The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

Chapter 7

Mason took Morley Eden’s arm, escorted him back a few feet into the hall.

“How did Loring Carson get in this house, Eden?” Mason asked.

“I wish I knew,” Eden said. “The only explanation I have is that when Carson built the house he must have had duplicate keys made so that he could get in and out while he was putting on the finishing touches.

“You see, he erected the house and hung the doors but there was still a lot of work to be done on the interior and, of course, contractors don’t like to have the public trooping in and out of a house.”

“Carson didn’t turn all the keys over to you when the house was completed?” Mason asked.

“I thought he did,” Eden said somewhat irritably. “He turned over two complete sets of keys, but there must have been a third set which he retained.”

“You had no idea he was going to be here in the house?”

“Of course not.”

“Where were you?”

“I went to your office this morning to sign the verification to the complaint. You were out somewhere. I read the complaint and signed the verification. Miss Street acted as notary public. She said I was to meet you here at one o’clock and that I wasn’t to let any reporters inside the house until you arrived.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I went back to my office.”

“And what happened after you reached your office?”

“There were lots of calls from newsmen asking about the suit you’d filed. I told everyone I would be at the house at one; that you’d be there then and that I’d give them a statement at that time and let them take photographs. I said that in the meantime I had nothing to say.”

“You had no idea Carson’s body was in the house?”

“Of course not.”

“How long since you’ve seen him?”

“Some time.”

Mason said, “Carson was in my office. He tried a lot of bluster, but as nearly as I could gather the main purpose of his visit was to try and keep me from filing any action on your behalf. He told me that he was engaged in some rather delicate negotiations and that having a lawsuit filed against him at this time would put him in a most embarrassing position.”

Eden frowned. “I had an idea that he was negotiating some sort of a deal and wanted to avoid publicity until the deal was consummated.”

“Any idea what sort of a deal it was?” Mason asked.

Eden shook his head.

Mason said, “The man had a breezy informality about him. I assume that was his natural manner. Knowing that I was about to file suit against him for fraud, I didn’t want to discuss anything with him. I kept telling him to get an attorney. He told me he didn’t need one, that he could talk with me, and chided me for being something of a stuffed shirt as far as legal ethics were concerned. Frankly he made me feel just a little embarrassed. He had a friendly manner of wanting to talk and get things settled on a man-to-man basis, and I had to adopt the position that I couldn’t discuss things with him unless his attorney was present.”

Eden said, “That was Carson’s way. He’d put on the pressure and keep putting on the pressure. When he wanted something, he just kept boring right in.”

“How did he get out to the house here?” Mason asked. “Did he come by car?”

“I don’t know. There was no car parked here when I arrived except a couple that the newspapermen came in. Then two more press cars followed just behind me.”

Mason said, “One thing is certain, he didn’t walk out here. He either came in a taxicab or someone brought him. If he had someone with him, that person could have driven his car away. Did you come right out here from your office?”

“Actually I didn’t,” Eden said. “A woman phoned me and said she had some information on a piece of property I wanted to buy. She said that if I’d meet her out there in half an hour she’d show me how I could save ten thousand dollars on the deal and if I did that she’d want one thousand dollars as her cut.”

“What did you do?”

“Told her I’d meet her there and listen to what she had to say.”

“Who was she?”

“Wouldn’t give her name, said she was a stranger to me but that she’d be wearing a dark green outfit with a white carnation corsage.”

“Dark green,” Mason said musingly. “That’s where the original mix-up between Vivian Carson and Nadine Palmer took place. They were both wearing dark green. All right, you went out there. Did you meet the woman?”

“No. I waited half an hour. She never did show up.”

Mason frowned. “That delayed you?”

“You might say... although your secretary told me you had one person you had to see before you arrived and I didn’t need to hurry — just so I got here at one.”

“You didn’t see anything of Mrs. Carson when you did get here?”

“No.”

“Did you notice whether her car was there at her side of the house when you arrived?”

“No.”

“Could it have been there without your noticing it?”

“Oh, sure. I had other things to think about. And it could have been in the garage. That’s on her side of the fence.”

