The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece (6 page)

"But the knife!" she half screamed as he lowered his hand from her lips. "It's all b-b-b-bloody! You can see what's h-h-h-happened. Oh, I'm so f-f-f-frightened!"

"Forget it," Mason told her. "Having hysterics isn't going to help. Let's get busy and find out where we stand. Come on."

He strode out into the corridor, walked down to the door of his room, tried it, found it locked, banged on it, and, after a moment, heard the sound of heavy steps, the clicking of a bolt, and Dr. Kelton, his face covered with lather, a shaving brush held in his right hand, said, "I'm already up, if that's what you came for. The smell of broiling bacon filters through that window and…"

"That," Mason told him, "isn't what we came for. Get the lather off your face and come in here. You don't need to put on a shirt, just come the way you are."

Dr. Kelton stared steadily at Mason for a moment, then went to the washstand, splashed water on his face, wiped off the lather with a towel, and, still drying his face and hands, accompanied them across the corridor to Peter Kent's room. Mason raised the pillow. Dr. Kelton leaned over to stare at the bloody blade, so eloquent in its silent accusation. Kelton gave a low whistle.

"It'll be Maddox," Edna Hammer said, her voice hysterical. "You know how Uncle Pete felt toward him. He went to bed last night with that thought in his mind… Oh, hurry, let's go to his room at once! Perhaps he isn't dead – just wounded. If Uncle Pete was groping about in the dark… perhaps he…" She broke off with a quick, gasping intake of her breath.

Mason nodded, turned toward the door. "Lead the way," he ordered.

She led them down the corridor, down a flight of stairs, into a corridor on the opposite wing of the house. She paused in front of a door, raised her hand to knock and said, "Oh, no, I forgot Maddox changed rooms with Uncle Phil. Maddox is over here."

"Who's Uncle Phil?" Dr. Kelton asked.

"Philip Rease, Uncle Pete's half-brother. He's something of a crank. He thought there was a draught across his bed and asked Maddox to change rooms with him last night."

She moved down to another door, knocked gently and, when there was no answer, glanced apprehensively at Perry Mason and slowly reached for the door knob. "Wait a minute," Mason said; "perhaps I'd better do this." He pushed her gently to one side, twisted the knob and opened the door. The room was on the north side of the corridor. French doors opened onto a cemented porch some eighteen inches above the patio. Drapes were drawn across these windows so that the morning light filtered into the room, disclosing indistinctly a motionless object lying on the bed. Mason stepped forward and said over his shoulder to Dr. Kelton, "Be careful you don't touch anything, Doctor."

Edna Hammer came forward a doubtful step or two then walking rapidly to Perry Mason's side, clung to his arm. Mason bent over the bed. Abruptly the figure below him stirred. Mason jumped back. Frank Maddox, sitting up in bed, stared at them with wide eyes, then, as his surprise gave way to indignation, he demanded, "What the devil's the meaning of this?"

Mason said, "We came to call you for breakfast."

"You've got a crust," Maddox said, "invading the privacy of my room this way. What the devil are you trying to do? If you've been through any of my private papers, I'll have you arrested. I might have known that Kent would resort to any underhanded tactics. He poses as a big-hearted, magnanimous individual, but it's all pose with him. Dig below the surface, and you'll find out just what a damn skunk he is."

Mason said in a low voice, "How about Mrs. Fogg, Maddox – is she a skunk, too?"

Maddox's face showed sudden dismay. After a moment he said, "So you know about her?"

"Yes."

"And that's what you came to see me about?"

"On the contrary," Mason said, "we came to call you for breakfast. Come on, let's go."

"Wait a minute."

Maddox thrust his feet out from under the covers, groped for his slippers. "About this Fogg business, Mason, don't believe everything you hear. There are two sides to that."

"Yes," Mason remarked, "and there are two sides to a piece of hot toast. Right now I'm interested in both of them. We'll discuss the Fogg matter later."

He led the way from the room, holding the door open until the others had stepped into the corridor, then pulling the door shut behind him with a bang. "What's the Fogg case?" Edna Hammer asked.

"An ace I was keeping up my sleeve; but when he started making a fuss I had to play it. He'll be a good dog now."

"But what is it?" she asked. "If it concerns Uncle Pete, I…"

"While we're here," Mason said, "I think we may just as well take a complete census."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's just make certain none of the others are – indisposed. Who sleeps here?"

"Mr. Duncan."

Mason pounded his knuckles on the door. A booming voice said suspiciously, "Who is it?"

Mason smiled at Dr. Kelton and said, "Notice the legal training, Jim. When I knocked at your door you opened it. When I knock at a lawyer's door he wants to know who it is."

