Mason was two blocks from the office building which contained his office and that of the Drake Detective Agency, when his car was suddenly enveloped in the red glare of a police spotlight. A siren screamed him over to the curb.
Mason stopped his car and frowned across at the police automobile being driven by Sergeant Holcomb. “Well,” he asked, “what’s the excitement?”
Holcomb said, “A couple of gentlemen want to talk with you, Mason.”
Sheriff Barnes opened the door in the rear of the car, and was followed by a closely coupled man, some ten years younger, who pushed his way across to Mason’s car, and instantly assumed the conversational lead. “You’re Mason?” he demanded.
Mason nodded.
“I’m Raymond Sprague, the district attorney from San Molinas.”
“Glad to know you,” Mason told him.
“We want to talk with you.”
“What about?” Mason asked.
“About Helen Monteith.”
“What about her?” Mason inquired.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Mason told him.
Sheriff Barnes said, “We’d better go some place where we can talk it over.”
“My office is within a couple of blocks,” Mason pointed out.
“And the Drake Detective Agency is in the same building, isn’t it?” Sprague inquired.
“Yes.”
“You were on your way there?” Sprague asked.
“Does it,” Mason inquired, “make any particular difference?”
“I think it does,” Sprague told him.
“Well, of course,” Mason remarked, “I have no means of knowing just what you have in mind.”
“That isn’t answering my question,” Sprague said.
“Were you asking a question?”
Sheriff Barnes interposed. “Now, wait a minute, Ray,” he said. “That’s not getting us anywhere,” and, with a significant glance toward the curious pedestrians, who had gathered on the sidewalk, “It isn’t doing the case any good. Let’s go up to Mason’s office.”
Mason kicked out the clutch and snapped the car into low gear. “I’ll see you there,” he said.
The others jumped into the police car, followed closely behind, until Mason had parked his machine. They rode up in the elevator with him and entered his private office. When Mason had switched on the lights and closed the door, Sergeant Holcomb said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you birds about this guy.”
“You didn’t warn me,” Raymond Sprague said, “you warned the sheriff.”
“Just what,” Mason asked, “is the beef about?”
“What have you done with Helen Monteith?”
“Nothing,” Mason said.
“We think differently,” Sprague announced.
“Suppose you tell me what you think,” Mason said.
“You’ve had Helen Monteith take a powder.”
Mason faced them, his feet spread far apart, his shoulders squared, his hands thrust into the side pockets of his coat. “All right,” he said, “let’s get this straight. I’m representing Helen Monteith. I’m also representing Charles Sabin. I’m trying to solve the murder of Fremont C. Sabin. I’m being paid money by my clients for doing just that. You gentlemen are being paid money by your county for solving the same murder I’m trying to solve. Naturally, you’re going to solve it your way, and, by the same token, I intend to solve it mine.”
“We want to question Helen Monteith,” Sprague said.
Mason met his eyes squarely. “Go ahead and question her, then.”
“Where is she?”
Mason pulled his cigarette case from his pocket and said, “I’ve told you once I don’t know. You’re running this show, I’m not.”
“You wouldn’t want me to charge you with being an accessory after the fact, would you?” Sprague asked ominously.
“I don’t give a damn what you charge me with,” Mason told him. “Only, if you want to talk law, remember that I can’t be an accessory after the fact, unless I give aid to the murderer. Now then, do you intend to claim that Helen Monteith is the one who committed the murder?”
Sprague flushed and said, “Yes.”
Sheriff Barnes interposed a drawling comment. “Now wait a minute, Ray, let’s not get our cart before our horse.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Sprague said.
Mason turned to Sheriff Barnes and said, “I think you and I can get along, Sheriff.”
“I’m not so certain,” Barnes said, pulling a sack of tobacco from his pocket, and spilling rattling grains to the surface of a brown cigarette paper. “You have quite a bit to explain before I’ll give you my confidence again.”
“What, for instance?” Mason asked.
“I thought you were going to co-operate with me.”
“I am,” Mason told him, “to the extent that I intend to find out who murdered Fremont C. Sabin.”
“We want to find out, too.”
“I know you do. You use your methods. I’ll use mine.”
“We don’t like having those methods interfered with.”
“I can understand that,” Mason told him.
Sprague said, “Don’t waste words talking with him.”
“If you birds want to charge him with compounding a felony, or being an accessory after the fact,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “I’ll take him into custody with the greatest of pleasure.”
Mason struck a match and held it to Sheriff Barnes’ cigarette, then lit his own. The conversation came to an abrupt standstill. After a few moments Mason said to Sprague, “Are you going to take him up on that, Sprague?”
“I think I am,” Sprague snapped, “but I’m going to get some evidence first.”
