Cast of characters

PERRY MASON — Noted criminal lawyer — intrepid, dramatic, elusive fighter, whose cause is never lost

DELLA STREET — His secretary, whose horizon is bounded by that of her chief, and whose only fear is that some day he may overstep the charmed circle of his daring

CHARLES SABIN — Son of Fremont C. Sabin, a substantial citizen, quiet, determined, ready to pay anything to bring his father’s murderer to justice

PAUL DRAKE — Detective, long, laconic, and loyal, willing to toss his natural caution to the winds in the service of Perry Mason

SERGEANT HOLCOMB — One-track representative of the long arm of the law, with a wistful, pugnacious hope of catching Perry Mason off his guard

SHERIFF BARNES — Efficient, tolerant, slow, who would rather be sure of his man

RICHARD WAID — Erstwhile secretary to Fremont C. Sabin, whose conscience is his guide, when convenient

ARTHUR GIBBS — Calmly observant trainer of parrots to suit the public taste

MRS. WINTERS — Neighbor of Helen Monteith, whose friendship isn’t quite deep enough to drown her curiosity

HELEN MONTEITH — Buffeted by the winds of circumstance, whose ship finally reaches port

MRS. HELEN WATKINS SABIN — Widow of the murdered man — a juggernaut with a purpose

STEVE WATKINS — Suave son of Mrs. Watkins by a former marriage, and her able disciple

DISTRICT ATTORNEY RAYMOND SPRAGUE — Explosive, frustrated exponent of the high-pressure technique

RANDOLPH BOLDING — Handwriting expert, who found to his surprise that professional pride had better be denied

ANDY TEMPLET — Practical, non-partisan coroner, determined that justice shall be done

GEORGE WALLMAN — Innocent bystander, whose simple philosophy is the cause of much confusion

Chapter one

Perry Mason regarded the pasteboard jacket, labeled “IMPORTANT UNANSWERED CORRESPONDENCE,” with uncordial eyes.

Della Street, his secretary, looking as crisply efficient as a nurse in a freshly starched uniform, said with her best Monday-morning air, “I’ve gone over it carefully, Chief. The letters on top are the ones you simply have to answer. I’ve cleaned out a whole bunch of the correspondence from the bottom.”

“From the bottom?” Mason asked. “How did you do that?”

“Well,” she confessed, “it’s stuff that’s been in there too long.”

Mason tilted back in his swivel chair, crossed his long legs, assumed his best lawyer manner and said, in mock cross-examination, “Now, let’s get this straight, Miss Street. Those were letters which had originally been put in the ‘IMPORTANT UNANSWERED’ file?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve gone over that file from time to time, carefully?”

“Yes.”

“And eliminated everything which didn’t require my personal attention?”

“Yes.”

“And yet this morning of Monday, September twelfth, you take out a large number of letters from the bottom of the file?”

“That’s right,” she admitted, her eyes twinkling.

“How many letters, may I ask?”

“Oh, fifteen or twenty.”

“And did you answer those yourself?”

She shook her head, smiling.

“What did you do with them?” Mason asked.

“Transferred them to another file.”

“What file?”

“The ‘LAPSED’ file.”

Mason chuckled delightedly. “Now there’s an idea, Della. We simply hold things in the ‘IMPORTANT UNANSWERED’ file until a lapse of time robs them of their importance, and then we transfer them to the ‘LAPSED’ file. It eliminates correspondence, saves worry, and gets me away from office routine, which I detest... Incidentally, Della, things which seem frightfully important at the time have a habit of fading into insignificance. Events are like telephone poles, streaming back past the observation platform of a speeding train. They loom large at first, then melt into the distance, becoming so tiny they finally disappear altogether... That’s the way with nearly all of the things we think are so vital.”

Her eyes were wide and innocent. “Do the telephone poles really get smaller, Chief, or do they just appear smaller?”

“Of course, they don’t get smaller,” he said; “it’s simply that you’re farther away from them. Other telephone poles come in and fill up the foreground. The telephone poles are all the same size. However, as you get farther distant from them they appear to be smaller, and...” He broke off abruptly and said, “Wait a minute. You aren’t gently trying to point out a fallacy in my argument, are you?”

At her triumphant grin, he made a mock grimace. “I should have known better than to argue with a woman. All right, Simon Legree, get your notebook ready, and we’ll write those confounded letters.”

He opened the filing jacket, scanned a letter from a prominent firm of lawyers, tossed it across the desk to her, and said, “Write these people that I’m not interested in handling the case, even at twice the fee named. It’s just a plain, ordinary murder case. A woman gets tired of her husband, plugs him with a six-gun, and then weeps and wails that he was drunk and trying to beat her up. She lived with him for six years, and seeing him drunk was no novelty. The business about being afraid he was going to kill her doesn’t check with the story of the other witnesses.”

“How much of that,” Della Street asked with calm efficiency, “do you want me to put in the letter?”

“Just the part about not wanting to handle the case... Oh, Lord, here’s another one. A man, who’s swindled a bunch of people into buying worthless stock, wants me to prove that he was within the letter of the law.”

Mason slammed the file shut and said, “You know, Della, I wish people would learn to differentiate between the reputable lawyer who represents persons accused of crime, and the criminal lawyer who becomes a silent partner in the profits of crime.”

“Just how would you explain the difference?” she asked.

