The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece

Chapter 11

Mason found Paul Drake seated in a car parked at the curb half a block away from the Kent residence. “I tried to get in,” Drake said, “but they turned me back. I’ve got a couple of men ready to go to work on the witnesses as soon as the cops quit keeping the place sewed up. What happened?”

“Plenty,” Mason told him. “A fellow by the name of Rease was killed. He was stabbed in bed, evidently while he was asleep. The covers were up around his neck. The night was rather warm. There were only two light blankets over him. The knife was shoved down through the blankets.”

“Any motive?”

Mason lowered his voice and said, “There’s damn near a case of circumstantial evidence against Peter Kent. He’s my client.”

“Where’s he now?”

“Gone byebye.”

“You mean he’s running away?”

“No, he’s on a business trip.”

“Are you going to surrender him, Perry?”

“It depends. I want to find out first whether he’s guilty. If he is, I don’t want to handle the case. I think he was walking in his sleep. If he was, I’m going to try to get him.”

“What kind of a man was the chap who was killed?”

“Sort of a crank. He was always worrying about his health.”

“Did Kent have some particular motive for killing him?”

“No, but he had plenty of motive for killing the man in whose bed the victim was sleeping!”

The detective gave a low whistle. “Got the wrong man, eh?” he asked.

“I don’t know. You stick around and see what you can uncover.” Mason looked at his watch, then opened the door of Drake’s car and said, “You can drive me down to the boulevard. I’ll pick up a cab there.”

“Headed for your office?”

“I don’t know.”

“You were there,” Drake said, starting the car; “didn’t you have a chance to do anything before the police came down on the place?”

“Nothing. There’s another attorney there, a bird by the name of Duncan.”

Drake deftly avoided a car which cut in, stepped on the throttle to beat a traffic signal and said, “ Duncan cramped your style, eh?”

“I’ll say he did. I wanted to find out something more about the murder, but that old fossil started messing around. Moreover, he claims he saw my client prowling around about midnight.”

Drake said, “Watch your step, Perry.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just the look in your eye. You look to me as though you were pulling a fast one.”

Mason grinned. “I’m pulling half a dozen fast ones,” he replied. “I’m like a juggler on the stage who’s got six billiard balls in the air all at once, only I’m not juggling billiard balls, I’m juggling dynamite bombs. I’ve got to keep moving.”

“I’ll find out all I can,” Drake promised. “By the way, you wanted me to put a man on duty in Santa Barbara to relieve some chap who’d been watching a house up there. I got one of my men on the job, and everything’s all fixed up. Just thought I’d let you know, in case you were worrying about it.”

Mason nodded and said, “Good work, Paul. You’d better send another man up to work with him. I want her shadowed now, and I want as smooth a job as possible. And put a tail on anyone who leaves Kent’s place after the officers get finished with their investigation… This is a good place, Paul. There’s a taxicab. I’ll take it. You can telephone from the cigar store there on the corner.”

Mason flagged the taxi as Drake swung in close to the curb. The driver was alert and efficient, and Mason reached his office by ten minutes after nine. Della Street, as crisply fresh as a chilled lettuce leaf, perched informally on the corner of Mason’s desk and rattled a barrage of information into his ears while he was washing his hands, combing his hair, and adjusting his necktie in front of the mirror. “ Jackson telephoned just a few minutes ago. One of the judges had a jury trial scheduled at half past nine, and a default matter which he had to take up. So he called court at eightthirty and Jackson explained the circumstances to him and got his signature on the final decree of divorce. I called the Winslow Hotel at Yuma to talk with Mr. Kent and Mr. Kent hadn’t arrived. I called the courthouse. They hadn’t heard anything of Kent. No marriage license had been issued for him this morning, and…”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said, looking at his watch, “that information doesn’t have any particular significance. The courthouse hasn’t been open but a few minutes. It’s just after nine and…”

Her calmly efficient voice interrupted him incisively. “It’s after ten o’clock there. Yuma is on Mountain Time.”

Mason closed the door of the closet which contained the washbowl and medicine cabinet, made her a little bow, and said, “You win, Miss Efficiency. What else?”

“I called up the airport, found the number of the plane Kent chartered to take him to Yuma, and got Drake’s office to rush a Yuma detective down to the airport there to see if that plane had landed. I’m expecting a call any moment.”

