The Case of the Perjured Parrot

Chapter two

Mason, pacing back and forth across his office, jerked out comments. Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, his tall form draped crosswise across the overstuffed leather chair, made notes in a leather-backed notebook.

“That substituted parrot,” Mason said, “is a clue which we have in advance of the police... It’s a profane parrot... Later on, we’re going to find out why the murderer wanted to substitute parrots. Right now, we’re going to try and trace the profane parrot, which should be easy... We can’t hope to compete with the police, so we’ll ignore the commonplace factors.”

“How about the pink silk nightie?” Paul Drake asked, in his slow, drawling voice. “Do we do anything about that?”

“Not a thing,” Mason said. “That’s something the police are working on tooth and nail... How much do you know about the case, Paul?”

“Not very much more than what I’ve read in the papers,” Drake said, “but one of my friends, who’s in the newspaper game, was asking me something about weapons.”

“What did he want to know?” Mason asked.

“Something about the murder gun.”

“What about the gun?”

“It’s some sort of a trick weapon,” Drake said. “One of those short-barreled guns, with a trigger which folds back out of the way. It’s small enough to be carried anywhere.”

“What caliber?”

“A forty-one.”

“Try and find out about ammunition for it,” Mason said. “See if the shells are carried in stock... No, forget it. The police will do all that. You stick to parrots, Paul. Cover all pet stores. Find out about parrot sales during the last week or two.”

Paul Drake, whose efficiency as a detective depended in large part upon the fact that he looked so completely innocuous, closed his leather-backed notebook and dropped it into his pocket. He surveyed Perry Mason with slightly protruding eyes, the expression of which was habitually masked by a glassy film.

“How far do you want me to check up on Mrs. Sabin and the son, Perry?” he asked.

“Everything you can find out,” Mason said.

Drake checked off the points on his fingers. “Let’s see now, if I have everything straight. Get the dope on the widow and Steve Watkins. Cover the bird stores and find out about the profane parrot. Get all the information I can about the mountain cabin and what happened up there. Get photographs of the interior, and... How about the exterior, Perry, do you want them?”

“No,” Mason said, “I’m going to drive up there, Paul, and give it the once-over. The only photographs I want are those which were taken when the police discovered the body.”

“On my way,” Drake told him, sliding out of the chair.

“And incidentally,” Mason said, as the detective was halfway to the door, “here’s another hunch. Let’s suppose the murderer substituted parrots, then what became of Casanova?”

“I’ll bite,” Drake said, with a grin, “what do you do with a parrot? Make a parrot pie, or do you broil ’em on toast?”

Mason said, “You put them in cages and listen to them talk.”

“No, really!” Drake exclaimed in mock surprise. “You don’t tell me.”

Mason said, “Get it through that droopy mind of yours that I’m not joking. That’s exactly what you do with a parrot, and whoever took Casanova, may have done it because he wanted to listen to something Casanova had to say.”

“That,” Drake admitted, “is a thought.”

“Moreover,” Mason went on, “the murderer probably has moved into a new neighborhood. You might make a check on any new parrots.”

“What do you want me to do?” Drake asked. “Take a bird census, or put a bird bath on the roof and watch for parrots... My God, Perry, have a heart! How the devil can a man find a new parrot?”

“I think,” Mason told him, “you’ll find there aren’t so many parrots. They’re a noisy pet, and they aren’t particularly apartment pets. People who have parrots are apt to live in the suburbs. Parrots are something of a nuisance as far as neighbors are concerned. I think there’s a city ordinance on parrots in apartments. I have an idea you may find something from talking to pet stores. Trace the sale of new cages. Find out people who have been inquiring about the care and feeding of parrots. And incidentally, Paul, remember there’s a pet store here in the block. Karl Helmold, the chap who runs it, is a client of mine. He’ll probably have some trade lists, which will give you the names of the larger pet stores in the vicinity, and he may be able to tell you quite a bit about parrots. Put every available operative on the job.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “I’ll be on my way.”

Mason nodded to Della Street. “Come on, Della, let’s go take a look at that cabin.”

The road wound up the sides of the long canyon, turning and twisting on itself like a snake in pain. Through the windshield Mason caught occasional glimpses of purple mountains. Below, a threadlike stream tumbled whitely over granite boulders. Back of the car the heat haze of the valley country showed as a gaseous blanket, heavy, oppressive, shimmering.

