The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

Chapter 6

Perry Mason drove up to the Eden side of the house, noting that half a dozen automobiles were filling every available parking space there. As he rolled smoothly to a stop in the middle of the driveway, a newspaper photographer with a camera and flashgun came running toward the car.

Other photographers, seeing the running cameraman, scurried into activity and soon Mason’s car was surrounded with popping flash bulbs.

As Mason opened the car door, a reporter said, “What the hell? We’ve been out here nearly fifteen minutes! This guy says we can’t get in the house until you arrive.”

“I’m sorry if you were kept waiting,” Mason said.

“You can’t keep a newspaper waiting,” the man said, “but the city editor wants an interview from you. Come on now, we’re in a rush. Let’s get the door open and take a look. What the hell is this all about?”

“Have you tried to get in the other side of the house?” Mason asked.

“No one answers the doorbell and the door is locked. We’ve been around and got photographs of the exterior and all that, but the place is all locked up. I understand Mrs. Carson was a model, and Eden says she parades around in a very abbreviated bathing suit.”

“I didn’t say any such thing,” Eden interrupted indignantly. “I said nothing about her parading around. I said that at one time she was taking a sunbath in an abbreviated bathing suit.”

“It’s all the same,” the reporter said. “Come on, you’ve got a key to the joint, let’s open it up.”

Another reporter said, “My city editor wants an interview with Mason. How about telling us what it’s all about, Mason?”

The lawyer said, “I’ll give you a very brief summary of the facts in the case. I would prefer not to have my photograph taken. As an attorney I’m not courting newspaper publicity and—”

“Phooey,” the reporter interrupted. “My editors want an interview and they want photographs. We’ve got photographs. Now come on, tell us what’s it all about.”

Mason briefly sketched the background of the litigation.

“And you filed this suit for fraud?” the reporter asked.

“That’s right. We’ve asked for punitive or exemplary damages, as well as actual damages.”

“And Carson told Eden that he had the deadwood on his wife, that he had a detective who had traced her to various weekend resorts where she’d been having a torrid affair with some guy. Is that right?”

“As to that,” Mason said, “you can get your facts from Morley Eden, or from the pleadings. I prefer not to discuss that phase of the case, and naturally I would prefer not to have it tried in the press but in a courtroom.”

“Lawyers have ideas about ethics and all that stuff,” the reporter announced, “but newspapers exist for the purpose of getting news. This is a hell of an interesting situation. You may not want to talk about it, but the newspaper is going to make a whale of a yarn out of it. If you give us the facts we’ll have them straight. If we have to get them from someone else we may have them garbled. You have any idea when Mrs. Carson is going to be back?”

Mason shook his head. “I didn’t know she was away.”

“We need a little cheesecake,” the reporter said. “A photograph of her in that bikini suit on one side of the barbed-wire fence, and Morley Eden on the other, would be a knockout. He says she handed him a cup of coffee early one morning. Maybe we could get her to pose handing a coffee cup through the barbed wire.”

“I have nothing to say about Mrs. Carson,” Mason said.

“Your client would go for it if we could fix it up?” the reporter asked.

Mason caught Eden’s eye. “My client would probably go for it,” he said.

“This is going to make a helluva story,” one of the reporters said. “Any objection to us going in now and going through the place?”

“Only one side of it,” Mason said. “Morley Eden’s side.”

“Well, it is his house. He had it built. Does he have keys to the other side?”

“He has keys to the other side, but there’s a restraining order. He can’t set so much as a foot on the property. He can’t even put his hand or arm through the barbed-wire fence unless he has permission from the owner of the property on that side.”

The reporter said, “Damn it, I’ll bet my editor is going to make us wait here until we get cheesecake to go with the art work.”

He turned to Morley Eden. “Haven’t you any idea where Mrs. Carson is? Didn’t you see her go out?”

“I got here just about the same time you did,” Eden said. “If you remember, you drove in right behind me.”

“And you haven’t as yet been in the house?” Mason asked.

Eden shook his head. “Miss Street told me not to open up until you got here. I was afraid to unlock the door for fear they would push in past me. These fellows are in a hurry and they want a story.”

“We’re not in such a big hurry we aren’t going to get the whole story,” the reporter said. “Let’s go inside. We want a picture of you standing on the springboard of the swimming pool in a bathing suit but afraid to dive for fear you’ll come up on the other side of that barbed-wire fence. Haven’t you any idea where Mrs. Carson is?”

Eden shook his head, took a key ring from his pocket and unlatched the front door.

“But you do have a key to the other side of the house?” the reporter asked.