Mason said, “Crime is personal. Evidence of crime is impersonal. I never take a case unless I’m convinced my client was incapable of committing the crime charged. Once I’ve reached that conclusion, I figure there must be some discrepancy between the evidence and the conclusions the police have drawn from that evidence. I set out to find them.”

She laughed. “You sound as though you were more of a detective than a lawyer.”

“No,” Mason said, “they are two different professions. A detective gathers evidence. He becomes skilled in knowing what to look for, where to find it, and how to get it. A lawyer interprets the evidence after it’s been collected. He gradually learns...”

He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone at Della’s desk. She answered it, saying, “Hold the line a moment, please,” and then, cupping her hand over the mouthpiece, turned to Perry Mason. “Would you be interested in seeing a Mr. Charles Sabin on a matter of the greatest importance? Mr. Sabin says he’s willing to pay any consultation fee.”

Mason said, “Depends on what he wants. If he has a murder case, I’ll listen to him. If he wants me to draw up a chattel mortgage, the answer is ‘no.’ There isn’t enough money in the mint to tempt me to... Wait a minute, Della. What’s his name?”

“Sabin,” she said, “Charles W. Sabin.”

“Where is he?”

“In the outer office.”

Mason said, “Tell him to wait a few minutes. No, wait a minute. Find out if he’s related to Fremont C. Sabin.”

Della asked the question over the telephone, and waited for the girl at the information desk in the outer office to relay the inquiry to the visitor. She turned once more to Mason and said, “Yes, he’s the son of Mr. Fremont C. Sabin.”

“Tell him I’ll see him,” Mason said. “Tell him he’ll have to wait about ten minutes. Go out and meet him, Della. Size him up. Take him into the law library, let him wait there. Bring me the morning newspapers. This, young lady, in case you don’t know it, is a Break with a capital ‘B.’ Okay, get busy... Wait a minute, I have one of the newspapers here.”

Mason made a dive for the newspaper, sweeping the file of important correspondence over to the far end of the desk, as he hurriedly cleared a space in front of him.

The account of the murder of Fremont C. Sabin occupied much of the front page. There were photographs on the second and third pages. There was a human interest story about his character and personality.

That which was known of the murder was well calculated to stir the imagination. Fremont C. Sabin, eccentric multimillionaire, had virtually retired from the many businesses which bore his name. His son, Charles Sabin, carried on for him. During the past two years the wealthy man had become almost a recluse. At times he would travel in a trailer, stopping in at auto camps, fraternizing with other trailerites, talking politics, exchanging views. None of those with whom he talked had the least inkling that this man, with his shiny business suit, his diffident manner, and his quiet gray eyes, was rated at more than two million dollars.

Or he would disappear for a week or two at a time, prowling around through bookstores, dropping in at libraries, living in a realm of studious abstraction, while he browsed through books.

Librarians invariably classified him as a clerk out of work.

Of late he had been spending much of his time in a mountain cabin, on the pine-clad slope of a rugged range near a brawling stream. Here he would sit on the porch by the hour with a pair of powerful binoculars in his hand, watching the birds, making friends with the chipmunks and squirrels, reading books — asking only to be let alone.

Just touching sixty, he represented a strange figure of a man; one who had wrung from life all that it offered in the way of material success; a man who literally had more money than he knew what to do with. Some of this money he had established in trust funds, but for the most part he did not believe in philanthropy, thinking that the ultimate purpose of life was to develop character; that the more a person came to depend on outside assistance, the more his character was weakened.

The newspaper published an interview with Charles Sabin, the son of the murdered man, giving an insight into his father’s character. Mason read it with interest. Sabin had believed that life was a struggle and had purposely been made a struggle; that competition developed character; that victory was of value only as it marked the goal of achievement; that to help someone else toward victory was doing that person an injustice, since victories were progressive.

The elder Sabin had placed something over a million dollars in trust funds for charitable uses, but he had stipulated that the money was to go only to those who had been incapacitated in life’s battles: the crippled, the aged, the infirm. To those who could still struggle on, Sabin offered nothing. The privilege of struggling for achievement was the privilege of living, and to take away that right to struggle was equivalent to taking away life itself.

Della Street entered Mason’s office as he finished reading that portion of the article.

“Well?” Mason asked.

“He’s interesting,” she said. “Of course he’s taking it pretty hard. It’s something of a shock, but there’s nothing hysterical about him, and nothing affected about his grief. He’s quiet, determined, and very self-controlled.”

“How old?” Mason asked.

“About thirty-two or thirty-three. Quietly dressed... In fact, that’s the impression he gives you, of being quiet. His voice is low and well-modulated. His eyes are a very cold blue, and very, very steady, if you get what I mean.”

“I think I do,” Mason told her. “Rather spare and austere in his appearance?”

“Yes, with high cheekbones and a firm mouth. I think you’ll find he does a lot of thinking. He’s that type.”

Mason said, “All right, let’s get some more facts on this murder.”

He once more devoted his attention to reading the newspaper, then abruptly said, “There’s too much hooey mixed in with this, Della, to give us very much information. I suppose I should get the highlights, because he probably won’t want to talk about it.”

He returned to the newspaper, skimming salient facts from the account of the murder.