It was dry up here, and the air was impregnated with scent which oozed from the tips of pine needles. It was hot, too, but the dry balsam-laden heat was kind to the nostrils. High overhead the southern California sky was so blue that it almost seemed black in contrast with the bright sunlight which beat down upon the sheer granite ridges where there was not enough soil to support trees.

They came to a shaded turn in the road, where a spring trickled into a natural basin, then overflowed, to spill through a culvert into a stream which plunged into the dark obscurity of tangled greenery.

Mason stopped the car and said, “We’ll let the motor cool, and have a drink of mountain water... Hello, here comes a police car.”

He pointed down the side of the mountain to where a section of the road showed almost directly below them. A car, winding its laborious way up the long ascent, showed glinting red from a police spotlight fastened on the upper right-hand corner of the windshield.

“Do we try to beat them up?” Della Street asked.

Mason, stretching his long legs, sucked in deep breaths of the dry mountain air, and said, “No. We’ll wait and follow. It will save time locating the cabin.”

They drank the cool water, bending over the rock basin to place pursed lips against the limpid surface of the little pool. Gradually, above the sound of the wind sighing through the eloquent pines, came the grinding of a motor, whining in gear as it labored up the steep ascent.

As the car came into sight around the turn, Mason said, “I believe it’s our old friend, Sergeant Holcomb, from headquarters... Now, why should he be interested in a murder case which took place outside of the city... He’s stopping.”

The car veered abruptly from the paved highway to come to a stop on the shaded parking space at the side of the road. A big man, who wore a broad-brimmed black Stetson, was the first to emerge. He was followed, a moment later, by Sergeant Holcomb of the Metropolitan Police.

Holcomb walked truculently across to Mason. “What the devil are you doing here?” he asked.

Mason said, “Odd, Sergeant, but I was thinking the same about you.”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “I’m helping out Sheriff Barnes. He telephoned in for assistance, and the police loaned me to him. Shake hands with Perry Mason, Sheriff.”

The sheriff, a big man in the late fifties, who moved with slow efficiency, swung out a bronzed hand which engulfed Mason’s fingers. Mason introduced Della Street, and then produced the letter which Charles Sabin had given him. The Sheriff was impressed.

Sergeant Holcomb glanced from the letter to Mason. There was suspicion in his eyes, as well as in his voice. “Sabin employed you?”

“Yes.”

“And gave you this letter?”

“Yes.”

“Just what does he want you to do?”

“He wants me to co-operate with the police.”

Sergeant Holcomb’s laugh was sarcastic. “That’s the best one I’ve heard in twenty years. Perry Mason co-operating with the police! You co-operate with the police just like the Republicans co-operate with the Democrats.”

Mason turned to the sheriff. “Just because a lawyer represents innocent defendants doesn’t mean he’s opposed to the authorities,” he said quietly.

“The hell it doesn’t!” Sergeant Holcomb interpolated. “You’ve always been against the police.”

“On the contrary,” Mason told him, “I’ve helped solve quite a few murder cases.”

“You’ve always managed to get your clients acquitted,” Sergeant Holcomb pointed out.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “It happened that the police were trying to convict innocent parties. It remained for me to prove my clients innocent by finding the real murderers.”

Sergeant Holcomb flushed, stepped forward, and started to say something, but Sheriff Barnes interposed what was apparently an unintentional shoulder. “Now listen, boys,” he said, “there’s nothing to argue about. I’m the sheriff of this county. This thing is just a little bit high-powered for me. I ain’t got the facilities to make an investigation on this the way I’d like to, and I asked the city police to loan me a man who could help out with fingerprint work, and give me some suggestions. As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to be glad of any assistance I can get, and I don’t care who gives it. I’ve read about some of Mason’s cases in the newspapers. To my mind, when a lawyer proves his client innocent of crime by showing that someone else is guilty, he’s done society a darn good turn, and the police have no kick coming.”

“Well,” Sergeant Holcomb said to the sheriff, “it’s your funeral. His methods are enough to give you gray hairs.”

Sheriff Barnes tilted back the sombrero and ran his fingers through sweat-moistened hair. “I’ve got gray hairs now,” he said. “How about it, Mason, you going up?”

“I’ll follow you,” Mason told him. “You know the way?”

“Sure, I was up there nearly all day yesterday.”

