The Case of the Caretaker's Cat (18 page)

The clerk gave one glance at her face, then moved swiftly from behind the counter, and came to her solicitously. "What is it, Mrs. Clammert?… Not the plane? It couldn't be the plane!"

She held her knuckles to her lips, shook her head at him, her eyes wide and startled. Twice she tried to talk, and both times managed only to give a little gasp.

The clerk was solicitous, as became his position. Nor was he unaware of the beauty of this fragile and disappointed bride, whose husband had been called away from her side at the very inception of the honeymoon. His hand patted her shoulder comfortingly. "My dear young woman," he said, "what is it?"

"The car!" she gasped.

"The car?"

"Yes. Watson's new Buick. Oh, he thinks the world of it."

"I've seen it," the clerk said, "it's a beauty. What's happened to it?"

"It's been stolen."

"Stolen? From the grounds here? Impossible!"

"Not from the grounds," she said, shaking her head. "I drove up the road for a ways, parked the car, and went down to sit on the beach. I guess I was careless and left my ignition keys in it. I came back and it was gone."

"Well, we can get it," the clerk said grimly. "It doesn't stand much chance of getting out of the county without being caught. What's the license number?"

Della Street shook her head helplessly. Then seized with a sudden inspiration, said, "Oh, I know. Call up the International Automotive Indemnity Exchange. Call them at my expense. We had the car insured a few days ago. They can look up the insurance records. My husband has the policy and I don't know where it is. But you can explain to them the car has been stolen, and they'll give you the license number and the engine number and all of that data you require."

The clerk was already in motion. He said to the telephone operator, "Get me the International Automotive Indemnity Exchange on long distance, and get me the sheriff's office at the court house. Better get the insurance company first."

Her fingers flew over the switchboard with swift skill.

"I'm afraid I'm making a lot of trouble," Della Street said.

"Not at all, Mrs. Clammert. I'm only sorry something like this should happen to mar the pleasure of your stay."

Then the clerk, suddenly realizing that the pleasure of her stay had been marred by much more than the loss of an automobile, became silent and embarrassed.

The girl at the switchboard said, "Do you want your call in a booth, Mr. Maxwell?"

"Perhaps I'd better."

"Booth one," she said.

The clerk stepped into the booth, and a few moments later emerged holding a slip of paper upon which he had penciled numbers.

"Now then," he said to the operator, "the sheriff's office."

"They're already waiting on the line," she told him. The clerk stepped into the booth once more, then came out, smiling.

"You may rest assured that the car will be recovered, Mrs. Clammert. The sheriff's office is notifying the state motorcycle officers and the sheriff's office in Ventura, in Los Angeles, in San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, and Salinas. They'll have the roads completely sewed up. What's more, they'll have a radio broadcast giving the numbers, and wires are going out to the Division of Motor Vehicles and to the border patrol stations on the highways into Arizona, Mexico and Oregon."

"Thank you so much," she said. "Oh, I'm so completely desolated. I think I'll pack up and go to Los Angeles, and then return after my husband comes back. I don't want to stay here without him."

"We should be very sorry to lose you," the clerk said, "but I understand how you feel, Mrs. Clammert."

Della Street nodded her head with quick determination.

"Yes," she said, "I'm going to Los Angeles."

"Where can I notify you about the automobile?"

She frowned for a moment, and then said, "Oh, just notify the insurance company and my husband's lawyers will keep in touch with them. After all, I guess it's not so serious. It's up to them to supply us with a new car, isn't it?"

"Oh, you'll get your car back, Mrs. Clammert. Probably some hitch-hiker took it to get over a few miles of road. He'll abandon it by the side of the road somewhere when he runs out of gas, or, if he doesn't, he'll be picked up by some of the officers who'll be patrolling the highway."

"Well," Della Street said, "I guess the insurance company will take care of it. You've been very, very nice here, and I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer, but you understand how it is."

The clerk assured her that he understood, prepared her bill and saw that her baggage was safely started for the depot.

Perry Mason was seated in his office, reading mail, when the door opened and Della Street appeared in the doorway, carrying a hatbox.

"Well," he said, "how's the disappointed bride?"

She was all crisp efficiency. "Everything went off okay, Chief. They're notifying the motor patrols, and the border stations."

"Yes," Mason said, "I heard the reports on the police calls."