“I have a key that did fit the side door. I haven’t tried it since the restraining order was served on me. I don’t know whether the locks were changed or not. I do know they had a locksmith out here so they could get the door open. It may be he changed the locks.”

Reporters and photographers moved in a compact group into the reception hallway. “Which way to the swimming pool?”

Eden pointed.

They started hurrying down the steps to the living room, then suddenly the leaders recoiled.

“Hey, what’s this?” one of the men said.

“Someone’s lying there!” Eden exclaimed.

“Someone’s not only lying there,” Mason said, “but there’s a pool of blood. You boys had better keep back and...”

His words were wasted as reporters and photographers surged forward. Flashlight bulbs filled the room with spasmodic spurts of brilliant illumination.

Mason moved far enough forward so he could see the features of the man lying on the floor, then whirled and raced for a telephone. He found one in the hall.

“Operator,” he said, “this is an emergency. Get me police headquarters.”

When he had police headquarters he said, “Homicide, please... I want Lieutenant Tragg. Is he in?”

“Who is this talking?”

“Perry Mason.”

“He’s around some place, Mr. Mason. Just hang on. He... Here he is now. Hold on.”

Mason heard the man’s voice say, “Lieutenant Tragg, Perry Mason wants to talk with you.” Then, after a moment, Tragg’s dry voice came over the wire, “Now, Perry; don’t tell me you’ve found a body.”

“I haven’t,” Mason said, “the reporters have and they’re trampling all over the place getting photographs.”

“What place? What body? What reporters? Where are you talking from?” Tragg asked crisply.

Mason said, “It’s a house that was put up by Loring Carson on property selected by Morley Eden. Morley Eden is here now and the man who is sprawled in the living room, and who apparently has been murdered, is Loring Carson. It’s a difficult place to find, but my secretary, Della Street, has a map that will show you exactly how to get here and—”

“We’ve got maps here,” Tragg said. “Give me the street and number. If there isn’t a number on the street, give me the description from the tax record or the deed. Give me anything and keep those reporters away from that body.”

“I stand as much chance keeping reporters away from that body as I would keeping a flock of moths away from a light,” Mason said. “Here, I’ll let you talk with Morley Eden. He’ll tell you how to get here.”

Mason nodded to Eden, who had moved up close to the attorney. “You tell him, Eden,” Mason said. “It’s Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide. I want him to get here before all the clues have been obliterated.”

The lawyer handed the phone to Eden and ran back to the living room.

One of the reporters was kneeling beside the body.

“Look at those diamond cuff links,” he said. “See what the guy has done. He’s put some kind of black stuff over those diamonds so they don’t glisten, but you can see where some of it came off. That’s a diamond underneath all right and... Hey, you fellows, his shirt sleeves are all wet.”

Mason bent down beside the reporter. “Homicide is on its way out here,” he said. “They’d like to have the scene kept intact.”

“Sure they would,” the reporter said, “and my newspaper wants the news. Now as I understand it, this guy is Loring Carson. He’s the divorced husband of the woman living on the other side of the fence; he’s the man who built the house, the fellow who sold the lots to Morley Eden?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “How wet are the shirt sleeves?”

“They’re good and wet, but the sleeves on the coat aren’t wet.”

“How did he die?” Mason asked. “I noticed blood. Was there a shot or—”

“Look around on this side and you can see how he died,” the reporter said. “There’s a wooden-handled butcher knife sticking into his back, and I mean it’s sticking all the way in. Just the handle protrudes.”

“Both shirt sleeves are wet?” Mason asked.

“That’s right, both shirt sleeves, but the sleeves of the coat aren’t wet.”

“How high are the sleeves wet?”

“To the elbows. I’m not going to take the coat off or disturb the position of the body in any way. You can feel the wet cuffs and shirt sleeves.”

Abruptly one of the newspaper reporters broke away from the group and sprinted for the hall.

As though his departure had been a signal which triggered action, there was a general scampering exodus.

One of the men grabbed Morley Eden. “A phone,” he demanded. “Where’s a phone?”

“There’s one in the hall and—”

“That’s being used.”

“There’s one in my bedroom.”

“An extension or a main line?”

“A main line.”

“Lead me to it.”

“Hey, Mac,” one of the others said, “you can’t hog it. You can get first call but that’s all.”

“The hell I can’t hog it. I’ll stay on the line until I’ve got my story in and it’s quite a story.”

“Where’s the next nearest phone?” one of the men asked Mason.

The lawyer shook his head. “There’s a service station up where this road leaves the main highway. I don’t know of any other place.”

