The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece (9 page)

Perry Mason scraped back his chair. "That's the break we want," he said to Paul Drake. "Get started. Put a hundred men on it, if you have to. Get witnesses to see Mrs. Kent, Maddox and Duncan come out of that office. That'll corroborate the telephone call at three o'clock this morning, regardless of what anyone may claim on the witness stand, and, if I can prove that Maddox and Duncan were putting in long distance calls at three o'clock in the morning I can bust Duncan wide open on cross-examination. He said in his first statement that he saw the sleepwalker around midnight. Now, if he changes it to say that it was three o'clock in the morning, I can impeach him by showing that he and Maddox were putting in long distance calls at that hour."

"But perhaps Maddox put in the call without waking Duncan up."

"About one chance in ten million," Mason said, "but just the same, we've got to plug up that loophole before the case comes to trial. And I want to find out what she meant by telling him his lawyer had already arranged a conference. This is where your men get busy, Paul. Get on the job and keep me posted."

Drake crossed to the exit door, the casual indolence gone from his manner, his long legs covering the distance to the door in three swift strides.

Mason frowned and said, "What's the matter?"

"I don't know, unless it's the strain of having her uncle arrested."

"No," Mason said, slowly, "she knew this morning that they'd arrest him; but she was standing up to it like a little soldier."

"Better keep your eye on that woman," Della Street cautioned. "Tell her to quit carrying the world on her shoulders and let someone else do the worrying. She's emotional and if she doesn't watch out, she's going to have a breakdown and then heaven knows what she'll do."

Mason nodded, said, "Send her in, Della, and stick around."

Della Street picked up the telephone. "Send Miss Hammer in," she said into the transmitter, and, as the door opened and Edna Hammer's strained features twisted into a perfunctory smile, Della went forward, and put her arm around the girl's shoulders.

Edna Hammer closed the door behind her, let Della Street guide her to the big overstuffed chair, sank into it and said, "Something awful's happened."

Mason said, "What is it?"

"Jerry walked into a trap."

"What sort of a trap?"

"A police trap."

"What happened?"

"He said the most awful thing without realizing what he was saying, and now he's going to have to skip out to keep from being a witness against Uncle."

"What did he say?"

"He said the carving knife wasn't in the sideboard when he went to get a corkscrew a half hour or so before he left for Santa Barbara."

Mason jumped to his feet. "Is Harris sure?" he asked.

"He says he is."

"And he's given that statement to the district attorney?"

"Yes.

Della Street, frowning thoughtfully, said, "Is that so awfully important, Chief?"

He nodded. "That's the one thing on which the entire case will hinge. Don't you see, if Kent had planned a deliberate murder, but wanted it to appear he was walking in his sleep, and particularly if he had any idea Edna was trying to protect him by keeping the sideboard locked, he'd naturally have taken out the knife before he went to sleep. In order to establish a case of sleepwalking, we must prove that he got up in his sleep, possessed himself of the deadly weapon while he was asleep, and committed the homicide without having the faintest conscious knowledge of what he was doing, and without forming any conscious intent."

"Perhaps," Della Street said, "Harris is mistaken."

Mason shook his head gloomily. "No," he said, "that's the one thing in the case that stands out like a sore thumb, now that I stop to think of it. He can't be mistaken. You see, Edna had the only key to that sideboard. I was with her when she locked the drawer. We, both of us, took it for granted the knife was in there. We didn't open the drawer to find out. In the morning the drawer was still locked. The butler came to Edna to help him find the key. She pulled a little hocus-pocus, produced it, and pretended it had been on the top of the sideboard all the time."

Edna Hammer sobbed into her handkerchief. Della, seated on the arm of the big chair, patted her shoulder. "Save it," she soothed. "Tears won't help."

Mason started pacing the floor. After several minutes, Della Street succeeded in calming the half hysterical girl, but Mason still continued the regular rhythm of his pacing steps. At length Edna Hammer volunteered a statement. "I'm fixing it up the best I can," she said. "Jerry's taking a plane. He hasn't been subpoenaed yet. He's going where they can't find him. Tell me, will it be all right to do that?"

