The Case of the Negligent Nymph

Chapter 2

THE CANOE SLID NOISELESSLY DOWN INTO THE WATER.

Dorothy Fenner said in a low voice, “Thanks for everything.”

“Don’t mention it,” Mason told her.

“I wish I knew who you were.”

“Why?”

“It would make me feel safer. You don’t know George S. Alder?”

Mason said, “All you need to do is give him back that bottle and tell him a witness has seen the letter and has a copy.”

She said dubiously, “It’s easy for you to say. You don’t know him.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know. Ill think it over. I think perhaps if I keep the original letter I may have more of a hold over him.”

“I’d advise you to read the law on blackmail,” Mason said. “However, I haven’t time to argue with you now. I’m hoping I can get to shore without being detected. Good night, Dorothy.”

“Good night, Mr. Mysterious Whoever You Are. I like you—will you show up as a witness—in case I need you?”

“One never knows,” Mason said, and shoved off.

Mason leaned to the paddle and started for the lights on the landing at the canoe club.

The sound of a heavy-duty motor transmitted by the layer of damp air immediately over the water sounded increasingly and ominously louder, ka-poog … ka-poog… ka-poog … ka-poog.

Mason gave the paddle everything he had. The light canoe, barely skimming the surface of the water, hissed swiftly toward the landing.

The canoe had been rented for the evening, the rental paid in advance, so Mason had only to tie it up at the float and walk away.

To his surprise there were no special officers on duty at the landing, and beyond the ominous sound of the heavy-duty motor, he had seemed to have the bay all to himself.

Now he hurried along the landing float, his hat pulled well down, the brim depressed, and walked rapidly to the place where he had left his car.

Della Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary, was sitting in his car listening to the radio. She looked up and smiled as Mason opened the car door. She switched off the radio and said, “You must have had quite a trip.”

“You get the telephoning done?” Mason asked.

“Everything,” she said. “Then I came back here to wait. I’ve been here for nearly two hours.”

“I had an adventure,” Mason confessed.

“Didn’t hear anything of the burglary, did you?”

“What burglary?”

“Our friend George S. Alder’s house was robbed of fifty thousand dollars in jewelry.”

“The devill” Mason exclaimed.

She laughed. “I thought perhaps you might have been in on it”

Mason’s voice was filled with chagrin. “I guess perhaps I was.”

She looked at him quizzically. “Give.”

“You first,” he told her.

“All I know is what I heard over the radio a few minutes ago. A daring female burglar evidently swam or waded ashore from a light boat which had ferried her to the island and was waiting in the darkness for her. Dressed in a dinner gown, the servants took her for one of the dinner guests. She was detected only by accident as she was rifling the man’s desk. She jumped out of a window, ran to the water’s edge, then jumped in, clothes and all, and started swimming. She was picked up by her accomplice and managed to make good her escape. Police have reason to believe she may have sought concealment on one of the yachts anchored somewhere in the bay. Police are going to throw out a cordon, and they’re already establishing road blocks.”

“Just when did you hear all this?”

“It came over the radio about fifteen minutes ago. I was a little worried. I thought perhaps you might have tangled up with these people and—well, you know, evidently they were desperate.”

“Any clues?” Mason asked.

“The police have found a towel and a bathing cap which the young woman left on the island—also a waterproof bag.”

Mason started the motor, switched on the headlights, backed the car out of the parking place, gunned the motor into life and rapidly shifted gears.

“Well,” Della Street said, “you seem to be taking it quite seriously. What’s the matter?”

“Believe it or not,” Mason said, “I was the male accomplice who showed up with the means of escape “

“You were!”

“That’s right. She made the getaway in my canoe.”

She looked at him for a moment, then suddenly laughed. “I suppose,” she said, “the purpose of this gag is to keep me awake during the drive back to town.”

“The purpose of the statement, which you erroneously call a gag, is to point out that a man should never act impulsively when encountering a strange woman.”

“You encountered her?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Splashing out from the island in a very thin dinner dress, and not much else, a savage dog in hot pursuit”

“And what did you do?”

“I acted on impulse and told her to get into the canoe.”

“Well,” Della Street said, “I can appreciate the impulse, but at least you should have made her kick through with half of the jewelry.”

“She didn’t take any jewelry,” Mason said. “She took a piece of evidence, but the man in the case is too smart to be caught on anything like that, so he’s claiming that he lost fifty thousand dollars in jewelry. And you can see where that leaves me.”

“How do you know she didn’t take jewelry?”

“She—welt she took off her clothes and let me search the dress.”

“In the canoe?”

“No, aboard a yacht which she said was hers.”

“She stripped in front of. . ."

“It was dark. She undressed and tossed me the dress.”

“And that’s the only way you know she didn’t take the jewelry?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

Della Street made little tongue noises against the roof of her mouth. “You should keep me with you—even if just for the purpose of searching women.”

“Damned if I shouldn’t,” Mason said fervently.

“Did you find out anything about Alder?” Della Street asked.

Mason chuckled and said, “Now there I believe I have something.”

“What?”

Mason said, “Alder bought that island and paid a fabulous price for it. He wants to have a feudal castle all his own. He’s that type. If anything should happen so that he couldn’t control every square inch of that island, I think he’d go crazy.”

“But doesn’t he own it all?”

“He owns it,” Mason said, “but when they dredged the channel they put up a retaining wall and dumped soil against it. That formed the long semicircular sandspit which projects out to the northeast.”

Della Street laughed and said, “Of course I’m practicing law by ear, but doesn’t property formed by accretion belong to the owner of the adjacent soil?”