A few moments later the lawyer was left alone in the room with the sprawled figure of Loring Carson.

Mason surveyed the dead man, then moved slowly along the room.

Near the body, and at a point almost directly under the barbed-wire fence, the glint of reflected light caught Mason’s eye. He bent down to examine the source of the light and found two little pools of water, perhaps no more than three teaspoons of water in each pool, and directly between them the mark of a foot where evidently one of the reporters had been standing in such a way that he caused water from the edge of one of the little pools to spread into a muddy smear.

Hurriedly Mason moved to the door which opened onto the patio and looked across to the swimming pool.

There could be no question that there had been activity around the pool. There was still a puddle in a shaded section of the tiles on Morley Eden’s side, and on the sunny side at the shallow end there were very definite indications of recent moisture.

Mason turned and hurried back into the house.

“Morley,” he called. “Oh, Morley.”

They met in the hall, Morley Eden emerging from the direction of the bedrooms.

“Any more phones in this house?” Mason asked.

“Not on this side. There’s one in the other side.”

“A main line?”

“A main line.”

“You have a key that will fit that side of the house?”

“Sure I have a key. That is, it used to fit, but I don’t dare use it. I—”

“Give it to me,” Mason said.

Eden hesitated for a moment. “You know you could get in trouble with this and—”

“Give me the key,” Mason told him. “Hurry!”

Eden took a leather key container from his pocket, selected a key and unsnapped it from the container. “This did fit the side door,” he said. “I don’t know whether it does now...”

Mason didn’t wait to hear him but, grabbing the key, dashed out through the door, hesitated a moment as he surveyed the fence, then decided he could make better time rounding the fence in his car than by trying to run for it. He jumped in the car, switched on the ignition and sent gravel flying as he spun the wheels in taking off down the driveway.

When he came to the heavy post embedded in cement, the lawyer slammed on the brakes, whipped the car into a skidding turn around the end of the fence, dashed up the driveway on the other side of the house, stopped his car directly in front of the side door, ran up the steps and fitted his key.

The key clicked back the lock.

Mason hurried into the house through the utility room, looking frantically for the telephone, found it in the kitchen, picked up the receiver and dialed the number of Paul Drake’s office.

A few seconds later, when he heard Drake’s voice on the line, Mason said, “Paul, this is Perry. Get this; get it right, get it first and get started.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“Nadine Palmer, a divorcee living at 1721 Crockley Avenue, left her apartment house with me about an hour ago, maybe a little longer. When we reached the main intersection — there’s a row of apartments there called Nester Hill — she saw a cab standing at the place reserved for a two-cab stand on the right-hand curb. She took that cab and went somewhere. I want to find out where she went. When you find her, I want her tailed.

“You’re going to have to contact the cab company. You’re going to have to find out what cab was there. You’re going to have to find out where it went. You’re going to have to pick up the trail of Nadine Palmer and do it fast. I want to know everywhere she goes. I want to know everyone she sees. I want to get the whole dope on her and I don’t want her to know it, and I don’t want anyone to—”

Mason turned abruptly as he heard an exclamation from behind him.

Vivian Carson, her arms full of grocery bags, stood in the doorway looking at him with indignation.

“Well,” she said sarcastically, “make yourself right at home, Mr. Mason! If there’s anything you want, just go ahead and take it.”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said, hanging up the phone, “I had to get to a telephone in a hurry.”

“So it would seem,” she said. “I heard your instructions. I presume it’s all right to eavesdrop in one’s own house.”

Mason said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m afraid simply saying you’re sorry isn’t going to be enough. I regard this as a deliberate violation of Judge Goodwin’s order.”

“That’s all right,” Mason told her. “I’ll be responsible to Judge Goodwin. Now let me ask you where you’ve been.”

“I’ve been shopping,” she said.

“How long have you been gone?”

“None of your business.”

“It may not be my business,” Mason said, “but it’s going to be the business of the police.”

“What do you mean, the police?”

“I mean,” Mason said, “that your ex-husband, Loring Carson, lies murdered just on the other side of that fence. Someone pushed a knife into his back and it just might be a good plan, Mrs. Carson, to find out whether—”

Vivian Carson’s arms opened. First one bag of groceries, then the other crashed to the floor. A carton of milk spilled open, a bottle of salad dressing broke. Milk and salad dressing mingled together on the waxed tile floor.

“My husband... mur... murdered,” she repeated, as though trying to accustom her mind to the words.

“That’s right,” Mason said, “murdered, and the police—”

He broke off as the sound of a siren screaming around the turn in the road died to a low-pitched growl.

