The Case of the Caretaker's Cat (21 page)

Spectators stirred restlessly.

"Was this friend Douglas Keene?" Truslow asked.

"I refuse to answer."

"Go on and answer," Mason ordered.

Judge Pennymaker cleared his throat. In a voice which obviously contained sympathy for the young woman, he said, "Of course, gentlemen, it is only fair to advise this witness that the answer might incriminate her, in that it would make her an accessory…"

"There is no necessity," Perry Mason said. "I am representing the interest of this witness. Go ahead and answer the question, Winifred."

"Yes," she said.

"You may cross-examine," Truslow announced.

"No cross-examination," Mason said.

Truslow got to his feet. His manner was cold and purposeful.

"Your Honor," he said, "I regret being forced to do this, but it appears that the murder of Charles Ashton is inseparably connected with the murder of Edith DeVoe. The murderer must have taken the crutch from Ashton's room to the place where Edith was murdered. The murderer must have sawed up the crutch, taken out the diamonds and used a part of the crutch as a club with which to injure fatally Edith DeVoe. Therefore, the murderer of Charles Ashton must be the murderer of Edith DeVoe. It therefore becomes necessary to prove that Ashton was murdered before the cat was taken from the Laxter house and that the cat did not return to the Laxter house at any time after the murder. It is, as I see it, incumbent upon the Prosecution to account for the time of the caretaker's cat from the moment it was taken into the custody of the defendant in this action until the police recovered it. Therefore, I am going to ask that Della Street take the stand."

Della Street gasped with surprise.

"Take the stand, Della," Perry said.

Della Street stepped forward and was sworn.

"Your name is Della Street and you are the secretary of Perry Mason, who is appearing as an attorney in this case. On the night of the twenty-third, did Perry Mason appear at your apartment carrying the cat known as Clinker and which is now in Court?"

"Answer the question," Perry Mason told her.

"I don't know," she said defiantly.

"Don't know?" Truslow asked.

"No," she said.

"What do you mean by that answer?"

"I mean that I don't know."

"Why don't you know?"

"Because I don't know whether this cat is the cat which belonged to the caretaker."

"But Winifred Laxter says it is."

"I am not responsible for what Winifred Laxter testified to; I am testifying under oath."

"But the cat shows that it knows Winifred Laxter."

"I am not responsible," she told Truslow icily, "for the cat's circle of acquaintances."

There was a laugh from the spectators. Judge Pennymaker smiled, even as he called the courtroom to order.

"But you admit that Perry Mason brought a cat to your apartment."

"I admit nothing of the sort. The question is not pertinent unless it has to do with the murder, and it can have nothing to do with the murder unless the cat which you claim was brought to my apartment was the caretaker's cat, and I have no knowledge whatever on that. I think you will have to ask these questions of Mr. Mason."

Truslow smiled ruefully and said to the court, "Perhaps the legal knowledge this young woman has acquired is responsible for some of Counselor Mason's success."

"She seems to have a very excellent grasp of the legal points involved," Judge Pennymaker observed.

Mason smiled.

"I am going to call Perry Mason to the stand," Truslow said. "I am aware that the procedure is unusual, but I am also aware that it is unusual for Counsel to take so active a part in the cases involving his clients as Perry Mason apparently takes. I am not asking for any confidential communication which came to him from one of his clients; I am going to ask him only what he did in connection with sheltering a criminal."

"Very well," Judge Pennymaker ordered; "Perry Mason will take the stand."

Mason stepped to the witness stand, took the oath and sat down. Judge Pennymaker looked at him with some sympathy, then said to Truslow, "After all, Counselor, while your comment as to Counselor Mason's methods of representing a client may have some justification, the fact remains that Counselor Mason is an attorney at law. He is not restricted to the representation of any one client. If it should appear, as I think it will appear, that he also represented Winifred Laxter, the Court will hold as a privileged communication anything which Winifred Laxter may have said to him. As you have so aptly pointed out, Counselor Mason's methods are perhaps somewhat unusual, but you must admit that his history shows a long line of successes which have been achieved, not through a defense of the guilty, but through strikingly original methods of demonstrating the innocence of his clients."