Mason regarded him thoughtfully. “Let’s get this time element straight, Eden,” he said. “What time did you actually arrive here?”

“Heavens, I don’t know,” Eden said somewhat irritably. “It was a little before... well maybe a little after one. There’s no use trying to cross-examine me.”

“I’m not cross-examining you,” Mason said. “I’m simply trying to get at the facts. I also want to know when you left your office. The police are going to want all this information pinpointed down to the last minute.”

“Well, I can’t give it to them,” Eden snapped. “I can’t run my business on a stopwatch basis. I don’t know just what time I left where.”

“You were alone?”

“Yes, I went out there to this corner lot I was negotiating for, waited around for this woman in green, then after half an hour or so I decided I couldn’t wait any longer and so drove straight out here.”

“Did you see the knife that was in Carson’s body?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever seen it before?”

“I think I have.”

“Where?”

“I think it’s part of a set; that is, a duplicate of the set that Carson gave me.”

“Carson gave you a set of knives?” Mason asked.

“That’s right,” Eden said. “He completed the house and I gave him his check in final payment and he said he wanted to make me a little present; that he’d put up a magnetic bar for knives by the range in the kitchen. He had a whole set there, starting from small paring knives up to knives for slicing bread, knives for cutting roasts and a utility knife that had a wooden handle. I presume he got a set for himself at the same time. One of the knives in that set is very similar to the knife that was in Carson’s body.”

“But you don’t know whether that knife came from the set he gave you or not?”

“Heavens, no, Mason. What are you trying to get at? I saw Carson’s body lying there. I guess you saw it before I did. I tried my best to keep away from it. I went up close enough to make sure it was Carson. Then some of the reporters started questioning me. Actually I thought they had no business messing things up the way they were doing.”

“They didn’t,” Mason said, “and don’t become so annoyed with me for trying to get your story straightened out. The police are going to want to know everything about your movements. They’ll want to know how much of your time can be accounted for. They’ll ask you for the names of witnesses who can tell where you were.”

“Well, I can’t give them the names of witnesses. How long is all this going to cover — this period of time the police will want to know about?”

“That,” Mason said, “will depend on what the autopsy surgeon finds as to the time of death.”

“Well, they’ll have to take my word for it,” Eden said.

“They’ll take your word for nothing,” Mason said.

Mason stepped over to the archway leading to the living room where Tragg was down on the floor on his hands and knees, raising and lowering his head so as to get reflections of light from the moist spots on the floor.

“Will you want me anymore, Lieutenant?” Mason asked.

“Want you anymore,” Tragg repeated. “Don’t be silly, I haven’t started with you yet. And don’t let Morley Eden go away. I haven’t started with him.”

“What are you doing now?” Mason asked.

“Right at the moment,” Tragg said, “I’m trying to account for these spots of water on the tile floor. Now do you suppose by any chance these came from melted ice cubes?”

“Meaning that Carson had a drink in his hand at the time of his death?” Mason asked.

“Exactly,” Tragg said.

“I wouldn’t know,” Mason said, “but I have a suggestion that you might care to consider.”

“What’s that?”

“As I have previously pointed out, it’s comparatively easy to go from one side of the fence to the other by using the swimming pool. That is, the fence goes right along the surface of the swimming pool but doesn’t go under water. A swimmer could dive under the fence and come up on the other side with the greatest of ease.”

“You think this water may have come from the swimming pool?”

“There’s a chance,” Mason said. “Water in the swimming pool is, I believe, chlorinated more heavily than drinking water. If you had some small bottles and could get that water before it evaporates...”

Tragg turned to one of the officers. “When Mason gets this cooperative he has something in mind, a very definite something. I was about to suggest that we collect this water so we can make a chemical analysis and, of course, Mason, noticing that I was inspecting the puddles of water and anticipating what I had in mind, has now made a very constructive suggestion.”

Tragg got to his feet, dusted off the knees of his trousers and the palms of his hands and said to one of the men, “Get on the radio to Headquarters. Tell the dispatcher to rush a car out here with some sterile vials and some small sterile pipettes. I want to get as much of this water as possible before it evaporates.”

