“What do you mean, after what happened tonight?”
“This man Leech who was to lead us to your husband failed to do so.”
“Why?”
Mason said, “Because someone stopped him.”
“How?”
“By a .38 caliber bullet in the left side of his head, fired while he was sitting in an automobile waiting to keep an appointment with us.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Murdered?”
“Apparently.”
“When did it happen?”
“We don’t know exactly.”
“Where?”
“By a reservoir up back of Hollywood in the mountains.”
“Who was Leech? I mean how does he fit in?”
“Apparently, he was a friend of your husband.”
“What makes you think so? I never heard of him.”
Gerald Shore said, “When Franklin telephoned Helen, he told her to get in touch with Mr. Leech, that Leech would take him to Franklin.”
Matilda motioned to Helen. “Get these men out of here. Get my clothes out of that closet. I’m going to dress and go home. If Franklin’s around, he’ll be pussyfooting out to the house, trying to wheedle me. I’ve been waiting ten years for this, and I’m not going to be shut up in any hospital when it happens. I’ll show him he can’t walk out on me!”
Mason made no move to leave. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get your doctor’s permission. I think the nurse has gone to telephone him.”
“I don’t need anybody’s permission to get up and go out,” Matilda said. “Thanks to that emetic I took, I got off with a very light dose of poison. I have the constitution of an ox. I shook it off. I’m all right now. I’m going out under my own power.”
Mason said, “I wouldn’t advise you to get up and put any strain on your heart. We wanted to let you know about your husband, and we wanted to find out what had happened, and what you intended to do about this poisoning.”
“I tell you it was an accident, and I don’t want the police . . .”
A knock sounded on the door.
Gerald Shore said, “That’s probably the doctor or a couple of husky attendants called on by the hospital to eject us forcibly.”
Matilda Shore called out, “Well, come on in. Let’s get it over with. Let them eject me.”
The door pushed open. Lieutenant Tragg and a detective entered the room.
Mason greeted them with a bow. “Mrs. Shore, may I have the honor of presenting Lieutenant Tragg of the Homicide Squad. I think he wants to ask you a few questions.”
Tragg bowed to Mrs. Shore, turned, and bowed again to Mason. “Rather cleverly done, counselor. The more I see of you, the more I am forced to respect your very deft touch.”
“Referring to what this time?” Mason asked.
“The manner in which you threw me off the trail, temporarily, by insisting that you and your friends should be permitted to accompany me to the Castle Gate Hotel. It wasn’t until after I’d left you that it began to occur to me you’d tossed me a bait and that I’d very credulously grabbed at it.”
Mason said, “Putting it that way makes it sound very much like a conspiracy.”
Tragg said, “Draw your own conclusions. I started checking all angles of the case just as soon as I realized that your insistence on accompanying me had led me to let you go. Now, Mrs. Shore, if you don’t mind, I’ll hear about the poisoning.”
“Well, I do mind,” Mrs. Shore snapped. “I mind very much.”
“That is unfortunate,” Tragg announced.
“I ate something that disagreed with me, that’s all.”
“The hospital records indicate that you took some medicine by mistake,” Tragg pointed out.
“All right, I went to the medicine cabinet and took some medicine by mistake.”
Tragg was suavely solicitous. “That’s unfortunate. May I ask what time this was, Mrs. Shore?”
“Oh, about nine o’clock, I guess. I didn’t notice the exact time.”
“And, as I understand it, you had prepared for bed, had your regular nightly glass of stout, turned out the light, and went to the medicine cabinet in the dark?”
“Yes. I thought I was taking sleeping tablets. I got the wrong bottle.”
Tragg seemed particularly sympathetic. “You didn’t notice any difference in the taste?”
“No.”
“Your sleeping medicine is in the form of tablets?”
“Yes.”
“Kept in the medicine cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t notice any difference in the taste of the tablets you took?”
“No. I washed them down with water. Had a glass of water in one hand, tossed the tablets into my mouth with the other, and washed them right down.”
“I see. Then you were holding the glass of water in your right hand as you tossed the tablets into your mouth with your left hand?”
“That’s right.”
“And you put the cap back on the bottle and returned it to the medicine cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“That took both hands?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I’m simply trying to find out. That’s all. If it was an accident, there’s nothing to investigate.”
“Well, it was an accident.”
“Of course,” Tragg said soothingly. “I’m simply trying to get the facts so I can make a report that it was an accident.”
Mollified, Mrs. Shore explained, “Well, that’s what happened. I screwed the top back on this bottle.”
“And put it back in the medicine cabinet?” Tragg asked.
“Yes.”
“And then picked up your glass of water, holding the tablets in your left hand?”
“Yes.”
“Tossed them into your mouth and drank the water immediately?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t notice a bitter taste?”
“No.”
“I believe it was strychnine poisoning, wasn’t it, Mrs. Shore?”
“I don’t know.”
Tragg’s voice showed his sympathy. “Most unfortunate,” he said, and then asked casually, “And what were the strychnine tablets doing in your medicine cabinet, Mrs. Shore? You were using them for some particular purpose, I suppose?”
