The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece

Chapter 14

It was late afternoon. The big office building echoed with the sounds of hectic activity incident to the closing of business offices. Stenographers, anxious to get home after a grinding day in the office, clickclacked down the flagged corridor, their highheeled shoes beating a nervous tattoo of rapid steps. There was a certain monotony about the whole hectic routine. Steps sounded in the distance, grew into added volume as they passed Mason’s door, then paused before the glass mail chute as letters shot downward. Elevator doors clanged, the corridor was cleared of its human cargo, only presently to echo under a fresh barrage of pattering feet. As the clock chimed five, the sounds grew in volume. By fivethirty the building was almost silent, the center of noise having shifted to the street, from which blaring horns and shrill traffic whistles beat insistently upon the lawyer’s ears. Perry Mason paced the floor, thumbs thrust in the armholes of his vest, head bent forward in thought. Apparently he was oblivious of all of the distracting noises. The door of his private office noiselessly opened. Della Street tiptoed to her secretarial desk and seated herself, waiting.

Mason hardly glanced up. “Go home, Della,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

She shook her head. “I’ll stick around. Something may turn up.”

Knuckles tapped on the corridor door. She glanced inquiringly at Mason, who nodded to her. At his nod, she moved quickly across the room to open the door. Paul Drake said, “Thanks, Della,” and gave Mason a quick glance. “Walking another marathon, Perry?”

“I’m trying to walk a solution out of this damned case.”

“Well,” Drake said, “perhaps I can simplify things a little. I’ve traced that call to Mrs. Doris Kent. It was sent in from a pay station in the Pacific Greyhound Stage Depot at 1629 North Cahuenga Boulevard. The connection was made at one minute past three o’clock in the morning, and the conversation terminated three and a half minutes later. Maddox put in the call, using his own name. It was a persontoperson call.”

“Get photostatic copies of those records,” Mason ordered. “You’re keeping Mrs. Kent shadowed?”

“I’ll say we are. What did she want here?”

“Wanted to have us give her the earth with a fence around it.”

“Meaning?” Drake asked in his slow drawl.

“Meaning she wanted me to agree not to contest her action, but let her have the divorce set aside and assume control of the property as Kent’s wife. She’d swear to anything necessary to have him declared incompetent. That, of course, would simplify our defense to the murder case.”

Drake drawled, “Nice of her, wasn’t it?”

“Very.”

“Isn’t the case against Kent pretty much one of circumstantial evidence?” Della Street asked.

Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket. “ Duncan,” he said, “has given out an interview to the newspapers. He swears absolutely that it was three o’clock when he saw the sleepwalker in the patio. He says the person he saw was Kent; that Kent had something in his hand which glittered. It might have been a knife, he can’t be positive.”

Della Street interrupted to exclaim indignantly, “How’s he going to get away with changing his story like that?”

“Cinch,” Mason said. “He’ll claim that when he first told his story to the officers he was a little rattled; that he said the time was either quarter past twelve or three o’clock; that I didn’t understand him correctly; that he didn’t positively identify the sleepwalker as Kent because he was afraid his motives might be misconstrued; that the more he thinks of it, the more positive he’s become that it was Kent, and that it makes no difference what we may think of his motives, it’s his duty to tell the truth. Then he’ll make a lot of wisecracks on crossexamination.”

“You mean he’s going to commit deliberate perjury?”

“No, the old fossil will think he’s telling the truth. That’s the hell of it. But this telephone call gives me an opportunity to take him to pieces. He wasn’t asleep at three o’clock in the morning.”

“Isn’t there a chance Maddox might have put in the call without Duncan knowing anything about it?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s one chance in a hundred. The fact that they were all in conference this morning proves that Maddox wasn’t trying to slip anything over on Duncan. I thought at first Maddox might have figured he could cut Duncan out on the deal, but that doesn’t check with the other facts.”

Drake consulted his notebook again. “Here’s something else,” he said. “Do you know what time Harris claims he noticed the knife wasn’t in the sideboard drawer?”

“It was some time during the evening,” Mason remarked, “I don’t know just when. Why?”

“Because,” Drake said, “I think we can show the knife was in the drawer when it was locked.”

“How?”

“By the butler. One of my men posed as a newspaper reporter and talked with him. He was all swelled up with importance and only too willing to spill everything he knew. He says that before he went to his room he went to the sideboard to look for something, and distinctly remembers that the knife was in the drawer at the time.”