The officer nodded, hurried out to the police car to get on the radio telephone.

Tragg turned to Morley Eden. “Now,” he said, “how did Carson get in the house? You don’t leave the door open, do you?”

Eden shook his head.

“That is another thing I was about to comment on,” Mason said.

“Go right ahead,” Tragg said. “I’ve forgotten now who it was that said fear the Greeks when they were bearing gifts, but as I remember it he took the gifts. I’ll take all the verbal gifts you have to offer; but don’t discount the fact that every suggestion you make increases my suspicions all the more.”

“That’s quite all right,” Mason said, “just so we get the facts straight, then we can adjust them later.”

“That, of course, is the big thing in a homicide. Get the evidence, preserve the facts. Now what were you going to suggest?”

Mason said, “I think you’ll find that Loring Carson had a complete set of keys to this house. He built the house, you know, and then turned it over to Morley Eden. First he sold him the lots, then he went ahead and contracted to build the house on a basis of progress payments.”

“I see,” Tragg said. “Well, ordinarily we don’t take anything from the body until after a representative of the coroner’s office gets here, but in a situation of this kind time is of the greatest importance. I think we’ll go through his pockets, men, and just make a list of the things we take out. We should have an official photographer here any minute and representatives of the coroner’s office.”

Tragg turned to Eden. “Could I trouble you for a sheet or a pillowcase, or something that we could put on the floor and into which we could put the things we take from the man’s pockets?”

“I can get you a pillow slip right away.”

“That will be fine,” Tragg said.

He stood a few paces back from the body, surveying it with thought-troubled eyes.

“Something bothering you, Lieutenant?” Mason asked.

“A lot of things are bothering me,” Tragg said. “Look at the man’s shirt, a very expensive shirt, French cuffs; cufflinks that are enameled black, but you can see that they are diamond cuff links. Some substance was put over the diamonds and then the whole thing was enameled black.”

Eden appeared with a pillow slip. “Will one be all right, Lieutenant?”

“One will be fine, thank you,” Tragg said.

He knelt by the body, then started removing articles from the pockets.

“Well, well,” he said, as he opened a folded book of traveler’s checks, “five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar traveler’s checks in the name of A.B.L. Seymour. It looks as though our man had an alias for purposes of his own, perhaps fooling the income-tax department. Perhaps we’ll find he has a little love nest somewhere with all the complications that go with a dual life.

“Now in this wallet,” Tragg went on, “are thousand-dollar bills, fifteen of them. And here’s a wallet in his hip pocket with hundred-dollar bills. This man was what you might call well heeled. Now let’s see. You are interested in the keys... Here are the keys.”

Tragg extracted a leather key container.

“Now, Mr. Eden, if you’ll step down this way with your house key, I’ll check it with the keys in this key container and see if perhaps Mr. Carson had, as you suggested, retained a key to your house. Pardon me, the suggestion didn’t come from you, it came from Perry Mason. Not, of course, that it makes any great difference in one way, but in another way it makes all the difference in the world. I have found that suggestions made by Mr. Perry Mason are nearly always pertinent but quite frequently tend to confuse the issues rather than clarify them, at least for the moment.”

Morley Eden produced his keys.

“Now, let’s see,” Tragg said, “this is the key... to what? The front door?”

“The front door.”

“There seems to have been a key removed from your key container. There’s a vacant space there. Would you know anything about that?”

Eden glanced uncomfortably at Perry Mason.

Tragg said, “Well! Flashing signals of distress to your attorney, eh? So this vacant spot in the key container may well become quite significant. Perhaps we’ll look into that first, Mr. Eden, if you don’t mind. And if your attorney doesn’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Mason said. “I asked Mr. Eden for the key to the other side of the house, which he took rather hurriedly from the key container and handed to me. With that particular type of key container, it’s easier to pull the little lever and take out the key clips one at a time than to remove the key from the clip itself.”

“I see,” Tragg said thoughtfully. “And this key that was removed and given to you, Mr. Mason, what door does that fit?”

“The door to the other side of the house; that is, the side door.”