"Perhaps he's hardly presentable to ladies," Dr. Kelton pointed out, but Duncan, fully dressed, even to his necktie and scarf pin, flung open the door, saw who it was, and glowered at them in belligerent appraisal.

"Well," he asked, "what do you want?"

"First call for breakfast," Mason told him.

"Is this," Duncan asked, adjusting his spectacles, and raising his head so that he could regard them through the lower part of the bifocals, "a new innovation which Mr. Kent has instituted?"

"You may consider it such," Mason replied, turning away from the door.

"This room," he asked Edna, "is, I suppose, where your Uncle Phil sleeps." He indicated the door before which she had first paused.

"Yes. Maddox slept there until last night, then Uncle Phil changed with him."

"Well," he said, "let's call your Uncle Phil."

He tapped on the panels. There was no answer, and he tapped more loudly. Duncan, who had been standing in his doorway, came striding out into the corridor and said, "What's the big idea?"

Mason, his face showing a puzzled expression, pounded loudly with his knuckles, turned the knob, opened the door and entered the room. Mason took a single step toward the bed, whirled around, blocked the others in the doorway, and said to Dr. Kelton, "Get that girl out of here."

"What's the matter?" Edna Hammer asked, and then, as she interpreted his silence, screamed.

Duncan, pushing importantly into the room, said, "What's the trouble here? What's happening?"

Maddox, attired in pajamas and slippers, shuffled along the corridor until he joined the group in the doorway. Dr. Kelton, taking Edna Hammer by the arm and pushing her from the room, remarked to the other two, "Just keep out, please." Duncan's big paunch blocked the doorway. Dr. Kelton, also heavily fleshed, but not as big in the stomach, pushed up against Duncan. "Let the woman out," he said.

Duncan shoved. "I've got a right to know what's happening here," he said.

"Let the woman out," Dr. Kelton repeated.

Duncan cleared his throat, continued to shove. Dr. Kelton, slightly lowering his shoulder, braced himself, gave a heave, sent Duncan staggering backwards. Edna Hammer, sobbing into her handkerchief, left the room. Duncan, recovering his balance, pushed through the door, saying, "You saw what he did, Maddox. Let's get at the bottom of this."

Mason, raising his voice, called to Dr. Kelton. "I think you'd better come back, Jim, we'll want a medical man, and I want some witness to see that these two buzzards don't frame anything."

Duncan protested, "Upon behalf of my client, I resent… Oh, my God… Oh, my good God, the man's been murdered!"

Dr. Kelton, walking to the bed, looked down at the blood-stained bedclothes, at the greenish-gray features which stared with glassy eyes half open. He placed his fingers on the sides of the neck, turned to Mason and said, "It's a job for the coroner – and the police."

"We're all getting out of this room," Perry Mason ordered, raising his voice. "A murder's been committed. The Homicide Squad will want things left exactly as they are. Everybody leave the room, please, and don't touch anything."

Duncan, glowering suspiciously, said, "And that applies to you as well as to us."

"Certainly it does."

"Go ahead and get out, then, don't think you can herd me around like a sheep. I don't know what authority you have to take charge of things."

"I suggested," Mason told him, "that we'd all leave the room. If you want to stay, that's quite all right."

He pushed past the paunchy lawyer, said, "Come on, Jim, we've given them warning. If they want to stay in here, they can explain it to the Homicide Squad."

Duncan, suddenly suspicious, grabbed Maddox by the arm. "Come out, Frank," he said, "come on out. He's trying to trap us."

"They knew someone had been murdered. They thought I was the one," Maddox said.

"Come out, come out," Duncan insisted. "We'll talk outside. I have some information, but I'll only give it to the police. Don't let that man Mason frame anything on you, Frank." They scrambled from the room.

"I demand," Duncan said, in the corridor, "that the police be called in immediately."

Perry Mason was moving toward the telephone. "You're not demanding any louder than I am," he retorted. He reached the telephone and called police headquarters, said to the desk sergeant, "There's been a murder committed at the residence of Peter B. Kent. It's in Hollywood at 3824 Lakeview Terrace… This is Perry Mason, the lawyer, talking… I'll explain that when you get here. I've closed up the room. Very well, I'll lock it, if I can find the key."

As Mason turned from the telephone, Dr. Kelton drew him to one side. "There's one angle of this you want to consider, Perry."

"What's that?"

"If," Dr. Kelton pointed out, "your client, Peter Kent, had intended to commit a deliberate murder, he's laid a swell foundation by building up this sleepwalking business."

"What makes you think he planned anything like that, Jim?"

"That shaking act he put on."