Mason, his eyes narrowed, asked, "Has he given a statement?"

"He made a statement, yes."

"Did he sign it?"

"No, I don't think so. It was taken down in shorthand. Now then, before he's subpoenaed, can't he leave town, go to some foreign country?"

Mason said, "It's going to look like hell, so far as public sentiment is concerned. The district attorney's office will play it up big in the newspapers. They'll intimate he's been spirited away to avoid testifying. Where is he now?"

"In his car, waiting down at the parking station across from your office. He has his bag packed and his reservation made on a plane for Mexico City. Then he'll go from there to…"

There was a commotion at the outer door, a woman's voice half screaming, "You'll have to be announced," then a man's voice exclaiming irritably, "Beat it."

The door burst open. Jerry Harris, his face grim, strode unceremoniously into the office, holding an oblong paper in his hand.

"By God," he said, "they got me – caught me like a damned fool, sitting right in my own car in the parking station in front of your office!"

"Caught you with what?" Mason asked.

"Caught me with a subpoena to appear and testify before the Grand Jury tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."

Mason spread out his hands and said, "Well, the district attorney stole a march on us. Hamilton Burger's nobody's fool."

"But," Edna asked, "can't he still leave? The plane leaves tonight and…"

"And they're undoubtedly keeping him under surveillance," Mason said. "They saw him come up to this office after the subpoena had been served. If he leaves the country now, they'll have me on the carpet before the grievance committee of the Bar Association. It was a poor idea in the first place. No, we've got to take this thing right on the chin. Sit down, Harris, and tell me about it."

"I'm frightfully sorry," Harris said lamely. "Thinking it over, I'm wondering if there's any chance I could claim I was mistaken. Of course, at first it didn't seem important and I was positive in my statement to the deputy district attorney and…"

"You don't stand one chance in ten million," Mason retorted. "They could almost establish the point without your testimony because Edna locked the drawer and kept the key. It's a cinch the carving knife couldn't have been in there."

"But they don't know I locked the drawer," Edna said. "I'll swear I didn't. I'll…"

"You'll tell the truth," Mason said. "Any time I have to depend on perjured evidence to acquit a client, I'll quit trying cases. If he's innocent, we'll get him off."

The telephone rang. Della Street picked up the receiver, then handed it to Mason. "Paul Drake calling and says it's 'important as hell.'"

Mason placed the receiver to his ear. Drake's voice, for once showing enough excitement to overcome his habitual drawl, said, "You wanted to know where Doris Sully Kent went while she was in Los Angeles. My men have been telephoning in reports. Right at present I'm advised that her green Packard roadster is in a parking space across the street and that she's headed across for your office. I thought you might want a minute or two to put your house in order."

Mason cut off Drake's chuckle by slamming the receiver back into place. "Listen, you two," he said, "Doris Kent is on her way up. She's probably going to make me a proposition. If she meets you here or in the corridor, it might cramp her style. Miss Street will take you into another room. When the coast is clear, you can slip down the corridor. Edna, they'll probably be waiting for you at the street entrance with a subpoena. Don't try to dodge service. Be a little lady, smile, and keep your mouth shut. Okay, Della, take them into the law library."

Della Street was just returning from the law library when Mason's telephone rang and one of the girls in the outer office said, "Mrs. Doris Sully Kent insists that you should see her upon a matter of great importance."

Mason said, "Show the lady in," dropped the receiver back on the hook and said to Della Street, "Beat it into your office, Della, take notes on this conversation." He clicked a switch which connected a loud speaker interoffice telephone with his secretary's private office, then raised expectant eyes to the door from the outer office.

