Andy Templet, the coroner, having acquired some reputation as a practical philosopher, refused to be stampeded by the flattering preparations which the press had made for reporting the inquest. He stood calmly and at ease while press photographers snapped pictures of his kindly, twinkling eyes and the whimsical smile about his mouth. Having called the inquest to order and selected his jury, he made a brief speech in which there was no attempt at grandiose eloquence.
“Now, folks,” he said, “we’ve got to determine the cause of death in this case. In other words, we’ve got to find out how this man died. And if somebody killed him, and we know who that someone was, we can say so. If we don’t know, we hadn’t better try to fix the responsibility. We aren’t here to try anyone for anything. We’re just trying to determine how Fremont C. Sabin met his death, up in his mountain cabin.
“Now, the coroner has charge of inquests. Most of the time he lets the district attorney ask questions, when the district attorney wants to, but that doesn’t mean the district attorney runs the inquest. It simply means the district attorney is here to help us, and, in a case of this kind, he’s here to try and uncover facts which will help him convict the murderer. The sheriff is also an interested party, and the sheriff has a lawyer here, Mr. Perry Mason. Mr. Mason is representing the heirs — that is, one of the heirs. Mr. Mason wants to find out how the murder was committed. Mr. Mason is also representing Helen Monteith.
“I want everybody to understand that we ain’t going to have any monkeyshines, and we ain’t going to have any oratory, or long-winded objections. We’re going to move right along with this thing, and if I get my order of proof all cockeyed, that’s my responsibility. I don’t want anybody to point out anything except facts. I don’t want anybody to try and get the witnesses rattled.
“Now, I’m going to start out asking questions. When I get done I’ll let the district attorney ask questions, and I’ll let Perry Mason ask questions, and the jurors can ask questions. But let’s get down to brass tacks and keep moving. Do you all understand?”
“I understand,” Perry Mason said.
The district attorney said, “Of course, the coroner’s idea of what is a technicality may differ from mine, in which event...”
“... In which event,” the coroner interrupted, “what I think is going to be what counts. I’m just a plain, common, ordinary citizen. I’ve tried to get a coroner’s jury of plain, common, ordinary citizens. The object back of this proof is to give the coroner’s jury a chance to figure what happened. We haven’t got a jury of lawyers. We’ve got a jury of citizens. I think I know what they want... Anyway, I know what I want.”
Andy Templet stilled the titter which ran over the courtroom and said, “I think we’d better have the neighbor who discovered the body, first.”
Fred Waner came forward and was sworn. He gave his name, address, and occupation.
The coroner said, “You found the body, didn’t you, Mr. Waner?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In his mountain cabin, up in Grizzly Flats.”
“He owned a cabin up there?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Now, I’ve got some pictures here. We’ll connect them up later, but they’re pictures of the cabin. You take a look at them and tell me if that’s the cabin.”
“Yes, that’s right. Those are pictures of the cabin.”
“All right. You found the body there. When was it?”
“It was Sunday, September eleventh.”
“About what time?”
“Around three or four o’clock in the afternoon.”
“What happened?”
“Well, I was coming along the road, driving up to my place, and got to wondering whether Sabin had got in for the fishing. I hadn’t seen him, but he usually managed to get in when they opened up the fishing in Grizzly Creek, so I stopped the car to take a look at the house, and heard the parrot screaming something awful. So I says to myself, ‘Well, he’s there if his parrot is there,’ so I drove up to the house. The shutters were all down the way it is when the place is closed up, and the garage was closed and locked, and I thought, ‘Shucks, I’ve made a mistake, there ain’t anyone home.’ So I started to drive away, and then I heard this parrot again.”
“What was the parrot saying?” the coroner asked.
Waner grinned and said, “The parrot was cussing a blue streak; he wanted something to eat.”
“So what did you do?”
“Well, I got to wondering if Sabin had maybe left the parrot there without being there himself. I figured maybe he’d gone fishing, but if he had, I didn’t see why he’d pull all the shutters down; so I got out and looked around. Well, the garage was locked, but I could get the doors open a crack, just enough to see that Sabin’s car was in there, so then I went around to the door and knocked, and didn’t get any answer, and finally, thinking maybe something was wrong, pried open one of the shutters and looked inside. This parrot was screaming all the time, and, looking inside, I saw a man’s hand lying on the floor. So then I got the window up and got inside. I saw right away that the man had been dead for quite a while. There was some food for the parrot on the floor, and a pan that had held water, but the water was all gone. I went right over to the telephone and telephoned you. I didn’t touch anything.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Then I got out into the fresh air, and left the place closed up until you got there,” the witness said.
“I don’t think there’s any need to ask this man any more questions, is there?” the coroner asked.
The district attorney said, “I’d like to ask one question, just for the sake of fixing the jurisdictional fact. The body was that of Fremont C. Sabin?”
“Yes, it was pretty far gone, but it was Sabin, all right.”
“How long have you known Fremont C. Sabin?”
“Five years.”
“I think that’s all,” the district attorney said.
“Just one more question,” the coroner said. “Nothing was touched until I got there, was it, Waner?”
“Absolutely nothing, except the telephone.”
“And the sheriff came up there with me, didn’t he?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, we’ll hear from the sheriff,” the coroner said.
Sheriff Barnes eased himself into the witness chair, crossed his legs, and settled back at his ease. “Now, Sheriff,” the coroner said, “suppose you tell us just what you found when we went up there to Sabin’s cabin.”
“Well, the body was lying on the floor, on its left side. The left arm was stretched out, and the fingers clenched. The right arm was lying across the body. Things were pretty bad in there. We opened all the windows and got as much air in as we could... looking over the windows before we opened them, of course, to make certain they were locked on the inside, and there weren’t any evidences that they’d been tampered with.