“I don’t think you’ll find much here in my office,” Mason pointed out.
Holcomb said, “I’ll take him down to headquarters, if you fellows say the word.”
Sheriff Barnes turned to face them. “Now listen,” he said, “you boys have been kicking me around because I gave Mason a break. I still don’t see any reason why we should be stampeded into going off half cocked. Personally, I’m not going to get antagonistic until I find out a few things.” He turned to Mason and said, “Did you know that the gun which killed Fremont C. Sabin was taken from a collection at the public library in San Molinas?”
“What if it was?” Mason asked.
“And the librarian, Helen Monteith, went through a marriage ceremony with a man who gave the name of George Wallman, and whom neighbors identify absolutely as being Fremont C. Sabin?”
“Go ahead,” Sergeant Holcomb said sarcastically, “give him all the information you have, and when he gets done he’ll laugh at you.”
“On the contrary,” Mason said, “I’m very much inclined to co-operate. Having gone that far, I presume you gentlemen have noticed that the caged parrot on the screen porch of Helen Monteith’s little bungalow is Casanova, the parrot owned by Fremont C. Sabin, and that the parrot which was found in the mountain cabin is a parrot which Sabin had recently purchased from the Fifth Avenue Pet Shop in San Molinas?”
Sheriff Barnes’ eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. “You’re giving us the straight goods on that?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” Mason said.
“He’s drawing a red herring across the trail,” Sergeant Holcomb said disgustedly.
“If you knew all of that,” Raymond Sprague said, “and then hid Helen Monteith where we couldn’t question her, I think I will charge you with being an accessory.”
“Go ahead,” Mason invited. “As I remember the law, you’ll have to charge that I concealed a principal in a felony case, with the intent that such principal might avoid or escape from arrest, trial, conviction or punishment, having knowledge that said principal had committed such felony, or had been charged with such felony. Now then, as I gather it, to date Helen Monteith hasn’t been charged with the commission of any felony.”
“No, she hasn’t,” Barnes admitted.
“And I don’t think she has committed any felony,” Mason said.
“Well, I do,” Sprague told him.
“A mere difference of opinion,” Mason observed; and then turned once more to Sheriff Barnes. “It may interest you to know, Sheriff,” he said, “that the parrot in the cage on Helen Monteith’s porch keeps saying, ‘Put down that gun, Helen... don’t shoot... My God, you’ve shot me.’ ”
The sheriff’s face showed his interest. “How do you account for that?” he asked.
“I don’t,” Mason said. “Of course, the obvious way to account for it is that the parrot was present when someone named Helen threatened someone with a gun, and then, after being told to drop the gun, fired a shot, which took effect. However, the shooting took place, not in Helen Monteith’s bungalow, but in a mountain cabin some miles away, while, apparently, the parrot on Helen Monteith’s porch wasn’t present at the shooting.”
“Just what are you getting at?” Sheriff Barnes inquired.
“I’m trying to co-operate with you,” Mason told him.
“Well, we don’t want your co-operation,” Sprague told him. “It’s quite evident to me that you’ve gathered a great deal of information from questioning Helen Monteith. Now, I’m going to give you twenty-four hours to produce her. In the event you fail to do so, I’m going to have you brought before the Grand Jury at San Molinas.”
“Better make it twelve hours,” Sergeant Holcomb suggested.
Sprague hesitated a moment, then looked at his watch and said, “You have her in San Molinas for questioning before the Grand Jury by noon tomorrow. Otherwise, you’ll take the consequences.”
He nodded to Sergeant Holcomb, and they started for the door. Mason caught Sheriff Barnes’ eye and said, “Going, Sheriff, or do you want to stay?”
Sheriff Barnes dropped easily into the overstuffed leather chair and said, “Don’t go just yet, Ray.”
“We’re not getting anywhere here,” Sprague objected.
“I am,” the sheriff said, puffing calmly at his cigarette.
Mason seated himself on one corner of his big office desk. Sprague hesitated a moment, then walked across to a chair. Sergeant Holcomb, making no attempt to conceal his disgust, stood by the door leading to the corridor.
Mason said to Sheriff Barnes, “Rather a peculiar situation developed out at Sabin’s house. It seems that Mrs. Sabin and Fremont C. Sabin entered into an agreement by which she was to pretend to take a round-the-world trip, double back by Clipper ship to the coast, go to Reno, establish a residence, and get a divorce, taking pains to avoid any publicity whatsoever. Having done that, she was to receive, in full payment of any claims she might have as the wife of Fremont C. Sabin, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”
“She wasn’t in Reno. She was on a boat coming through the Panama Canal, when we located her,” Sprague said. “That Reno business is some sort of a pipe dream.”
