The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito

Chapter 13

Mason paused in the doorway of the bedroom. “You’re sure you are feeling well enough to travel?”

“Yes. I’m all right now. I felt, for a while, like a dishrag that had been tied in knots.”

“Tell you what I want you to do, Della. Cover me while I go into this room down the hall, will you?”

“What do I do?”

“Stand here in the doorway. If you hear anyone coming, act as though you were just on the point of stepping out in the hall, start a conversation and—”

“But suppose that person goes into that room?”

“That’s a chance I’ll have to take. I can’t avoid that. What I want to prevent is having anyone see me entering Banning Clarke’s room or emerging from it.”

“Okay. It doesn’t make any difference who it is, you don’t want anyone to know you’re in there?”

“That’s right.”

“If Lieutenant Tragg should come back, I’ll have trouble. He’ll want to know just where you are.”

“Yes,” Mason said. “All we can do is pray. Raise your voice and greet whoever it is by name so I’ll have a chance to know just what I’m up against. All ready?”

“Give me a few minutes to get my clothes on.”

“No. I can’t wait. I’m going to pop in that door now. Cover me. You can dress while you’re keeping an eye on the corridor. All ready. Here I go.”

Mason left the doorway, moved quietly down the corridor until he came abreast of the bedroom in which he had seen Mrs. Bradisson sitting at the desk. The door of this room was closed now. Mason opened it abruptly, darted into the room, closing the door behind him, and waiting for a moment, listening to see if Della Street gave any signal.

When he heard nothing, Mason clicked on the light switch near the door, flooding the room with brilliance, and went over to the roll-top desk. He had no difficulty finding the legal paper which Mrs. Bradisson had placed in the pigeonhole.

Mason unfolded it. It was a will dated the twelfth of July, 1941, apparently entirely in the handwriting of Banning Clarke. The will left everything to his beloved wife, Elvira, or “in the event she should predecease me, then to her lawful heirs at law-excluding, however, James Bradisson from any share in my said estate.”

Mason wasted only a few seconds on the will. He hastily glanced through it, returned it to the pigeonhole in the desk, and then set himself to the task of finding what had caused the pounding noises he had heard after he had left the room.

Mason first gave the carpet a careful scrutiny. There was nothing to indicate that it had been lifted and then replaced. He tried all the edges, carefully inspected the corners. There were half a dozen framed photographs in the room. Mason moved them out from the walls, scrutinized the backs of the picture frames to see if the brads which held the cardboard in place had been removed and then replaced.

At the end of his search he could find no indication that any of the pictures had been tampered with.

There was no evidence that any nails or any tacks had been pounded into the walls. Mason turned chairs upside down, looked on the bottoms, looked also on the bottom of the table. He then lay down on the floor, flat on his back, and ran his hand along the under side of the drawer containers in the roll-top desk. When he found nothing here, he pulled out the drawers one by one, taking them entirely out of the desk and tilting them enough so he could see the bottom part of each drawer.

It was on the bottom of the lower drawer on the left-hand side that Mason found what he was looking for.

This was an old-fashioned desk made of the finest materials throughout, and the bottoms of the desk drawers were of a hard wood, which had made it necessary for Mrs. Bradisson to pound the thumbtacks in order to make certain they were driven in to the heads. This, Mason realized, accounted for the pounding noises he had heard.

It took Mason a few moments to empty the drawer of its contents, then turn the drawer bottom side up and inspect the document which had been laid out flat, and, in that position, fastened to the bottom of the drawer.

It was a will dated the preceding day. It was entirely in handwriting — an angular, somewhat cramped hand.

Mason opened the blade of his pocketknife, started to pry off the thumbtacks, then paused long enough to read the will.

The will read:

Mason opened the little drawer described in the will. The drawer contained only a small glass phial. A few fine flakes of gold still adhered to the bottom of this bottle. But the thing that arrested Mason’s attention was the only other thing in that bottle — a mosquito.

Even as the lawyer turned the bottle, the mosquito moved its legs slowly, gave a series of spasmodic kicks, then became motionless.