“There was a spring lock on the door, and that lock was closed, so whoever did the killing, walked out and pulled the door shut behind him. We got the parrot back in the cage, and closed the cage. It had been propped open with a notched pine stick. I took some chalk and traced the position of the body on the floor, and traced the position of the gun, and then the coroner went through the clothes, and then we had a photographer take a few pictures of the body, as it was lying on the floor.”
“You’ve got prints of those pictures with you?” the coroner asked.
“Yes, here they are,” the sheriff said, and produced some photographs. The coroner, taking possession of them, said, “All right, I’ll hand all these over to the jury a little later. Let’s find out, now, what happened.”
“Well, after we moved the body and got the place aired out,” the sheriff said, “we started looking things over. I’ll start with the kitchen. There was a garbage pail in the kitchen; in the garbage pail were the shells of two eggs, and some bacon rind, a piece of stale toast, badly burnt on one side, and a small can of pork and beans, which had been opened. On the gas stove — he had a pressure gas outfit up there — was a frying pan in which some pork and beans had been warmed up quite a while ago. The pan was all dry, and the beans had crusted all around the sides. There was still some coffee, and a lot of coffee grounds, in the pot on the stove. There was a knife and fork and a plate in the sink. There’d been beans eaten out of the plate. In the icebox was part of a roll of butter, a bottle of cream, and a couple of packages of cheese which hadn’t been opened. There was a locker with a lot of canned goods, and a bread box, which had half a loaf of bread in it, and a bag with a couple of dozen assorted cookies.
“In the main room there was a table on which was a jointed fly rod, a book of flies, and a creel, in which was a mess of fish. Those fish had evidently been there about as long as the body. We made a box to put the creel in, got the box as nearly airtight as possible, and put the whole thing in and nailed it up, without touching the contents. Then we checked on the gun and found it was a forty-one caliber derringer, with discharged shells in each of the two barrels. The body had two bullet holes just below the heart, and, from the position of the bullet holes, we figured that both barrels of the gun had been fired at once.
“There were some rubber boots near the table, and there was dried mud on the boots; an alarm clock was on the table near the bed. It had stopped at two forty-seven; the alarm had been set for five-thirty; both the alarm and the clock had run down. The body was clothed in a pair of slacks, a shirt and sweater. There were wool socks and slippers on the feet.
“There was a telephone line running out of the cabin, and the next day, when Perry Mason and Sergeant Holcomb were helping me make an investigation, we found that the telephone line had been tapped. Whoever had done the tapping had established a headquarters in a cabin about three hundred and fifty yards from the Sabin cabin. It had evidently been an old, abandoned cabin, which had been fixed up and repaired when the wiretapping apparatus was installed. We found evidences that whoever had been in the place had left hurriedly. There was a cigarette on the table, which had evidently been freshly lit, and then burnt down to ashes. The dust indicated that the place hadn’t been used for a week or so.”
“Did Helen Monteith make any statement to you about that gun?” the coroner asked.
“Yes, she did,” the sheriff said. “That was only today.”
“Now, just a moment,” the district attorney inquired. “Was that statement made as a free and voluntary statement, and without any promises or inducements of any kind having been offered to her?”
“That’s right,” the sheriff said. “You asked her if she’d ever seen the gun before, and she said she had. She said she’d taken it at the request of her husband, and bought some shells for it; that she’d given him the gun and shells on Saturday, the third of September.”
“Did she say who her husband was?” the district attorney inquired.
“Yes, she said the man she referred to as her husband was Fremont C. Sabin.”
“Any questions anyone wants to ask of the sheriff?” the coroner inquired.
“No questions,” Mason said.
“I think that’s all for the moment,” the district attorney said.
The coroner said, “I’m going to call Helen Monteith to the witness stand.” He turned to the coroner’s jury and said, “I don’t suppose Mr. Mason will want his client to make any statement at this time. She’ll probably decline to answer any questions, because she’s being held in the detention ward on the suspicion of murder, but I’m going to at least get the records straight by letting you gentlemen take a look at her and hearing what she says when she refuses to answer.”
Helen Monteith came forward, was sworn, and took the witness stand.
Mason said to the coroner, “Contrary to what you apparently expect, I am not advising Miss Monteith to refuse to answer questions. In fact, I am going to suggest that Miss Monteith turn to the jury and tell her story in her own way.”
Helen Monteith faced the jury. There was extreme weariness in her manner, but also a certain defiance, and a certain pride. She told of the man who had entered the library, making her acquaintance, an acquaintance which ripened into friendship, and then into love. She told of their marriage; of the weekend honeymoon spent in the cabin in the mountains. Bit by bit she reconstructed the romance for the jury, and the shock which she had experienced when she had learned of the tragic aftermath.
Raymond Sprague fairly lunged at her, in his eagerness to cross-examine. “You took that gun from the museum exhibit?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you do it?”
“My husband asked me for a gun.”
“Why didn’t you buy a gun?”
“He told me he needed one right away, and that, under the law, no store would deliver one for a period of three days after he’d ordered it.”
“Did he say why he wanted the gun?”
“No.”
“You knew it was stealing to take that gun?”
“I wasn’t stealing it, I was borrowing it.”
“Oh, Sabin promised to return it, did he?”
“Yes.”
“And you want this jury to understand that Fremont C. Sabin deliberately asked you to steal the gun, with which he was killed, from a collection?”
Mason said, “Don’t answer that, Miss Monteith. You just testify to facts. I think the jury will understand you, all right.”
Sprague turned savagely to Mason and said, “I thought we weren’t going to have any technicalities.”
“We aren’t,” Mason assured him smilingly.
“That’s a technical objection.”
“It isn’t an objection at all,” Mason said. “It’s simply an instruction to my client not to answer the question.”