“Sure it does when the accretion is die result of natural causes but I think there’s a Supreme Court decision somewhere holding that property formed because of governmental activities such as dredging in a channel is government property. Now if that’s the case and someone should squat on the sandspit on the northeast part of Alder’s island and put up a little shade overnight—well, you can see what would happen. Alder would ..

Mason broke off abruptly as a red spotlight suddenly blazed into brilliance ahead. A motorcycle officer motioned Mason to one side, said, “Get in line behind those other cars. Move up slowly.”

There were a dozen cars ahead, and several officers were examining credentials, asking questions.

Mason exchanged glances with Della Street, then eased the car forward as one of the officers said, “May I see your driving license and the car registration, please?”

Mason showed him the documents.

“You’ve been down here … Oh, oh, you’re Perry Mason, the lawyer.”

“That’s right.”

The officer ‘smiled and said, “Pardon me for stopping you, Mr. Mason. It’s okay, go ahead. We’re looking for some gem thieves. You can detour right around those other cars and around the end of the road block. Sorry I bothered you … However, as a matter of routine, I’d better check the person-with you because it was a woman who …

“Miss Della Street, Mr. Mason’s secretary,” Della Street said, handing the officer her driving license.

He checked the driving license, glanced at her, handed the license back, and said, “Sorry, but we’ve been instructed to make a check. Down here on business, Mr. Mason?”

“Just looking up some witnesses,” Mason said non-committally.

Another car, which had been coming up fast, screamed to a stop as the red light stabbed through the windshield and the motorcycle officer motioned die car to the side of the road.

“Okay,” Mason said, “be seeing you,” and eased on around the road block.

Back on the main road, Mason once more urged the car into speed.

“Chief,” Della Street said, suddenly serious, “do you suppose that girl did steal any jewels?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know?”

“I looked her over pretty thoroughly, Della. She had a bottle in her right hand, a bottle containing a note which had apparently been thrown overboard from the Thayerbelle, George Alder’s yacht, by a woman who was afraid she was going to be murdered and who was subsequently found dead.”

“Chiefl” Della Street exclaimed.

“And,” Mason went on, “I looked her over pretty carefully to make certain there wasn’t anything concealed.”

“Did you look in the tops of her stockings?”

“Not In the tops of her stockings,” Mason said, “but when she climbed over the front of the canoe, I saw a pair of very symmetrical legs with no ugly bulges such as would have been made by fifty thousand dollars’ worth of Jewelry. A wet dinner gown leaves but very, very little to the imagination.”

“Did you get her name?”

“Dorothy Fenner was the name she gave. She’s supposed to be related to Corrine, the half sister who’s been missing for several months.”

“Looks?”

“Lots.”

“Figure?”

“Swell”

Della Street said, “Well, boys will be boys.”

Mason said, “Now that we’re past the road block HI let you read something.”

He took from his pocket the copy of the letter which Dorothy Fenner had made, and handed it to Della Street

“What’s this?”

“A copy of the letter that was In the bottle. Hie girl is a good typist I held the flashlight and read the original letter to her. She balanced a portable typewriter on her knees and made a copy.”

Della Street unfolded the pages, switched on the map light on the dashboard, and read with increasing interest. When she had finished she said, “Good heavens, Chief, doesn’t that letter give us a stranglehold on George S. Alder?”

“Or else it gives George S. Alder a stranglehold on me.”

“You mean that the whole thing was a plant?”

“That,” Mason said, “is what’s worrying the hell out of me. Alder knows I’m representing that syndicate. He could have made a pretty shrewd guess that I was going to drop by and look his island over, and after all I didn’t see where this swimming girl came from. The first thing I knew she was sliding along through the water, then she reached the island, walked out to stand outlined against the light of that illuminated NO TRESPASSING sign, and started drying herself with a towel One can’t imagine anything better calculated to arrest the attention of a prowling canoeist.”

“And you with your binoculars!” Della Street said, laughingly.

“Me with my binoculars and my damn curiosity, leading with my chin. The whole thing was perfectly timed. After her discovery, the girl had just enough head start to reach the water in front of my canoe before they turned the dog loose. And the dog was right at her heels. Naturally I pushed the dog away and invited the girl to get in. She was good-looldng, casually flippant—she didn’t seem like a thief—and you have to admit the approach was unusual.”

“But,” Della Street said, “you took precautions, you..

“I thought I was taking precautions,” Mason said. “She was wearing a strapless dinner gown without a darn thing underneath it except a pair of stockings. She made a point of displaying this bottle quite prominently—and then, of course, when I read what was in the bottle, I realized it was right down my alley. You couldn’t have asked for a better trap.”

“Better bait, you mean.”

“It’s the same thing.”

They drove in silence for a while, then Della Street said, “And then George Alder announces she took fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels and had a male accomplice waiting in a boat. Just where does that leave you, Chief?”

“Right behind the eight ball. If I’d done the obvious thing, told this girl who I was, persuaded her to let me take the letter—well, that would have left me really in a spot”

“But, as it is, she doesn’t know who you are,” Della Street pointed out

“If it’s a trap she does,” Mason said. “In that case she knew before she ever swam ashore and started drying herself with a bath towel, which she conveniently left for the police to find—and I suppose there’s a laundry mark on that bath towel which will enable the police to trace her.”

“Oh, oh,” Della Street said.

“Exactly,” Mason commented.

Della Street folded the copy of the letter, handed it back to Perry Mason.

“This letter is dynamite,” she said.

“It is, if it’s true.”

“It looks to me as though you’ve really got him on the defensive,” Della Street said.

Mason said, “Just who has whom on the defensive is one of those things that events will have to determine.”

She glanced up at him with eyes that were filled with confidence.

“You have a way of determining events,” she pointed out.