“The police,” Mason finished, “are here now. Are there any oilier groceries in your car?”

“Two full bags,” she said.

“Permit me,” Mason said. “I’ll bring them in for you.”

The lawyer detoured the mess of spilled groceries on the door, said, “Perhaps you’d care to show me just where they arc.”

Vivian Carson started to follow him, then shook her head, braced herself against a wall for support, moved a few staggering steps to a chair and collapsed into the seat.

Mason went out to her car, noticing the squad car on the other side of the fence at the Morley Eden entrance.

The lawyer opened the car door, carefully looked in, found two shopping bags filled with groceries, took them in his arms, carried them to the house, noticing, as he did so, that all of the police activity was centered at the other side of the residence. Apparently the officers had not seen him.

Mason brought the groceries into the house, paused before Vivian Carson.

“Where do you want these, Mrs. Carson? In the kitchen?”

“Yes,” she said. “Please.”

“Come on,” Mason told her.

“I... I can’t... I...”

“Nonsense,” Mason told her. “Get up out of that chair and tell me where to put these groceries.”

At the peremptory tone of his voice, she arose from the chair, took a few uncertain steps, then led the way slowly into the kitchen.

Mason dropped the groceries on a table, said, “Now look, Mrs. Carson, I want to be absolutely fair with you. While I’m in here, I’m going to look around.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your husband was murdered,” Mason said. “The police are on the other side of the house right now. The minute you open the door between the kitchen and dining area you’ll see them in the living room on the other side of the fence. They’re going to question you.”

She nodded silently.

“Now then,” Mason said, “you’re a pretty poised young woman. You have been around. You know what it’s all about. You hated your husband’s guts. I don’t know why you should be so shocked over his murder unless you had something to do with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you kill him?” Mason asked.

“Who, me?... Heavens, no!”

Mason nodded in the direction of a long magnetic bar which was just to the right of a big electric range. A dozen or more knives were suspended from this magnetized bar.

“It looks as if there might be a gap there,” he said, pointing to a vacant space. “All of the other knives are arranged symmetrically and evenly spaced, then there’s this gap and—”

“One knife is in the icebox,” she explained. “I put it in there with some bread I had been slicing. Why this sudden attempt to pin a murder on me? Do you have some client you’re trying to protect?”

“Let’s put it this way. I’m giving you a dress rehearsal before the police start asking you questions. How long has this shopping trip of yours kept you away from the house here?”

“A couple of hours, I guess.”

“Just getting groceries?”

“I stopped at the supermarket and got the vegetables on the road home.”

“And where were you during the rest of the time?”

“Driving around and doing a little window-shopping.”

“See anyone you knew?”

She shook her head.

“In other words,” Mason said, “no alibi.”

“What do you mean, no alibi? Why do I need an alibi?”

“Figure it out for yourself,” Mason invited.

“But you said Loring was on the other side of the fence, in the other part of the house and...”

“His body,” Mason said, “is lying within a few inches of the barbed-wire fence. He may very well have staggered a few steps before he fell. He could have stood on one side of the fence, you could have stood on the other, and you could have pushed that knife through the fence.

“There’s one other possibility. You could have slipped into the pool, dived under the barbed wire, entered the living room, stabbed your husband and then returned the same way.”

“All right, I could have! That doesn’t mean I did.”

“Where’s your bathing suit?”

“It’s a skimpy suit. I’ve been a model, Mr. Mason, and frankly I think a lot of our so-called modesty about our figures is the result of hypocrisy and unclean thinking. I’m proud of my figure. I guess I’m something of a nudist. I—”

“Never mind all that,” Mason interrupted, “and never mind how skimpy your bathing suit is, where is it?”

“In the shower room off the pool — and it’s wet. I took a late afternoon swim yesterday and washed out my suit. I intended to hang it out in the sun to dry today but realize now I forgot to do so.”

“All right,” Mason told her. “I’m glad to see I’ve snapped you out of it. Someday you’ll thank me.”

“What is it you’re supposed to have snapped me out of?”

“Of the blue funk that was gripping you when you first realized you were going to be questioned by the officers. Now then, clean up that mess, get rid of the broken glass and all of the junk before the police get over here to question you. You’ve got your self-possession back, now keep it.”

Mason ran quickly from the kitchen through the utility room to the side door, walked out and got in his car. No one noticed him as he drove down the graveled driveway to the big post set in cement and to which one end of the fence was anchored.