Fishing season in the Grizzly Creek had opened on Tuesday, September sixth. It had been closed until that date by order of the Fish and Game Commission to protect the late season fishing. Fremont C. Sabin had gone to his mountain cabin, ready to take advantage of the first day. Police reconstructed what had happened at that cabin from the circumstantial evidence which remained. He had evidently retired early, setting the alarm for five-thirty in the morning. He had arisen, cooked breakfast, donned his fishing things, and had returned about noon, evidently with a limit of fish. Sometime after that — and the police, from the evidence which had been so far made available, were unable to tell just when — Fremont Sabin had been murdered. Robbery had evidently not been the motive, since a well-filled wallet was found in his pocket. He was still wearing a diamond ring, and a valuable emerald stickpin was found in the drawer of the dresser, near the bed. He had been shot through the heart and at close range by a short-barreled derringer, obsolete in design but deadly in its efficiency.

Sabin’s pet parrot, who had of late years accompanied him on nearly all his trips to the mountain cabin, had been left in the room with the body. The murderer had fled.

The mountain cabin was isolated, nearly a hundred yards back from the automobile road which wound its tortuous way up to the pine-timbered cabin. There was not a great deal of traffic on this road, and those people who lived in the neighborhood had learned to leave the wealthy recluse alone.

Day after day such traffic as used the highway passed heedlessly by, while in the cabin back under the trees a screaming parrot kept vigil over the lifeless corpse of his master.

Not until several days after the murder, on Sunday, September eleventh, when fishermen came in large numbers to line the stream, did anyone suspect anything was wrong.

By that time the parrot’s shrill, raucous cries, interspersed with harsh profanity, attracted attention.

“Polly wants something to eat. Dammit, Polly wants something to eat. Don’t you damn fools know Polly’s hungry?”

A neighbor, who owned a nearby cabin, had investigated. Peering through the windows he had seen the parrot, and then had seen something else which made him telephone for the police.

The murderer had evidently had compassion for the bird, but none for the master. The cage door had been left propped open. Someone, apparently the murderer, had left a dish of water on the floor, an abundance of food near the cage. Food remained, but the water dish was dry.

Mason looked up from the newspaper and said to Della Street, “All right, Della, let’s have him in.”

Charles Sabin shook hands with Perry Mason, glanced at the newspaper on the table, and said, “I hope you are familiar with the facts surrounding my father’s death.”

Mason nodded, waited until his visitor had seated himself in the overstuffed, black leather chair, and then inquired, “Just what do you want me to do?”

“Quite a few things,” Sabin said. “Among others, I want you to see that my father’s widow, Helen Watkins Sabin, doesn’t ruin the business. I have reason to believe there’s a will leaving the bulk of the estate to me, and, in particular, making me the executor. I can’t find that will in searching among his papers. I’m afraid it may be in her possession. She’s fully capable of destroying it. I don’t want her to act as administratrix of the estate.”

“You dislike her?”

“Very much.”

“Your father was a widower?”

“Yes.”

“When did he marry his present wife?”

“About two years ago.”

“Are there any other children?”

“No. His widow has a grown son, however.”

“Was this last marriage a success? Was your father happy?”

“No. He was very unhappy. He realized he’d been victimized. He would have asked for an annulment, or a divorce, if it hadn’t been for his dread of publicity.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Tell me just what you want me to do.”

“I’m going to put my cards on the table,” Charles Sabin told him. “My legal affairs are handled by Cutter, Grayson & Bright. I want you to co-operate with them.”

“You mean in the probate of the estate?” Mason asked.

Sabin shook his head. “My father was murdered. I want you to co-operate with the police in bringing that murderer to justice.

“My father’s widow is going to require quite a bit of handling. I think it’s a job that’s beyond the abilities of Cutter, Grayson & Bright. I want you to handle it.

“I am, of course, deeply shocked by what has happened. I was notified yesterday afternoon by the police. It’s been very much of an ordeal. I can assure you that no ordinary business matter would have brought me out today.”

Mason looked at the lines of suffering etched on the man’s face, and said, “I can readily understand that.”

“And,” Sabin went on, “I realize there are certain questions you’ll want to ask. I’d like to make the interview as brief as possible.”

Mason said, “I’ll need some sort of authorization to...”

Sabin took a wallet from his pocket. “I think I have anticipated your reasonable requirements, Mr. Mason. Here is a retainer check, together with a letter stating that you are acting as my lawyer and are to have access to any and all of the property left by my father.”

Mason took the letter and check. “I see,” he said, “that you are a methodical man.”

“I try to be,” Sabin told him. “The check will be in the nature of a retainer. Do you consider it adequate?”

“It’s more than adequate,” Mason said, smiling. “It’s generous.”

Sabin inclined his head. “I’ve followed your career with a great deal of interest, Mr. Mason. I think you have exceptional legal ability and an uncanny deductive skill. I want to avail myself of both.”

“Thanks,” the lawyer said. “If I’m going to be of any value to you, Mr. Sabin, I’ll want an absolutely free hand.”

“In what respect?” Sabin asked.

“I want to be free to do just as I please in the matter. If the police should charge someone with the crime, I want the privilege of representing that person. In other words, I want to clear up the crime in my own way.”

“Why do you ask that?” Sabin said. “Surely I’m paying you enough...”

“It isn’t that,” Mason told him, “but if you’ve followed my cases, you’ll note that most of them have been cleared up in the courtroom. I can suspect the guilty, but about the only way I can really prove my point is by cross-examining witnesses.”

“I see your point,” Sabin conceded. “I think it’s entirely reasonable.”