“I demand that she answer it,” the district attorney said to the coroner.
The coroner said, “I think you can question Miss Monteith just about facts, Mr. Sprague. Don’t ask her what she wants the jury to understand.”
Sprague, flushing, said, “How about that parrot?”
“You mean Casanova?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Sabin bought it... that is, that’s what I understood.”
“When?”
“On Friday, the second of September.”
“What did he say when he brought the parrot home?”
“Simply said that he’d always wanted a parrot, and that he’d bought one.”
“And you kept that parrot with you after that?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you on Sunday, the fourth of September?”
“I was with my husband.”
“Where?”
“At Santa Delbarra.”
“You registered in a hotel there?”
“Yes.”
“Under what name?”
“As Mrs. George Wallman, of course.”
“And Fremont C. Sabin was the George Wallman who was there with you?”
“Yes.”
“And did he have this gun there at that time?”
“I guess so. I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”
“Did he say anything about going up to this cabin for the opening of the fishing season?”
“Of course not. He was leading me to believe he was a poor man, looking for work. He told me that Monday was a holiday, but he had some people he wanted to see anyway — so I went home Monday.”
“That was the fifth?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you on Tuesday, the sixth?”
“I was in the library part of the day, and... and part of the day I drove up to the cabin.”
“Oh, you were up at this cabin on Tuesday, the sixth?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“And what did you do up there?”
“Simply drove around and looked at it.”
“And what time was that?”
“About eleven o’clock in the morning.”
“What was the condition of the cabin at the time?”
“It looked just like it had when I’d last left it.”
“Were the shutters down?”
“Yes.”
“Just the same as is shown in that photograph?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear a parrot?”
“No.”
“The cabin seemed deserted?”
“Yes.”
“Did you notice whether there was any car in the garage?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“Just drove around there for a while, and then left.”
“Why did you go up there?”
“I went up to... well, simply to see the place. I had some time off, and I wanted to take a drive, and I thought that was a nice drive.”
“It was quite a long drive, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Now, you understand that the evidence points to the fact that Fremont C. Sabin was killed at approximately ten-thirty or eleven o’clock on the morning of September sixth?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And that he arrived at the cabin on the afternoon of Monday, September fifth?”
“Yes.”
“And did you want the coroner’s jury to understand that you found the cabin with the shutters closed, saw no evidence of any occupancy, heard nothing of a parrot, and did not see Mr. Sabin at that time?”
“That’s right. I found the cabin just as I have described, and I did not see Mr. Sabin. I had no idea he was there. I thought he was in Santa Delbarra, looking for a location for a grocery store.”
Mason said, “I think this witness has given all the information which she has to impart. I think any further questions are in the nature of a cross-examination, and argumentative. There is no new information being elicited. I will advise the coroner and the district attorney that, unless some new phase of the case is gone into, I’m going to advise the witness not to answer any more questions.”
“I’ll open up a new phase of the case,” the district attorney said threateningly. “Who killed that parrot which was kept in your house?”
“I don’t know.”
“This parrot was brought home to you on Friday, the second?”
“That’s right.”
“And on Saturday, the third, you left with your husband?”
“No, my husband left on Saturday afternoon and went to Santa Delbarra. Monday was a holiday. I drove up to Santa Delbarra Sunday, and spent Sunday night and Monday morning with him in the hotel. I returned Monday night to San Molinas. My next-door neighbor, Mrs. Winters, had been keeping the parrot. I arrived too late in the evening to call for it. The next day, Tuesday, the sixth, I didn’t have to be at the library until three o’clock in the afternoon. I wanted to be away from people. I got up early in the morning, and drove to the cabin, and returned in time to go directly to the library at three o’clock.”
“Isn’t it a fact,” the district attorney persisted, “that you returned to your house at an early hour this morning for the purpose, among other things, of killing the parrot which was in the house, the parrot which your next-door neighbor, Mrs. Winters, had kept while you spent your so-called honeymoon with the person whom you have referred to as your husband, in this mountain cabin?”
“That is not a fact. I didn’t even know the parrot was dead until the sheriff told me.”
The district attorney said, “I think perhaps I can refresh your recollection upon this subject, Miss Monteith.”
He turned and nodded to his deputy, a young man who was standing near the doorway. The deputy stepped outside long enough to pick up a bundle covered with cloth, then hurried down the aisle, past the rows of twisted-necked spectators, to deliver the bundle to Sprague.
District Attorney Sprague dramatically whipped away the cloth. A gasp sounded from the spectators as they saw what the cloth had concealed — a bloodstained parrot cage, on the floor of which lay the stiff body of a dead parrot, its head completely severed.
“That,” the district attorney said dramatically, “is your handiwork, isn’t it, Miss Monteith?”
She swayed slightly in the witness chair. “I feel giddy,” she said. “... Please take that away... The blood...”
The district attorney turned to the spectators and announced triumphantly, “The killer quails when confronted with evidence of her...”
“She does no such thing,” Mason roared, getting to his feet and striding belligerently toward Sprague. “This young woman has been subject to inhuman treatment. Within the short space of twenty-four hours, she has learned that the man whom she loved, and whom she regarded as her husband, was killed. No sympathy was offered her in her hour of bereavement. Instead of sympathy being extended, she was dragged out into the pitiless glare of publicity and...”
“Are you making a speech?” the district attorney interrupted.
Mason said, “No, I’m finishing yours.”
“I’m perfectly capable of finishing my own,” the district attorney shouted.
“You try to finish that speech you started,” Mason told him, “and you’ll...”
The coroner’s gavel banged. The sheriff, jumping from his seat, came striding forward.
“We’re going to have order,” the coroner said.