“The side that was awarded to Mrs. Carson?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right.”

“Perhaps if you’d be good enough to produce that key, Mason, I’ll check that key also and see if Carson perchance had keys to both sides of the house.”

Mason handed over the key.

“Thank you,” Tragg said with exaggerated courtesy. “You’ll pardon me for rambling along here, just sort of thinking out loud, but I’m wondering if perhaps you didn’t walk into your own trap. When you suggested that Carson had keys to the house and therefore could get in at any time you overlooked the fact that I’d ask Morley Eden for his keys in order to make a comparison. Of course when he produced, his keys, the vacant place in the key container became readily apparent and so you were called upon to produce the key to the other side of the house. However, never mind. I take it the other side of the house is unoccupied at the moment?”

“Mrs. Carson lives there,” Eden said.

Tragg, his shrewd eyes making a quick comparison of the keys he had taken from the body of Loring Carson with the keys in Morley Eden’s key container, said “And why would Mr. Mason want the key to Mrs. Carson’s side of the house?”

“I don’t know,” Eden said.

“I didn’t think you would,” Tragg said. “Mason, in his more subtle moments, seldom confides what he has in mind to anyone, least of all to his clients. Doubtless he thought he could protect your interests in some way, but perhaps Mr. Mason will be good enough to explain.”

“I wanted to take a quick look in that side of the house to see if the murderer might be there,” Mason said.

“That was brave of you, Mason.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mason said casually, “the murder was committed with a knife. After a murderer uses a knife, he’s finished with his weapon. It isn’t like a gun which shoots one bullet after another.”

“Now that’s logical, very logical indeed,” Tragg said. “And perhaps you thought the murderer was a woman? It’s nice to have you civilians usurping the prerogatives of the police, but rather embarrassing at times. You do have a way of contaminating evidence, you know. Now I think, Mr. Mason, if you have no objection, you and I will walk right over to the other side of the house and we’ll just see what it was you wanted to inspect.”

“I think you’ll find Mrs. Carson there now,” Mason said.

“Oh, you do,” Tragg said. “I take it that that use of the word now indicates that she wasn’t there when you first went over, Mason.”

“That’s right, she’d been shopping.”

“Well, well, we keep getting more and more information,” Tragg said. “I think we’ll now go talk with Mrs. Carson before she has a chance to do any more thinking about the instructions Perry Mason doubtless gave her.”

Tragg turned to one of the men. “Now look,” he said, “I want to get this moisture up from the floor; every drop that we can save. When the squad car comes and delivers these sterile vials and pipettes, I want you men to use them carefully. First you uncork the vial. Then you take one of these pipettes and insert it in the pool of moisture and gently suck on the other end of the pipette. That draws the moisture up into the pipette. Don’t let it come up far enough to touch the end of the pipette or mingle with the saliva. Then remove the pipette from the puddle, put the end in the vial and blow gently until you have expelled the contents. Keep doing that as often as is necessary until you get both puddles absorbed.

“And when the coroner’s office gets here, explain that I’m very anxious indeed to get the exact time of death. I want to know just as much as we can about that — postmortem lividity, body temperature. Find out when food was last ingested, check the contents of stomach and the large intestine. In short, get me everything possible on the time of death... And now if you’re quite ready, Mr. Mason, I think we’ll go over and call on Mrs. Carson. I’ll let you perform the introductions and after that, I’ll thank you to refrain from any interruption until I have asked a few questions about your activities. Now, how do we go?”

“We go out the front door, down the driveway and around the big post with the wires anchored to it,” Mason said.

“We can’t get out around the swimming pool?” Tragg asked.

“Not around that way. It’s a very deep lot. The barbed-wire fence goes right across the patio, crosses the surface of the swimming pool, goes across the tiled sun deck on the other side, and then down the hill for at least a couple of hundred feet.”

“When she put up a fence, she put up a good one,” Tragg said.

“I have reason to believe the purpose of the fence was to subject Morley Eden to the greatest amount of annoyance possible,” Mason said.