“And,” Mason said, “I’ll want to know all of the salient facts, everything which you can give me that will be of assistance.”

Sabin settled back in the chair. He spoke calmly, almost disinterestedly. “There are two or three things to be taken into consideration in getting a perspective on my father’s life. One of them was the fact that he and my mother were very happily married. My mother was a wonderful woman. She had a loyalty which was unsurpassed, and a complete lack of nervousness. During all her married life, there was literally never an unkind word spoken, simply because she never allowed herself to develop any of those emotional reflexes, which so frequently make people want to bicker with those whom they love, or with whom they come in constant association.

Naturally, my father came to judge every woman by her standards. After her death, he was exceedingly lonely. His present wife was employed in the capacity of housekeeper. She was shrewd, scheming, deadly, designing, avaricious, grasping. She set about to insinuate herself into his affections. She did so deliberately. My father had never had any experience with women of her kind. He was temperamentally unfitted to deal with her in the first place, or even to comprehend her character. As a result, he permitted himself to be hypnotized into marriage. He has, of course, been desperately unhappy.”

“Where is Mrs. Sabin now?” Mason asked. “I believe the paper mentioned something about her being on a tour.”

“Yes, she left on a round-the-world cruise about two and a half months ago. She was located by wireless on a ship which left the Panama Canal yesterday. A plane has been chartered to meet her at one of the Central American ports, and she should arrive here tomorrow morning.”

“And she will try to take charge?” Mason asked.

“Very completely,” Sabin said, in a voice which spoke volumes.

“Of course, as a son,” Mason said, “you have certain rights.”

Sabin said wearily, “One of the reasons that I have set aside my grief in order to come to you at this time, Mr. Mason, is that whatever you do should be well started before she arrives. She is a very competent woman, and a very ruthless adversary.”

“I see,” Mason said.

“She has a son by a former marriage, Steven Watkins,” Sabin went on. “I have sometimes referred to him as his mother’s stool pigeon. He has developed conscious affability as an asset. He has the technique of a politician, the character of a rattlesnake. He has been East for some time, and took the plane from New York to connect with the plane that will pick up his mother in Central America. They will arrive together.”

“How old is he?” Mason asked.

“Twenty-six. His mother managed to put him through college. He looks on an education only as a magic formula, which should enable him to go through life without work. As a young man he advocated a share-the-wealth philosophy as something which would reward him for living without making it necessary for him to engage in competitive work. After his mother married my father, she was able to wheedle him into giving her large sums of money which were squandered upon Steve with a lavish hand. He has reacted just as one would expect him to under the circumstances. He is now extremely contemptuous of what he refers to as the ‘common herd.’ ”

“Have you,” Mason asked, “any idea of who murdered your father?”

“None whatever. If I did have, I would try to dismiss it from my mind. I don’t want to even think of anyone whom I know in that connection until I have proof. And when I have proof, Mr. Mason, I want the law to take its course.”

“Did your father have any enemies?”

“No. Except... there are two things which I think you should know about, Mr. Mason. One of them, the police know, the other, they don’t.”

“What are they?” Mason asked.

“It was not mentioned in the newspapers,” Sabin said, “but in the cabin were certain intimate articles of feminine wearing apparel. I think those clothes were left there by the murderer, simply to swing public sympathy toward the widow.”

“What else?” Mason asked. “You mentioned something which the police didn’t know about. Was that...”

Sabin said, “This is something which may be significant, Mr. Mason. I believe you have read in the newspapers of my father’s attachment for his parrot.”

Mason nodded.

“Casanova was a present given to my father by his brother three or four years ago. His brother’s a great parrot fancier, and Dad became very much attached to the bird. It was with him frequently... And the parrot which was found in the cabin with my father’s body, and which the police and everyone else have assumed to be Casanova, is, in fact, not my father’s parrot.”

Mason’s eyes showed keen interest. “You’re certain?” he asked.

“Absolutely certain.”

“May I ask how you know?”

“In the first place,” Sabin said, “the parrot in the cabin is given to profanity, particularly in connection with requests for food. Casanova had never learned to swear.”

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “a change of environment would have been responsible for that. You know, a parrot can pick up...”

“Moreover,” Sabin said, “—and you’ll pardon me if I interrupt you, Mr. Mason, because I am about to mention a point which is irrefutable — Casanova had one claw missing, a claw on his right foot. This parrot does not.”

Mason frowned. “But why the devil,” he asked, “should anyone want to substitute parrots?”

“The only reason I can think of,” Sabin said, “is that the parrot is more important than would at first seem to be the case. I am quite certain that Casanova was with my father in the mountain cabin when my father was murdered. He, perhaps, saw something, or heard something, so he was removed and another parrot substituted. My father returned home on Friday, September second, long enough to pick up Casanova. We hadn’t expected him until Monday, September fifth.”

“But it would have been so much simpler and easier for the murderer to have killed the parrot,” Mason said.

“I realize that,” Sabin replied, “and I know that my theory is bizarre. Nevertheless, it is the only explanation I have been able to make in my own mind.”

“Why,” Mason asked, “didn’t you tell the police about this?”