Della Street was just closing the door of her office when the switchboard operator opened the other door to usher in an attractive woman in her early thirties, who smiled at Mason with wide blue eyes. Mason surveyed her critically, took in neatly turned ankles displayed just far enough to arouse interest without satisfying curiosity, full red lips, accentuated by lipstick, fine-spun blonde hair. She met his detailed scrutiny with a tolerant smile. Without the faintest hint of self-consciousness, she walked across to Mason's desk, extended him her hand and said, "It was nice of you to see me." Mason indicated a chair. "I've heard a lot about you," she said, hitching the chair around so that she not only faced him, but he could see her crossed knees to advantage. "They tell me you're a very clever lawyer."

"My reputation," Mason said, "probably varies greatly, depending upon whether one talks with the plaintiff or defendant."

Her laugh was tinkling. "Don't be like that," she said. "You know you're good. Why not admit it? That's my trouble with lawyers – they're afraid to admit anything – always afraid someone's laying a trap for them."

Mason did not smile. "All right, then," he said, "I'm good. So what?"

There was a swift trace of uneasiness in her eyes as she sized him up, but the smile remained, a friendly parting of the full red lips, disclosing even rows of white teeth. "So you're defending dear old Pete," she said. Mason said nothing. "Can you get him off?" Mason nodded.

She opened her purse, took out a cigarette case, opened it and extended it to Mason. "No, thanks," he said; "I have my own." He selected one from his own cigarette case. She held her head slightly tilted to one side, her eyes expectant. Mason crossed to her and held a match to her cigarette. Her laughing eyes looked up into his.

She inhaled a great drag of smoke, expelled it in twin streams from appreciative nostrils and said, "I came to see what I could do to help." He raised his eyebrows. "Helping to clear poor Pete," she amplified.

"Just what did you have in mind?"

"I could testify that I had known for some time he was suffering from a progressive mental malady which made him irrational at times, particularly at night. On many occasions he has awakened and shown evidences of suffering delusions. I thought at first that he was trying to kill me, but, thinking back over it and calling to my mind certain matters which seemed trivial then, I can appreciate now that poor Pete was mentally a very sick man. He had a nervous breakdown in Chicago and never recovered from it."

"Anything else?"

She glanced at him with a slight frown. The smile was no longer in evidence. "What more do you want?" she asked.

"Anything you care to tell me."

"I don't think I'd care to tell you any more until I knew just where I stood."

"In what way?"

"Whether you were going to cooperate with me."

Mason said slowly, "I can't see where there's any question of cooperation, Mrs. Kent. If you have any testimony you want to give, I'll be glad to hear it."

"I can testify about a lot of things. Perhaps, if you'd tell me just what you needed in order to make your defense stand up, I could think of things which would be pertinent. You see, in the everyday contacts of married life there are many incidents which aren't entirely forgotten, yet which can't be recalled offhand, unless something refreshes the recollection. Therefore, if you'd tell me just what you want, I might be able to help you. You wouldn't need to worry about me on cross-examination. I can take care of myself."

"Meaning you can sway a jury?" Mason asked.

"If you want to put it that way, yes."

"Very well," Mason told her, "leave your address and I'll get in touch with you, if I can think of anything."

"Can't you think of it now?"

"No."

"I'd like to know whether you were… well, shall I say receptive?"

"I thank you very much for coming; but don't you think it would be better for you to have your attorney with you, if you intended to discuss matters of this nature?"

She leaned toward him and said, "I'm going to be frank with you, Mr. Mason. I'm glad you brought that up.

"Why?"

"Because," she said, "I haven't as yet signed any agreement with my attorney. I've been stalling him off."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He wants a contract for one-half of anything I get, if my action's successful. I don't want to pay him unless I have to, and I don't have to. Can't you see? My husband isn't in a position to fight me any more."

"Why not?"

"Because he needs my testimony. If I can get him out of this murder charge on the ground he's mentally deranged, then I can set aside the divorce case. Then I'd be custodian of his property because I'd be his wife."

"I see all of that," Mason said, "but I don't care to discuss it with you unless your attorney is present."

"Why?"

"Professional ethics."

"I don't see why you can't discuss my testimony."

"I can discuss your testimony but I can't discuss this divorce case.

"It seems to me, Mr. Mason, that you're very, very cautious… very ethical."