see I’m not going to get anywhere sparring with a lawyer,” she said. “I’ll put my cards on the table.”

Mason bowed.

She said, “My name is Mrs. George L. Dangerfield, just as I told your secretary. But my name has not always been Mrs. Dangerfield.”

Mason’s silence was a courteous invitation to proceed.

With the manner of one dropping an unexpected bit of information which will have explosive repercussions, she said, “I was formerly Mrs. David Latwell.”

Mason didn’t change expression. “Go ahead,” he said.

“That information doesn’t seem to surprise you,” she announced, her voice showing disappointment.

“A lawyer can seldom seem to be surprised — even when he is surprised,” Mason announced.

“You’re a very baffling individual,” she said, with just a trace of irritation in her voice.

“I’m sorry, but you said you wanted to put cards on the table.” Mason made a little gesture at the desk. “There’s the table.”

“Very well,” she surrendered. “I was Mrs. David Latwell. My husband was murdered by Horace Adams. Horace and David were in partnership in Winterburg City.”

“When did the murder take place?” Mason asked.

“In January of 1924.”

“And what happened to Adams?”

“As though you didn’t know!”

“Did you come to give information, or to try and get some?” Mason asked.

She thought that over for a moment, then turned to him frankly, and said, “A little of both.”

“Suppose you change the purpose of your visit and simply try to give me information.”

She smiled, “The murder was committed in the early part of 1924. Horace Adams was hanged in May of the year following.

“Horace had a wife — Sarah. Sarah and Horace, David and I, made a foursome on occasions. Horace and Sarah had a boy, Marvin. He was about two years old at the time of the murder, about three when his father was executed. I don’t think Sarah ever liked me or fully trusted me. Sarah was a mother. She devoted her entire life to her husband and to her child. I couldn’t see things that way. I was childless and — I was attractive. I liked to step around and see the night life a bit. Sarah didn’t approve of that. She thought a married woman should settle down in a rut.

“That was some twenty years ago. Ideas of marriage have changed some since then. I’m mentioning this to show that Sarah and I didn’t always get along too well, although, because our husbands were partners, we made things seem very smooth and harmonious on the surface.”

“Did the men know you didn’t get along?” Mason asked.

“Good heavens, no! It was too subtle for men to get, just the little things that women can do. The raising of an eyebrow at a proper time, or just the way she happened to look at the length of some skirt I’d be wearing; or when her husband would compliment me on my appearance and turn to her to ask her if she didn’t think I was getting younger every day, she’d agree with him. with just that cooing touch of sweetness which is entirely lost on a man but means so much to a woman.”

“All right,” Mason said, “you didn’t like each other. So what happened?”

“I’m not saying that,” she said. “I’m saying that Sarah didn’t approve of me. I don’t think Sarah ever liked me. I didn’t dislike her. I pitied her. Well, then the murder took place, and I could never forgive Horace Adams for the things that he said in trying to cover up that murder.”

“What were they?” Mason asked.

“He had killed David, and, as it turned out, had buried the body in the cellar of the manufacturing plant, and then cemented over the floor again. All I knew was that David had disappeared rather abruptly. Horace telephoned me there had been some trouble in connection with one of the patents, and David had had to go to Reno very hurriedly on business, that he’d write me just as soon as he got located there and found out how long he was going to have to stay.”

“Did the fact that he was going to Reno make you at all suspicious?” Mason asked.

“To tell you the truth, it did.”

“Why? Because he had been interested in some other woman?”

