The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse

Chapter number 22

Back in Mason’s office, Paul Drake said to the lawyer, “Frankly, Perry, I don’t get it.”

Mason said, “The trouble with lawyers, Paul, is that they become too cynical, too skeptical.”

“Lois Fenton was telling me the absolute truth. For a long while I didn’t believe her. The reason I didn’t believe her was because her story sounded too improbable, but it wasn’t improbable. It was the most naturally logical story in the world. She told exactly what happened, and the minute I started viewing her statements in that way I knew definitely who had killed John Callender. There could only have been one person.”

“Shoot,” Drake said.

Mason said, “I ran onto Harry Cogswell in the corridor. Therefore, I knew that he had called on Callender at about 1:20. Lois Fenton said she left Callender at two o’clock. A maid saw her in the corridor, and saw Callender standing in the doorway.

“When Arthur Sheldon left Callender’s room, he acted very much as though he were escaping from something. When Arthur Sheldon checked out of the hotel he put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on Callender’s door. He must, therefore, have known at that time Callender was murdered and he wanted to keep the crime from being discovered as long as possible. That was only natural. Under the circumstances and having occupied the room across the hall, he needed time to clear his own skirts.”

“You mean Sheldon committed the crime?”

“I mean that if Sheldon knew he was dead when he put that DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, he must have known he was dead when he left Callender’s room because the evidence shows that no one communicated with Sheldon after that. There were no phone calls to his room, no one called on him.”

Drake slowly nodded.

“Therefore, it is obvious that Sheldon must have been the one who answered the telephone when the house detective called Callender’s room. Evidently Sheldon thought that it might be Lois Fenton calling, because he knew Callender wanted to see her, so he decided to answer the phone and warn her against calling up. When he heard the voice of a strange woman he simply posed as Callender. Remember he had no need to say very much other than ‘hello.’ The woman did the talking. She said she was in the lobby, that the house detective had made her call, that she was coming up. Sheldon simply hung up the phone, dashed back across the hall to his own room, and waited for an alarm to be given. He was probably sick with fright right then.”

“Go ahead,” Drake said.

“That’s all there is to it,” Mason said. “When no alarm was given, Sheldon knew he stood a chance. He waited for the coast to clear and then checked out. He then had the satisfaction of knowing some woman had called on Callender and had failed to give the alarm. So he put his DO NOT DISTURB sign on Callender’s door as he went out. That should have delayed discovery of the crime sufficiently to have given Sheldon a chance to confuse the issues. But Callender had left instructions that at a certain time he was to be aroused by having coffee brought to his room. He had a habit of requiring coffee as soon as he awakened.”

Drake said, “That’s nice reasoning, Perry, but exactly what did happen, and how did it happen?”

Mason said, “I knew that Cogswell had called on Callender. He had made a hurried trip from Palomino just as soon as I had given him and Irene Kilby the fans. Therefore, it was logical to suppose that Cogswell and Irene made a rush trip down from Palomino to give those fans to Callender. The doctor’s theory was quite correct. Callender was holding up that fan in front of him when his assailant, using the Japanese sword as a weapon and his actions being screened by the fact that Callender was holding the open fan in front of him, simply plunged the blade into Callender’s chest, stabbing right through the fan.”

Drake nodded.

“Now why had Callender opened the fan? Undoubtedly to show it to someone. Why did he want to show it to someone? Because he wanted to prove something in connection with the fan or in connection with the ownership of the fan.

“Lois Fenton told me that Sheldon had previously rented a room down in the rooming house on Lagmore Street because she wanted a room for Jasper Fenton. Jasper was to go there.

“You can see what happened. Jasper Fenton went to the hotel. He kept his two-o’clock appointment with John Callender, and John Callender told him very coldbloodedly that Jasper could tell his sister that unless she returned to him Jasper Fenton was going to jail. He had just received one of the fans from Cogswell. He held that fan up to show Jasper that I hadn’t found the horse, only a fan. That was Jasper Fenton’s opportunity.

“Jasper Fenton knew that Lois wouldn’t go back to Callender no matter what happened. That meant Callender was going to send Fenton to jail. The plumes of the fan momentarily screened Fenton from Callender’s eyes. The Japanese sword was on the table. The first Callender knew, the blade was being shoved into his chest. He dropped the fan and grabbed at the blade, cutting his fingers to the bone. He died almost instantly.”

“But why did Jasper Fenton go back to the room at 2:44?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “That was the only decent thing Jasper Fenton ever did. After he had left the hotel, he remembered that the fan was lying there in a pool of blood. He knew that it was his sister’s fan. He knew that the fan would link her with the crime. He went back to the hotel, went up to Callender’s room, went in, grabbed the fan, slapped it against the wall to remove the blood, concealed it under his coat and came out.

“Notice the evidence, Paul. The man was wearing an overcoat when he came to the hotel. He pushed open the door of Callender’s room and went in without knocking. Why? Because he knew that a knock would do no good. He also knew that the door was unlocked. If he hadn’t known Callender was dead, he would have knocked on the door.”

Drake nodded.

“Fenton got the fan,” Mason said. “He went to the room in the rooming house — the one Arthur Sheldon had taken for him. There he became panic stricken. He had this blood-soaked fan and he didn’t know what to do with it. He went out to get a drink. He kept on drinking. In the meantime, Sheldon had checked out of the Richmell Hotel. He had no place to go. He remembered this room that he had secured for Jasper Fenton. He decided he’d go up and share the room with Fenton. He found the key on the board. He entered the room. He found the blood-soaked fan. He called Lois. Lois thought Sheldon had killed Callender, and Sheldon, making a martyr of himself to save Lois, because he thought she was guilty, decided to skip out so the police would blame the crime on him. And that is the situation in a nutshell, Paul. I’d have had the case solved a long time ago if I’d only believed my client was telling me the truth when she told me that wildly improbable story about the fan.”

“What’ll they do with Fenton?” Drake asked.

Mason grinned. “That’s Burger’s headache. Callender was blackmailing Fenton. He was forcing himself on Fenton’s sister. No jury in the world will give him first-degree murder. If he gets a good lawyer he can make it manslaughter.”

“But what was Irene Kilby doing in that room for the ten minutes she was there?”

“Searching for that agreement. When she found Callender dead she was just cold-blooded enough and just selfish enough to look around and try and find that agreement. She looked every place except the place where it was.”

“Where’s that?”

Mason grinned. “I don’t know for certain, Paul, but let’s look at the evidence. Callender kept that room in the hotel. He came up from the Valley, trying to get away from the heat and he carried that Japanese sword with him. The reason he carried that Japanese sword with him was because the handle of that sword was the place he’d chosen to conceal the documents he was using, the agreement Lois had signed, the forged checks.”

“My God, Perry, that sounds logical.”

“It is logical,” Mason said. “That’s where the documents were.”

“How do you know?”

Mason smiled. “The sword was in court as an exhibit. After court adjourned and during the excitement I pulled out the pin and slipped the handle off the blade. The documents were inside.”

Mason opened his billfold, took out the agreement signed by Irene Kilby and Lois Fenton, said with a grin, “After all, a lawyer should do something for a client. I left the forged checks in there for Hamilton Burger to discover.”