“How much has been touched?” Mason asked.

“Not a thing. We’ve taken the body out, and cleaned out the remains of a string of fish, which had gone pretty bad. Of course, we took the parrot. Aside from that, we ain’t touched a thing, except to go over everything for fingerprints.”

“Find any?” Mason asked.

“Quite a few,” the sheriff admitted noncommittally.

Sergeant Holcomb said abruptly, “Well, Sheriff, let’s get going. Mason can follow us.”

The road crossed a ridge, debouched onto a plateau. Here and there were little clearings, cabins nestled back against the trees. Up near the upper end of the plateau, when they were within a few hundred feet of the stream which came roaring down from a mountain canyon, Sheriff Barnes abruptly signaled for a right-hand turn. He swung into a dirt road, carpeted with pine needles, which ran back to a cabin so skillfully blended with the trees that it seemed almost to be the work of nature rather than of man.

Mason exclaimed, “Look at that cabin, Della! It certainly is a beautiful setting!”

A bluejay, resenting their intrusion, launched himself downward from the top of one of the pine trees, screeching his raucous, “Thief... thief... thief.”

Mason swung the car into the shaded area back of the cabin and parked it. Sheriff Barnes crossed over and said, “I’m going to ask you to be careful not to touch anything, Mr. Mason, and I think Miss Street had better wait outside.”

Mason nodded acquiescence.

A tall, rangy man who moved with the easy grace of a mountain dweller emerged from the shadows and touched his somewhat battered hat to the sheriff. “Everything’s okay, Sheriff,” he said.

Sheriff Barnes took a key from his pocket, unlocked the padlock on the door, and said by way of introduction, “This is Fred Waner. He lives up here. I’ve had him guarding the cabin.”

The sheriff opened the door. “Now, let’s try not to walk around any more than is necessary. You, Sergeant, know what to do.” Mason glanced into the mountain cabin with its big fireplace, plain pine table, hand-hewn rafters. A neatly made bed with snowy linen was in startling contrast to the seed-littered floor. Mud-stained rubber boots stood, sagging limply; above them was a jointed fly rod.

Sergeant Holcomb said, “My advice, Sheriff, would be to let Mr. Mason look around without touching anything, and then leave. We can’t do anything as long as he’s here.”

“Why not?” Sheriff Barnes said.

Sergeant Holcomb flushed. “For various reasons. One of them is that before you get done, this man is going to be on the other side of the fence. He’s going to be opposing you, he’s going to be trying to tear down the case you’re building up against the murderer. The more you expose your methods to him, the more he has an opportunity to tear you to pieces on the witness stand.”

Sheriff Barnes said doggedly, “That’s all right. If anybody’s going to be hung for murder on my say-so, I want it to be after a case is built up which can’t be torn down.”

“I’d like to see as much as you care to show me,” Mason said to the sheriff. “I take it, that chalk outline on the floor represents where the body was found when it was first discovered.”

“Yes, that’s right. The gun was found over there about ten feet away, where you’ll notice the outline in chalk.”

“Is it possible that Mr. Sabin could have shot himself?” Mason asked.

“Absolutely impossible according to the testimony of the doctors. What’s more, the gun had been wiped free of fingerprints. Sabin wasn’t wearing gloves. If he’d shot himself, he’d have left some fingerprints on the gun.”

Mason, frowning thoughtfully, said, “Then the murderer didn’t even want it to look like suicide.”

“How so?” the sheriff asked.

“He could very easily have placed the gun nearer the body. He could have wiped off his own fingerprints, and pressed the weapon into the hand of the dead man.”

“That’s logical,” the sheriff said.

“And,” Mason went on, “the murderer must have wanted the officers to find the gun.”

“Baloney,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The murderer simply didn’t want the officers to find the gun on him. That’s the way all clever murderers do. As soon as they commit a crime, they drop the rod. They don’t even keep it with them long enough to find some place to hide it. The gun can hang them. They shoot it and drop it.”

“All right,” Mason said, smiling, “you win. They shoot it and drop it. What else, Sheriff?”

“The parrot cage was over here on the floor,” the sheriff said, “and the door was propped open with a little stick so the parrot could walk out whenever he wanted to.”

“Or walk in, whenever it had been out?” Mason asked.

“Well, yes. That’s a thought.”

“And how long do you think the parrot had been here without food or water, Sheriff?”