“Well, it seems to have been rather effective,” Tragg said. “I can’t imagine someone living in a house with a taut, heavy-gauge barbed-wire fence running right through the middle of it... But come. Mason, we’re delaying matters, and somehow I have an idea that any delay is playing right into your hands. What did you tell Mrs. Carson?”

“I told her her husband had been murdered.”

“Did you indeed,” Tragg said. “Now that’s very unfortunate. You know, Mason, the police like to be the ones who make announcements of that sort, and then we can see from the expression of surprise, regret or otherwise, just how the person takes the news. Sometimes we get very valuable clues that way.”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said, “but I thought she should know.”

“You took it upon yourself to be a committee of one to tell her?”

“No,” Mason said, “I went in that side of the house just to see if the murderer might be hiding there and she came in and... well, she caught me by surprise.”

“By surprise, eh? What were you doing?”

“Just getting ready to look around. No, come to think of it, I believe I was using the phone.”

“Using the telephone?” Tragg said. “Well now, that’s interesting. Let’s see. The newspaper reporters were here. Evidently they came out to cover the story of the action for fraud on the house that was divided by a barbed-wire fence.

“When they saw that body lying there, that was a news dividend which must have made them think they’d hit the jackpot. I presume there was a brief period of inspection while photographers were messing around, and then the reporters dashed for the telephones and tied up every available telephone in sight. So you wanted to get to a telephone for reasons of your own, and all of the accessible telephones were taken... I wonder if Mrs. Carson heard any part of your conversation.”

“You’ll have to ask her,” Mason said.

“I certainly will,” Tragg said, his eyes twinkling. “Please don’t let me overlook that point, Mason. If it should slip my mind, just nudge me and call it to my attention, will you? And now if you’re quite ready, we’ll go across and meet Mrs. Carson.”

“May I ask if any of the keys on Carson’s key ring fit the doors of the house?”

“I can’t tell you about that until I’ve tried them carefully,” Tragg said, “but several of them seem to be identical. I think Mr. Carson probably did retain keys to the place. However, we’ll make a more thorough test of the keys a little later on. Right now, if you don’t mind, Mason, I’d like very much to have you introduce me to Mrs. Carson.”

Tragg cupped his hand under Mason’s elbow, kept pace with him as they walked back up the stairs and out of the front door.

“We have to go all around that fence at the end?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right,” Mason said.

“Well, I think we can make better time in a car. Here’s one blocking the driveway. Is that by any chance yours, Mason?”

“That’s mine.”

Tragg held open the car door. The group of reporters held in one place by the officer surged forward insistently. “Lieutenant, when are we going to have a chance to interview you?” one of the men called.

“In just a short time,” Tragg said reassuringly. “I’m going to ask you boys to be patient. You’ve already photographed the scene and telephoned in your stories. I’ll let you have news just as soon as there’s any news to give you — provided, of course, it doesn’t interfere with apprehending the murderer.”

“Any ideas?” one of the men asked.

“I don’t think I care to be interviewed at the present time.”

“Where are you taking Mason? What’s the idea?”

Tragg said in a low voice, “Come on, Mason, get that motor going. Let’s be moving along.”

The lawyer started the motor.

Tragg waved his hand reassuringly to the newspaper reporters. “You’ll have to wait there a few minutes, boys,” he said. “We don’t want to have you messing up the evidence.”

They drove around the fence post up the other side of the divided driveway.

“That fence certainly makes it inconvenient, doesn’t it?” Tragg said.

“Very.”

“If there hadn’t been a double driveway, one going to the front door and one going to the side door, it would have been very annoying.”

“I think it’s quite annoying even the way it is,” Mason volunteered.

“Yes, I dare say it is. Now, Mason, did you use this key to the side door?”

“I used it.”

“Did you have permission from the owner?”

“I had permission from the owner. Morley Eden is the owner.”

“Well now, that’s subject to question. I believe there’s a decree of some sort, you said?”

“An interlocutory judgment which is not a final disposition of the matter,” Mason said, “and then, of course, there’s always the right of appeal. I prefer to reach my own legal conclusions from all the facts.”

“Hmm-n,” Tragg said, “a typical lawyer’s answer.”