He left his car in the driveway, ran up the steps to the house, found the front door standing open and was about to enter when a uniformed officer in charge of the small group of newspaper photographers and reporters herded the group out of the door. “You boys know the rules as well as I do,” the officer said. “We’ll give you all the facts we feel we can release, but you can’t go trooping around getting all the clues messed up and you know it. You had no business down there in the first place. Now you’re going to have to wait outside until the inspection is over. We can arrange for you to use the phone, but that’s all.”

Mason walked through the reception hall to the arched doorway and looked down. One officer was roping off the section of the living room where Carson’s body was lying. Another was questioning Morley Eden, who looked up and said, “Oh, there you are, Mason! What the devil! I’ve been looking all over for you. The officer wants to know who put in the call, who discovered the body, what you had to do with it and all of that stuff. I told them they’d better ask you.” He came up the steps.

“Quite right,” a dry voice said from behind Mason’s shoulder. “You should make an explanation, Perry.”

Mason turned to face Lieutenant Tragg’s enigmatic professional smile. “Another body?”

“Another body,” Mason said.

“Getting to be quite a habit with you, isn’t it?”

“It’s also a habit with you, isn’t it?” Mason asked.

“That’s my business,” Tragg said. “I come in contact with bodies.”

“So do I,” Mason told him. “I didn’t discover this one. The reporters discovered it.”

“And you happened to be here at the time?”

“I happened to be here at the time.”

“How delightfully opportune,” Tragg said. “Now perhaps you’d like to tell us about it, Mason.”

Mason said, “I think you’d better take a look down there first, Lieutenant. The reporters have done a lot of trampling around.”

Tragg frowned, looked down at the sprawled body and said, “The officers seem to have the case in hand now. I’ll talk with you for a moment. What’s the idea of the fence running through the house, Mason?”

“Judge Goodwin’s idea,” Mason said. “This house was involved in a divorce action. Judge Goodwin divided it.”

“Who’s living on this side?”

“Morley Eden, the gentleman standing there beside you.”

“Your client?”

“My client.”

Tragg said, “How do you do, Mr. Eden. Why did you think there was going to be a murder here?”

“I didn’t,” Eden said.

“Then why did you think you needed Perry Mason?”

“For your information,” Mason said, “I have just finished filing a suit for fraud against Loring Carson on behalf of Mr. Eden. That is why the newspaper reporters were here.”

“I see, I see. And who is Loring Carson?”

“The man who built the house; the man who sold the lots; the defendant in the divorce action and the corpse down there on the floor.”

“Well, well,” Tragg said, “that seems to cover the situation pretty well. Now who’s living on the other side of the house?”

“According to Judge Goodwin’s ruling, that belongs to Vivian Carson.”

“Wife of the man down there?”

“She is now a widow,” Mason said.

“I stand corrected,” Tragg observed with a bow of mock humility. “And do you have any idea where Mrs. Carson is now, Mr. Mason?”

“I would assume she was over in her side of the house.”

“And how do I get to the other side of the house?”

“There are two ways,” Mason said. “You can dive from the springboard of the swimming pool and swim under the barbed-wire fence, or you can go around the heavy post at the end of the driveway where the fence starts, then go up the other side of the driveway and through the side door of the house.”

“Or,” Tragg said, pursing his lips, “you might crawl under the fence?”

“You might crawl under the fence,” Mason conceded, “but it would be a rather hazardous occupation for a man of even average build. That’s a five-strand barbed-wire fence. The wire is heavy-gauge, and it’s stretched just as tight as human ingenuity and modern mechanical appliances can stretch it.”

“A woman with a slender figure could very probably wriggle under that lower wire without too much difficulty, particularly if she were stripped down to — to what one might call the bare essentials, Mason. Eh?”

“Or in a bikini,” Mason said. “Bear in mind that the thought is yours, Tragg. I didn’t suggest it to you, I only clothed your suspect.”

“Oh, not my suspect, Mason. Not my suspect,” Tragg said. “I was merely surveying the possibilities — the bare possibilities.”

Tragg, frowning thoughtfully, moved over to stand for a brief moment in the center of the archway, surveying the living room.

One of the officers, catching his eye, called, “You’d better look over this way, Lieutenant. There’s a significant wet spot here as though someone had spilled some water, perhaps out of a glass.”

Tragg started to walk down the steps, paused, then, turning hack to Mason, said, “I think a slender woman could have slipped under the fence; a woman wearing a bikini, a wet bikini. Thank you very much for the suggestion, Perry. I’ll remember it.”

“It wasn’t my suggestion,” Mason said. “It was your idea.”

“Exactly,” Tragg said, smiling, “it was my idea and your suggestion.”