Sabin shook his head. This time there was no attempt to disguise the weariness in his eyes or his voice. “I have come to realize,” he said, “that it is absolutely impossible for the police to keep matters from the newspapers, and I don’t have any great confidence in the ability of the police to solve a crime such as this. I think you will find that it has very deep ramifications, Mr. Mason. I’ve told the police no more than was absolutely necessary. I have not volunteered information. I am giving this information to you. I would suggest that you keep it from the police. Let them build up their own case.”

And Sabin indicated that he had told everything he knew by getting to his feet and extending his hand. “Thank you very much, Mr. Mason,” he said. “I’ll rest a lot easier in knowing that the matter is in your hands.”

Chapter two

Mason, pacing back and forth across his office, jerked out comments. Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, his tall form draped crosswise across the overstuffed leather chair, made notes in a leather-backed notebook.

“That substituted parrot,” Mason said, “is a clue which we have in advance of the police... It’s a profane parrot... Later on, we’re going to find out why the murderer wanted to substitute parrots. Right now, we’re going to try and trace the profane parrot, which should be easy... We can’t hope to compete with the police, so we’ll ignore the commonplace factors.”

“How about the pink silk nightie?” Paul Drake asked, in his slow, drawling voice. “Do we do anything about that?”

“Not a thing,” Mason said. “That’s something the police are working on tooth and nail... How much do you know about the case, Paul?”

“Not very much more than what I’ve read in the papers,” Drake said, “but one of my friends, who’s in the newspaper game, was asking me something about weapons.”

“What did he want to know?” Mason asked.

“Something about the murder gun.”

“What about the gun?”

“It’s some sort of a trick weapon,” Drake said. “One of those short-barreled guns, with a trigger which folds back out of the way. It’s small enough to be carried anywhere.”

“What caliber?”

“A forty-one.”

“Try and find out about ammunition for it,” Mason said. “See if the shells are carried in stock... No, forget it. The police will do all that. You stick to parrots, Paul. Cover all pet stores. Find out about parrot sales during the last week or two.”

Paul Drake, whose efficiency as a detective depended in large part upon the fact that he looked so completely innocuous, closed his leather-backed notebook and dropped it into his pocket. He surveyed Perry Mason with slightly protruding eyes, the expression of which was habitually masked by a glassy film.

“How far do you want me to check up on Mrs. Sabin and the son, Perry?” he asked.

“Everything you can find out,” Mason said.

Drake checked off the points on his fingers. “Let’s see now, if I have everything straight. Get the dope on the widow and Steve Watkins. Cover the bird stores and find out about the profane parrot. Get all the information I can about the mountain cabin and what happened up there. Get photographs of the interior, and... How about the exterior, Perry, do you want them?”

“No,” Mason said, “I’m going to drive up there, Paul, and give it the once-over. The only photographs I want are those which were taken when the police discovered the body.”

“On my way,” Drake told him, sliding out of the chair.

“And incidentally,” Mason said, as the detective was halfway to the door, “here’s another hunch. Let’s suppose the murderer substituted parrots, then what became of Casanova?”

“I’ll bite,” Drake said, with a grin, “what do you do with a parrot? Make a parrot pie, or do you broil ’em on toast?”

Mason said, “You put them in cages and listen to them talk.”

“No, really!” Drake exclaimed in mock surprise. “You don’t tell me.”

Mason said, “Get it through that droopy mind of yours that I’m not joking. That’s exactly what you do with a parrot, and whoever took Casanova, may have done it because he wanted to listen to something Casanova had to say.”

“That,” Drake admitted, “is a thought.”

“Moreover,” Mason went on, “the murderer probably has moved into a new neighborhood. You might make a check on any new parrots.”

“What do you want me to do?” Drake asked. “Take a bird census, or put a bird bath on the roof and watch for parrots... My God, Perry, have a heart! How the devil can a man find a new parrot?”

“I think,” Mason told him, “you’ll find there aren’t so many parrots. They’re a noisy pet, and they aren’t particularly apartment pets. People who have parrots are apt to live in the suburbs. Parrots are something of a nuisance as far as neighbors are concerned. I think there’s a city ordinance on parrots in apartments. I have an idea you may find something from talking to pet stores. Trace the sale of new cages. Find out people who have been inquiring about the care and feeding of parrots. And incidentally, Paul, remember there’s a pet store here in the block. Karl Helmold, the chap who runs it, is a client of mine. He’ll probably have some trade lists, which will give you the names of the larger pet stores in the vicinity, and he may be able to tell you quite a bit about parrots. Put every available operative on the job.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “I’ll be on my way.”

Mason nodded to Della Street. “Come on, Della, let’s go take a look at that cabin.”

The road wound up the sides of the long canyon, turning and twisting on itself like a snake in pain. Through the windshield Mason caught occasional glimpses of purple mountains. Below, a threadlike stream tumbled whitely over granite boulders. Back of the car the heat haze of the valley country showed as a gaseous blanket, heavy, oppressive, shimmering.

It was dry up here, and the air was impregnated with scent which oozed from the tips of pine needles. It was hot, too, but the dry balsam-laden heat was kind to the nostrils. High overhead the southern California sky was so blue that it almost seemed black in contrast with the bright sunlight which beat down upon the sheer granite ridges where there was not enough soil to support trees.

They came to a shaded turn in the road, where a spring trickled into a natural basin, then overflowed, to spill through a culvert into a stream which plunged into the dark obscurity of tangled greenery.

Mason stopped the car and said, “We’ll let the motor cool, and have a drink of mountain water... Hello, here comes a police car.”