“I don’t know why I don’t stay out of the office and let you run the business,” Mason told her. “You’ve handled things more quickly and efficiently than if I’d been here.”

She smiled her appreciation, but continued to snap information at him. “They’re trying their best to get you to handle that Anstruthers will case. I told them I couldn’t give them an appointment but I’d see if you were interested.”

“Who wants me to handle it?”

“The attorney who’s representing the contestants wants to have you put on the case. He says he has it all prepared and all you’ll have to do is examine the witnesses and present the case to the jury…”

Mason interrupted her. “Can’t take it,” he said. “It comes up for trial this week, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not taking on any additional responsibilities until I get this case straightened out. Tell them I’m sorry. Anything else?”

“Myrna Duchene was so grateful it was positively pathetic.”

“Myrna Duchene?” he asked, his forehead puckered into a frown. “Who’s she?”

“The girl who was swindled by the man who’s at the Palace Hotel under the alias of George Pritchard,” she explained.

Mason laughed. “I’d forgotten about her. She thinks my advice will work?”

“She’s positive of it. She says she’ll pay you just as soon as…”

“Didn’t you tell her there was no charge for the advice?”

Della Street nodded. “I told her, but she just couldn’t seem to believe it. She…” The telephone bell rang. Della Street lifted the receiver to her ear, said, “Hello,” listened for a few moments and said, “Stay there. Report at once by telephone, if you hear anything of it.” She slipped the receiver back on the hook and said, “Kent’s plane—it hasn’t landed at the Yuma airport.”

Mason drummed with his fingertips on the edge of his desk. “Now that’s a complication,” he said.

“Shall we report them as missing and have a search plane sent out?”

He slowly shook his head, said, “Ring up the airport, Della, and charter a plane. Have it ready to leave within half an hour. Don’t tell them the destination. Tell them I just want to cruise around a bit.”

“Charter it in your name?” she asked.

He nodded, and said, “You might as well. I’ll get more service in my own name, and if the officers are prowling around the airport they’ve found out about Kent’s plane by this time anyway.”

“You think they’ll figure on a plane?”

“Sure they will—sooner or later. It’s just a question of time. The butler spilled the information that they were going to get married and that I’d driven them somewhere in an automobile. It won’t take much of a detective to put two and two together on that.”

The telephone rang again. Della listened at the receiver, handed the telephone over to Perry Mason and said, “It’s Jackson again at Santa Barbara. You take the call on this line, and I’ll go out in the other office to telephone the airport.”

Mason said, “Hello,” and heard Jackson’s voice on the line. “Hello, Jackson, everything okay? Della tells me you have the decree.”

“That’s right, the decree’s signed and duly entered. What do I do now?”

“Who’s watching the woman up there?”

“One of Drake’s men. He relieved Harris.”

“Della said you had something to tell me you didn’t want to spill over the telephone.”

“I didn’t dare to. I’m talking through the courthouse exchange. I haven’t been able to leave here yet. I’m afraid there may be a leak through the switchboard. Later on I can go to the main telephone office and call you from there.

“What’s the nature of the information, generally?” Mason asked. “Use language that won’t mean anything to an outsider.”

“It relates to a consolidation of adverse forces.”

Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, “Can you tell me anything more than that?”

“Apparently,” Jackson answered, “arrangements are being consummated by which the plaintiff in this divorce action is planning to cooperate with certain other parties who are in an adverse position to the divorce defendant.” Mason made a little humming noise between his tightly closed lips. “You get what I mean?” Jackson asked.

“I think I do. I don’t want you to spill any of that over the telephone. Get down here just as quickly as you can.”

“I can start right away.”

“How about the others?”

“All ready to go any time I say the word.”

“Where’s Miss Warrington?”

“She’s here with me. Harris is waiting out front in the automobile.”

Mason said, “Climb in the car and beat it down here. Tell Harris to step on it. Now, Jackson, an unforeseen and unfortunate occurrence took place at Kent’s residence last night.”

“Can you tell me what it was?”

“A Philip Rease was murdered.” Jackson gave a low whistle. “Therefore,” Mason said, “it wouldn’t be particularly advisable for Harris and Miss Warrington to jump into the arms of the police detectives until they’ve had a chance to prepare themselves somewhat.”

