The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito

Chapter 17

For miles now, the dirt road had wound and twisted. The weird Joshua palms standing as silhouetted sentries gave somehow the impression of warning travelers back with outstretched arms. An occasional kangaroo rat scurried across the white ribbon of roadway. Clumps of prickly pear furnished spine-covered sanctuary for frightened rabbits. Cholla cacti, catching the headlights, seemed shrouded with a delicate transparency of silken fringe, the most deceptively deadly cactus on the desert. An occasional barrel cactus, standing straight and chunky, served as a reminder of stories of prospectors who, trapped in the desert without water, had chopped off the top of the big cactus, scooped out the pithy interior, waited for the watery sap to collect, and so assuaged the pangs of thirst.

Della Street sat with the little penciled map she had made spread across her knees. She held her small flashlight shielded by her cupped hand so that it would not interfere with Mason’s driving. Frequently now, she looked at the speedometer.

“Two-tenths of a mile and the road turns off,” she said.

Mason slowed the car, searched the left-hand side of the road for the turnoff, finally found it, little more than two faint ruts in the desert.

Della Street snapped off the flashlight, folded the map and put it back in her purse. “It’s three and six-tenths miles from here. We just stay on this road.”

The road climbed to an elevated plateau which rimmed the lower desert.

“I caught a flicker of light,” Della said.

“Car coming?”

“It was rather reddish. Now, there it is off to the right. It’s a campfire.”

The road twisted around a jutting promontory in an abrupt turn and debouched on a little shelf where a blob of red light resolved itself into a small campfire.

“See anyone?” Mason asked.

“Not a soul,” she said.

Mason slowed the car to a stop at a place where wheel tracks fanned out. The headlights showed a late-model sedan parked near Salty Bowers’ old jalopy, the trailer in which the burros had been carried.

Mason shut off the motor, switched off the headlights.

There was complete silence, save for the little crackling noises which emanated from under the hood of his car as the motor started cooling off — noises which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been inaudible, but in the desert silence sounded like a distant naval bombardment.

Against this background of silence, the deserted campfire seemed utterly incongruous, an attempt at artificial cheer that was as out of place as a wisecrack at an execution.

“Br-r-r-r!” Della Street said. “I feel all creepy.”

Mason opened the door of the car.

A voice from the darkness some fifteen feet away from them said in a slow drawl, “Oh! It’s you!” Then Salty Bowers raised his voice. “All right, folks, it’s the lawyer.”

Almost immediately the camp bustled into activity. But not until Dr. Kenward, hobbling along on crutches, came out of the darkness which rimmed the circle of illumination around the campfire, and Velma Starler’s trim figure silhouetted itself against the orange-red glow, did Salty Bowers emerge from the blackness which marked the location of a clump of desert juniper.

“Can’t be too careful,” he explained, “not with what’s been going on. People around a campfire are the best targets in the world. Saw your car coming and decided we’d just better be on the safe side. What’s the matter, something new happen?”

“Nothing new. We’re hiding out for a while. Have you got room for a couple more campers?”

Salty grinned, swept his arm in a wide sweep. “All the room in the world. Come on over to the fire. I’ll brew a cup of tea.”

“We’ve got the car loaded with camp equipment,” Mason explained.

“Take it out later,” Salty said. “Come on over and sit a while.”

The three of them moved over to the campfire. Mason and Della shook hands with Dr. Kenward and the nurse, then settled down around the little blaze. Salty produced a fire-blackened graniteware coffee pot, poured water in it from a canteen, put it over the flames, said, “I use this one only for tea. Have another one for coffee. — Guess you understand, Mr. Mason, I warn’t running away from anything; but around the city, people just don’t seem to understand the feeling a man’s got for a partner. Banning’s death busted me all up. Folks wanted to talk about it — just talk — talk — talk. All of a sudden I got so I was hungry for the desert just like a man gets when he’s been wanting something and don’t know exactly what it is — and then the smell of frying bacon and coffee happens to hit him and he knows he’s just plain damned hungry.”

“And I,” Dr. Kenward explained, “decided that I needed to really rest. I think Velma was the go-between who fixed it up with Salty. I’m certainly indebted to him for taking me along.”

“This is Banning Clarke’s claim?” Mason asked.

“It is now,” Salty said; then, looking at his watch, amended, “It will be at midnight. That’s when the option expires.”

“Of course,” Mason pointed out, “they could exercise that option between now and midnight.”