“Well, no — not exactly. But you know, how it is. We were childless, and — I loved my husband. Mr. Mason. I loved him a lot. As I’ve grown older, I realize that love isn’t everything in life, but at that age things seemed different to me. I made myself attractive because I knew we were never going to have any children and because I wanted to hang onto my husband. I tried to give him everything that any other woman could possibly offer. I tried to be just as attractive as the girls he’d meet who might want to flirt with him. I tried to keep his attention centered on me. I — oh, in my way, I lived my life for my husband just as well as Sarah lived her life for her husband, only Sarah had a child. That made things a lot different somehow.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

She said, “I’ll be absolutely frank with you, Mr. Mason. I think perhaps there was a little jealousy on my part — of Sarah Adams. She could afford to let her hands get rough and harsh. When we’d go to a nightclub on a foursome, she’d look out of place. She looked just like what she was, a housewife who had spent the afternoon with her child and then, at the last minute, fixed herself up and put on her best bib and tucker to go out. She didn’t look like — like a part of the scheme of things, like a part of the night life, like she was really fitting the clothes she was wearing. But she was holding Horace Adams’ love. You could see that.”

“Despite his comments on how nice you looked?” Mason asked.

“Oh, that!” and she snapped her fingers. “He saw me just as he saw every other woman, as so much scenery. He’d appreciate a good-looking woman just as he’d appreciate a good-looking painting or something; but his eyes were always coming back to his wife. He’d keep looking at her with that expression of being settled and comfortable and secure and happy.”

“And your husband didn’t look at you that way?” Mason asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He was built differently. He — I’m not kidding myself a bit, Mr. Mason. My husband would have stepped out on me if someone had come along who was physically more attractive than I was. I made it my business to see that I led the procession, that’s all.”

“I see.”

“I’m not certain that you do. You’d have to know how a woman feels about those things in order to understand. It was an effort, and somewhere in the background was a fear, a fear that my foot might slip and I wouldn’t head the procession any more.”

“So when you thought your husband had gone to Reno, you...”

“I was scared stiff,” she admitted, “and then when I didn’t hear from him, I became frantic. I happened to have a friend in Reno. I wired that friend to check over all the hotels and find out where David was staying and find out — well, find out if he was alone.”

“And then what?” Mason asked.

“When I found David wasn’t registered in any hotel in Reno, I went up to have a showdown with Horace; and then Horace acted so evasive and so completely uncomfortable that I knew he was lying or trying to cover something up; and then he told me that David had run away with another girl.”

“Who?” Mason asked.

“I don’t think her name needs to enter into it.”

“Why?”

“Because, of course, David hadn’t run away with her. He hadn’t had anything to do with her. It was just something Horace had made up to try and cover up the murder.”

“Where is this woman now?” Mason asked.

“Good heavens, I don’t know. I’ve entirely lost track of her. I don’t think I ever even knew her. She was just a name to me. I would, of course, have found out more about her if it hadn’t been for the way Horace acted. I called in the police, and it wasn’t long before the police found out that he was lying and that David had been murdered. I don’t know. I suppose that if Horace had told the truth, he could have escaped the death penalty.”

“What was the truth?”

“They must have had some terrible quarrel over something there in the plant, and Horace struck my husband down in a fit of anger. Then he was panic-stricken and knew he had to do something with the body. In place of calling in the police and confessing, he waited until night, broke a hole in the cement, dug a grave, buried David, covered the place over with cement, put a lot of rubbish and shavings over the new cement until it could harden, and, of course, had me thinking all the time that David had gone to Reno very unexpectedly on business.”

“How long before you began to get suspicious?” Mason asked.

“It must have been three or four days. I guess it must have been five days before Horace told this story about David having run away with the woman... after my friend reported David wasn’t in Reno.”

Mason leaned back in his swivel chair and closed his eyes as though trying to reconstruct something from the past. “Go right ahead. Keep on talking, Mrs. Dangerfield.”

“It’s a terrible thing to be in love with somebody and have that person killed. It comes first as a numbing shock, and then — well, I had an overpowering, terrific hatred for Horace Adams, for his wife, and I guess if I’d thought of it, even for the little boy. There wasn’t a particle of sympathy or charity in my make-up. When the jury brought in a verdict against Horace that meant he would hang, I was wild with joy. I went out and celebrated all by myself.”

“You didn’t feel any sympathy for Mrs. Adams?” he asked, still keeping his eyes closed.