"The clerk was most solicitous," she said. "He remembered the new Buick and thought it was such a beauty and hoped I wouldn't be deprived of it more than a day or two… Tell me first: Why did you go to all this trouble simply to get the police to report a car as stolen? Couldn't you have simply used a telephone and…"

He interrupted her with a smiling shake of the head. "You wouldn't deprive me of my honeymoon, Della!"

"You deprived yourself of it," she retorted, "and you still haven't answered my question."

"I wanted Watson Clammert arrested," he said slowly. "I wanted him arrested under such circumstances that he would appear to be a professional car thief. I couldn't have brought about that result by any ordinary means, since I didn't dare to make a formal charge in my own name and didn't dare to sign a complaint in any name. My theory may be wrong, in which event I can't afford to leave any back trail the police or Clammert could follow. We needed someone who would enlist the sympathy and active cooperation of the police without signing a complaint and without leaving a back trail. The Biltmore Hotel is a big factor in Santa Barbara and the sheriff of Santa Barbara County is sufficiently important to get all sorts of political cooperation. But the Biltmore Hotel most certainly wouldn't have acted as a cat's paw to pull our chestnuts out of the fire unless we had established ourselves so firmly with them that it would never have occurred to them to question your identity.

"It took human interest to do that, and the best way to get human interest was to give the clerk an orchestra seat and let him become a sympathetic spectator of your blasted romance."

"And would you tell me just what chestnuts you expect to have pulled from the fire?" she inquired.

Mason shook his head. "Not now," he said… "Did you come down on the train?"

"No, I had the hotel take my stuff to the depot and then I chartered a car to drive me down."

"Leave any back trail?"

"No."

"Good girl. They're rushing things with Douglas Keene. They start the hearing at two o'clock this afternoon."

She stared at him with startled eyes. "You mean they're going to start the preliminary at two o'clock this afternoon? Why, it's twenty minutes to two now."

He nodded. "I was just getting my things together ready to go down there. Want to go?"

"Of course, I want to go."

"Drop your hatbox then, and come on. I'll talk things over in the taxi."

"But why let them rush things? Couldn't you have held them off?"

"I think," he told her with a grin, "things are coming along in good shape. I want to have them rushed."

"Why?"

"Partially to get the suspense of those two kids over with, and partially to get even with Sergeant Holcomb."

"How do you mean?"

"If Sergeant Holcomb solves the mystery," Perry Mason said with a grin, "he gets the credit. If I solve the mystery I get the credit."

"You think Sergeant Holcomb could clear it up?"

"I think it will be cleared up for him. That is, I think the machinery has been set in motion. It won't be long before the situation clarifies itself, and I want to beat everyone to it. You know me. I'm a great grandstander."

Her eyes were more expressive than her voice, and her voice held that peculiar, low, vibrant note which characterized her when emotions mastered her. "You're the squarest-shooting man in the world," she said. And then, as he looked up, she added with a grin, "And one of the most unsatisfactory bridegrooms. You've no idea how sympathetic that hotel clerk felt toward me."

Dick Truslow, one of Hamilton Burger's most trusted trial deputies, grinned across the counsel table at Perry Mason.

Truslow had that attribute of a dangerous fighter – an ability fully to appreciate the strong points of an antagonist – a personal liking which could instantly be laid aside to give place to official combativeness.

"Is Shuster going to be associated with you in this case?" Truslow asked.

"He'll probably try to expectorate his way into it before we get done," Mason remarked. "The other day I saw him talking in the bright sunlight and there was a rainbow in front of his lips."

Truslow laughed, then lowered his voice confidentially. "You should see Hamilton Burger," he said. "He's having a fit."

"What's the matter?"

"Of course," Truslow said, closing one eye, "I wouldn't want to be quoted, but the Chief has been shooting off his face that it's all bosh and poppycock, this contention of yours that anyone could send a telegram in another person's name if he had a reasonable amount of assurance and a knowledge of the address and telephone number of the person he was impersonating."

Mason managed to look innocent.

"So someone," Truslow said, chuckling, "sent the widowed housekeeper out at Laxter's place a telegram, and signed the Chief's name to it."

"What was in it?" Mason asked, with a perfectly straight face.

Truslow said, "Don't look around – she's looking this way – wait a minute… There, now take a look – over your left shoulder. See her standing there with the telegram? Look at the simpering look on her face. She thinks it's nothing less than a proposal of marriage."

"What does the district attorney think?" Mason inquired.

"I can't tell you," Truslow said, "not unless you put cotton in your ears."