“They could,” Salty observed dryly.

Dr. Kenward said abruptly, “I’m going to say something about that murder, and then, if it’s all the same to you, I think it would be a fine idea to quit talking about it.”

“That,” Salty announced with feeling, “suits me.”

“What was it you wanted to say?” Mason asked.

Dr. Kenward said, “While the police haven’t taken me into their confidence, I assume it’s their theory someone tried to shoot me under the mistaken impression that I was Banning Clarke.”

“So I gather,” Mason said. “But the police don’t exactly confide in me, either.”

“Of course, it’s an obvious conclusion. I had wandered out to the place where Banning Clarke would have been camped if he hadn’t pulled out. I was visible in the moonlight only as a sleeping figure swathed in blankets. Quite obviously any person who didn’t know that Clarke had left for the desert, and who wanted to kill him, would have assumed that I was Clarke.”

Mason nodded.

“But,” Dr. Kenward went on, “I have been wondering whether such was actually the case.”

“You mean someone tried to kill you knowing who you were?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“And the motive?” Mason asked.

Dr. Kenward hesitated. “Come on,” Mason prompted. “There could be only one motive — certain information that you possess. What is it?”

“I hadn’t intended to go quite that far when I started talking about it,” Dr. Kenward said.

“Well, we’ve gone that far now,” Mason told him. “I should say, Doctor, that it was some bit of medical information you had uncovered — something about the poisoning, perhaps. And I think it’s only fair to all concerned, including yourself, that you should tell us.”

Dr. Kenward laughed. “You have all but deduced what it is. Purely as a matter of routine, I saved some of the stomach contents on the occasion of that first poisoning. That, you will remember, was the occasion when we found arsenic in the private saltcellar used only by the Bradissons.”

“And what,” Mason asked, “did you find?”

“A report on the analysis of the stomach content,” Dr. Kenward said, “reached me just before I left town. It was, of course, given to me over the telephone; but the analysis shows that there was no trace of arsenic.”

“Then what,” Mason asked, “induced the symptoms?”

“Apparently, ipecac.”

“And what,” Mason pressed, “would be the object of taking ipecac?”

“To induce certain symptoms of arsenic poisoning.”

“And what would be the object of inducing those symptoms, Doctor?”

Dr. Kenward said dryly, “That is a question, Mr. Mason, which comes within your department. I am reporting only the medical facts.”

“But how about the metallic taste in the throat, the cramps, the general soreness?”

“I have questioned Velma about that very carefully,” he said. “As nearly as she can recollect now, she may have been the one to suggest those symptoms. I have asked her particularly whether, when she first began to suspect the possibility of arsenic poisoning, she didn’t ask the patients if they were suffering from cramps, general abdominal pain, a metallic burning sensation in the back of the mouth, and cramps in the legs. She can’t remember now whether she asked that question of the patients, or whether they told her they were experiencing such symptoms.”

“Does it make a great deal of difference?” Mason asked.

“A very great deal. Whenever a patient becomes violently ill, there is usually a certain element of depression, quite frequently a receptivity to suggestion, occasionally definite symptoms of hysteria. Under those circumstances a person normally experiencing a part of the symptoms which accompany a certain disease, and learning of other symptoms which are supposed to go hand in hand, will immediately develop those other symptoms.”

“You’re certain it was arsenic in the saltcellar?” Mason asked.

“There can be no doubt of that. The analysis shows it.”

“Then why was the arsenic placed in the saltcellar?”

“That also is a question which is in your department rather than mine. But there are obviously two alternatives. One is that the arsenic was put in the saltcellar by someone who knew that the Bradissons were suffering from a poisoning, the symptoms of which resembled arsenic poisoning, and for some reason wanted to make it appear arsenic poisoning had been attempted.”

“And the other alternative?” Mason asked.

“Is that someone actually tried to poison the Bradissons, that the poison was intended to take effect some time during the next day when the Bradissons would use the saltcellar, that through some peculiar coincidence, and from an undisclosed source, the Bradissons ingested a sufficient quantity of ipecac to produce violent illness.”

Mason said, “I will ask you this, Doctor. Have you considered the possibility that the ipecac was taken by the Bradissons themselves with the deliberate intention of simulating the symptoms of arsenic poisoning?”

“Purely as a man of science trying to explore all possibilities which would account for all of the symptoms I encountered, I have taken that into consideration.”

“Is there any evidence to support it?”

“None.”

“It is a logical explanation?”