“None whatever. I tell you, I hated her. I didn’t feel any sympathy for anyone. I could have pulled the rope that hung Horace Adams, and been glad to do it. I tried to get them to let me be present at the execution, but they wouldn’t.”

“Why did you want to?”

“I just wanted to scream, ‘You murderer!’ at him when the trap opened, so that he could have my words ringing in his ears as his neck broke. I–I tell you I was savage. I’m rather an emotional animal, Mr. Mason.”

The lawyer opened his eyes, looked at her, and said, “Yes, I can appreciate that.”

“I’m telling you all this so you’ll understand my present position.”

“What is your present position?” Mason asked.

“I realize something of how terribly wrong I was.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Not for the way I felt toward Horace,” she said hastily. “I could have killed him with my bare hands. I’m glad that his lawyer bungled his defense all up so that they hung him. As I say, if he’d told the truth, he’d probably have gotten off with manslaughter or second-degree murder, but the way he tried to cover up and everything — well, we won’t talk about that, because I want to talk about Sarah.”

“What about Sarah?”

“I suppose that I persecuted Sarah. I tried to keep her from getting her share of the money out of the business. I was nasty in every’ way I could be. Sarah took what cash she could get, and disappeared. It was, of course, the only thing for her to do, on account of the boy. She didn’t have much money, just a little. I never knew where she went. No one did. She covered her tracks pretty carefully. The boy was too young to remember, and she felt that she could bring him up so he would never know his father was executed for murder.”

“Do you know where she went?” Mason asked.

She laughed at him and said, “Don’t be so cagey, Mr. Mason. Of course, I do, now. She went to California. She worked and worked hard — too hard. She gave the boy a pretty good education. He always thought his father had been killed in an automobile accident, that they didn’t have any other relatives. She carefully kept him from knowing anything at all about his past life or having any contacts which would reveal it to him. It was a splendid thing. She sacrificed her entire life for that.

“Well, she worked too hard. She got run down and got tuberculosis. Four or five years ago she went to the Red River Valley. She was well thought of there. She kept on working even when she should have been resting. If she’d gone to a hospital and had absolute quiet, she might have cured herself, but she was putting her boy through school, so she worked until — until she couldn’t work any more.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then she died.”

“How do you know all this?” Mason asked.

“Because I made it my business to find out.”

“Why?”

“Because — believe it or not, I developed a conscience.”

“When?”

“Quite a while ago. But it didn’t really hit me until someone employed a detective who started investigating the case.”

“Who employed him?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was Sarah at first. It was someone living in El Templo. I couldn’t find out who.”

“Why did you come to me?”

“Because I think you know who was back of it all and why.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I’ve located Marvin Adams. I find that he’s unofficially engaged to the Witherspoon girl and that you were seen out at Witherspoon’s house.”

“How did you know that?” Mason asked.

“By accident. To tell you the truth, Mr. Mason, I was in El Templo because I thought the detective agency was located there. This detective was telephoning reports to El Templo. I found that out through the girl at the switchboard in the Winterburg City Hotel. They were station-to-station calls. I didn’t get the number.”

“And how did you find out about me?”

She said, “By a chance remark that was dropped by Mrs. Burr.”

“Mrs. Burr?” Mason asked.

“Don’t be so mysterious. You’ve met her out there at Witherspoon’s.”

“And you know her?” Mason asked.

“Yes. I’ve known her for years.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“In Winterburg City.”

“Indeed?”

“She used to live there.”

Mason picked up a pencil from his desk, slid his thumb and forefinger up and down the polished sides, slowly and thoughtfully. “That,” he said, “is very interesting. She must have been rather a little girl at the time of the murder.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Wasn’t she?”

Mrs. Dangerfield averted her eyes and frowned as she made an effort at concentration. “No,” she said, “she wasn’t. She was at least seventeen or eighteen — perhaps nineteen. How old do you think she is now, Mr. Mason?”

