The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife

Chapter 11

Marion Shelby tapped timidly at the door of Mason’s stateroom. “Come in,” Mason called.

She entered the room, said, “I hope you’ll forgive me for disturbing you like this but... I simply had to see you.”

She had been crying and her eyes were swollen and red.

“What’s the matter?” Mason asked. “Have they been getting rough with you?”

“Yes.”

“Make any specific accusations?”

“Nothing that’s specific. They might just as well have, as to say the things that they did. And then back of all that, there was... you know, the manner... the way they did things.”

Mason nodded.

“Mr. Mason, I want you to... Well, in case anything should come of it... You know what I mean.”

“Go on,” Mason said as she stopped.

“I want you to take care of me. I want you to represent me and see that I’m protected. I just don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what I’m getting into.”

Mason said, “Your husband told me that he had been poisoned.”

“Yes, we had had food poisoning, we both got it, but... now it seems there was something in the food.”

“Your husband had enemies?”

“Yes.”

“A good many?”

“I think so, yes.”

“How did you and he get along?”

She heaved a long sigh, said, “All right, I guess... I guess it’s about the way things go nowadays. But, I tried to be broad-minded.”

“You mean there were other women?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask questions.”

“But you think there were?”

“He had been staying out quite a bit lately. He was hardly ever home nights until very, very late. And when he did come home, he didn’t want me even to talk to him. He had things on his mind. I could see that and I tried to do the way he wanted me to do. When he wanted to be left alone, I left him alone.”

“Didn’t ask any questions?”

“Not a question. I think that’s where a lot of marriages split up. People begin to get too nosy about each other. After all, you can’t stop a person from doing what he wants to do. I think that people like to have the power of decision, the freedom of action. The minute a man, in particular, begins to think that his freedom is being curtailed, he resents it.”

“So you were becoming just a bit disillusioned about marriage?”

“Just a little disillusioned about Scott Shelby if you want to be specific.”

“Was there any other man as far as you were concerned?”

She met his eyes steadily. “No,” she said.

Mason said, “I want to know one thing, Mrs. Shelby. Are you telling me the truth about what happened tonight?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Mason. I swear to you on my word of honor.”

Mason gave the matter thoughtful consideration for a few seconds, then asked abruptly, “Did you telephone Parker Benton and suggest to him that a conference on this yacht with you along might bring about a settlement of the case?”

Her eyes showed surprise. “Who said I did?”

“Did you?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I’m asking.”

She said, “My husband asked me to. He seemed very much upset. He said he had a chance to settle a case with a lawyer whom he felt was really representing Parker Benton and that he’d kicked that chance to make a settlement out of the window. So he went on to say that it might not be too late, — if I’d telephone Mr. Benton and pretend I was just giving him an anonymous tip and not let on who I was, and tell him that while Scott was erratic and headstrong, his wife was the balance wheel, and that if he’d invite...”

Mason interrupted. “Now this may be terribly important — to you. Had there been any previous discussion between you and your husband about a yachting trip on this yacht?”

“Why no.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course. He hardly knew who Parker Benton was.”

Mason frowned.

“He had wanted me to go on a yachting trip this week end,” she went on. “There was a yacht he was going to try out and buy if he liked it. He and a friend of his were arranging a party and I was to go — a week-end cruise, but that was a yacht he was buying, or planning to buy, and...”

She broke off as knuckles pounded on the door.

Mason crossed over and opened the door. The deputy sheriff, looking somewhat startled, stood on the threshold and beside him was Sergeant Dorset.

“Well,” Mason exclaimed, “what are you doing here? Isn’t this somewhat out of your jurisdiction?”

Dorset said crisply, “I tried to get here before it was too late. I see that I didn’t.”

“Before it was too late for what, Sergeant?”

“To keep Scott Shelby from being murdered.”

“You knew that he was in danger of losing his life?”

Sergeant Dorset said, “I had collected enough evidence so that I felt free to act.”

Mason’s eyes were probing. “Come, come, Sergeant, there’s no need to be so secretive about it.”

Sergeant Dorset said, “All right, if you want the lowdown I’ll give it to you. I came here because I had a warrant to serve.”

“On whom?”

“A warrant,” Sergeant Dorset said, “arresting Marion Shelby for an attempt to commit murder by means of poison. She is the one who administered the arsenic which would have finished her husband off if it hadn’t been for the prompt medical attention he received.”

Marion Shelby recoiled as though the officer’s words had been bullets, pounding at her with a physical pressure. She came over to stand beside Mason. “You... you can’t say things like that. It’s not true... it’s not...”

“Take it easy,” Mason said, “let’s hear the rest of it, Sergeant.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“If there’s any more, we may as well hear it.”

“You’ll hear it at the proper time,” Sergeant Dorset said.

Mason said slowly, “Under the circumstances, Mrs. Shelby, in view of the fact that you have been arrested, I think it would be a good plan for you not to do any talking.”

“But I’m going to deny those charges,” Marion Shelby said indignantly. “They’re absolutely absurd. They’re false. They’re malicious.”

“That’s all right,” Mason said, “deny the charges. Remember now, Mrs. Shelby, if I’m going to represent you, I want you to have just one formula. For the press there will be only two words ‘no comment.’ For the officers you will simply say, ‘I am not guilty. I have done nothing and the charge is unfounded, but I do not care to discuss it in the absence of my attorney. And, when my attorney is there, he will do the talking for me.’ ”

“I see,” Sergeant Dorset sneered, “the old formula.”