He pointed down the side of the mountain to where a section of the road showed almost directly below them. A car, winding its laborious way up the long ascent, showed glinting red from a police spotlight fastened on the upper right-hand corner of the windshield.

“Do we try to beat them up?” Della Street asked.

Mason, stretching his long legs, sucked in deep breaths of the dry mountain air, and said, “No. We’ll wait and follow. It will save time locating the cabin.”

They drank the cool water, bending over the rock basin to place pursed lips against the limpid surface of the little pool. Gradually, above the sound of the wind sighing through the eloquent pines, came the grinding of a motor, whining in gear as it labored up the steep ascent.

As the car came into sight around the turn, Mason said, “I believe it’s our old friend, Sergeant Holcomb, from headquarters... Now, why should he be interested in a murder case which took place outside of the city... He’s stopping.”

The car veered abruptly from the paved highway to come to a stop on the shaded parking space at the side of the road. A big man, who wore a broad-brimmed black Stetson, was the first to emerge. He was followed, a moment later, by Sergeant Holcomb of the Metropolitan Police.

Holcomb walked truculently across to Mason. “What the devil are you doing here? ” he asked.

Mason said, “Odd, Sergeant, but I was thinking the same about you.”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “I’m helping out Sheriff Barnes. He telephoned in for assistance, and the police loaned me to him. Shake hands with Perry Mason, Sheriff.”

The sheriff, a big man in the late fifties, who moved with slow efficiency, swung out a bronzed hand which engulfed Mason’s fingers. Mason introduced Della Street, and then produced the letter which Charles Sabin had given him. The Sheriff was impressed.

Sergeant Holcomb glanced from the letter to Mason. There was suspicion in his eyes, as well as in his voice. “Sabin employed you?”

“Yes.”

“And gave you this letter?”

“Yes.”

“Just what does he want you to do?”

“He wants me to co-operate with the police.”

Sergeant Holcomb’s laugh was sarcastic. “That’s the best one I’ve heard in twenty years. Perry Mason co-operating with the police! You co-operate with the police just like the Republicans co-operate with the Democrats.”

Mason turned to the sheriff. “Just because a lawyer represents innocent defendants doesn’t mean he’s opposed to the authorities,” he said quietly.

“The hell it doesn’t!” Sergeant Holcomb interpolated. “You’ve always been against the police.”

“On the contrary,” Mason told him, “I’ve helped solve quite a few murder cases.”

“You’ve always managed to get your clients acquitted,” Sergeant Holcomb pointed out.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “It happened that the police were trying to convict innocent parties. It remained for me to prove my clients innocent by finding the real murderers.”

Sergeant Holcomb flushed, stepped forward, and started to say something, but Sheriff Barnes interposed what was apparently an unintentional shoulder. “Now listen, boys,” he said, “there’s nothing to argue about. I’m the sheriff of this county. This thing is just a little bit high-powered for me. I ain’t got the facilities to make an investigation on this the way I’d like to, and I asked the city police to loan me a man who could help out with fingerprint work, and give me some suggestions. As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to be glad of any assistance I can get, and I don’t care who gives it. I’ve read about some of Mason’s cases in the newspapers. To my mind, when a lawyer proves his client innocent of crime by showing that someone else is guilty, he’s done society a darn good turn, and the police have no kick coming.”

“Well,” Sergeant Holcomb said to the sheriff, “it’s your funeral. His methods are enough to give you gray hairs.”

Sheriff Barnes tilted back the sombrero and ran his fingers through sweat-moistened hair. “I’ve got gray hairs now,” he said. “How about it, Mason, you going up?”

“I’ll follow you,” Mason told him. “You know the way?”

“Sure, I was up there nearly all day yesterday.”

“How much has been touched?” Mason asked.

“Not a thing. We’ve taken the body out, and cleaned out the remains of a string of fish, which had gone pretty bad. Of course, we took the parrot. Aside from that, we ain’t touched a thing, except to go over everything for fingerprints.”

“Find any?” Mason asked.

“Quite a few,” the sheriff admitted noncommittally.

Sergeant Holcomb said abruptly, “Well, Sheriff, let’s get going. Mason can follow us.”

The road crossed a ridge, debouched onto a plateau. Here and there were little clearings, cabins nestled back against the trees. Up near the upper end of the plateau, when they were within a few hundred feet of the stream which came roaring down from a mountain canyon, Sheriff Barnes abruptly signaled for a right-hand turn. He swung into a dirt road, carpeted with pine needles, which ran back to a cabin so skillfully blended with the trees that it seemed almost to be the work of nature rather than of man.

Mason exclaimed, “Look at that cabin, Della! It certainly is a beautiful setting!”

A bluejay, resenting their intrusion, launched himself downward from the top of one of the pine trees, screeching his raucous, “ Thief... thief... thief.”

Mason swung the car into the shaded area back of the cabin and parked it. Sheriff Barnes crossed over and said, “I’m going to ask you to be careful not to touch anything, Mr. Mason, and I think Miss Street had better wait outside.”

Mason nodded acquiescence.

A tall, rangy man who moved with the easy grace of a mountain dweller emerged from the shadows and touched his somewhat battered hat to the sheriff. “Everything’s okay, Sheriff,” he said.

Sheriff Barnes took a key from his pocket, unlocked the padlock on the door, and said by way of introduction, “This is Fred Waner. He lives up here. I’ve had him guarding the cabin.”