“You mean you want me to bring them to the office before they…”

“That’s exactly what I don’t want,” Mason interrupted. “I don’t want the police to think I’ve been coaching the witnesses. I’m in this thing deep enough already. And I don’t want you to let on to them that you know Rease was murdered. But suggest to them that, because they may be questioned by Mrs. Kent’s lawyer as to what happened during the evening, they’d better make certain their recollections check.”

“Harris is the one who has the information concerning the matter I was trying to explain to you a few moments ago,” Jackson said.

“About the consolidation of forces?”

“Yes.”

“Just the same, I don’t want Harris to come here before he’s questioned by the police. Go over any information he has. Get Miss Warrington to take it down in shorthand and transcribe it later, if it’s necessary. Do you get the sketch?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “get started. I may not be here when you arrive. If I’m not, wait for me.”

He hung up the receiver, started pacing the floor of his office. Della Street appeared in the doorway. “The plane’s all ready,” she said. “I have a fast car ordered. It’ll be at the curb by the time you get there.” Mason jerked open the door of the coat closet, pulled on a light topcoat, paused to adjust his hat in front of the mirror. “When you get to the airport,” Della Street instructed, “go out to the far end of the field. A twomotored cabin job will be warming up. I told the pilot to be sure to be at the far end of the field. I figured detectives might be hanging around.”

Mason nodded, said, “Good girl,” and made for the elevator.

The automobile which Della Street had ordered arrived at the curb just as Mason was emerging from the building. The driver knew how to make time through traffic. “Go to the far end of the field,” Mason said.

“Yes, sir, I’ve already been instructed.”

Mason leaned back against the cushions, his eyes entirely oblivious to the whizzing scenery. Twice he had to brace himself as the car swerved to avoid a collision, but the hour indicated on his wristwatch when he climbed into the cabin plane more than compensated for any inconvenience on the road.

Mason gave the pilot terse instructions. “A plane took off for Yuma about daylight this morning. It hasn’t arrived. Keep on the charted route to Yuma, and keep your eyes on the ground below as much as possible. I’ll be watching.”

“If we find it down, what do you want me to do?”

“Circle down as close to it as you can. Don’t take any chances on making a landing unless someone’s hurt and there’s something we can do. If it’s a crash and they’re dead, we’ll report to the authorities. If someone’s in need of medical attention, we’ll take a chance on landing.”

The pilot nodded, climbed into the pilot’s compartment. The plane roared into motion, zoomed smoothly upward. Mason looked down at the airport to see if he could make out a police car parked near the entrance, or see Sergeant Holcomb hanging about, but the plane swept overhead too fast for him to make an accurate survey. The ship climbed smoothly upward in a long curve, until the rows of white buildings glistening in the brilliant California sunlight gave way to the darker green of checkerboarded orange groves. Then, with a snowcapped mountain on both the right and the left, the plane shot through a narrow pass, rocked violently in bumpy air, and then flattened into steady droning flight. Almost as sharply as though marked by a line drawn with a ruler, the land of the fertile orange groves gave place to desert, a sandy waste dotted with greasewood, sagebrush and cacti. Over on the right, Palm Springs appeared, nestled against the base of the towering mountains. A few minutes more, and beyond the date palms of the Coachella Valley, the sun glistened on the Salton Sea. Mason peered steadily downward, looking first from one side of the plane, then from the other. He saw no sign of any grounded plane. The Salton Sea slipped behind. Below was a vast, tumbled aggregation of eroded mountains, huge hills of drifting sand, a country rich in its lore of lost mines, a hardbitten, mirageinfested, thirsty country which had claimed a hideous toll of venturesome prospectors. The Colorado showed ahead as a yellowish snake winding turgidly through the desert. Yuma sprawled in the sunlight. The pilot turned to Mason for instructions.

Mason signaled him to go ahead and land. The nose of the plane tilted sharply forward. The droning roar of the motors died to a humming noise which enabled Mason to hear the sound of air shrieking past the plane. The pilot swung it into a long, banking turn, flattened out, gunned the motors once, then tilted the nose forward. A moment later the little jolts running up through the plane signified the wheels were once more on the earth. Mason saw two men running toward him, waving their arms. One of them, he saw, was Kent, and the other one was a stranger to him. Mason emerged from the fuselage. “What happened?” he asked.