“There is no evidence against it.”

“And you feel someone tried to murder you because you had this information?”

“It is a possibility.”

They were silent for nearly a minute, then Mason said, “I want to think that over. In the meantime, I’m going to get my sleeping bag spread out.”

Mason walked over to the car, pulled out the sleeping bags, fitted the power pump to the motor, inflated the air mattresses, and looked up to find Salty Bowers at his side.

“Have you,” Mason asked, “staked out any particular sleeping quarters?”

“We’ve got a tent,” Salty said. “The girls can use it for a dressing-room. They won’t want to sleep in it. It’s better to sleep out under the stars.”

“Then let’s put Miss Street’s sleeping bag over by the tent,” Mason said. “Where are you sleeping?”

Salty lowered his voice. “I’m not too easy in my mind about what’s been going on. I’ve pulled my blankets down the trail a piece where I can sort of keep watch in case anybody should come pussyfooting along. — You pick up that end of the sleeping bag, I’ll pick up this end and we’ll carry it over. And when we get done, the tea will be just about ready to drink.”

When the sleeping bags had been placed in position and the duffel bags brought out of Mason’s car, the little group gathered once more around the fire. Salty put an armful of sagebrush on the fire, which promptly crackled into brilliance, a circle of illumination chasing back the encroaching shadows.

Salty poured tea, said, “The air’s different out here somehow.”

“It most certainly is,” Mason said. “Dry and clear.”

“A few months ago I developed a sinus condition,” Dr. Kenward said. “It’s clearing up out here with great rapidity. I am most encouraged.”

“How’s the wound?” Mason asked.

“Nothing serious at all. I have to watch for certain complications and nip them in the bud if they arise. I naturally have to be quiet. Believe it or not, this is a great boon to me. It’s an enforced vacation, but a very welcome one.”

“What’s Nell Sims doing?” Mason asked. “Staying in the house?”

“Staying in the house nothing,” Salty said. “She headed back to Mojave, says she’s going to open up her old restaurant. I guess,” he added wistfully, “the desert has a way of reclaiming its own.”

“It’s marvelous out here,” Della said.

“Lots of people hate the desert,” Salty explained. “That’s because they’re really afraid of it. They’re afraid of being left alone with themselves. There’s lots of people you could put down in the middle of the desert, go away and leave ’em for a week, and come back and find them completely crazy. I’ve seen it happen. Man sprained his ankle once, couldn’t travel. The party he was with had to go right on, but they left him with lots of water and food, plenty of matches, lots of wood. All he had to do was to just keep quiet for three or four days until he got so he could travel. He showed up in civilization just about half crazy. His ankle was all inflamed, said he’d rather have lost the whole leg than to have stayed on in that desert for another ten minutes.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” Velma Starler said.

“Sure it’s beautiful,” Salty agreed. “People get scared of it because out here they’re alone with their Maker. Some people can’t stand that. — How about some more tea?”

The sagebrush finished its preliminary crackling, got down to a steady burning.

“How,” Mason asked, “do you go about prospecting? Do you just wander around and look the desert over?”

“Gosh, no. You have to know a little something about how the ground was formed. You’ve got to figure out your formations, and then you’ve got to know what to look for. Lots of prospectors have picked up rock that would have made them rich, and thrown it away. — Here, let me show you something.”

Salty put down his teacup, got up and walked over to the pickup. He rummaged around for a few moments, then produced a boxlike affair.

“What’s that?” Mason asked.

“Black light. Ever seen it work?”

“I’ve seen it used in connection with the detection of forgeries.”

“If you ain’t seen it in the desert, you just ain’t seen anything. We’ve got to have it where it’s dark. Come on, walk around behind this rock outcropping and I’ll show you.”

“I’ll plead my crippled condition and stay here,” Dr. Kenward said. “I don’t want too much getting up and down.”

They moved around behind the big rock outcropping. Here the light of the fire was shut out, and the stars, blazing with steady brilliance, seemed interested spectators regarding with a steady scrutiny the vague figures that moved over the desert.

Salty noticed them looking at the stars. “They say stars twinkle when air is mixed up with dust and stuff, and different air currents make ’em twinkle. I don’t know anything about it. Maybe some of you folks do. All I know is that they don’t twinkle out here.”

Salty clicked a switch. A low humming sound came from the interior of the machine.

“Sort of induction coil,” Salty explained. “Steps the current up from six volts to a hundred and fifteen. There’s a two-watt bulb in here. It’s on now.”