“You can have it from me,” Mason told him, “if you keep the district attorney from making speeches. The facts of the matter are that this young woman, who has been subjected to a nerve strain well calculated to make her hysterical, is suddenly confronted with a gruesome, gory spectacle. Her natural repugnance is interpreted by the district attorney as an indication of guilt. That’s his privilege. But when he starts making a speech about it...”
“I didn’t make a speech about it,” the district attorney said.
“Well,” the coroner observed, “we’re going to have no more speeches made by either side. The coroner is inclined to feel that it’s asking pretty much of any young woman to have a gruesome spectacle like this suddenly thrust in front of her.”
“It was done,” Mason said, “purely as a grandstand, purely for the purpose of capitalizing on Miss Monteith’s overwrought condition.”
“I had no such intention,” the district attorney said.
“What did you have in mind?” the coroner asked.
“I merely wanted to identify the parrot as being the one which had been given to her by her husband on Friday, September second.”
“He can do that,” Mason said, “without throwing all this bloodstained paraphernalia in her lap.”
“I don’t need any suggestions from you,” Sprague said.
The sheriff stepped forward. “If the coroner wants to make any rulings,” he said drily, “I’m here to enforce them.”
“The coroner is going to make a ruling,” Andy Templet announced. “The coroner is going to rule that there’ll be no more personalities exchanged between counsel. The coroner’s also going to rule that there’ll be no more sudden and dramatic production of bloodstained garments, bird cages, or dead birds.”
“But I only wanted to identify the parrot,” the district attorney insisted.
“I heard you the first time,” the coroner told him, “and I hope you heard the coroner. Now, let’s proceed with the inquest.”
“That’s all,” the district attorney said.
“May I ask a question?” Mason inquired.
The coroner nodded assent.
Mason stepped forward and said in a low, kindly voice, “I don’t wish to subject your nerves to any undue strain, Miss Monteith, but I’m going to ask you to try and bring yourself to look at this parrot. I’m going to ask you to study it carefully, and I’m going to ask you whether this is the parrot which your husband brought home to you.”
Helen Monteith made an effort at self-control. She turned and looked down at the lifeless parrot in the cage, then quickly averted her head. “I c-c-can’t,” she said, in a quavering voice, “but the parrot my husband brought home had one claw missing. I think it was from his right foot. My husband said he’d caught the foot in a rat trap, and...”
“ This parrot has no claws missing,” Mason said.
“Then it isn’t the same parrot.”
“Just a moment,” Mason said; “I’m going to ask you to make another identification.”
He nodded a signal to Paul Drake, who, in turn, passed the word to an operative who was waiting in the corridor. The operative came through the door carrying a caged parrot.
Amid a silence so tense that the steps of the detective could be heard as he walked down the carpeted aisle, the caged parrot suddenly broke into shrill laughter.
Helen Monteith’s lips quivered. Apparently she was restraining herself from hysteria by a supreme effort.
Mason took the caged parrot from the operative. “Hush, Polly,” he said.
The parrot twisted its head first to one side, then the other, leered about him at the courtroom with twinkling, wicked little eyes; then, as Mason set the cage on the table, the bird hooked its beak on the cross-wires of the cage, and completely circled it, walking over the top, head downward, to return to the perch as though proud of the accomplishment.
“Nice Polly,” Mason said.
The parrot shuffled its feet on the perch.
Helen Monteith turned to regard the parrot. “Why,” she said, “that’s Casanova... The sheriff told me he’d been killed.”
The parrot, tucking its head slightly to one side, said in a low, throaty voice, “Come in and sit down, won’t you? Come in and sit down, take that chair... Squawk... Squawk... Put down that gun, Helen... don’t shoot... Squawk... Squawk... My God, you’ve shot me.”
The spectators stared wide-eyed at the drama of the parrot apparently accusing the witness.
“ That’s Casanova!” Helen Monteith exclaimed.
The district attorney said dramatically, “I want the words of this parrot in the record. The parrot is accusing the witness. I want the record to show it.”
Mason regarded the district attorney with a half smile twisting his lips. “Do I understand,” he inquired, “that you’re adopting this parrot as your witness?”
“The parrot has made a statement. I want it in the record,” the district attorney insisted.
“But the parrot hasn’t been sworn as a witness,” Mason observed.
The district attorney appealed to the coroner. “The parrot has made a statement. It was a plainly audible statement.”
“I would like to know,” Mason said, “whether the district attorney is making the parrot his witness.”
“I’m not talking about witnesses,” Sprague countered. “I’m talking about parrots. This parrot made a statement. I want it in the record.”
“If the parrot is to be a witness,” Mason said, “I should have some right of cross-examination.”
“Well,” the coroner ruled, “a parrot can’t be a witness, but the parrot did say something. What those words were can be put in the record for what they’re worth. I think the coroner’s jury understands the situation thoroughly. I never did believe in putting things in a record and then striking them out. When jurors hear things, they’ve heard them, and that’s that. Now, go on with the inquest.”
“I think that’s all the questions I have,” Mason said.
“That’s all,” Sprague said, “except... wait a minute... Miss Monteith, if this parrot is Casanova, then where did the parrot come from that was killed?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“It was in your house.”
“I can’t help that.”
“You must have had something to do with it.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you’re certain this is Casanova?”
“Yes. I can identify him by that claw that’s missing, and by what he said about dropping the gun.”
“Oh, you’ve heard that before, have you?”
“Yes. My husband commented on it when he brought the bird home with him.”
The district attorney said, “Miss Monteith, I’m not satisfied that your violent emotional reaction when this dead parrot was brought before you is purely the result of a nervous condition. Now, I’m going to insist that you look closely at this parrot and...”
Mason got to his feet and said, “You don’t need to look at that parrot, Miss Monteith.”
Sprague flushed and said, “I insist that she does.”