The sheriff opened the door. “Now, let’s try not to walk around any more than is necessary. You, Sergeant, know what to do.” Mason glanced into the mountain cabin with its big fireplace, plain pine table, hand-hewn rafters. A neatly made bed with snowy linen was in startling contrast to the seed-littered floor. Mud-stained rubber boots stood, sagging limply; above them was a jointed fly rod.

Sergeant Holcomb said, “My advice, Sheriff, would be to let Mr. Mason look around without touching anything, and then leave. We can’t do anything as long as he’s here.”

“Why not?” Sheriff Barnes said.

Sergeant Holcomb flushed. “For various reasons. One of them is that before you get done, this man is going to be on the other side of the fence. He’s going to be opposing you, he’s going to be trying to tear down the case you’re building up against the murderer. The more you expose your methods to him, the more he has an opportunity to tear you to pieces on the witness stand.”

Sheriff Barnes said doggedly, “That’s all right. If anybody’s going to be hung for murder on my say-so, I want it to be after a case is built up which can’t be torn down.”

“I’d like to see as much as you care to show me,” Mason said to the sheriff. “I take it, that chalk outline on the floor represents where the body was found when it was first discovered.”

“Yes, that’s right. The gun was found over there about ten feet away, where you’ll notice the outline in chalk.”

“Is it possible that Mr. Sabin could have shot himself?” Mason asked.

“Absolutely impossible according to the testimony of the doctors. What’s more, the gun had been wiped free of fingerprints. Sabin wasn’t wearing gloves. If he’d shot himself, he’d have left some fingerprints on the gun.”

Mason, frowning thoughtfully, said, “Then the murderer didn’t even want it to look like suicide.”

“How so?” the sheriff asked.

“He could very easily have placed the gun nearer the body. He could have wiped off his own fingerprints, and pressed the weapon into the hand of the dead man.”

“That’s logical,” the sheriff said.

“And,” Mason went on, “the murderer must have wanted the officers to find the gun.”

“Baloney,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The murderer simply didn’t want the officers to find the gun on him. That’s the way all clever murderers do. As soon as they commit a crime, they drop the rod. They don’t even keep it with them long enough to find some place to hide it. The gun can hang them. They shoot it and drop it.”

“All right,” Mason said, smiling, “you win. They shoot it and drop it. What else, Sheriff?”

“The parrot cage was over here on the floor,” the sheriff said, “and the door was propped open with a little stick so the parrot could walk out whenever he wanted to.”

“Or walk in, whenever it had been out?” Mason asked.

“Well, yes. That’s a thought.”

“And how long do you think the parrot had been here without food or water, Sheriff?”

“He’d had plenty of food. The water had dried up in the pan. See that agateware pan over there? Well, that had evidently been left pretty well filled with water, but the water had dried out — what the parrot hadn’t had to drink. You can see little spots of rust on the bottom which show where the last few drops evaporated.”

“The body then,” Mason said, “must have been here for some time before it was discovered.”

“The murder,” Sheriff Barnes asserted, “took place some time on Tuesday, the sixth of September. It took place probably right around eleven o’clock in the morning.”

“How do you figure that?” Mason asked. “Or do you object to telling me?”

“Not at all,” the sheriff said. “The fishing season in this entire district opened on September sixth. The Fish and Game Commission wanted to have an area for fall fishing which hadn’t been all fished out. So they picked out certain streams which they kept closed until later on in the season. This was one of the last. The season opened here on September sixth.

“Now then, Sabin was a funny chap. He had places that he went and things that he did, and we haven’t found out all of ’em yet. We know some of them. He had a trailer and he’d drive around at trailer camps, sit and whittle and talk with people, just finding out that way what was going on in the world. Sometimes he’d take an old suit of shiny clothes and go prowl around libraries for a week or two...”

“Yes, I read all about that in the newspaper,” Mason interrupted.

“Well,” the sheriff went on, “he told his son and Richard Waid, his secretary, that he was going to be home on Monday the fifth to pick up his fishing things. He’d been away on a little trip. They don’t know just where, but he surprised them by coming home on Friday the second. He took his fishing tackle, picked up his parrot, and came up here. It seems he was putting across a big deal in New York, and had told his secretary to charter a plane and be ready to fly East when he gave the word. The secretary waited at the airport all Monday afternoon. He had a plane in readiness. About ten o’clock on the night of the fifth, the call came through. Waid says that Sabin seemed in wonderful spirits. He said everything was okay, that Waid was to jump in his plane and get to New York at once.”

“He was talking from the cabin here?” Mason asked.

“No, he wasn’t. He told Waid the telephone here had gone dead so he’d had to go to a pay station. He didn’t say where, and Waid didn’t think to ask him. Of course, at the time, it didn’t seem particularly important. Waid was in a hurry to get started to New York.”

“You’ve talked with Waid?” Mason asked.

“On the long distance telephone,” the sheriff said. “He was still in New York.”

“Did he tell the nature of the business?” Mason asked.

“No, he said it was something important and highly confidential. That was all he’d say.”

“Waid, I take it, had a chartered plane?” Mason asked.