“The old formula,” Mason told him. “And, whenever I have a client who is being framed, I revert to that formula.”

“Framed?” Dorset said and laughed.

“That’s what I said,” Mason told him.

“Well, get a load of this,” Dorset said. “She got her husband to insure his life in her favor, got him to sign over quite a bit of property to her, then, she went into a drugstore and bought some arsenic. Said she wanted it for rats. Next rattle out of the box, it shows up in her husband’s food...”

“And I was poisoned at the same time, with the same sort of poisoning,” Marion Shelby said.

“Sure,” Sergeant Dorset acknowledged patiently, “that’s an old stunt. Quite frequently they do that to divert suspicion. You were careful to give yourself just a small dose, and your husband a deadly dose.”

“That’s not true.”

“Remember the purse you were carrying that day? The brown calfskin that went with your brown suit?” Sergeant Dorset asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, in that purse there’s a little paper bag containing arsenic.”

“Why there certainly isn’t! There...” She stopped indignantly.

“And,” Sergeant Dorset went on, “you’ll have to admit that you bought the arsenic. You didn’t even go very far to do it. Just three or four blocks from where you live.”

“Why should I have gone anywhere? There was nothing to conceal.”

“Why did you buy it?”

“Careful,” Mason told her.

“I’m not going to be careful, Mr. Mason. I have absolutely nothing to conceal. I got that arsenic for rats because my husband asked me to.”

“And what did you do with it when you got it?” Sergeant Dorset asked.

“I gave it to him.”

Dorset laughed. “And I suppose he promptly proceeded to take you out to dinner, poison himself with it, put a little in your food and then put the rest of it in your purse.”

“I...”

“You may have something there, Sergeant,” Mason said. “You probably intended that to be sarcasm but I think perhaps you’re getting rather close to the truth. And, I think we won’t do any more talking, Mrs. Shelby.”

“So tonight,” Sergeant Dorset went on, “she decides that poison is a little too uncertain. She isn’t going to try that any more. She brings along a six-gun she took from the dresser drawer in her husband’s room, pushes him overboard, shoots him and then starts yelling for help.”

“That’s not so. I did not do any such thing. I have told the officer here exactly what happened.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sergeant Dorset said wearily, “it isn’t even a good story.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Look here,” Mason said. “If you think this woman fired a gun, give her the paraffin test and...”

“Bosh on that stuff,” Dorset said. “I don’t believe in it where murder is deliberate. She wore a glove, pulled the trigger, then threw the glove away. That gun was fired within the last few hours, the barrel still smells of powder fumes. She admits she had it when her husband was shot...”

“And we insist on a paraffin test,” Mason interrupted.

“Got any paraffin?” Dorset asked.

“No, of course not. But there may be some on the boat.”

“There isn’t any, and I don’t like the way you’re yelling about that paraffin test. There’s lots of ways of beating that.”

Marion Shelby said, “I did not fire that gun.”

“You heard a shot?”

“Yes.”

“Your husband telephoned you from the bow of the boat?”

“He said he was talking from the bow of the boat.”

“Well, how did he get on the telephone?” Sergeant Dorset asked. “Where was he telephoning from?”

Mason said, “Now, Sergeant, you’re really beginning to get somewhere. Since you’re here, and since you’re a trained investigator of homicides, I suggest that you dust the receivers of every telephone on the yacht and see if you can find Scott Shelby’s fingerprints.”

Sergeant Dorset’s smile was patronizing. “That,” he said, “would be just a waste of good dusting powder, Mason. Scott Shelby didn’t leave his fingerprints on any telephone receiver because he didn’t telephone. He couldn’t have telephoned. Her story is absurd on the face of it. — And she thought the insurance company wouldn’t make any investigation but would cheerfully pay off the fifty thousand dollar policy where the holder was bumped off within sixty days after the policy was issued. She went down to her own neighborhood drugstore to buy the arsenic with which she tried to poison her husband. My God, but she’s naive!”

Mason said, “Sergeant, I ask you once more, please dust the receivers of these telephones. Please give a paraffin test.”

“Nuts!” Sergeant Dorset said and held the door open for his prisoner.

With her head high, Marion Shelby walked out of the room.

Mason hesitated a moment, walked over to the dressing table, opened his bag, dumped the contents unceremoniously in the drawer of the dressing table, went over to the telephone, took a sharp knife from his pocket, neatly severed the telephone wires and using great care not to get his fingerprints on the receiver, gently lifted the severed instrument, put it in his bag and snapped the catch.

A few moments later he had put on his hat and overcoat and, bag in his hand, walked down the corridor and knocked on the door of Della Street’s stateroom.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Put your things on, Della,” Mason said through the door, “we’re leaving.”

“But don’t we have to wait until...”

“We don’t have to wait for anything,” Mason said. “The speedboat is going and I’m going with it. Sergeant Dorset has shown up with a warrant for the arrest of Marion Shelby. He got the deputy here to help him serve it.”

“But will they let us go back?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “If they think they’re going to stop us, they’ll have to give a damn good reason. Personally, I don’t think they’ll even try. My own idea is there’ll be a stampede ashore. Sergeant Dorset thinks he’s got it all solved... Come on, Della, we’ve got work to do.”