Mason unscrewed the top of the little phial, prodded the mosquito with the point of a pocket pencil.

The mosquito was dead.

Suddenly Mason’s thoughtful contemplation was disturbed by Della Street’s voice saying, “Oh, hello, Lieutenant Tragg! I was starting out to look for you. Can you tell me where Mr. Mason is?”

Mason heard Tragg say, “He’s in the downstairs bedroom at the northwest corner. You’ll find him there.”

For a moment only, Della Street hesitated, then, keeping her voice at the same high pitch, said, “Oh, so you and the sheriff weren’t looking for him, then?”

It was Sheriff Greggory who rose to the bait. “We’re going to take a look through Banning Clarke’s room,” he said. “We’re trying to find out the motive for his murder.”

Mason, working against time, prying at the heads of the tacks with his knife blade, heard Della Street say in a desperate attempt to get the men away from there, “Oh, but he’s not in that downstairs bedroom. I’ve looked there already. You don’t suppose anything could have happened to him?”

Sheriff Greggory seemed somewhat concerned. “You’re sure he’s not in the bedroom?”

“Why, yes. I looked down there about ten or fifteen minutes ago.”

Mason got the tacks out and into his pocket. He folded the will and thrust it into the inside pocket of his coat. He then pushed things back into the desk drawer striving desperately for speed, yet daring to make no sound. The little phial went into his vest pocket.

Outside he heard the conversation going on, Greggory saying, “After all, I suppose we should have... Oh well, he’s all right — probably out looking for evidence of some sort.”

“Without even coming up here to see how I was getting along?”

“Well, he may have looked in — or had a report from the nurse.”

“He’d have come up here,” Della Street asserted positively, “unless,” she added, “something has happened to him!”

The momentary silence which ensued indicated that there was a possibility Della might win a respite, but in the end it was Tragg who determined the matter. “We can just take a look in here, Sam. It’ll only take a minute. We can look up Mason later.”

“It would only take us a minute to look in on Mason.”

Tragg’s voice was weary. “For the last three years, Sam, I’ve been hoping I could get on a murder case where that guy was on the other side and at least have an even break. He’s always beating me to the punches. This time he’s laid up with a dose of poison and I intend to make my hay while the sun is shining. Come on, Sam, let’s take a look... right now.”

Mason replaced the desk drawer, settled back in the swivel chair, put his feet up on the desk, dropped his chin on his chest and remained motionless with his eyes closed, breathing deeply.

He heard the doorknob open, heard Sam Greggory say in surprise, “The light’s on here.” Then Tragg, “Well, for the love of Mike! Look who’s here!”

Mason kept his head on his chest, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and regular.

Greggory said to Della Street, “Well, here he is, Miss Street.”

Della’s exclamation of surprise was, Mason thought, superbly done.

Tragg said, “Well, here we go again. The same old run-around. I suppose that if there were any clues in the place he’s got them by this time.”

Greggory said, “He doesn’t get away with that in this county. If he’s so much as touched anything in this room he’ll find out he can’t pull that stuff in this county and get away with it.”

Mason kept his face absolutely devoid of expression, his lids closed, his breathing deep.

Tragg said, “It’s a good stall, Mason, but not good enough. You may as well go through with it, however. Put on the rest of the act. Go on, wake up in startled surprise, blink your eyes, rub them with your knuckles, ask, ‘What’s going on?’, pretend you don’t know where you are for a minute. I’ve seen it done often enough to know the whole routine... I’ve even tried it myself on occasion.”

Mason’s breathing did not vary in the slightest.

“I think you forget,” Della Street said with dignity, “that both of us have had hypodermics. I’m still groggy myself. I could hardly get awake.”

Sheriff Greggory said, “That’s right. You did have hypodermics, didn’t you? Are you feeling all right now?”

“Only groggy,” Della said. “I don’t dare close my eyes or I’d drop right off to sleep. I guess it’s all right for us to go now. The doctor didn’t say anything about how long we were to stay here.”

Mrs. Bradisson’s voice said from the doorway, “What is it, please? What’s going on here?”