Mason said, “I’m afraid I’m not much of a judge of ages. I thought she was in the late twenties or early thirties — and I would have said that you couldn’t possibly have been more than thirty-eight or thirty-nine.”

“Flatterer!”

“No, I really mean it,” Mason said. “I’m not trying to flatter you. I’m really interested in seeing how a woman can continue to be young, regardless of the actual number of birthdays she may have had.”

She said, “I’m not going to tell you how old I am, but Diana Burr is — let me see — she was... yes, she’s between thirty-eight and thirty-nine.”

“And you recognized her after all these years?” Mason asked.

“What do you mean, after all these years?”

“When did you see her last?”

“Oh, about three years ago.”

“Then you know her husband?”

Mrs. Dangerfield shook her head. “I don’t think so. Diana’s name originally was Diana Perkins. She was quite a problem to her mother. Mrs. Perkins used to talk with me. They lived in our block. Then Diana ran away with a married man. She came back after four or five years, and claimed the man had divorced his wife and married her.”

“What did the wife have to say about it?”

“Oh, she’d left. People had lost track of her. Perhaps Diana was telling the truth. Perhaps not. Well then, Diana left town again for a while and showed up with a brand-new husband.”

“Burr?” Mason asked.

“No,” she said, smiling. “Not Burr. Diana, I am afraid, is inclined to trade the old ones in on the new models as fast as they come out. Let’s see. What was her husband’s name? Radcliff, I think it was, but I’m not certain about that. I think he divorced her. She was back in Winterburg City for a little while, and then left for California. She married Mr. Burr in California.”

“So you met her on the street and talked with her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she mention anything about that old murder case?”

“No. She was very tactful.”

“Does she know that Marvin Adams is the son of the man who was hanged for murder?”

“I’m almost certain she doesn’t. At least, she didn’t say anything about it. Of course, Sarah died before Mrs. Burr came to El Templo. She’s only been there two or three weeks. I don’t think the name Adams meant a thing to her.”

“And you didn’t tell her?”

“No, of course not.”

“All right,” Mason said, “that explains how you found out about me. Now go ahead and tell me what you wanted to see me about.”

She said, “I–I wanted to get something off my mind.”

“Wait a minute. One more question. Did you know Milter, the detective who was investigating this thing?”

“I have seen him a couple of times, although he didn’t know it. I never met him, in the sense that you mean. I never actually talked with him.”

“What time did you leave El Templo, Mrs. Dangerfield?”

“Early this morning.”

“Where’s Mr. Dangerfield?”

“He’s staying on in El Templo. I left a note telling him I was going to take the car and be away for the day. He was snoring peacefully when I left. He likes to stay up late at night and sleep late in the morning. I’m just the opposite. I’ve trained myself so I can go to bed and go to sleep. He can come in without disturbing me. Quite frequently I get up in the morning and go out, long before he’s wakened. I like to take walks in the early morning. I find that exercise before breakfast helps a lot.”

Mason leaned back once more in the swivel chair and again closed his eyes as though trying to reconstruct mentally some event from the past. “So you made an investigation to make certain that your husband wasn’t in Reno?”

“My husband. Oh, you mean David. Yes.”

“Who made the investigation?”

“A friend.”

Mason said, “Every time you’ve referred to that investigation, you’ve used the expression ‘a friend.’ Don’t you think that’s rather indefinite? You have never used a pronoun in referring to this friend. Is that because you are afraid to do so?”

“Why, Mr. Mason, what are you getting at? I don’t understand you. Why should I be afraid to use a pronoun?”

“Because it would have had to be either him or her, and that would have indicated the sex of this friend,” Mason said.

“Well, what difference does that make?”

“I was just wondering if this ‘friend’ might not have been your present husband, George L. Dangerfield.”

“Why... why...”

“Was it?” Mason asked.

She said angrily, “You have the most unpleasant manner of trying to...”

“Was it?” Mason repeated.