Her eyes studied the detective’s countenance. “They’re a heart stimulant. I kept them there in case I needed them.”
“On a doctor’s prescription?” Tragg asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“What doctor prescribed them?”
She said, “I don’t think that has anything to do with you, young man.”
“How many tablets did you take?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Two or three.”
“And you put the bottle back in the medicine cabinet?”
“Yes. I’ve told you that before.”
“Right next to the bottle of sleeping tablets?”
“I guess so. I tell you it was in the dark. I reached up in that general vicinity and got down the bottle which I thought contained the sleeping tablets.”
Tragg said, “It’s most unfortunate.”
“What is?”
“The fact that a search of your medicine cabinet reveals that there are neither sleeping tablets nor strychnine tablets in it.”
Mrs. Shore straightened up still further. “You mean that you’ve been to my house and searched my medicine cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“What authority did you have to do that?” she demanded.
Tragg said, without raising his voice, “Perhaps, Mrs. Shore, I’d better ask you a question instead. What do you mean by lying to the police about an attempt which was made to poison you?”
“There wasn’t any attempt to poison me.”
“I believe that a kitten was poisoned at your house this afternoon and taken to Dr. Blakely’s small animal hospital?”
“I don’t know anything about a kitten.”
Tragg smiled. “Come, Mrs. Shore, you’ll have to do better than that. Falsifying evidence, you know, constitutes a crime. There are two attorneys in the room who will bear me out in that. If there was poison in that bottle of stout, the police want to know about it, and it would be exceedingly unwise for you to hamper their investigation.”
The door of the hospital pushed open. A man, entering hastily, said, “What’s going on here? I’m the doctor in charge of this case. This patient isn’t to be disturbed. She’s had a severe shock. I’m going to ask you all to leave—immediately.”
Matilda Shore looked at him and said, “I guess you mean well, Doctor, but you got here just five minutes too late.”
10
GERALD SHORE, strangely thoughtful and silent, drove his car up to the big, old-fashioned house which had remained virtually unchanged since the night the president of the Shore National Bank had vanished into thin air.
“Better get out here, Helen,” he said, “and keep an eye on the house. I’ll run Mr. Mason and his secretary out to Hollywood where he left his car.”
“I can go and keep you company on the way back,” Helen Kendal offered.
“I think you’d better be at the house. Someone should be here to take charge of things.”
“When will Aunt Matilda be home?” she asked.
Gerald Shore turned to Mason, silently passing the question on to him.
Mason grinned. “Not until she’s answered every question Lieutenant Tragg wants to ask.”
“But the doctor insisted that the questioning was to be limited to five minutes. He said that Aunt Matilda’s condition wouldn’t stand for more than that.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “And the doctor is in charge while she’s in the hospital. But Tragg will put a couple of men on guard. He’ll see that she doesn’t leave the hospital until the doctor says she’s entirely cured. When the doctor says she’s completely recovered, Tragg will get the answer to his questions—either there at the hospital or down at headquarters.”
“Lieutenant Tragg seems to be a very clever and a very determined young man,” Gerald Shore said.
“He is,” Mason agreed, “and don’t ever underestimate him. He’s a dangerous antagonist.”
Gerald Shore was looking searchingly at Mason, but there was nothing in Mason’s face which indicated his remark about Tragg had held any hidden significance.
Helen slipped out of the automobile and said, “Well, I’ll stay here, then, and hold the fort.”
“We won’t be long,” her uncle promised.
She shuddered a little. “I wonder what’s going to happen next. I wish I knew where I could get hold of Jerry Templar.”
“Wouldn’t you like me to stay with you?” Della said impulsively.
“I’d love it,” Helen confessed.
“Sorry,” Mason said flatly. “I need Della.”
Helen’s face fell. “Never mind. I’ll be all right—I guess.”
Driving out toward Hollywood, Gerald Shore returned to something that seemed to be worrying him. “You’ve mentioned two or three times, Mason, that Lieutenant Tragg was a dangerous antagonist.”
“Yes.”
“Am I to assume that perhaps there was some particular significance which was attached to your remarks?”
Mason said, “That all depends.”
“Upon what does it depend?” Gerald Shore asked, his manner that of a courteous but insistent cross-examiner.
“Upon what you have to conceal.”
“But suppose I have nothing to conceal?”
“In that case, Lieutenant Tragg would not be a dangerous antagonist because he would not be an antagonist. But Lieutenant Tragg would always be dangerous.”
Shore studied Mason’s profile for a minute, then turned back to keep his eyes on the road.
Mason went on smoothly, “There are several things about this case which are rather significant. In the first place, if you and your brother had parted on the best of terms, there is no good reason why he wouldn’t have called you, rather than have subjected his niece to the shock of hearing his voice and learning that he was alive.
“That, however, is a minor matter. The point is, he particularly and specifically suggested that Helen should consult me and take me with her to call on Mr. Leech, that no other member of the family should be present.”