“And I insist that she doesn’t,” Mason said. “Miss Monteith is not going to answer any more questions. She’s been a witness. She’s under a great emotional strain. I think the jury will understand my position as her attorney in announcing that she has now completed her testimony. She has given the district attorney and the coroner an opportunity to ask her all reasonable questions. I am not going to have the examination unduly prolonged.”
“He can’t do that,” Sprague said to the coroner.
“I’ve already done it,” Mason told him.
The coroner said, “I don’t know whether he can or not, but I know that this young woman is nervous. I don’t think you’re making proper allowance for that condition, Sprague. Under ordinary circumstances, a widow is given condolences and sympathy. She’s particularly spared from any nerve shock. This witness certainly has been subjected to a series of trying experiences during the last twenty-four hours. As far as the coroner is concerned, she’s going to be excused. We’re trying to complete this inquest at one sitting. I’m getting facts, that’s all. And I want to keep moving. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to ask her questions before the Grand Jury, and on the witness stand... I’m going to ask Mrs. Helen Watkins Sabin to come forward as a witness.”
“She ain’t here,” the sheriff said.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t been able to serve a subpoena on her.”
“How about Steven Watkins?”
“The same with him.”
“Is Waid here, the secretary?”
“Yes. He’s been subpoenaed and is here.”
“Well, let’s hear from Sergeant Holcomb,” the coroner said. “Sergeant Holcomb, come forward and be sworn, please.”
Sergeant Holcomb took the witness stand. The coroner said, “Now, you’re a sergeant on the homicide squad of the Metropolitan Police, aren’t you, Sergeant, and you know all about the investigation of murder cases, and the scientific method of apprehending criminals?”
“That’s right,” Sergeant Holcomb admitted.
“Now you got this box with the creel of fish in it, that Sheriff Barnes sent in?”
“Yes, that was received at the technical laboratory of the police department. We had previously received a telephone call from Sheriff Barnes about it.”
“What did you find out about the fish?” the coroner asked.
“We made some tests,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I didn’t make the tests myself, but I was present when they were made, and know what the experts found.”
“What did they find?”
“They found that there had been a limit of fish in the creel; that the fish were, of course, badly decomposed, but, as nearly as could be ascertained, the fish had been cleaned and wrapped in willow leaves. They had not been washed after being wrapped in willow leaves.”
“And you went up to the cabin with Sheriff Barnes the next day?”
“That’s right. Sheriff Barnes wanted me to see the cabin, and we were to meet Richard Waid there. He was coming on from New York by plane, and we wanted to meet him in a place where our first conversation wouldn’t be interrupted by newspaper reporters.”
“All right, go on,” the coroner said.
“Well,” Holcomb observed, “we went to the cabin. We met Mr. Mason on the road up to the cabin. Richard Waid came while we were there at the cabin.”
“What did you find at the cabin, in the line of physical conditions?” the coroner asked.
“Just about the same as has been described.”
“At this time,” the coroner said, “I think the jury had better take a look at all of these photographs, because I’m going to ask Sergeant Holcomb some questions about them.”
The coroner waited while the photographs were passed around to the jurors, then turned back to Sergeant Holcomb.
“Sergeant Holcomb,” he said, “I want to give the members of this jury the benefit of your experience. I want you to tell them what the various things in that cabin indicate.”
The coroner glanced down at Perry Mason and said, “I suppose you may object that this is a conclusion of the witness, but it seems to me this man has had a lot of experience, and I don’t know why he shouldn’t...”
“Not at all,” Mason said. “I think it’s a very wise question. I think it’s a perfectly proper way of getting at the ultimate facts of the case.”
Sergeant Holcomb shifted himself to an easier position in the witness chair, gazed impressively at the jury, and said, “Helen Monteith killed Fremont C. Sabin. There are dozens of things which would be sufficient to establish an absolutely ironclad case against her, before any jury. First, she had motive. Sabin had married her under an assumed name; he had placed her in the position of being a bigamous wife. He had lied to her, tricked her, and deceived her. When she found out that the man she had married was Fremont C. Sabin, and that Sabin had a wife very much alive at the moment, she shot him. She probably didn’t intend to shoot him when she went to the cabin. Our experience has been that, in emotional murders of this nature, a woman frequently takes a gun for the purpose of threatening a man, for the purpose of frightening him, or for the purpose of making him believe that she isn’t to be trifled with; then, having pointed the gun at him, it’s a simple matter to pull the trigger, an almost unconscious reflex, a momentary surrender to emotion. The effects, of course, are disastrous.
“Second, Helen Monteith had the murder weapon in her possession. Her statement that she gave it to her husband is, of course, absurd on the face of it. The crime could not have been suicide. The man didn’t move from the time he fell to the floor. The gun was found some distance away, and was wiped clean of fingerprints.
“Third, she admits having been present at the cabin at the exact moment Sabin was murdered. She, therefore, combines motive, means and opportunity.”
“How do you fix that exact moment of the murder?” the coroner asked.
“It’s a matter of making correct deductions from circumstantial evidence,” Sergeant Holcomb said.
“Just a minute,” Mason interrupted. “Wouldn’t it be better to let the sergeant tell the jury the various factors which control the time element in this case, and let the jurors judge for themselves?”
“I don’t know,” the coroner admitted. “I’m trying to expedite matters as much as possible.”
Sergeant Holcomb said, “It would be absolutely foolish to resort to any such procedure. The interpretation of circumstantial evidence is something which calls for a highly specialized training. There are some things from which even the layman can make logical deductions, but on a complicated matter it requires years of experience. I have had that experience, and I am properly qualified to interpret the evidence for the jury. Therefore, I say that Fremont C. Sabin met his death sometime between ten o’clock in the morning and around noon, on Tuesday, the sixth day of September.”
“Now, just explain to the jury how you interpret the evidence so as to fix the time,” the coroner said.