“He’d had plenty of food. The water had dried up in the pan. See that agateware pan over there? Well, that had evidently been left pretty well filled with water, but the water had dried out — what the parrot hadn’t had to drink. You can see little spots of rust on the bottom which show where the last few drops evaporated.”

“The body then,” Mason said, “must have been here for some time before it was discovered.”

“The murder,” Sheriff Barnes asserted, “took place some time on Tuesday, the sixth of September. It took place probably right around eleven o’clock in the morning.”

“How do you figure that?” Mason asked. “Or do you object to telling me?”

“Not at all,” the sheriff said. “The fishing season in this entire district opened on September sixth. The Fish and Game Commission wanted to have an area for fall fishing which hadn’t been all fished out. So they picked out certain streams which they kept closed until later on in the season. This was one of the last. The season opened here on September sixth.

“Now then, Sabin was a funny chap. He had places that he went and things that he did, and we haven’t found out all of ’em yet. We know some of them. He had a trailer and he’d drive around at trailer camps, sit and whittle and talk with people, just finding out that way what was going on in the world. Sometimes he’d take an old suit of shiny clothes and go prowl around libraries for a week or two...”

“Yes, I read all about that in the newspaper,” Mason interrupted.

“Well,” the sheriff went on, “he told his son and Richard Waid, his secretary, that he was going to be home on Monday the fifth to pick up his fishing things. He’d been away on a little trip. They don’t know just where, but he surprised them by coming home on Friday the second. He took his fishing tackle, picked up his parrot, and came up here. It seems he was putting across a big deal in New York, and had told his secretary to charter a plane and be ready to fly East when he gave the word. The secretary waited at the airport all Monday afternoon. He had a plane in readiness. About ten o’clock on the night of the fifth, the call came through. Waid says that Sabin seemed in wonderful spirits. He said everything was okay, that Waid was to jump in his plane and get to New York at once.”

“He was talking from the cabin here?” Mason asked.

“No, he wasn’t. He told Waid the telephone here had gone dead so he’d had to go to a pay station. He didn’t say where, and Waid didn’t think to ask him. Of course, at the time, it didn’t seem particularly important. Waid was in a hurry to get started to New York.”

“You’ve talked with Waid?” Mason asked.

“On the long distance telephone,” the sheriff said. “He was still in New York.”

“Did he tell the nature of the business?” Mason asked.

“No, he said it was something important and highly confidential. That was all he’d say.”

“Waid, I take it, had a chartered plane?” Mason asked.

The sheriff grinned and said, “It looks as though Waid may have cut a corner there. Steve Watkins, who’s the son of Sabin’s wife by a former marriage, is quite a flyer. He’s got a fast plane and likes to fly around the country. I take it Sabin didn’t care much for Steve and wouldn’t have liked it if he’d known Waid was going to fly back to New York with Steve; but Steve wanted to make the trip and needed the money, so Waid arranged to pay him the charter price and Steve Watkins flew him back.”

“What time did they leave?”

“At ten minutes past ten, the night of Monday the fifth,” the sheriff said. “Just to make sure, I checked up with the records of the airport.”

“And what time did Sabin call Waid?”

“Waid says it wasn’t more than ten minutes before he took off. He thinks it was right around ten o’clock.”

“He recognized Sabin’s voice?” Mason asked.

“Yes, and said Sabin seemed very pleased about something. He told Waid he’d closed the deal and to start at once. He said there’d been a little delay because the telephone here was out of order. He’d had to drive down to a pay station, but he said he was driving right back to the cabin and would be at the cabin for two or three days, that in case Waid encountered any difficulties he was to telephone.”

“And Waid didn’t telephone?”

“No, because everything went through like clockwork, and Sabin had only told him to telephone in case something went wrong.”

Mason said thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see then. He was alive at ten o’clock on the evening of Monday, September fifth. Did anyone else see him or talk with him after that?”

“No,” the sheriff said. “That’s the last time we actually know he was alive. From there on, we have to figure evidence. The fishing season opened on Tuesday the sixth. Over there’s an alarm clock which had run down. It stopped at two forty-seven. The alarm was set at five-thirty.”

“The alarm run down too?” Mason asked.

“Uh-huh.”

The telephone bell shattered the silence. The sheriff said, “Excuse me,” and scooped up the receiver. He listened a moment, then said, “All right, hold the line,” and turned to Mason. “It’s for you,” he said.