The sheriff grinned and said, “It looks as though Waid may have cut a corner there. Steve Watkins, who’s the son of Sabin’s wife by a former marriage, is quite a flyer. He’s got a fast plane and likes to fly around the country. I take it Sabin didn’t care much for Steve and wouldn’t have liked it if he’d known Waid was going to fly back to New York with Steve; but Steve wanted to make the trip and needed the money, so Waid arranged to pay him the charter price and Steve Watkins flew him back.”

“What time did they leave?”

“At ten minutes past ten, the night of Monday the fifth,” the sheriff said. “Just to make sure, I checked up with the records of the airport.”

“And what time did Sabin call Waid?”

“Waid says it wasn’t more than ten minutes before he took off. He thinks it was right around ten o’clock.”

“He recognized Sabin’s voice?” Mason asked.

“Yes, and said Sabin seemed very pleased about something. He told Waid he’d closed the deal and to start at once. He said there’d been a little delay because the telephone here was out of order. He’d had to drive down to a pay station, but he said he was driving right back to the cabin and would be at the cabin for two or three days, that in case Waid encountered any difficulties he was to telephone.”

“And Waid didn’t telephone?”

“No, because everything went through like clockwork, and Sabin had only told him to telephone in case something went wrong.”

Mason said thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see then. He was alive at ten o’clock on the evening of Monday, September fifth. Did anyone else see him or talk with him after that?”

“No,” the sheriff said. “That’s the last time we actually know he was alive. From there on, we have to figure evidence. The fishing season opened on Tuesday the sixth. Over there’s an alarm clock which had run down. It stopped at two forty-seven. The alarm was set at five-thirty.”

“The alarm run down too?” Mason asked.

“Uh-huh.”

The telephone bell shattered the silence. The sheriff said, “Excuse me,” and scooped up the receiver. He listened a moment, then said, “All right, hold the line,” and turned to Mason. “It’s for you,” he said.

Mason took the receiver and heard Paul Drake’s voice at the other end of the line. “Hello, Perry. I took a chance on calling you there. Are you where you can talk?”

“No,” Mason said.

“But you can listen all right?”

“Yes. Go ahead. What is it?”

“I think I’ve found your murderer — at any rate, I’ve got a lead on that profane parrot, and a swell description of the man that bought him.”

“Where?”

“At San Molinas.”

“Keep talking,” Mason told him.

“A man by the name of Arthur Gibbs runs a pet shop in San Molinas. It’s known as the Fifth Avenue Pet Shop. On Friday the second, a seedy-looking chap came in to buy a parrot in a hurry. Gibbs remembers it, because the man didn’t seem to care anything about the parrot except its appearance. Gibbs sold him this profane parrot. He thinks the man didn’t know about its habit of cussing... I think you’d better talk with Gibbs, Mason.”

“Any details?” Mason asked.

“I’ve got a swell description.”

“Does it fit anyone?” Mason inquired.

“No one so far as I can tell,” Drake said. “... Tell you what I’ll do, Perry. I’ll go to the Plaza Hotel and wait in the lobby. You get down here as soon as you can. If it’s after five-thirty, I’ll arrange with Gibbs to wait.”

Mason said, “That’ll be fine,” and hung up the telephone to face the coldly suspicious eyes of Sergeant Holcomb.

Sheriff Barnes, apparently not noticing the interruption, said, “When we broke in here, we found a creel filled with fish. We boxed it up in an air-tight container and sent it to the police laboratory in the city. They report that the creel contained a limit of fish which had been cleaned and wrapped in leaves but hadn’t been given a final washing. We’ve found the remains of his breakfast — a couple of eggs and some bacon rinds. We’ve found the remains of his lunch — canned beans. The body was clothed in slippers, slacks, and a light sweater. That leather coat there was on the back of the chair. Those are his fishing boots over there with mud on them. There’s his fly rod and flies on the table, just as he’d left them when he came in.

“Now, I figure he was killed right around eleven o’clock on the morning of Tuesday the sixth. Would you like to know how I figure it?”

“Very much indeed,” Mason said.

Sergeant Holcomb turned on his heel and walked away, showing his silent disgust.

Sheriff Barnes said, “Well, I ain’t had much experience in murder cases, but I know how to figure probabilities. I’ve been in the forest service, and I’ve worked cattle, and I know how to read trail. I don’t know whether the same kind of reasoning will work in a murder case or not, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Anyway, here’s the way I figure it. Sabin got up at five-thirty because that’s when the alarm went off. He had breakfast of bacon and eggs. He went out fishing. He caught a limit. He got back here, and he was tired and hungry. He didn’t even bother to wash the fish and put them in the icebox. He took off his boots, chucked the creel of fish over there, went out into the kitchen and cooked himself some canned beans. There was some coffee in the pot — probably still left from breakfast. He warmed that up.

“The next thing he’d have done was to have given the fish a good washing and put them in the icebox. He was murdered right after lunch and before he’d had a chance to do that. I fixed the time at around eleven o’clock.”

“Why not later?” Mason asked.

“Oh, yes,” the sheriff said, “I overlooked that. The sun gets on the cabin here about half past ten or eleven and it starts to get warm. It’s off the cabin by four o’clock in the afternoon, and it gets cold right away. During the middle of the day it’s hot. During the nights it’s cold. So I figured he was murdered after it had warmed up and before it had cooled off, but not during the middle of the day when it was real hot. If it had been real cold, he’d have had his coat on and would have lit the fire over there in the fireplace. You see, it’s all laid. If it had been real hot, he wouldn’t have been wearing his sweater.”