“First, we go back to known facts, and reason from them,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “We know that Fremont C. Sabin intended to go to his cabin on Monday, the fifth, in order to take advantage of the opening of fishing season on the sixth. We know that he actually did go there; we know that he was alive at ten o’clock in the evening of the fifth, because he talked with his secretary on the telephone. We know that he went to bed, that he wound the alarm clock and set the alarm. We know that the alarm went off at five-thirty. We know that he arose, went out, and caught a limit of fish. It is problematical how long it would take him to catch a limit, but, in discussing fishing conditions with other anglers on the creek, it would seem that with the utmost good fortune he could not possibly have caught a limit before nine-thirty o’clock. He returned to the cabin, then, at between ten and eleven in the morning. He had already had a breakfast, two eggs, probably scrambled, some bacon and some coffee. He was once more hungry. He opened a can of beans, warmed those up and ate them. He did this before he even bothered to put his fish in the icebox. He left his fish in the creel, intending to put them in the icebox as soon as he had washed them. But he was hungry enough to want to finish with his lunch before he put the fish away. In the ordinary course of things, he would have put those fish away immediately after he had eaten, probably before he had even washed his dishes. He didn’t do that.”
“Why don’t you place the time as being later than noon?” the coroner asked.
“Those are the little things,” Sergeant Holcomb said, with very evident pride, “which a trained investigator notices, and which others don’t. Now, the body was clothed in a light sweater and slacks. From the observations which I made on the temperature in that cabin, I found that it varies quite sharply. The shade is such that the sun doesn’t get on the roof good until after eleven o’clock. Thereafter it heats up very rapidly until about four o’clock, when once more shade strikes the roof, and it cools off quite rapidly thereafter, becoming cold at night.
“Now, there was a fire laid in the fireplace. That fire hadn’t been lit, which shows that it wasn’t late enough in the evening for it to have become cold. From noon until around four in the afternoon, it would have been too hot for a person to have been comfortable in a sweater. The records show that the fifth, sixth and seventh were three very warm days — that is, it was warm during the daytime. Up there at that elevation it cooled off quite rapidly at night. It was necessary to have a fire in the evening, in order to keep from being uncomfortably cool. That cabin, you understand, is just a mountain cabin, rather light in construction, and not insulated against conditions of temperature, as a house in the city would be.”
“I see,” the coroner remarked approvingly. “Then you feel that Mr. Sabin must have returned and had his second breakfast — or lunch — before the sun got on the roof?”
“That’s right.”
“I think that covers the situation very comprehensively,” the coroner said.
“May I ask a question or two?” Mason inquired.
“Certainly.”
“How do you know,” Mason asked, “that Mr. Sabin didn’t meet his death, say, for instance, on Wednesday, the seventh, instead of on the sixth?”
“Partially, from the condition of the body,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The body had been there at least six days. Probably, seven. In the heat and closeness of the room, decomposition had been quite rapid. Moreover, there’s another reason. The decedent had had a breakfast of bacon and eggs. Mr. Sabin was an enthusiastic fisherman. He went up to the cabin for the purpose of being there on the opening morning of fishing season. It is inconceivable that he would have gone fishing on that first morning and not caught at least some fish. If he had caught them, there would have been evidences that he’d eaten them for breakfast the next morning instead of bacon and eggs. There were no remains of fish anywhere in the garbage pail, nor in the garbage pit in the back of the house, to which the contents of the garbage pail were transferred each day.”
And Sergeant Holcomb smiled at the jury, as much as to say, “That shows how easy it is to avoid a lawyer’s trap.”
“Very well,” Mason said, “Let’s look at it from another angle. The fire was laid in the fireplace, but hadn’t been lit, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Now, it’s rather chilly there in the mornings?”
“Quite chilly.”
“And at night?”
“Yes.”
“Now, according to your theory, the alarm went off at five-thirty, and Mr. Sabin got up to go fishing, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And cooked himself rather a sketchy breakfast?”
“A hasty breakfast, you could call it,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “When a person gets up at five-thirty in the morning on the opening day of the season, he’s anxious to get out and get the fish.”
“I see,” Mason said. “Now, when Mr. Sabin came back from his fishing trip, he was in very much of a hurry to get something to eat. We may assume that the first thing he did when he entered the house, and immediately after removing his boots, was to get himself something to eat. Next in order of importance would have been washing the fish and putting them in the icebox. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Yet, according to your theory,” Mason said, “after he got back, he took enough time to lay the fire in the fireplace, all ready for lighting, before he even took care of his fish.”
Sergeant Holcomb’s face clouded for a moment, then he said, “No, he must have done that the night before.” Having thought a minute, he added, triumphantly, “Of course, he did it the night before. He didn’t have any occasion for a fire in the morning: it was cold when he got up, but he went right out in the kitchen and cooked his breakfast, and then went out fishing.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “But he had reason for a fire the night before, I believe.”
“What do you mean?”
“In other words,” Mason said, “we know that he was at the cabin at four o’clock on the afternoon of Monday, the fifth. We can surmise that he remained at the cabin until shortly before ten o’clock in the evening, when he went out to place a phone call. If it was cold Monday evening, why didn’t he light a fire?”
“He did,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “He must have. There’s no evidence to show that he didn’t.”
“Exactly,” Mason went on. “But when the body was found, a fresh fire was laid in the fireplace. Now, according to your theory, he either laid that fire Monday night, in a grate that had just been used — or else he laid it the next day, after he got back from fishing. That is, he took time to lay the fire before he even took care of his fish. Does that seem logical to you?”
Sergeant Holcomb hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, that’s one of those little things. That doesn’t cut so much ice. Lots of times you’ll find little things which are more or less inconsistent with the general interpretation of evidence.”