“What time?” Mason asked.

“He can’t tell exactly. It was some time after the dishes were all done and put away, but, and here’s the significant part of it, he thinks it was after Harris left for Santa Barbara. Now if that’s true, the knife might have been missing from the sideboard, but it was returned before Kent’s niece locked the sideboard drawer.”

Mason frowned. “Why would anyone want to take it out and then put it back?” Drake shrugged his shoulders. Mason said, “That testimony doesn’t make sense, Paul. I wouldn’t trust the butler too much, myself. Harris has to be telling the truth. If the knife was in the drawer when the drawer was locked, Kent couldn’t have taken it out. There was only one key.”

“Of course,” Drake drawled, “people have been known to pick locks.”

Mason said irritably, “I don’t dare to advance that theory, Paul.”

“Why not?”

“A sleepwalker wouldn’t pick a lock. If he had a key or knew where the key was, he might unlock the drawer, but I don’t think he’d pick a lock. There’s something about that which doesn’t fit in with a sleepwalking theory… Where did Doris Kent go after she left here, Paul?”

“Straight to her lawyer’s office.”

“Then where?”

“Then she started back for Santa Barbara.”

“You have men shadowing her?”

“Two of them.”

“You said there weren’t any fingerprints on that knife handle?” Mason asked abruptly.

“None they can pin on Kent. There were prints, but they were badly smeared. The officers figure that either they were smeared by rubbing against the sheet and pillowcase, or else that you and Edna Hammer managed to ‘accidentally’ obliterate them. But there are no prints they can positively identify as Kent’s. A newspaper man got the information directly from the fingerprint expert and passed it on to me.”

“But if Kent’s fingerprints weren’t on it,” Della Street said, “how are they going to hold him? Just because the knife was found under his pillow doesn’t prove he’s guilty of murder.”

“The whole thing,” Mason said, “gets back to Duncan. If I can break down Duncan’s identification I can win the case in a walk. If I can’t break Duncan’s testimony, I’ve got to rely on sleepwalking. If I rely on sleepwalking I must prove how Kent got possession of that knife. If he took it from the drawer in the sideboard before he went to sleep it shows premeditation and indicates that the sleepwalking defense was a fake. If he didn’t take it from the sideboard before he went to sleep then he couldn’t have got it afterwards, because the sideboard drawer was locked and Edna Hammer had the only key in her exclusive possession all night.”

Mason resumed his steady pacing of the floor.

“I thought you’d be tickled to death about the butler’s testimony,” Drake said moodily. “I figured that and the record of the telephone call would be enough to put the case on ice.”

“The telephone call’s okay, Paul,” Mason said. “Something seems to tell me that’s going to be a life saver, but I can’t figure out the knife business. Somewhere along the line, there’s something that doesn’t click. There’s something…” He came to an abrupt stop, his eyes wide with startled surprise. Slowly he gave a low whistle.

“What is it?” Drake asked.

Mason didn’t answer the question immediately, but stood for several seconds staring moodily at the detective. Then he said slowly, “It’s a theory, Paul.”

“Will it hold water?” the detective asked.

“I’m damned if I know,” Mason told him. “It won’t until after I’ve plugged up a few holes in it.”

He turned to his secretary. “Della,” he said, “you and I are going to make a buildup.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

Mason grinned at her and said, “I’ll tell you after Paul Drake leaves.”

“That bad?” Drake asked, slowly sliding his body over the smooth arm of the big leather chair until his feet touched the floor. He stretched his long legs, reached the corridor door, opened it.

“Wait a minute,” Mason called after him. “There’s one thing you can do. I want to talk with Helen Warrington. Do you suppose you could get her in here right away?”

“Sure, I’ve got men trailing everyone in the case.”

“That chap she’s engaged to—Bob Peasley—runs a hardware store, doesn’t he?”

“I think so, yes. Why?”

“Never mind why,” Mason said. “Rush Helen Warrington up here.”

“And that’s all I’m to know?” Drake asked.

Mason nodded, “The less you know of what’s going to happen, Paul, the less your conscience will bother you.”

Drake drawled, “Hell, if I had a conscience you wouldn’t even speak to me, let alone employ me.” And, still grinning, he slowly pulled the door shut behind him.