Abruptly she laughed and said, “Yes. I can realize now, Mr. Mason, how you’ve made such a reputation as a cross-examiner. Perhaps I was trying to cover that up a little bit, because of the fact that it might sound — well, a little — well, a person might have drawn an erroneous conclusion from it.”

“The conclusion would have been erroneous?” Mason asked.

She was in complete possession of her faculties now. She laughed at him and said, “I’ve told you, Mr. Mason, how much I cared about my husband, and how afraid I was that I might lose him. Do you think a woman who felt that way would take chances with some other man?”

“I was merely interested in uncovering something which you seemed to be trying to cover up. Perhaps it’s merely the instinct of a cross-examiner,” Mason said.

She said, “I had known George L. Dangerfield before our marriage. He had been — rather crazy about me; but he hadn’t been in Winterburg City for more than two years prior to the time I wired him. I had only seen him once after my marriage, and that was to tell him definitely and positively that my marriage terminated everything between us.”

Mason repeated her words slowly. “Terminated everything between us.”

Once again she was angry; then she caught herself and said, “You do have the most unpleasant manner of prying into a person’s mind. All right, if you want it that way, the answer is yes.”

Mason said, “You left El Templo before the papers came out this morning?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Just why did you come here?”

“I told you it was my conscience that sent me here. I know something that I didn’t ever tell anyone about.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t a witness at that old trial, so nobody asked me. I didn’t volunteer this information.”

“And what was the information?”

“Horace Adams and David had a fight.”

“You mean an argument?”

“No, I mean a fist fight.”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t know.”

“When?”

“The day David was murdered.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said. “Let’s have it all.”

She said, “David and Horace had a fight. I think David got the worst of it. He came home and was terribly angry. He went to the bathroom and put some cold towels on his face; then he fooled around in the bedroom for a while and went out. It wasn’t until sometime afterwards that I began to wonder what he’d been doing in the bedroom. I remember having heard a bureau drawer open and close. As soon as I thought of that, I ran to the bureau and opened the drawer where David always kept his gun. The gun was gone.”

“Whom have you told about this?” Mason asked.

“Not a soul on earth except you. Not even my husband.”

There was a long silence in the office while Mason turned her statement over in his mind; then he glanced over at Della Street to make certain Della had taken it all down in shorthand.

Della nodded almost imperceptibly.

The silence made Mrs. Dangerfield uneasy. She started pointing out the obvious. “You see, Mr. Mason, what that would mean. If Horace’s lawyer had said frankly that they’d been fighting, if it had appeared that David had pulled a gun and Horace had struck him over the head — who knows? It might have been self-defense, and he’d have gone free. In any event, it wasn’t the kind of murder they hang men for.”

“And what did you intend to do?” Mason asked.

She said, “Understand one thing, Mr. Mason. I’m not going to make a howling spectacle of myself. I’m not going to have people pointing the finger of shame at me. But I thought that I might sign an affidavit, and give it to you, to hold in strict confidence. Then, if this business about the old case should begin to ruin Marvin Adams’ life, you could go to the girl’s father — in strict confidence, of course — and show him this affidavit, tell him of your talk with me, and Marvin could — well, you know, live happily ever after.”

She laughed nervously.

Mason said, “That’s very interesting. Twenty-four hours ago it would have been a simple solution. Now it may not be such a simple solution.”

“Why?”

“Because now the record of that old case may come out in public, in spite of anything we can do.”

“Why? What’s happened within the last twenty-four hours? Has Mr. Witherspoon...”

“It was something that happened to this detective, Leslie L. Milter.”

“What?”

“He was murdered.”

For a moment she didn’t grasp the full significance of Mason’s words. She said mechanically, “But I’m telling you that if his lawyer had...” She caught herself in the middle of the sentence, straightened in her chair. “Who was murdered?”

“Milter.”

“You mean someone killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Who — who did it?”

Mason once more picked up a pencil from his desk, slowly slid his fingers up and down the polished shaft of wood. He said, “That is quite apt to be a question which will become increasingly important as time goes on — a question which will have very important bearing upon the lives of several persons.”