Mason parked the car in front of the side door.

“There was, I believe, a restraining order?” Tragg asked.

“I violated the restraining order,” Mason said, “there’s no question about that. That, however, is a matter between Judge Goodwin and me.”

“I see,” Tragg said. “I’m just getting the facts straight. Now if you don’t mind, Mason, we’ll first try this key to the door just so I can check on your story. It’s not that I doubt your word at all, but I may have to testify in court later on, and you have a most devastating type of cross-examination, you know.”

Tragg, keeping up a running fire of conversation, tried the key in the door, clicked back the lock, opened the door, then pulled it shut and pressed his finger against the bell.

Chimes sounded on the inside of the house.

A few moments later the door was opened by Vivian Carson.

“Mrs. Carson,” Mason said, “this is Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide. He would like to—”

Tragg interposed his shoulders between Mason and the woman.

“Would like to ask a few questions,” Tragg finished with his most engaging smile. “I must warn you that anything you say may be held against you and you do not have to answer without benefit of counsel. But I can assure you, Mrs. Carson, we sympathize with you and we’re going to make this just as painless as possible. Now just where were you at the time the murder was committed?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking him straight in the eye, “because I don’t know just when the murder was committed.”

“Quite right,” Tragg said. “That’s a very good answer. One might almost think it had been suggested by Perry Mason’s coaching. If you don’t mind,” Tragg went on, “we’ll just go through to your part of the living room. By the way, just how is the house divided?”

“The fence runs through the living room. Most of it is on my side of the fence due to the dining area,” she said. “I have the utility room, the kitchen, the showers and dressing room for the pool and the servant’s quarters. I’ve been living in the servant’s quarters.”

Tragg said. “You have the kitchen?”

“That’s right.”

“May we look in the kitchen, please?”

She started to lead the way, when suddenly Tragg stopped and inspected the waxed tiles of the entranceway.

“Now you’ll forgive me,” he said, “but there’s a spot here which has much less gloss than the rest of the tile floor. The refraction of light is not nearly as great — has something been spilled here?”

“I came in with groceries,” she said. “Mr. Mason told me of my husband’s death and I dropped the groceries. They were heavy and the strength just seemed to drain out of my arms.”

“I see, and what happened?”

“Milk and salad dressing,” she said. “The milk carton came open and the bottle of salad dressing broke. I cleaned the mess up.

“I see. Now, where was Mason standing?”

“At the telephone.”

“And what was he doing at the telephone?”

“He was phoning someone.”

“And did you hear the conversation?”

“I heard part of it, perhaps just about all of it.”

“What did he say?” Tragg asked. “I’m very much interested in why Mr. Mason found it so necessary to get to a telephone that he would violate the restraining order of a court of law. After all, you know, an attorney is an officer of the court and is supposed to uphold the dignity of the court. What did you hear him say?”

“He was evidently giving instructions to someone on the telephone. He wanted to have someone shadowed.”

“Did you get the name of the person he wanted shadowed?”

“Nadine Palmer.”

Tragg’s notebook was whipped out and his ball-point pen hurried across the page. “Nadine Palmer,” he said. “Now do you know who she is?”

“Nadine Palmer,” Vivian Carson said, “is the woman my husband’s detective shadowed and reported to have been caught in indiscretions.”

“Well, well,” Tragg said, “and Perry Mason was telephoning someone to have her shadowed.”

“That’s right. He said that he wanted her tailed. I remember the expression quite clearly.”

“Yes, yes, wanted her tailed. Now did he mention the name of the person he was talking to?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Perhaps the first name,” Tragg said, “... perhaps Paul?”

“Yes, yes, that was it!” she exclaimed. “I remember now, he called him Paul. That was just as I came in the house.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then I think Mr. Mason sensed my presence and looked around, and I was very sarcastic and told him to make himself right at home and help himself to anything he wanted.”

“And that sarcasm, I take it, rolled off Mason like water off a duck’s back. But what did he say — what did he do as far as the telephone was concerned?”

“He simply hung up and at that time he told me my husband had been murdered.”

“And you dropped the groceries?”