Mason took the receiver and heard Paul Drake’s voice at the other end of the line. “Hello, Perry. I took a chance on calling you there. Are you where you can talk?”

“No,” Mason said.

“But you can listen all right?”

“Yes. Go ahead. What is it?”

“I think I’ve found your murderer — at any rate, I’ve got a lead on that profane parrot, and a swell description of the man that bought him.”

“Where?”

“At San Molinas.”

“Keep talking,” Mason told him.

“A man by the name of Arthur Gibbs runs a pet shop in San Molinas. It’s known as the Fifth Avenue Pet Shop. On Friday the second, a seedy-looking chap came in to buy a parrot in a hurry. Gibbs remembers it, because the man didn’t seem to care anything about the parrot except its appearance. Gibbs sold him this profane parrot. He thinks the man didn’t know about its habit of cussing... I think you’d better talk with Gibbs, Mason.”

“Any details?” Mason asked.

“I’ve got a swell description.”

“Does it fit anyone?” Mason inquired.

“No one so far as I can tell,” Drake said. “... Tell you what I’ll do, Perry. I’ll go to the Plaza Hotel and wait in the lobby. You get down here as soon as you can. If it’s after five-thirty, I’ll arrange with Gibbs to wait.”

Mason said, “That’ll be fine,” and hung up the telephone to face the coldly suspicious eyes of Sergeant Holcomb.

Sheriff Barnes, apparently not noticing the interruption, said, “When we broke in here, we found a creel filled with fish. We boxed it up in an air-tight container and sent it to the police laboratory in the city. They report that the creel contained a limit of fish which had been cleaned and wrapped in leaves but hadn’t been given a final washing. We’ve found the remains of his breakfast — a couple of eggs and some bacon rinds. We’ve found the remains of his lunch — canned beans. The body was clothed in slippers, slacks, and a light sweater. That leather coat there was on the back of the chair. Those are his fishing boots over there with mud on them. There’s his fly rod and flies on the table, just as he’d left them when he came in.

“Now, I figure he was killed right around eleven o’clock on the morning of Tuesday the sixth. Would you like to know how I figure it?”

“Very much indeed,” Mason said.

Sergeant Holcomb turned on his heel and walked away, showing his silent disgust.

Sheriff Barnes said, “Well, I ain’t had much experience in murder cases, but I know how to figure probabilities. I’ve been in the forest service, and I’ve worked cattle, and I know how to read trail. I don’t know whether the same kind of reasoning will work in a murder case or not, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Anyway, here’s the way I figure it. Sabin got up at five-thirty because that’s when the alarm went off. He had breakfast of bacon and eggs. He went out fishing. He caught a limit. He got back here, and he was tired and hungry. He didn’t even bother to wash the fish and put them in the icebox. He took off his boots, chucked the creel of fish over there, went out into the kitchen and cooked himself some canned beans. There was some coffee in the pot — probably still left from breakfast. He warmed that up.

“The next thing he’d have done was to have given the fish a good washing and put them in the icebox. He was murdered right after lunch and before he’d had a chance to do that. I fixed the time at around eleven o’clock.”

“Why not later?” Mason asked.

“Oh, yes,” the sheriff said, “I overlooked that. The sun gets on the cabin here about half past ten or eleven and it starts to get warm. It’s off the cabin by four o’clock in the afternoon, and it gets cold right away. During the middle of the day it’s hot. During the nights it’s cold. So I figured he was murdered after it had warmed up and before it had cooled off, but not during the middle of the day when it was real hot. If it had been real cold, he’d have had his coat on and would have lit the fire over there in the fireplace. You see, it’s all laid. If it had been real hot, he wouldn’t have been wearing his sweater.”

“Nice going,” Mason said approvingly. “Have you made any experiments to find out how long it takes the alarm clock to run down after it’s wound up?”

“I wired the factory,” the sheriff said. “They say from around thirty to thirty-six hours, depending on the condition of the clock and how long it’s been used.

“Now, here’s another thing, Mr. Mason. Whoever killed Sabin was a kindhearted, considerate sort of a guy. Anyway, that’s the way I figure it.”