“Perhaps it is,” Mason admitted, “but Richard Waid met her in New York on Wednesday the seventh. She gave him a certified copy of a decree of divorce, and he gave her one hundred thousand dollars, and holds her receipt for it. That’s the important business which took him to New York.”
“What are you getting at, Mason?” Sheriff Barnes asked.
“Simply this,” Mason said. “The decree was dated on Tuesday the sixth. If a divorce decree was granted before Sabin was murdered, his widow received one hundred thousand dollars after his death, in accordance with an agreement which had been entered into. But, if Sabin was murdered before the divorce decree was granted, then the divorce decree was invalid, Mrs. Sabin has received one hundred thousand dollars in cash, and is also entitled to take a share of the estate as the surviving widow of the decedent. That’s rather an interesting, and somewhat complicated, legal point, gentlemen.”
Sergeant Holcomb said wearily, “Listen. Helen Monteith married Sabin. She didn’t know he was married. She thought his name was Wallman, but she went up to that cabin with him. We traced those clothes through the laundry mark. They were hers. She’d found out he was married. She figured he’d been taking her for a ride. She made up her mind she was going to call for a showdown. She wanted a gun, and she wanted one right away. She couldn’t get into a store to get a gun, but there was a collection of weapons in the library. She had a key to that collection. She picked out a gun, intending to return it to the collection. Perhaps she only wanted to run a bluff, I don’t know. Perhaps it was self-defense. I don’t know and I don’t care. But she took that gun up to the cabin and killed Fremont C. Sabin.
“She ran to Mason to represent her. He’s found out stuff which he could only have found out after having talked with her. She told her sister she was going to Sabin’s residence and talk with the son. Apparently, she never showed up at the residence. Mason was there. He went out there with his secretary. He comes back alone. Where’s his secretary? Where’s Helen Monteith?
“You start questioning him, and he starts drawing Mrs. Sabin across the trail as a red herring. He’ll get you more red herrings as fast as you fall for them.”
A peculiar knock sounded on the corridor door. Mason slid to his feet, walked across the office, and opened the door. Paul Drake, on the threshold, said, “Well, Perry, I’ve...” and broke off as he saw the people gathered in the room.
“Come in, Paul,” Mason said. “You know Sergeant Holcomb, of course, and this is Sheriff Barnes of San Molinas, and Raymond Sprague, the district attorney of San Molinas. What have you found out?”
“Do you,” Drake asked, “want me to report here?”
“Sure,” Mason told him.
“Well, I’ve been burning up the long distance telephone and getting operatives on the job. As nearly as I can tell right now, Mrs. Sabin sailed to Honolulu, took the Clipper ship back from Honolulu, went to Reno, and stayed at the Silver City Bungalows, establishing a residence under the name of Helen W. Sabin. At the end of six weeks she probably filed suit for divorce against Fremont C. Sabin, but I can’t get into the courthouse records until tomorrow morning. On the evening of Wednesday the seventh, Mrs. Sabin was in New York. She sailed from New York at midnight.”
“Then she was in Reno until when?” Mason asked of the detective.
“As nearly as we can find out, she took the plane from Reno on the evening of Tuesday the sixth and arrived in New York on the seventh.”
“Then the divorce decree must have been granted the morning of the sixth,” Raymond Sprague said.
“It would look that way,” Drake told him.
Sprague nodded and said, “She must have been in court on the sixth.”
“What are you getting at?” Sheriff Barnes inquired.
“I’m just checking up,” Sprague told him. “Mason has defeated his own purpose.”
“How do you mean?” Barnes asked.
“Simply this,” Sprague said. “Mason’s trying to distract our attention from Helen Monteith by dangling Mrs. Sabin in front of our noses, but if she was in court in Reno, she could hardly have been killing her husband in a mountain cabin in San Molinas County at one and the same time. Regardless of what other things the woman may have done, she couldn’t have been concerned in the murder.”
Mason stretched his arms above his head and sucked in a prodigious yawn. “Well, gentlemen,” he observed, “at least I’m putting my cards on the table.”
Raymond Sprague walked across to the door. “I think,” he said, “we’re fully capable of making our own investigations. As far as you’re concerned, Mason, you heard my ultimatum. You either have Helen Monteith before the Grand Jury at San Molinas at twelve o’clock tomorrow, or you’ll go before the Grand Jury.”
Sheriff Barnes was the last to leave the office. He seemed reluctant to go. In the corridor he said in an undertone, “Aren’t you acting a bit hasty, Ray?”
The district attorney’s answer was a rumbling undertone, drowned by the slamming of the door.
Mason grinned at Paul Drake and said, “Well, Paul, that’s that.”
