The Case of the Nervous Accomplice

Chapter 17

At eleven-ten Paul Drake pushed a memo into Mason’s hand. The note read, “Herbert Doxey drove like mad to his house, opened the garage door, unlocked the door of a closet in his garage, then emerged and is now driving back this way at a leisurely pace.”

Promptly at eleven-thirty Judge Sedgwick reconvened court.

“Is it stipulated that the defendant is in court and that the jurors are all present, gentlemen?” he asked.

“So stipulated,” Mason said.

“You were examining Enright Harlan, Mr. Mason.”

“Unfortunately, he has not returned as yet,” Mason said. “I—”

“Then proceed with some other witness,” Judge Sedgwick said. “You can put Mr. Harlan on the stand as soon as he comes in.”

“Very well,” Mason said. “I will call Herbert Doxey to the stand.”

Doxey came forward and was sworn.

“You are the son-in-law of the decedent?” Mason asked.

“That is right,” Doxey said in a low voice.

“You are acquainted with the property of the Sylvan Glade Development Company?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And with that of Mrs. Roxy Claffin which adjoins the Sylvan Glade property to the north.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long have you known Mrs. Claffin, by the way?” Mason asked.

The witness hesitated.

Mason looked up, simulating surprise at the witness’s hesitance. “Can’t you answer that?”

“I... I’m trying to think.”

Hamilton Burger, suddenly observing the expression on the witness’s face, jumped to his feet. “I object to the question. It is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.”

“It is preliminary, Your Honor,” Mason said.

Hamilton Burger became vociferous. “It doesn’t make any difference, Your Honor. It is completely incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. This has no bearing whatsoever on the issues in this case. This is—”

“The objection is sustained,” Judge Sedgwick snapped. “The Court considers that question highly improper, Mr. Mason.”

“I might assure the Court that it is—”

“The Court desires no argument whatever on that question.”

“Very well,” Mason said, turning to the witness. “You knew that Roxy Claffin had taken certain articles from her garage and put them on a dump heap yesterday morning?”

“Just a moment, just a moment,” Hamilton Burger shouted. “The same objection, Your Honor. An attempt to cross-examine his own witness. Incompetent, irrelevant—”

“Sustained,” Judge Sedgwick snapped.

Mason turned to look at the door of the courtroom. “It appears, Your Honor, that Enright Harlan has now returned to court. In accordance with the understanding of the Court, I would like to withdraw this witness from the stand and return Mr. Harlan to the stand.”

“Very well,” Judge Sedgwick snapped. “This witness will be temporarily excused. Mr. Harlan, you will come forward and take the stand.”

Harlan came forward, apparently rather reluctantly. He sat in the witness chair and glanced at Mason with a puzzled frown.

Mason said, “Now, you have been out to your house during the recess of the court, Mr. Harlan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You unlocked the concealed compartment where you keep your revolvers?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mason glanced at the clock on the wall of the courtroom. “You found that lock in perfect working order?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was there any evidence that the receptacle had been tampered with?”

“No external evidence, no.”

“That receptacle is concealed behind a sliding panel in the wall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You say there was no external evidence that the receptacle had been tampered with’?” Mason said. “Was there any internal evidence?”

“Well—” The witness hesitated, then said, “In a way, yes. There is something I can’t understand.”

“You had a list of the numbers of the revolvers that are in your possession?” Mason asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you were accompanied by an officer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you checked the numbers of those guns against the list?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were they all there?”

“Yes, sir. But... but one of the weapons in there isn’t mine.”

“It isn’t?” Mason asked, as though the answer surprised him.

“No.”

“And what weapon is this?”

“This is a Smith and Wesson, thirty-eight calibre revolver with a five-inch barrel, and... well, it was it was just like mine, but it has a number on it that isn’t on my list.”

“Do you have any idea how that weapon got into your collection?”

“No, sir, I don’t. I thought... well, I thought that everything was all right, and now I suddenly find I have an extra revolver in my collection — and that one of my revolvers is missing.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “I want you to listen to this question carefully. Could that weapon which you found in there have been the weapon which Mrs. Roxy Claffin gave you on May thirtieth?”

“Yes, it could have been.”

“In other words, on May thirtieth you took the weapon which Mrs. Claffin gave you and, as I understand it, you went to your house, you slid back the panel which concealed the metal receptacle, you unlocked that receptacle and put the weapon inside, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“And at that time, what can you say with reference to the number of weapons that you had?”