He tilted back his hat and scratched the thick hair back of his ears in a characteristic gesture. “Now, you may think it sounds kind of funny for a man to say that about a murderer, but that’s the way I figure it just the same. This man had something against Sabin. He wanted to kill him, but he didn’t want to kill the parrot. He figured it was apt to be some time before Sabin’s body was discovered, and he arranged so the parrot wouldn’t starve to death in the meantime.

“Now that makes it look as though the murderer had some powerful reason for wanting Sabin out of the way. It wasn’t robbery and it wasn’t just sheer cussedness. The murderer was kindhearted... if you get what I mean.”

“I think I do,” Mason said with a smile. “And thank you very much, Sheriff. I won’t intrude on you and Sergeant Holcomb longer. I think I understand the situation. I’ll walk around the outside of the cabin a couple of times and give it the once-over. I certainly appreciate your courtesy and...”

He broke off as someone knocked on the cabin door.

Sheriff Barnes opened the door. A blond, studious-appearing young man in the early thirties peered owlishly from behind horn-rimmed spectacles. “Sheriff Barnes?” he inquired.

“You’re Waid?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes.”

Sheriff Barnes shook hands. “This is Sergeant Holcomb,” he said, “and this is Mr. Mason.”

Waid shook hands with each in turn. “I’ve followed your instructions to the letter, Sheriff,” he said. “I got off the plane at Las Vegas. I traveled under an assumed name. I’ve ditched all the newspaper reporters and...”

“Just a minute,” Sergeant Holcomb interrupted. “Don’t do any talking right now, Waid. Mr. Mason is a lawyer, not an officer. He’s just leaving.”

Waid suddenly turned to regard Perry Mason with wide eyes. “You’re Perry Mason, the lawyer,” he said. “Pardon me for not recognizing the name. I’ve read of your cases, Mr. Mason. I was particularly interested in that one where you acquitted...”

“Mason is leaving,” Sergeant Holcomb interrupted, “and we’d prefer that you didn’t talk with anyone, Waid, until you tell us your story.”

Waid lapsed into silence with an amused smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

Mason said, “I’ll talk with you some other time, Waid. I’m representing Charles Sabin. Does he know you’re here?”

Sergeant Holcomb stepped firmly forward. “That,” he said, “is all. There’s the door, Mason. Don’t let us detain you.”

“I won’t,” Mason assured him with a grin. “The atmosphere here is just a trifle stuffy — or don’t you think so, Sergeant?”

Sergeant Holcomb’s only retort was to slam the door as Mason stepped out into the glare of the mountain sunlight.

Della Street was seated on the running board of the automobile, making friends with some half-dozen chipmunks. The little animals came almost to her fingertips before turning to scamper away to the comparative safety of a dead pine log, where they chattered their spirits up before slowly creeping back, to approach within a matter of inches. Up in the pine tree above her head a bluejay, apparently thinking she was feeding the chipmunks, fluttered nervously from limb to limb, dropping ever lower, cocking his head from side to side, muttering low throaty squawks of protest at being excluded from the feast — a strange combination of impudence and diffidence.

“Hello, Chief,” she said. “Who’s the new arrival?”

“Waid, the secretary,” Mason replied. “He has something to tell them. That’s why they came up here to the cabin. They wanted to meet Waid where no newspaper men would be around... And Paul Drake’s telephoned he has something hot in San Molinas.”

“How about Waid?” she asked. “Going to wait and see if he’ll talk, Chief?”

“No. We’ll rush to San Molinas. Sergeant Holcomb will warn Waid not to tell me whatever it is he knows, but Charles Sabin will get it out of him later, and then we’ll find out. Come on, tell your friends good-by and let’s go.”

He climbed in behind the steering wheel, started the car, and drove slowly down the driveway which led from the cabin. Once or twice he stopped to look overhead in the branches of the pine tree. “That bluejay,” he said, laughing, “is still following us. I wonder if there isn’t something I could find to feed him.”

“There’s some peanut brittle in a bag in the glove compartment,” Della Street said. “You might break a peanut out of that.”

“Let’s try,” Mason said.

He opened the glove compartment, and Della pulled out a paper bag. “Here are a couple of loose peanuts in the bottom of the bag,” she told him, and poured them into Mason’s cupped hand.

He stood on the running board, held his hands up above his head so that the bluejay could see the shelled peanuts. The jay fluttered noisily from branch to branch, swooped down until he was almost even with Mason’s shoulder, then, becoming frightened at his own temerity, zoomed upward with a startled squawk. Twice he repeated this maneuver. The third time, he perched on Mason’s hand long enough to grab one of the peanuts in his beak before jumping up, to flutter into the branches of the tree overhead.