“We were just looking around,” Greggory said. His voice held that deferential tone a county official reserves for an influential taxpayer.

“Well, I must say that’s rather an unusual way of doing things, isn’t it? To come walking right into my house and—”

“You see, we haven’t much time to waste,” Lieutenant Tragg interposed. “We’re doing this to protect you, Mrs. Bradisson. You and your son. We want to catch this murderer before he can strike again.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I can appreciate your point — yes.”

Mason heard Nell Sims’ voice coming from down the corridor. “What is it, another one?” she asked.

“It’s all right, Nell. You can go back to bed,” Mrs. Bradisson said.

Della Street reached forward, grabbed Mason’s shoulder and shook him. “Come on, Chief,” she said. “Snap out of it. Wake up.”

Mason mumbled indistinguishable words in a thick voice.

“It’s that hypodermic,” Della said, shaking him harder than ever. “Come on, Chief. Are you all right? Perhaps we’d better get that nurse. Oh, I hope he hasn’t had a relapse. He must have gotten that poison out of his system!”

Mason pushed his tongue into extra thickness against his teeth, made more sounds that could hardly be interpreted into words, then rolling his eyes toward the top of his head, raised his lids for a few brief flickers, closed them and slumped even lower in the chair.

Della Street kept shaking him, gently slapped his face. “Wake up, Chief,” she said. “Wake up. Tell me, are you all right?”

She dropped to her knees by his side, took his hand. Her voice was edged with anxiety. “Tell me, are you all right? — Are you all right? — Get that nurse someone, please. He’s sick.”

It was, Mason decided, a superb job of acting. Even he would have sworn there was almost a note of hysteria in the increasing anxiety manifested in Della Street’s voice.

He opened his eyes wider this time, gave Della Street a groggy smile, said thickly, “ ’S all right. Le’me sleep.”

She was on her feet at his side again now, shaking him. “Chief, you’ve got to wake up. You’ve got to snap out of it. You’ve—”

Mason yawned prodigiously, opened his eyes, looked at her. “Full of drugs,” he announced, running the ends of his words together. “You all right?”

“Yes, yes. I’m all right. What are you doing in here?”

Mason, apparently shaking off the chains of slumber, looked around at the other occupants of the room in bewildered surprise. “What’s the matter? Has something happened?”

“No, no, everything’s all right. But how did you get in here? What are you doing here, Chief?”

He appreciated the quick-witted technique by which Della was giving him the opportunity to make explanations in advance of questions. “Came up to see how you were getting along,” he said. “You certainly were sleeping. I spoke to you but you didn’t even hear me, so I decided to wait until you awakened to tell you we’d start driving back as soon as you felt up to it. — I left your door open and sat down in the hall for a while. It was drafty there. I saw this door was open. It looked like an office so I came in and sat down in the swivel chair so I could hear you as soon as you moved. Guess I still have some of that drug in my system. — What’s new, Tragg?”

Tragg turned to his brother-in-law, made a little gesture with the palms of his hands. “There you are, Sam,” he said. “It’s always like that. You never can tell whether he’s thrown one across the center of the plate for a strike so fast that you can’t see it come, or whether he’s just winding up for practice.”

Greggory said ominously, “We don’t like to have fast ones pitched at us here in this county. When that happens we disqualify the pitcher.”

Mason yawned once more. “I don’t blame you, Sheriff. I’d feel that way myself. Well, come on, Della. If you feel like traveling, we’ll get started back. What’s the excitement here? Did someone think I’d passed out?”

“No,” Sheriff Greggory said. “We are taking steps to see that there are no more murders committed.”

Nell Sims, from the outskirts of the group, chirped almost impersonally, “Locking up the horse after the stable has been stolen.”

From outside came the raucous bray of a lonely burro.

Mason took Della Street’s arm. His eyes met those of Mrs. Bradisson. She alone knew and could prove, if she chose, the falsity of Mason’s story. To betray him, however, would of necessity force her to admit her own nocturnal intrusion into the room of the dead man.

“Good morning, Mrs. Bradisson,” Mason said, bowing.

“Good morning!” she snapped.