“They checked.”

“But you didn’t check the numbers on the weapons with the list that you had?”

“No, sir. There was no reason to do so.”

“In other words, your weapon collection checked out numerically until the discovery of the so-called fatal weapon?”

“That’s right — with the understanding, of course, that my wife had one weapon in her glove compartment. She had told me she was taking one.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That’s all.”

Judge Sedgwick said, “The Court notices that it has reached the hour for the noon adjournment. The Court will take a recess until two o’clock this afternoon.”

Mason beckoned to Paul Drake, said, “Paul, we’re going to have to get out of here without meeting any reporters. We can head for the judge’s chambers, hurry down the corridor, hit the stairs to the lower floor, and catch the elevator there. Let’s go! You have one of your men guarding that bunch of junk on the truck?”

“I have a good man there,” Drake said. “No one’s going to take a look under that cloth until you say so.”

“That’s fine,” Mason told him. “Let’s go. Come on, Della.”

They hurried through the door as though going to the judge’s chambers, then detoured to an exit door, sprinted down the corridor, down a flight of stairs and took an elevator.

Mason got his car and said, “The first thing to do is to get out to Herbert Doxey’s place before Doxey realizes what’s up.”

“Just what is up?” Drake asked,

“We’ll darn soon find out,” Mason said. “But you can see what happened. The third shell in the murder weapon is the one that is significant.”

“The bullet that went with that third shell never has been located,” Drake said.

“That’s the significant part of it,” Mason told him. “There wasn’t any bullet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wait and see,” Mason said.

The lawyer piloted the car skilfully through traffic, arrived at Doxey’s house. The three of them ran up the walk and pressed the bell button. Mrs. Doxey came to the door, regarded them in surprise.

“We want to look in your garage for a moment, Mrs. Doxey,” Mason said.

“Why... where’s Herbert?”

“We left him up at court. He was in conference and—”

“Why, if it’s all right with him, it’s all right with me,” she said. “Help yourself.”

“Thank you,” Mason said, and led the way out to the garage.

He went at once to the closet in the back of the garage. “Do you have the key for this?” he asked Mrs. Doxey as he tried the door.

“I have a key in with my extra household keys. We haven’t been keeping it locked lately. Herbert had this designed so we could keep his tools in a safe place. People got to stealing his tools and—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Mason interrupted impatiently, “but we want to get in there right away.”

“Well, I’ll run and get my key,” she promised.

She entered the house, was back within less than a minute with a key. Mason unlocked the door, then took the key out of the lock and handed it to her. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Doxey,” he said.

For a moment she remained with them out of curiosity, then said, “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got lunch ready to put on the table. I expect Herbert at any moment.”

Mason turned on a light in the closet. “There you are, Paul,” he said. “There’s the disappearing junk.”

“But what the deuce is it?” Drake asked.

“Don’t you see?” Mason asked. “Those boards were part of a carefully constructed shooting stand. The box of scrap iron was used to hold it steady at the bottom. Those canvas sacks which have been ripped open were filled with sand. Here, look at them. You can see some of the sand still clinging to the inside. A magnifying glass will show it very plainly.

“Did you ever see an expert marksman testing a gun from a rest, Paul? He sits on a stool and holds his arm along a shelf, where sandbags furnish a brace for his arm. He rests his hand holding the gun on a sandbag which has been partially filled with sand, so he can scoop out a place for the gun and his hand. He takes careful aim from this position and squeezes the trigger.

“That shooting stand had been carefully planted in the contractor’s shack. There is a knothole in the shack, and a gun could have been lined up so the bullet went through that knothole, sped directly to the house up on the hill and into Lutts’ chest. That accounts for the upward course of the bullet.”

Drake looked at the lawyer with complete bewilderment. “You’re crazy, Perry.”

“Why am I crazy?”

“The powder pattern shows that the fatal bullet was fired from a distance of eighteen to twenty inches. Furthermore, Roxy Claffin has an ironclad alibi and Doxey has an alibi. He was out taking a sun bath and—”

“In an enclosure that was concealed by a canvas curtain,” Mason said.

“But he has a sunburned back to prove it. He was out too long and— Gosh, Perry, one of my men got a look at his back. It was really red and irritated.”

Mason grinned at Paul Drake and said, “It was a slick scheme, Paul, but we’re going to tear it to pieces.”

“Well, I’d like to know how,” Drake said.

“Be in court this afternoon and you’ll find out,” Mason told him.