Mason, laughing, said, “Gosh, Della, I think I want to do this when I’m ready to retire. How nice it would be to have a cabin where you could make friends with...”

“What is it, Chief?” she asked, as he broke off abruptly.

Without answering her, Mason strode over to the pine tree in which the bluejay was perched. The jay, thinking he was being pursued, fled into the dark retreat of the forest, his startled squawk being superseded by cries of “Treason!” which merged into a more raucous and continuous vituperation of the man who had betrayed his confidence. Della Street, sliding across the seat, her feet pointed at the open door, gave herself impetus by a boost from the steering wheel, and slid to the ground with a quick flash of shapely legs. She ran across to where Mason was standing.

“What is it, Chief?”

Mason said, slowly, “That wire, Della.”

“What about it... I don’t see any... Oh, yes... Well, what is it, Chief?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “It isn’t an aerial, but you can see the way it’s been concealed. It runs along the branch of that limb and is taped to the upper side of it. Then it hits the tree trunk, runs along the tree trunk until it comes to that other limb, goes up through that, runs into this tree, then crosses over to that grove... Drive the car outside and park it on the highway, Della. I’m going to take a look.”

“What do you think it is, Chief?”

“It looks,” he told her, “as though someone had been tapping Fremont Sabin’s telephone.”

“Gosh, Chief!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t that something?”

He nodded, but said nothing. He was already walking along under the trees, following the course of the wire so cleverly concealed as to be invisible to any save the most alert observer.

Della Street parked the car on the highway, climbed through a fence, and took a short cut through the pine thicket to join him. A hundred yards away an unpainted cabin was so inconspicuous among the trees that it seemed as much a part of the scenery as the surrounding rocks.

“I think that’s the place we’re looking for,” Mason said, “but we’ll trace the wire and find out.”

“What do we do when we get there?” she asked.

“It depends,” Mason told her. “You’d better stay back, Della, so you can get the sheriff, if the party gets rough.”

“Let me stay with you, Chief,” she pleaded.

“No,” he told her. “Stay back there. If you hear any commotion, beat it for Sabin’s cabin as fast as you can, and bring the sheriff.”

Mason followed the wire to the place where it abruptly left the protection of the trees to loop itself around insulators just below the eaves of the unpainted cabin. At this point it had been arranged so that it looked very much like the aerial of a wireless set. Mason circled the cabin twice, keeping in the concealment of the dense shadows as much as possible.

Della Street, anxiously watching him from a point some fifty yards distant, moved slowly toward him.

“It’s all right,” he called to her. “We’re going to notify the sheriff.” He joined her and they walked back to the cabin where Fred Waner emerged apparently from nowhere to bar their way.

“I want to see the sheriff again,” Mason told him.

“All right. You wait here. I’ll tell the sheriff you’re here.”

Waner went to the door of the cabin and called the sheriff. A moment later Sheriff Barnes came out to see what was wanted. When he saw Mason, his face clouded with suspicion. “I thought you’d gone,” he said pointedly.

“I started,” Mason told him, “and came back. If you can step this way, Sheriff, I think I have something important to show you.”

Sergeant Holcomb came to the door of the cabin to stand just behind the sheriff. “What is it?” he asked.

“Something to show the sheriff,” Mason replied.

Sergeant Holcomb said grimly, “Mason, if this is a trap to distract our attention, I’ll...”

“I don’t care whether your attention’s distracted or not,” Mason interrupted. “I’m talking to the sheriff.”

Sergeant Holcomb said to Waner, “Waner, you stay here with Mr. Waid. Don’t let him leave. Don’t let anyone talk with him. Don’t let him touch anything. Do you understand?”

Waner nodded.

“You can count on my co-operation, Sergeant,” Waid said with cold formality. “After all, you know, I’m not a criminal. I’m trying to co-operate with you.”

“I understand that,” Holcomb said, “but whenever Perry Mason...”

“What do you have to show us, Mason?” Sheriff Barnes interrupted.

Mason said, “This way, please.”

He led the way down the road to where the wire had been tapped under the telephone line. Sergeant Holcomb and the sheriff followed along a few steps behind. “See that?” he asked, pointing upward.