Mason smiled. "Has it changed your contention in regard to the source of that Winifred Laxter telegram?"

"Well, my instructions were not to bear down too hard on it… but I'm afraid I've got you this time, Perry. We've got a pretty damn good case of circumstantial evidence. You're not going to resist having the defendant bound over, are you?"

"Oh, I think so," Mason said.

"Ten to one you can't get anywhere. You might kid a jury into giving you a break, but you're never going to be able to get past the preliminary."

Mason lit a cigarette, then almost immediately dropped it into a cuspidor, as Judge Pennymaker pushed open the door of his Chambers and took his place on the Bench. The court was formally called to order. Dick Truslow arose to address the Bench. "Your Honor, the preliminary hearing in this case is for the purpose of determining whether there are reasonable grounds to hold over Douglas Keene on a charge of first degree murder – to wit, the murder of one Edith DeVoe, but, in order to show the motive for that murder, it will be necessary for us to introduce evidence relating to the murder of one Charles Ashton. However, may it be understood that any evidence looking to the death of Ashton is limited solely for the purpose of fixing a motive so far as the murder of Edith DeVoe is concerned, and we will not introduce that evidence or seek to have it considered for any other purpose."

"Any objection on the part of the Defense?" Judge Pennymaker asked.

"We'll make our objections at the proper time," Mason said, "as the questions themselves come up."

"I'm not trying to limit Counsel," Truslow said, "I merely wanted to explain our position to the Court. I thought perhaps I might eliminate some objections by the Defense in stating my position."

"Proceed with the case," Pennymaker said. "The defendant is in court?"

"He is coming in now, your Honor," Truslow said.

A deputy led Douglas Keene into the courtroom. He looked somewhat pale, but his head was back and his chin held high. Mason crossed to him, squeezed his arm reassuringly. "Sit down, lad," he said, "and keep your head. It won't be long now until the whole thing is cleared up."

"The first witness on behalf of the prosecution," Truslow said, "is Tom Glassman."

Glassman came forward, was sworn, testified that he was an attache of the district attorney's office; that on the evening of the twenty-third instant he had gone to the apartment of Edith DeVoe; that in the apartment a woman lay sprawled on the floor, there were wounds on her head, and nearby lay a club; that the club was smeared with blood.

"I show you a photograph," Truslow said, "merely for the purpose of identification, and ask you if that is a photograph showing the features of the young woman you saw lying on the floor at that time."

"It is."

"We'll connect up the photograph and introduce it later," Truslow said. "We would now like to have it marked for identification."

He asked several more perfunctory questions and said to Perry Mason, "You may cross-examine."

"On that bit of club which you found by the body of the unconscious woman," Mason said, "there was a fingerprint, was there not?"

"There was."

"You photographed that fingerprint?"

"I did."

"Was that a fingerprint made by the defendant?"

"It was not."

"Was it a fingerprint of Sam Laxter, Frank Oafley, or any of the servants in the Laxter household?"

"It was not."

"Naturally, you made an attempt to identify that fingerprint?"

"Naturally."

"You were unable to do so?"

"That's right."

"You had been to the Laxter residence earlier in the evening, had you not?"

"I had."

"And you there found the body of Charles Ashton, the caretaker?"

"I did."

"That body was lying on the bed of Ashton's room?"

"It was."

"Ashton was dead, was he not? And death was due to strangulation inflicted by a cord which had been thrown around his neck and drawn taut?"

"That is correct."

"And there were cat tracks up and down the bed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you make any attempt to ascertain whether those cat tracks had been made before or after the death of Charles Ashton?"

"I did."

"When were they made – before or afterwards?"

Truslow's face showed surprise at this line of interrogation.

"Afterwards."

"I thought," Truslow said, with a slightly nervous laugh, "that we were going to have quite a fight to get this evidence in, but I see you are bringing it out. While it probably isn't proper cross-examination, strictly speaking, I certainly am making no objection."

"I want to get all the facts in," Perry Mason said. And, turning to the witness, went on, "When you arrived at the Laxter house, Samuel Laxter was not there?"

"He was not."

"He showed up later on?"

"That is right."

"His automobile was damaged and his right arm was injured?"

"That is correct."

"But Frank Oafley was there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where was he when you drove up?"

"I don't know where he was when we drove up, because we stopped in the garage to make a search of the automobiles, but when we reached the main terrace on which the house is situated, we noticed a man digging in the ground near a corner of the house. We turned our flashlights on him, and it was Mr. Oafley."