"I'm not talking about the past," Truslow said grimly, "I'm talking about the present."

"I thank your Honor for holding out a lifeline to me," Mason said smilingly, "but I hardly think it will be necessary."

Truslow said, "Your name is Perry Mason? You are an attorney at law?"

"That is right."

"You are the attorney representing Douglas Keene?"

"I am."

"Did you go to the waffle place operated by Winifred Laxter on the night of the twenty-third?"

"I did."

"Did you take into your possession a cat at that place?"

"I did."

"What did you do with that cat?"

Perry Mason smiled. "I'll even go farther than your question, Mr. Truslow, the cat was given to me with the statement that it was Clinker, the caretaker's cat, and Winifred Laxter stated that the cat had been in her possession ever since shortly after eleven o'clock when it had been delivered to her by Douglas Keene, the defendant in this case.

"I told Miss Laxter that it was important the police did not find the cat there, and I took the cat and personally delivered it to my secretary with instructions to keep it in her possession."

"And just why did you do that?" Truslow asked.

"I did it," Perry Mason said, "so that there would be no chance for the cat to escape and return to the Laxter residence."

It took a moment for the meaning of Mason's words to penetrate to Truslow's consciousness. He frowned and said, "What?"

"I did it so the cat couldn't get back to the Laxter residence."

"I don't understand," Truslow stated.

"In other words," Mason remarked calmly, "I wanted to establish that if the cat tracks on the counterpane of the bed in which Charles Ashton was found dead were those of Clinker they must have been made prior to the time Douglas Keene left the house."

Truslow frowned. For a moment he forgot his role of questioner as he sought to follow Mason's reasoning. "That," he said, "doesn't benefit your client any."

"It does to this extent," Mason answered. "It clarified the situation so that the real murderer could be found."

Truslow asked no question, but stood in puzzled contemplation, waiting for Mason to go on, while Judge Pennymaker leaned forward in order to miss no word.

"I acted on the assumption," Mason said, "that Keene was innocent. I couldn't definitely prove his innocence except by proving someone else was guilty. The police officers jumped to the conclusion that Keene was lying. On the face of it, Keene must have been lying. Ashton was undoubtedly killed at ten thirty. Keene was undoubtedly in Ashton's room, where the body was subsequently found, at ten thirty. There were cat tracks on the counterpane. The police jumped to the conclusion those tracks were made by Clinker. But Keene said he had left the house shortly after eleven, taken Clinker with him, and, at the time he left, Ashton's body was most certainly not in the room.

"In place of following the reasoning of the police and acting on the assumption Keene was lying, I decided to act upon the assumption Keene might be telling the truth. In that event, the cat tracks could not have been those of Clinker; in that event Ashton could not have been at the place where his body was found at ten thirty. Yet, since he was undoubtedly killed at ten thirty, it becomes very apparent that he must have been killed at some place other than that in which his body was found. In that event, the cat tracks must have been made by some cat other than Clinker.

"When I had reasoned this far I suddenly realized the importance of proving just that point and of accounting for every minute of Clinker's time, from the moment Keene took him from the house. I could think of no better manner than to take him into my personal custody and keep him where the murderer couldn't find him."

"Why," Truslow demanded, "did you want to establish the fact that this cat, Clinker, was taken from the house by your client?"

"Because," Mason said, "Clinker was the only cat who had access to the residence. Moreover, Clinker kept other cats chased out of the neighborhood. Therefore, if Keene was telling the truth, Ashton's body must have been brought to the house after Ashton was murdered, and the murderer, in order to make it seem that Ashton had been murdered in bed, and to direct suspicion toward Douglas Keene, must have gone out into the night in search of a cat and brought it forcibly to the house, taken it to the bed where Ashton's body lay – a bed, by the way, on which the sensitive nostrils of a cat could have detected the odor of Clinker – and forced that cat to make tracks on the counterpane.