Gerald Shore said, “You’ve either said too much, Mason—or too little.”
“Yet,” Mason went on calmly, “you insisted upon coming along.”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at, Mr. Mason. It was only natural that I should want to see my brother.”
“Quite right. But it seemed that you deemed it necessary to see him before anyone else talked with him.”
“Can you explain just what you mean by that?”
Mason smiled. “Of course I can. I’m looking at it now from the angle a person of Lieutenant Tragg’s mentality and temperament would take in approaching the problem.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Tragg will eventually find out that while you left the house with us, that while you were with us when we drove up to that reservoir to keep that appointment with Leech, you weren’t with us when we went into Leech’s hotel.”
“My interest was in my brother, not in Leech,” Shore said.
“Exactly. Even Lieutenant Tragg would be willing to concede that, although inasmuch as Leech was the only link with your brother, it would seem that your interest should have been transferred to him. However, Tragg would be quite willing to accept that—if there were no other complicating factors.”
“Such as?” Shore prompted.
“Oh,” Mason said, “let’s suppose that, just to be on the safe side, Tragg would get one of your photographs and take it to the clerk on duty in the Castle Gate Hotel, ask him if you’d been making inquiries about Henry Leech, ask if perhaps you’d ever called to see him—or if they remembered having seen you around the hotel at any time.”
Gerald Shore was silent for a matter of seconds; then he inquired, “What would be the object in that?”
Mason said, “I am hardly in a position to know all of the facts, but—still looking at it from Tragg’s viewpoint—there are things which are most significant. Your brother disappeared abruptly. His disappearance must have been brought about by some rather unusual factors. Immediately prior to his disappearance, he had had an interview with someone who had been either asking for or demanding money. There was some evidence indicating this person was you. There seems to have been some conflict in this evidence. I presume, however, that you were questioned about it, and I presume that the records will show you denied that you had seen your brother the night in question. Now Tragg might reason that it would be rather embarrassing to you if your brother should now appear on the scene and not only tell a story in direct conflict to that, but indicate that what you had been talking about had had something to do with his disappearance.
“Having reasoned that far, Lieutenant Tragg would then doubtless say to himself, Franklin Shore is in existence. For some reason, he doesn’t want to make himself known. He doesn’t care to go directly to his house. He wants to communicate with some of his relatives. He avoids his own brother and communicates instead with his niece, a very attractive young woman to be certain, but a young woman who must have been only thirteen or fourteen years of age when he disappeared. Gerald Shore, whom the brother has ignored upon his return, immediately steps into the picture and insists that he is going to go along with the niece. Henry Leech is the connecting link between Franklin, who is either unable or unwilling to come directly to the house and his relatives. Henry Leech goes to a lonely spot and is killed. There is a typewritten letter indicating that Leech has gone to this place of his own volition, but there is nothing to indicate that Leech himself wrote that letter. In fact, there is every reason to believe that he didn’t write it. Of course, a great deal will d
epend upon what Lieutenant Tragg finds as to the time of death from a post-mortem examination. However, from certain bits of evidence which I saw when I was at the scene of the crime, I’m inclined to believe the time of death will be fixed perhaps about four hours prior to the time we arrived on the scene.
“Having reasoned that far, if Lieutenant Tragg finds any evidence indicating that you tried to get in touch with Leech earlier in the evening or actually did get in touch with him, it would be only natural for him to consider you as a very logical suspect.”
Mason ceased talking, took a cigarette from his cigarette case, lit it, and settled back in the seat.
Gerald Shore drove silently for some ten blocks, then said, “I guess it’s about time I retained you to act as my attorney.”
Mason took the cigarette from his mouth long enough to observe, quite casually, “Perhaps it is.”
“How about your secretary?” Gerald Shore asked, indicating Della Street who was sitting silently in the back seat.
“The soul of discretion,” Mason assured him. “You may speak freely—and it may be the last opportunity you’ll have to speak freely.”
“You’ll represent me?”
“That will depend,” Mason said.
“Upon what?”
“Upon the circumstances, and upon whether I think you’re innocent.”
“I am innocent,” Shore said with feeling, “entirely innocent. I’m either the victim of the damnedest set of circumstances fortune could conjure up, or of a deliberate conspiracy.”
Mason continued smoking in silence.
Shore slowed the car so driving it would not require quite so much attention on his part, and said, “I was the one who called on my brother the night he disappeared.”
“You denied it afterwards?” Mason inquired.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For various reasons. One of them was that too much of my conversation had been overheard, and made public. You’ll remember that the person who was with Franklin immediately prior to his disappearance had been heard to ask for money and had intimated that his own financial affairs were in desperate straits.”
Mason nodded.
“I was engaged in carrying out some promotional transactions at the time. These could have shown a very considerable profit if I carried them through to completion, and could have shown a staggering, ruinous loss if I failed. The only thing which was enabling me to keep my head above water was the fact that the other parties in the transaction never for a moment suspected the possibility that I didn’t have ample capital back of me.”
The Case of the Careless Kitten Page 8