“Are you keeping Helen Monteith out of sight somewhere?” Drake asked.
Mason smiled at him and said, “I don’t have the slightest idea, Paul, where Helen Monteith is.”
“My man reported that you picked her up out at Sabin’s residence, and that she and Della Street drove off in her car.”
Mason said, “I trust the man who made that report to you won’t do any talking to outsiders, Paul.”
“He won’t,” Drake said. “What are you going to do about having her before the Grand Jury in San Molinas, Perry?”
“I can’t get her there,” Mason said. “I don’t know where she is.”
“Della does.”
“I don’t know were Della is.”
“Well,” Drake told him, “it’s your funeral.”
“How about that wire tapping?” Mason asked. “What have you found out about it?”
“Not a darned thing,” Drake confessed. “And the more I dig into it, the less I know.”
“Some of the gambling element,” Mason asked, “wanting to get a line on what’s happening in this vice crusade?”
“Not a chance,” Drake told him.
“Why not?”
“The gamblers aren’t worried.”
“Why?”
“Because they aren’t. They’re too strongly entrenched.”
“That Citizens’ Committee was digging up a lot of evidence,” Mason said.
“Not evidence that would convict anybody of anything. Just evidence that gives rise to a lot of suspicion. Gamblers, and all forms of organized vice, figure on that stuff, Perry. Every so often there’s a clean-up and a shakedown. Some of the small fry try to fight back. They struggle against the stream. The big fish don’t; they just drift along with the current and wait for the police to clear things up.”
“The police?” Mason asked.
“Sure,” Drake said. “Figure this, Perry. Whenever there’s a recognized vice district, or open gambling, there’s police graft. That doesn’t mean all of the policemen are in on it. It means some of the policemen are, and it means some of the higher-ups are. Whenever there’s a squawk, the big shots in the vice game simply sit back and say to their cronies on the police force, ‘Okay, you birds tell us when it’s safe to open up again. In the meantime, we’re both losing income, so you’d better hurry.’ ”
“Then you don’t think the big-shot gamblers were trying to listen in on Sabin’s telephone conversations?”
“Not one chance in a hundred. They just pulled in their horns and took a vacation... To tell you the truth, Perry, it looks more like a private job to me.”
“You mean private detectives?”
“Yes.”
“Employed by whom?” Mason asked.
“Mrs. Sabin, on a hunch,” Drake told him. “Taken by and large, Perry, that woman doesn’t seem to me to be exactly dumb.”
“No,” Mason admitted, “her mother didn’t raise many foolish children... You have your car, Paul?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I have a job for you.”
“What is it?”
“You’re going with me,” Mason told him, “and we’re making a rush trip to San Molinas.”
“What for?” Drake wanted to know.
“We’re going to steal a parrot,” Mason said.
“Steal a parrot?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You mean Casanova?”
“Yes.”
“What the devil do you want with him? ”
Mason said, “Get right down to brass tacks, Paul, and what do you have? You have a case which entirely revolves around a parrot. Casanova is the key clew to the whole affair. Notice that whoever killed Sabin was particularly solicitous about the welfare of the parrot.”
“You mean that it was someone who loved the parrot, or was tender-hearted about birds in general?”
Mason said, “I don’t know yet exactly what the reason was. However, I’m commencing to have an idea. Notice, moreover, Paul, that lately Casanova says, ‘Put down that gun, Helen... don’t shoot... My God, you’ve shot me.’ ”
“Meaning that Casanova must have been the parrot which was present when the shots were fired?” Drake asked. “And that whoever committed the murder took Casanova away, and subsequently substituted another parrot?”
“Why,” Mason asked, “would a murderer do that?”
“To tell you the truth, Perry, I don’t know. That parrot angle sounds goofy to me.”
“Well,” Mason said, “any explanation which has been offered to me so far sounds goofy; but my best hunch is that that parrot offers the key to the situation. Now, Helen Monteith isn’t home. The sheriff and the district attorney of San Molinas County are wandering around here trying to chase down developments at this end, with the help of Sergeant Holcomb. It should be an excellent time to raid San Molinas.”
“If they catch you cutting corners in that county, you’re going to jail,” Drake warned.
“I know it,” Mason admitted, grinning, “and that’s why I don’t want to be caught cutting corners. If you have your car here, let’s go.”
“You going to lift cage and all?” Drake asked.
“Uh-huh,” Mason said, “and I’m going to put another parrot in place of the one that’s there.”
He picked up his telephone, dialed a number, and after a moment said, “Hello, Helmold, this is Perry Mason, the lawyer. I’d like to get you to run down to your pet store and open the place up. I want to buy a parrot.”