Kent said ruefully, “Motor trouble. We had to make a forced landing. I thought we were going to be there all morning. We got in about five minutes ago and this man from the Detective Agency met me. He telephoned your office and your secretary said for me to wait here, that you were due to land within five or ten minutes. She’d verified the time you took off from Los Angeles and knew just about when you were due.”

“Where’s Miss Mays?”

“I sent her on to the hotel. She wanted to freshen up a bit, and then she’s going to the courthouse to wait for me.”

Mason said, “We’re all going to the courthouse and get that marriage over with. Is there a taxicab here?”

“Yes, I have a car waiting.”

“There’s just one chance in a hundred,” Mason said, “an officer may be waiting to pick you up when you get in that car. I want to talk to you before anyone else does. Come over here.” He took Kent’s arm, walked with him some thirty steps away from the pilot and detective and then said, “Now, then, come clean.”

“What do you mean?” Kent asked.

“Exactly what I said—come clean.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve told you everything. The information that I gave you concerning Maddox is strictly accurate. The…”

“The hell with Maddox,” Mason said. “How about Rease?”

“You mean my halfbrother?”

“Yes.”

“Why, I’ve only told you all about him. He’s really incompetent so far as money matters are concerned. He’s rather radical at times. His attempts to make money have met with failure, so he’s naturally resentful of the chaps who have been more successful. He…”

“At approximately seventhirty this morning,” Mason interrupted, “Mr. P. L. Rease was found dead in his bed. Death had been caused by plunging a sharp carving knife down through the bedclothes into his body. The knife had apparently been taken from a drawer in the sideboard in the dining room and…”

Kent swayed, clutched at his heart. His eyes grew wide. His face turned an ashen gray. “No,” he whispered hoarsely, speaking with a visible effort. “Good God, no!”

Mason nodded.

“Oh, my God!” Kent cried, clutching at Mason’s arm.

Mason jerked his arm away and said, “Stand up and cut out the dramatics.”

Kent said, “You’ll excuse me, but I’m going to sit down.” Without a word, he sat down on the ground. Mason stood above him, watching him with calmly speculative eyes. “When… when did it happen?”

“I don’t know. He was found about seventhirty.”

“Who found him?”

“I did.”

“How did you happen to find him?”

Mason said, “We found a carving knife under the pillow of your bed. After we looked at the blade we started an investigation of the house—taking the census.”

“Under my pillow!” Kent exclaimed, but his eyes did not meet those of the lawyer.

“Did you,” Mason asked, “know that Rease wasn’t sleeping in his own room last night? That he changed rooms with Maddox?”

Kent’s eyes, looking like those of a wounded deer raised to Mason’s. Slowly he shook his head. “Did he?” he asked.

“They exchanged rooms,” Mason said. “Apparently you were about the only person in the house who didn’t know the exchange had been made. The district attorney will claim that when you slipped the knife from the sideboard and went prowling through the house you believed the occupant of that room was Frank Maddox.”

“You mean the district attorney’s going to say I did it.”

“Exactly.”

Kent stared at Mason. His mouth began to quiver. His hand went to his face, as though trying to hold the muscles from twitching. His hand began to shake…

Mason said casually, “If I’m going to represent you, Kent, you’ve got to do two things: First you’ll have to convince me that you’re innocent of any deliberate murder. Secondly you’ll have to cut out this business of putting on the jerks.” As Kent continued to twitch and jerk, the spasm apparently extending all over his body, Mason went on as though he had been engaged merely in casual conversational comment: “Dr. Kelton says you don’t do that right, that you might fool a family physician, but you couldn’t fool a psychiatrist. Therefore, you can see how much you’re weakening your case by putting on an act like that.”

Kent suddenly ceased trembling and twitching. “What’s wrong with the way I do it?” he asked.

“Kelton didn’t say. He simply said that it was an act you were putting on. Now, why were you doing it?”

“I—er…”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Why were you doing it?” Kent pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. “Go on,” Mason told him. “Get up. Stand on your two feet. I want to talk to you.” Slowly Kent got to his feet. “Why did you put on the act?” Mason asked.

Kent said in a voice that was almost inaudible, “Because I knew I was walking in my sleep again and I was afraid… God, I was afraid!”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid I was going to do this very thing.”

“What, kill Rease?”

“No, kill Maddox.”