“What?” the sheriff asked.

“That wire.”

“It’s a telephone wire,” Sergeant Holcomb snorted. “What the devil did you think it was, Mason?”

“I’m not talking about that wire,” Mason said. “I’m talking about the one which leads off from it. See where it goes through that pine tree where the needles come over and...”

“By George, you’re right!” the sheriff said. “There is a wire!”

“All right,” Mason said, “now that you see where the wire is cut in, I’ll show you where it runs to,” and he led the way over to where he could point out the unpainted cabin, concealed in the trees.

Sergeant Holcomb asked suspiciously, “How did you happen to notice that wire, Mason?”

“I was feeding a bluejay,” Mason said. “He took a peanut from my hand, then hopped up in that tree and sat on the limb which carries the wire.”

“I see,” Holcomb observed in a tone which showed his complete and utter disbelief, “and you just happened to see the wire while you were standing under the tree staring up at the bluejay to whom you’d just given a peanut. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“You wanted to see how he’d digest the peanut, I suppose?”

“No, I had another peanut I was going to give him,” Mason said patiently. “I wanted him to come down and take it out of my hand.”

Sergeant Holcomb said to Sheriff Barnes, “I don’t know what his game is, but if Perry Mason is walking down the road feeding peanuts to bluejays, you can gamble there’s something back of it. He knew darn well that wire was there, all the time. Otherwise, he’d never have found it.”

Sheriff Barnes stared moodily at the cabin. “Keep away,” he said, as though entirely oblivious of their conversation. “I’m going into that cabin. Sergeant, if any shooting starts, I leave it to you to back me up.”

Quietly, calmly, he approached the door of the cabin, pounded with peremptory knuckles, then lowering his shoulder, smashed his weight against the door. At his third lunge the door gave way and shot backward on its hinges. Sheriff Barnes stepped into the half darkness of the interior to find that Perry Mason was right on his heels, while Sergeant Holcomb was behind Mason, holding his gun in readiness.

“It’s all right,” the sheriff called, “there’s no one here... You, Mason, shouldn’t have taken chances like that.”

Mason made no reply. He was staring in frowning contemplation at the array of paraphernalia on the inside of the room. What looked like half of a piece of baggage proved to be a radio amplifier. The whole outfit had been neatly tailored so that, when it was fitted together, it was impossible to distinguish between it and any ordinary piece of baggage. There were headphones, elaborate recording devices, a pencil and pad of paper. A partially smoked cigarette was lying on the edge of a pine table. The cigarette, apparently forgotten, had charred through the wood of the table top. A fine layer of dust had settled over it, as well as over everything else in the room.

“Evidently,” the sheriff said, “he ain’t been here for quite a spell. But when he left, he lit out in a hurry. He even forgot his cigarette.”

“How did you know this was here?” Sergeant Holcomb demanded of Perry Mason, his voice harsh in its implied accusation.

Mason shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

Sheriff Barnes stopped him as he started to walk out. “Say, just a minute, Mason,” he said in a quiet tone which was, nevertheless, charged with authority.

Mason stopped.

“Did you know this line had been tapped, Mason?”

“Frankly, Sheriff, I didn’t.”

“How did you discover it?”

“Just as I told you.”

Sheriff Barnes still appeared dubious. Sergeant Holcomb made no attempt to disguise the contemptuous disbelief on his face.

“Did you,” Sheriff Barnes asked, “know that Fremont C. Sabin had been back of an attempt to expose organized vice and graft in the Metropolitan Police?”

“Good heavens, no!” Mason said.

Sergeant Holcomb, his face almost a brick-red, said, “I didn’t give you that information to be bandied around, Sheriff.”

Barnes said, without taking his eyes from Mason, “I’m not bandying it around. You’ve probably read, Mason, of the confidential advices which the Grand Jury have been receiving, advices which have caused it to start an inquiry against some persons who are prominent politically.”

“I’ve heard something about it,” Mason admitted cautiously.

“And you knew that some private citizen was back of this campaign to get information?”

“I’d heard something of the sort.”

“Did you have any idea that that person was Fremont C. Sabin?”

Mason said, “Sheriff, I can assure you I didn’t have any idea who the person was.”

“That’s all,” Sheriff Barnes said. “I just wanted to be sure, Mason.”

“Thanks,” Mason said, and walked out, leaving them alone in the cabin.