“I see,” Mason said. “And when you encounter such little things, what do you do, Sergeant?”
“You just ignore ’em,” Sergeant Holcomb said.
“And how many such little things have you ignored in reaching your conclusion that Fremont C. Sabin was murdered by Helen Monteith?”
“That’s the only one,” Sergeant Holcomb said.
“Very well, let’s look at the evidence from a slightly different angle. Take the alarm clock, for instance. The alarm was run down, was it not?”
“Yes.”
“And where was this alarm clock placed?”
“On the shelf by the bed — or rather on a little table by the bed.”
“Quite close to the sleeper?”
“Yes.”
“Within easy reaching distance?”
“Yes.”
“And, by the way,” Mason said, “the bed was made, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“In other words, then, after getting up in the morning, at five-thirty, to go fishing, Mr. Sabin stopped long enough to lay a fire in the fireplace, long enough to make his bed, long enough to wash his breakfast dishes?”
Sergeant Holcomb said, “Well, it wouldn’t take a man so very long to make his bed.”
“By the way,” Mason inquired, “did you notice whether there were clean sheets on the bed?”
“Yes, there were.”
“Then, he not only must have made the bed, but must have changed the sheets. Did you find the soiled linen anywhere in the cabin, Sergeant?”
“I don’t remember,” Sergeant Holcomb said.
“There are no laundry facilities there. The soiled laundry is taken down in Mr. Sabin’s car and laundered in the city, and returned to the cabin from time to time?”
“I believe that’s right, yes.”
“Then what became of the soiled sheets?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know,” Sergeant Holcomb said irritably. “You can’t always connect up all these little things.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “Now, let’s get back to the alarm clock, Sergeant. The alarm was entirely run down?”
“That’s right.”
“The clock had a shut-off on it, by which the alarm could be shut off while it was sounding?”
“Yes, of course, all good clocks have that.”
“Yes; and this was a good clock?”
“Yes.”
“Yet the alarm had not been shut off?”
“I didn’t notice... well, no, I guess not. It was completely run down.”
“Yes,” Mason said. “Now, is it your experience, Sergeant, as an expert interpreter of circumstantial evidence, that a sleeper permits an alarm to run entirely down before shutting it off?”
“Some people sleep more soundly than others,” Sergeant Holcomb said.
“Exactly,” Mason agreed, “but when a man is aroused by an alarm clock, his first natural reflex is to turn off the alarm — that is, if the alarm is within reaching distance, isn’t that right?”
“Well, you can’t always figure that way,” Sergeant Holcomb said, his face slowly darkening in color. “Some people go back to sleep after they shut off an alarm, so they deliberately put the alarm clock where they can’t get at it.”
“I understand that,” Mason said, “but in this case the alarm was placed within easy reach of the sleeper, apparently for the purpose of enabling the sleeper to shut off the alarm clock just as soon as it had wakened him, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“But that wasn’t done?”
“Well, some persons sleep sounder than others.”
“You mean that he wasn’t wakened until after the alarm had run down?”
“Yes.”
“But after an alarm runs down, it ceases to make any sound, does it not, Sergeant?”
“Oh, all that stuff isn’t getting you anywhere,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The alarm was run down. He certainly got up. He didn’t lie there and sleep, did he? He got up and went out and caught a limit of fish. Maybe the alarm ran down and didn’t wake him up, and he woke up half an hour later, with a start, realizing that he’d overslept.”
“And then,” Mason said with a smile, “despite that realization, he paused to get himself breakfast, washed the breakfast dishes, made the bed, changed the sheets on the bed, laid the fire in the fireplace, and took the soiled bedclothes in his car down to the city to be laundered. Then he drove back to go fishing.”
Sergeant Holcomb said, “All that stuff is absurd.”
“ Why is it absurd?” Mason asked.
Sergeant Holcomb sat in seething silence.
Mason said, “Well, Sergeant, since you seem to be unable to answer that question, let’s get back to the alarm clock. As I remember it, you made some experiments with similar alarm clocks, didn’t you, to find out how long it would take them to run down?”
“We made experiments with that same alarm clock,” the sergeant said. “We made experiments with other alarm clocks and we wired the manufacturer.”
“What did you find out?” Mason asked.
“According to the manufacturer, the alarm clocks would run down thirty to thirty-six hours after they’d been completely wound. According to an experiment we made with that clock, it ran down in thirty-two hours and twenty minutes after it was wound.”
“In that case,” Mason said, “the alarm clock must have been wound about twenty minutes after six o’clock, is that right?”
“Well, what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Mason said. “I’m simply asking you to interpret the evidence for the benefit of the jury, which is the thing you set out to do, Sergeant.”
“Well, all right, then the clock was wound at twenty minutes past six. What of it?”
“Would you say at twenty minutes past six in the morning, or at twenty minutes past six in the evening?” Mason asked.
“In the evening,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The alarm went off at five-thirty. He wouldn’t have wound the alarm clock in the morning, and if he had, he’d have wound up the alarm again. It was wound up at six-twenty in the evening.”
“That’s fine,” Mason said, “that’s exactly the point I’m making, Sergeant. Now, you have examined the long distance telephone bills covering calls which were put in from that cabin?”
“I have.”
“And you found, did you not, that the last call listed was one which was placed at four o’clock in the afternoon, on Monday, the fifth of September, to Randolph Bolding, examiner of questioned documents?”
“That’s right.”
“And you talked with Mr. Bolding about that call?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mr. Bolding know Mr. Sabin personally?”
“Yes.”
“And did you ask him whether he recognized Mr. Sabin’s voice?”
“Yes, I did. He knew it was Sabin with whom he was talking. He’d done some work for Sabin before.”
“And Sabin asked him about some conclusions he had reached on some checks which had been given him?”
“Yes.”