“Now,” Mason told him, “you’re talking sense… Have a cigarette.” He extended his cigarette case. Kent shook his head. “Go on and tell me the rest of it,” Mason said. Kent looked around apprehensively. Mason said, “Go on, spill it. You won’t ever have any safer place to talk. They may pounce down on you at any time now.” He raised his finger and dramatically pointed to an airplane which, but little more than a speck in the sky, was heading toward the airport. “Even that plane,” he said, “may hold officers. Now, talk, and talk fast.”

Kent said, “God knows what I do when I’m sleepwalking.”

“Did you kill Rease?”

“Before God, I don’t know.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I know that I walked in my sleep a year ago. I know I’ve been walking in my sleep from time to time ever since I was a boy. I know that these fits come on when there’s a full moon and when I’m nervous and upset. I know that a little over a year ago, while I was walking in my sleep, I got a carving knife. I don’t know what I intended to do with that carving knife, but I’m afraid—horribly afraid…”

“That you intended to kill your wife?” Mason asked.

Kent nodded.

“Go on from there,” Mason said, eyes watching the plane which was banking into a turn in order to come up against the wind. “What about this last flareup?”

“I walked in my sleep. I got the carving knife from the sideboard. Apparently I didn’t try to kill anyone with it, or, if I did, I was prevented from carrying out my plan.”

“What makes you think so?”

“The carving knife was under my pillow when I woke up in the morning.”

“You knew it was there, then?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know what happened after that?”

“I deduced what must have happened. I went in to take my shower and when I returned the knife was gone. At about that time Edna became very solicitous. That night, after I went to bed, someone locked my door.”

“You knew that, then?”

“Yes. I wasn’t asleep. The lock made a faint clicking sound.”

“And you surmised it was Edna?”

“Yes. I felt certain it must have been.”

“So what?”

“So when Edna started pulling her astrological stuff and suggested I see an attorney whose name had five letters, and was associated with rocks, I realized she was trying to put me in an advantageous position in case something horrible should really happen. So I ran over the names of the leading criminal attorneys in my mind, and made things easier for her by suggesting you.”

“So you didn’t fall for that astrological stuff?”

“I don’t know. I think there’s something to it. But as soon as she brought the subject up, I appreciated the advantage of coming to you before anything happened.”

“And you suggested I get a doctor for the same reason?”

“That’s right. My niece made that suggestion and I saw the advantages of it.”

“And his shaking act?”

“I wanted to impress upon both of you that I was laboring under a nervous strain.”

“So you put that act on to impress the doctor?”

“If you want to put it that way, yes.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police or put yourself in a sanitarium?

Kent twisted his fingers together until the skin grew white. “Why didn’t I!” he asked. “Oh, my God, why didn’t I! If I’d only done that! But no, I kept thinking things were going to be all right. Mind you, I’d put that carving knife under my pillow and hadn’t done anything with it; and so I figured that, after all, I wouldn’t actually kill anyone. Just put yourself in my position. I’m wealthy, my wife wants to grab my property and put me in a sanitarium. For me to do anything would have been to deliberately play into her hands. I was in a terrible predicament. The worry of it almost drove me crazy. And then, after I consulted you, and saw the capable way in which you were going at things, I felt certain everything was going to be all right. It was a big load off my mind. I went to bed and slept like a top last night. I can’t remember anything until the alarm went off this morning… I was excited about my marriage… I didn’t look under the pillow.”

The airplane, which had swept into a landing, taxied up to a stop. Mason, watching the people disembarking from it, said, “Okay, Kent, I believe you. I’m going to see you through. If you’ve told me the truth, go ahead and tell your story to the officers. If you built this sleepwalking business up, as your wife claims you did in her case, to give you a chance to murder someone you wanted out of the way, say so now.”

“No, no, I’m telling you the truth.”

Mason raised his hand and called out, “Over this way, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Holcomb, flexing his muscles, after emerging from the plane, started at the sound of Mason’s voice, then, with Deputy District Attorney Blaine, at his side, came striding toward Mason and Kent. “What is it?” Kent asked in an apprehensive half whisper.

“Stick to your guns,” Mason cautioned. “Tell your story to the officers and to the newspapers. We want all the publicity we can get…”

Sergeant Holcomb said belligerently to Perry Mason, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Mason, with an urbane smile and a gesture of his hand said, “Sergeant Holcomb, permit me to present Mr. Peter B. Kent.”