"If that is what happened, one who is at all familiar with the nature of cats would realize that the cat would be very apt to resent such treatment and that his resentment would take the form of deep scratches on the murderer's hands. I therefore looked over the possible suspects to find someone with scratched hands. When I found that person, I found he had sought to conceal the scratches on his hands by making additional scratches under circumstances which would seem to offer an explanation for scratched hands – to-wit – digging around a rose bush, apparently in an attempt to discover treasure, but the digging was certainly not the type of digging one would indulge in if trying to unearth a million dollar treasure. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that the digging was for the sole purpose of furnishing him an excuse by which he could account for scratches on his hands, claiming that they had been inflicted by the rose thorns."

Truslow's eyes were opened so wide that they seemed to bulge.

"You mean Frank Oafley? Why, Frank Oafley was with Edith DeVoe at the time Ashton was murdered."

"Yes," Mason said, "I let this entire trial proceed merely because I wanted to get that admission from his own lips, because Ashton was not murdered in his bed, but was murdered in the apartment of Edith DeVoe. He must have been murdered there. It is the only explanation which satisfies all of the physical facts in the case. Remember that Ashton was a frail, wizened individual, and that a driveway went directly past the window over his bed. A strong man could have slid Ashton's body through that window with the greatest ease."

"Just a minute," Truslow objected, suddenly aware of what was happening. "You're on the witness stand as a witness, yet you're making an argument in the case."

"Called to the witness stand," Perry Mason remarked urbanely, "as a witness on behalf of the prosecution, and I am testifying in response to a question from you asking that I explain my motive in taking the cat from Winifred Laxter and concealing it where none of the parties to the action could find it until after the police had taken it into their custody for safekeeping. And to ensure the fact that the police would keep it safe, I led the police to believe that by holding the cat they could implicate my client and perhaps cause me some embarrassment as an attorney."

Judge Pennymaker smiled and said, "I think Counselor Mason is probably making rather an argumentative answer; but the Court is certainly going to hear it. Go on with your explanation, Mr. Mason."

"I felt certain," Perry Mason said, turning to the Court, "that Peter Laxter was not dead."

Judge Pennymaker shook his head, as though trying to clear his senses. "Felt certain that what?" he asked.

"That Peter Laxter was not dead. Everything pointed to the fact that Edith DeVoe and Frank Oafley had plotted against his life; that they had decided to introduce carbon monoxide gas into his bedroom. The evidence in this case shows that Charles Ashton, the caretaker, and who was a devoted servant, apparently received from Peter Laxter a large sum of money, and the famous Koltsdorf diamonds; that this property was delivered to him for safekeeping, the reason being that Peter Laxter must have known in advance that his country house was going to be destroyed by fire.

"In other words, either Peter Laxter or Charles Ashton knew that an insidious attempt at murder was going to be made by someone. Edith DeVoe told me it was made by Sam Laxter, but I am inclined to think she said that as part of a prearranged scheme by which she and Frank Oafley had conspired to murder Laxter, and then, by accusing Sam Laxter of the murder, eliminate him from sharing in the estate, leaving Frank Oafley as the sole heir.

"Peter Laxter decided to let the conspirators go ahead with the murder plot. For reasons of his own, he wanted to disappear. One of those reasons was probably that he wanted to bring Winifred Laxter to her senses by letting her see how the two men who professed to love her would behave if she apparently were disinherited. So Ashton, the caretaker, who was in Peter Laxter's complete confidence, went to the charitable ward of the hospital. He found there a man – a Watson Clammert – who was dying; who had no relatives and no property. Ashton gave this man the best medical attendance and nursing, knowing in advance that it was a hopeless case. He built up, by this means, a fictitious relationship, so that no question was raised when Ashton took the body after the man had died.