The darkness assumed a peculiar color. It was hardly an illumination, was as though the darkness had turned a deep, almost black, violet.

“Now,” Salty said, “I’ll turn this beam of invisible light over toward this rock outcropping and you see what happens.”

He swung toward the outcropping, turning the boxlike arrangement with his body as he pivoted.

Almost immediately it seemed that a thousand different colored lights had been turned on in the rocky outcropping. Some of the lights were blue, some a yellowish green, some a bright green. The lights varied in size from small pin points to great blobs of illumination the size of a baseball.

Della Street caught her breath. Velma Starler exclaimed out loud. Mason was silent, fascinated by the spectacle.

“What is it?” Della Street asked.

“I don’t know too much about it. They call it fluorescent light,” Salty said. “We use it in prospecting. You can tell different minerals by the different colors. I’ll admit that I sort of fixed up the face of that rock outcropping a little bit, putting in some float I picked up in other parts of the desert that didn’t rightly belong there.

“You were asking me about prospecting. We do a lot of it at night now. Lug around one of these outfits and spot minerals with it. Rocks that you’d pass over by day without a second glance will show you they’ve got valuable mineral in ’em when you turn this black light on ’em. — Well, let’s go back to the fire. I don’t want the Doc to think we ran away and left him. I just wanted to show you.”

Salty switched off the mechanism which made the black light.

“Well,” Dr. Kenward asked as they returned to the campfire, “how about it? Did it work?”

“Wonderfully,” Mason said.

“It was the most awe-inspiring, the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen,” Velma Starler said enthusiastically. “Do you know how it works?”

“Generally. A bulb filled with argon and having a very low current consumption, usually about a two-watt-current rating, emits ultraviolet light. Our eyes aren’t adjusted so we can see this light, but when it impinges upon various minerals, the wave length is changed back to that of visible light. The result is that these minerals have the appearance of actually emitting rays of light of various colors as independent sources of illumination.”

“You’ve used those machines?” Mason asked him.

“I— Ouch! A twinge of pain in that leg. It’s all right, Velma... nothing to be done.”

“More tea here,” Salty announced, and filled the teacups.

The sagebrush on the fire sputtered into a last flicker of flame. There was a lull in the conversation and, in that momentary lull, the silence of the desert made itself so apparent that it seemed to dominate the senses — a silence so intense that the lull in the conversation became a blanket of silence.

The last wavering flame flickered bravely, then vanished, leaving only a bed of glowing coals. Almost instantly the circle of darkness, which had been waiting just outside the campfire, moved in with a rush. The stars overhead brightened into added brilliance. A vagrant breeze coming down from off the higher ridges behind the camp fanned the coals into deep red for a moment. Over all, the brooding silence of the desert cast its spell.

Wordlessly, Salty got up, walked out into the darkness. Long experience in moving around at night without artificial illumination had made him as sure of himself as a blind man moving about through familiar surroundings.

“Well, guess I’ll be turning in. Good night.”

Dr. Kenward tried to get to his feet without asking Velma Starler for assistance, hut she was at his side helping him up within less than a second. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to get up?” she asked chidingly.

“I don’t want to be so dependent.”

“You’ve got to get over that some time. You have to depend on other people some. Are you going to bed?”

“I think so. If you’ll help me with my shoes... That’s fine! I don’t want to bend that leg... Thanks.”

Mason and Della Street sat by the dying fire, sharing the desert silence, looking into the red circle of coals.

Behind them the range of high mountains was a black silhouette against the western stars. Ahead and to the east the country dropped sharply into mysterious nebulous darkness which they knew held the level expanse of desert. Directly in front of them, the little circle of glowing coals gradually faded into a mere pool of pastel color which the night winds no longer had the power to fan into brilliance.

Mason’s hand moved over, found Della Street’s hand, took possession of it and held it in quiet understanding.

In the east, a faint band of nebulous illumination as vague and indistinct as the first flickers of Northern Lights paled the brilliance of the stars. Then, after a few minutes, the eastern range of mountains far out on the other side of the desert showed as a threadlike, saw-toothed strip outlined against a yellow illumination. This illumination grew in intensity until the slightly lopsided moon rose majestically to pour light over the surface far beneath them, bringing out ridges which were tinged with gold above pools of black shadow, pools that kept shrinking.

For more than two hours Mason and Della Street sat there watching the ever-changing spectacle, surrounded by the vast spell of silence.