“And Bolding told him that, of course, the checks were forgeries; that he hadn’t yet decided whether the endorsements on the back were in the same handwriting as the specimen which had been furnished him. And didn’t he say he was inclined to think they were not?”
“Yes, I gathered that.”
“And what else did Mr. Sabin say?”
“Mr. Sabin said he was going to send him another envelope, containing half a dozen more specimens of handwriting from five or six different people.”
“Was that envelope received by Mr. Bolding?”
“It was not.”
“Therefore, Mr. Sabin never had an opportunity to mail that letter?”
“So it would seem.”
“Now, let us return for the moment to the identity of the murderer. We now understand that Mr. Sabin suspected Steve Watkins of having forged checks in a very large amount. A handwriting expert was checking Watkins’ handwriting. Now, if Watkins had been guilty, what’s more natural than for him to have tried to silence Mr. Sabin’s lips by murder?”
Sergeant Holcomb’s lips curled in a sneer. “Simply because,” he said, “Watkins has a perfect alibi. Watkins left in an airplane, in the presence of a reputable witness, shortly after ten o’clock on the night of Monday the fifth, for New York. Every moment of his time is accounted for.”
“Exactly,” Mason said, “ If we act on the assumption that Fremont C. Sabin was murdered on Tuesday, the sixth, but the trouble with your reasoning, Sergeant, is that there is nothing to indicate he was not murdered on the fifth.”
“On the fifth?” Sergeant Holcomb exclaimed. “Impossible. The fishing season didn’t open until the sixth, and Fremont Sabin would never have fished before the season opened.”
“No,” Mason said, “I daresay he wouldn’t. I believe it’s a misdemeanor, isn’t it, Sergeant?”
“Yes.”
“And murder is a felony?”
Sergeant Holcomb disdained to answer the question.
“Therefore,” Mason said, “a murderer would have no conscientious scruples whatever against catching a limit of fish on the day before the season opened. Now, Sergeant, can you kindly tell the coroner, and this jury, what there is about your reasoning any stronger than a string of fish?”
Sergeant Holcomb stared at Perry Mason with startled eyes.
“In other words,” Mason said, “having arrived at the conclusion Helen Monteith murdered Fremont C. Sabin at eleven o’clock in the morning, on Tuesday, the sixth of September, you have interpreted all the evidence on the premises to support your conclusions; but a fair and impartial appraisement indicates that Fremont C. Sabin was murdered sometime around four o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, September the fifth, and that the murderer, knowing that it would be some time before the body was discovered, took steps to throw the police off the track and manufacture a perfect alibi by the simple expedient of going down to the stream, catching a limit of fish, the afternoon before the season opened, and leaving those fish in the creel.
“And in order to justify that conclusion, Sergeant, you don’t have to disregard any ‘insignificant’ details. In other words, there were fresh sheets on the bed, because the bed had not been slept in. The alarm clock ran down at two forty-seven because the murderer left the cabin at approximately six-twenty o’clock in the afternoon, at which time he wound the alarm clock, after having carefully planted all the other bits of evidence. The reason the alarm which went off at five-thirty the next morning wasn’t shut off is because the only occupant of that cabin was dead. And the reason the murderer was so solicitous about the welfare of the parrot was that he wanted the parrot to perjure itself by reciting the lines which the murderer had been at some pains to teach it — ‘Put down that gun, Helen... don’t shoot... My God, you’ve shot me.’ The fire was laid in the fireplace because Sabin hadn’t had reason to light it that afternoon. He was wearing a sweater because the sun had just got off the roof and it was cooling off, but he was murdered before it had become cool enough to light the fire.
“Sabin let the murderer in, because the murderer was someone whom he knew, yet Sabin had reason to believe he was in some danger. He had secured a gun from his wife, in order to protect himself. The murderer also had a gun which he intended to use, but after he entered the cabin he saw this derringer lying on the table near the bed, and he immediately realized the advantage of killing Sabin with that gun rather than with the one he’d brought. The murderer had only to pick it up and shoot. Now then, Sergeant, will you kindly tell me what is wrong with that theory? Will you kindly interpret any of the evidence to indicate that it is erroneous, and will you please explain to the jury why your whole fine-spun thread of accusation depends on nothing stronger than a string of fish?”
Sergeant Holcomb squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, then blurted out, “Well, I don’t believe Steve Watkins did it. That’s just an out you’ve thought of to protect Helen Monteith.”
“But what’s wrong with that theory?” Mason asked.
“Everything,” Sergeant Holcomb asserted.
“Point out one single inconsistency between it and the known facts.”
Sergeant Holcomb suddenly started to laugh. “How,” he demanded, “could Sabin have been killed at four o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, the fifth of September, and yet call his secretary on the long distance telephone, at ten o’clock in the evening of the fifth, and tell him everything was okay?”
“He couldn’t,” Mason admitted, “for the very good reason that he didn’t.”
“Well, that shoots your theory full of holes,” Sergeant Holcomb announced triumphantly. “... Er... that is...”
“Exactly,” Mason said; “as you have so suddenly realized, Sergeant, Richard Waid is the murderer.”
Sheriff Barnes jumped to his feet. “Where’s Richard Waid?” he asked.
The spectators exchanged blank glances. Two of the people near the door said, “If he was that young chap who was sitting in this chair, he got up and went out about two minutes ago.”
The coroner said suddenly, “I’m going to adjourn this inquest for half an hour.”
A hubbub of excited voices filled the room where the inquest was being held; chairs overturned as those nearest the door went rushing out pell-mell to the sidewalk. Sheriff Barnes, calling to one of his deputies, said, “Get on the teletype, watch every road out of town, get the city police to call all cars.”
Mason turned to Helen Monteith and grinned. “That,” he said, “I fancy, will be about all.”