"That's all the cross-examination I have," Mason said.

Truslow, looking rather puzzled, remarked, "I think we'll get the corpus delicti definitely established, your Honor."

Mason slumped back into his chair with the manner of a man who has no further interest in the proceedings. Nor did he ask so much as a question while Truslow called the autopsy surgeon, then put on witnesses who identified the dead woman; who identified the club as having been sawed from a crutch; witnesses who testified to the type of crutch used by Charles Ashton and who stated that, to the best of their belief, the blood-stained club which was offered in evidence by Truslow, was part of Ashton's crutch, or, at least, a crutch similar in appearance.

Truslow brought Babson the cabinetmaker to the stand, who positively identified the section of the crutch, due to certain scratches which appeared on it, and testified how Ashton had employed him to hollow a receptacle into the crutch, and line that receptacle with chamois skin. Then, by other witnesses, Truslow brought out the value of the Koltsdorf diamonds, the fact that Peter Laxter was very much attached to them and never let them out of his possession.

"Call Samuel Laxter," Truslow announced at length.

Samuel Laxter took the witness stand.

"Your name is Samuel Laxter, you reside in the Laxter household?"

"That is correct."

"You are a grandson of Peter Laxter, deceased? You resided in what was known as the country house for several months prior to the time it burned, and then you took up your residence in what is known as the town house?"

"Correct."

"You were acquainted with Edith DeVoe?"

"Yes, sir."

"You saw her body in the morgue?"

"Yes, sir."

"She was dead?"

"That is right."

"And the body you saw was the same as that pictured in the photograph, People's Exhibit No. 1?"

"That is correct."

"And that was Edith DeVoe?"

"That is right."

"Where were you on the evening of the twenty-third between the hours of nine o'clock in the evening and approximately eleven-thirty at night?"

"I refuse to answer."

Truslow smiled. "You can't refuse to answer," he said, "without being guilty of contempt of court. That story about protecting some mysterious woman won't go here, Laxter. You're in a court of justice – you've got to answer."

Nat Shuster came bustling forward.

"If the court please," he said, "it now appears that an attempt is being made to malign the character of this witness by extraneous questions. He is not accused of the murder and if he was not accused of the murder, it makes no difference where he was unless he was present at the place where the murder was being committed."

"You're appearing for Mr. Laxter?" Judge Pennymaker asked.

"Yes, your Honor."

"I," Mason observed, "am making no objection to the question."

"I am going to order the witness to answer the question," Judge Pennymaker stated.

"I refuse to answer."

Judge Pennymaker's face clouded.

Shuster leaned across the counsel table. "Go on," he said; "say the rest of it."

"Upon the ground that the answer might tend to incriminate me," Laxter said, after the manner of one who has learned his speech by heart.

Shuster smiled, and turned toward the Court.

"I want the Court to understand," he said, "that the answer would not tend to incriminate him, so far as any crime under discussion is concerned, but I believe there is a city ordinance which might have been violated by this witness, and, inasmuch as we are technically able to back up our position on such grounds, I have instructed my client to protect the good name of the young woman involved in the case."

"Bosh and nonsense and grandstand!" Mason said.

Judge Pennymaker pounded with his gavel.

"That will do, Counselor. You have no right to make any such statement."

Perry Mason nodded. "That is right, your Honor, but on the other hand, Counsel for Mr. Laxter has no right to make any such statement – a statement which is intended only to appeal to the newspapers."

Shuster waved his arms excitedly. "Your Honor, I resent that accusation."

Truslow's voice boomed out over the hysterical comments of the excited lawyer, "I agree with Counselor Mason, your Honor. However, it is all immaterial. I now offer this witness immunity from prosecution for any crime other than that of murder and again repeat my question."

"Again I refuse," Laxter said doggedly, "on the ground that the answer would incriminate me."

"You were not at the Laxter residence at the time Ashton was murdered?" Truslow asked.

"I was not."

"Where were you?"

"I was in Nathaniel Shuster's office. I was there from before ten o'clock until after eleven."

"Was anyone there with you?"

"Nathaniel Shuster."

"Anyone else?"

"James Brandon."

"Who is James Brandon?"

"He's employed as chauffeur and butler."

"Was he present in the discussion which took place between you and Nathaniel Shuster?"

"No, sir, he sat in the outer office."

"When did he leave?"

"About ten minutes before eleven o'clock I told him that he might go home. There was no need for him to wait any longer."