“That’s right.”

“You picked them up?”

“Yes.”

“And where did you put them?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Well, if it’s all right with you, we’ll take a look in the kitchen,” Tragg said. “And, by the way, where did you buy the groceries?”

“At the supermarket.”

“The one near the top of the hill?”

“No, that’s a rather small market. I said the supermarket.”

“Oh yes, and where was that?”

“That’s down in Hollywood.”

“You have the ticket?”

“Oh yes, I have the ticket from the adding machine.”

“That’s fine,” Tragg said. “Those tickets are usually numbered and we can find out a lot about the time you were there by checking the number on the ticket and checking with the records of the cash register. Now if you’ll just lead the way, please.”

Vivian Carson went into the kitchen.

Tragg’s eye caught the groceries piled on the sink.

“Four bags of groceries,” he said. “Four big bags.”

“Yes.”

“Now let’s see,” Tragg said, “since Mason was in the house when you arrived and since you dropped two bags of groceries, those must have been the first two bags. Then you returned and got the second two bags and...?”

“Mr. Mason got the second two bags for me.”

“Oh,” Tragg said. “I should have realized Mason would be very considerate. And where were you while he was getting the groceries? Did you perhaps go to the living room or open the door a crack so you could peek in and see what was happening?”

“No. I simply collapsed. I sat in that chair until after Mr. Mason returned.”

Tragg’s eye roving around the kitchen caught the knife rack.

“Now here’s an interesting situation,” he said. “A knife rack with all sorts of knives attached to it by a magnetic bar — since the murder was committed with a knife... You’ll pardon me, Mrs. Carson, if I make an inspection.”

Tragg stepped over to the knife rack.

“You can see,” she said, “that they’re all there.”

“I can, I can indeed,” Tragg said. “At least they seem to be all here. All evenly spaced and... What’s this?”

Tragg reached up and removed a wooden-handled butcher knife from the rack.

“Just one of the knives,” she said.

“Well now, is it?” Tragg asked, turning it over in his hand thoughtfully. “It’s a knife all right, but it seems to have been unused. It has a price in crayon written on the blade, three dollars and twenty cents.”

She said, “I just moved in you know, Lieutenant. I’ve only been here a short time. I haven’t had a chance to get fully provisioned and I—”

“But you’ve been here since — since when?”

“Since Sunday. I moved in Sunday. We put the fence in Saturday afternoon and I moved in Sunday morning.”

“All this time and haven’t had occasion to look at the knives,” Tragg said. “By any chance, Mrs. Carson, while you were out shopping you didn’t deliberately buy a knife that would replace the one that had been plunged into your husband, did you?”

Vivian Carson started to answer the question, then suddenly stopped and caught herself. “I... I...”

Mason interposed smoothly, “You don’t have to answer Lieutenant Tragg’s question, you know, Mrs. Carson.”

Tragg turned to regard Mason with considerable displeasure. “And we don’t have to have your company here, Mr. Mason,” he said. “You’ve performed the introductions, you’ve served your purpose here. Now you just don’t need to bother to hang around. Mrs. Carson and I are going to get along perfectly.”

“I believe it is Mrs. Carson’s house,” Mason said. “I think she can decide who she wants to have present.”

“That’s not the way you were talking a moment ago,” Tragg said. “You thought it was Morley Eden’s house and, as I remember it, there’s a restraining order preventing anyone from coming on these premises and as an officer of the law I might have to forcibly eject you, Mason. You wouldn’t want to be put in the position of resisting an officer — and furthermore, I could take Mrs. Carson up to headquarters for questioning, you know.

“Now, just to keep matters from reaching an impasse, I’m asking you to go right back through that entranceway and out the side door. You can get in your car, drive back to Eden’s part of the house and wait for me there. On your way, Counselor.”

Mason bowed. “Because of the restraining order, and because Mrs. Carson knows she doesn’t need to make any statement at this time, I will be only too glad to leave.”

“And to wait at Eden’s place until I get over there,” Tragg reminded him.

“And to wait,” Mason said, catching Vivian Carson’s eye and frowning slightly as a warning to her.