Mason suddenly faced Dr. Kelton. "Look here, Jim," he said, "if you don't want to miss all your morning appointments, you'd better get out of here. I'll have to stick around. There's no reason for you to." Dr. Kelton nodded. His face showed relief. "You can," Mason said, "take my car."

"You mean they'll want to bring him back?"

"They'll want to question him."

"Will they want to bring him back?"

"Probably."

"What will I tell them?"

"Tell them that you don't know where he is."

"I'm going to tell them that I spent the night in Santa Barbara and came back on the bus."

Mason squinted his eyes, and said, "I wouldn't advise you to do it."

"But I'm going to do it."

"They'll check up on you."

"They won't have any reason to check up on me. But what will you tell them about Uncle Pete?"

"I," Mason said, "won't tell them a damn thing."

"Won't they make trouble for you?"

"They may try to."

"When will they question me?"

He looked at his watch again. "Almost any minute now. They're examining the room and the body. Duncan's bursting with a desire to spill some information. I don't know what it is. Probably it's something that's only about half as important as he thinks it is. Both he and Maddox hate your Uncle Pete and they hate me. We can't tell just exactly what they'll do nor how far that hatred will take them."

"They wouldn't commit perjury, would they?"

"I wouldn't put it past either one of them. Maddox is a crook. I think Duncan is a pettifogger. They were both trying to shake your uncle down. I stood in the way of that and naturally they resent it."

"But what can they do?"

"I don't know. That remains to be seen. In the meantime I want to put in a telephone call. You hold the fort."

"Okay. But remember I came here in a taxicab after spending the night in Santa Barbara."

"Don't tell them where you spent the night," he warned. "Refuse to do that until after you've consulted me.

"Will that make trouble?" she asked.

"Plenty," he told her, "but anything you can do is going to make trouble. Tell them that where you spent the night doesn't have the faintest bearing on the murder case but does concern your uncle's business affairs. But remember this, sooner or later they're going to put you under oath and then you've got to tell the truth."

"Why?"

"Because they'll prosecute you for perjury if you don't."

"Oh, dear… I'm not going to tell them anything."

"All right," he said cheerfully, "don't tell them anything."

"But you won't give me away?"

"Listen," he said, "any information that they get out of me you can put in your eye. I'm going to telephone." He went to the soundproof telephone closet and called Della Street. "Della," he said, when he heard her voice on the line, "something's happened out here. Get Paul Drake to pick up a couple of good men and come out. They probably won't let him in, but he can hang around and find out as much as he can. Have you heard anything from Santa Barbara?"

"Yes. Jackson telephoned just a few minutes ago. He said he and Mr. Harris took turns watching Doris Kent's house all night; and she didn't go out anywhere, but Jackson has something he wants to tell you personally. He says he doesn't want to tell it over the telephone."

"Why not?"

"He said that it was filled with dynamite."

"Who's watching the house now?"

"I think Mr. Harris is. Jackson said that he kept on duty until some time before midnight, when Harris relieved him, and that Harris wants to be relieved."

"Tell you what you do, Della. I think Drake's agency has a man up in Santa Barbara. Tell Paul to get some photographs of Mrs. Kent, and a good description of her. Then he can contact Harris and take over the job of watching. I want to know when she leaves the house, and, if possible, where she goes. Tell Jackson to get that final decree just as quickly as he can. Tell him to keep you advised by telephone. I'll get the information from you. Have you got that straight?"

"Yes," she said. "What happened out there?"

"A carving knife got stained," he said.

There was a moment of silence during which only the sound of the buzzing wires came to his ears. Then she said, "I see."

"Good girl," Mason told her, and slipped the receiver back on the hook. He left the closet and found Edna Hammer in the hallway.

"Everything okay?" she asked. He nodded. "You're fixing things so Uncle Peter can get married?" she asked.

"I want to do the best I can for my client," he told her.

The eyes which regarded him were filled with shrewd appraisal. "You're a clever lawyer, aren't you?"

"Meaning what?" he asked.

"Meaning," she said, "that I happen to know it's the law of this state that a wife can't testify against her husband. If Uncle Pete and Lucille Mays are married, then she couldn't testify to anything against him, could she?"

Perry Mason raised his eyebrows. "I don't know what she could testify to… Here comes Sergeant Holcomb now."

"Tell me," she said, grasping Perry Mason's wrist with cold fingers, "are you going to stand by Uncle Pete?"

"I always stand by a client."

"How far?"

"If," he said, "your Uncle Pete committed a cold-blooded, deliberate murder, I'm going to tell him to plead guilty or get some other lawyer. If he killed a man while he was sleepwalking I'm going to go the limit for him. Does that satisfy you?"

"But suppose he did commit a cold-blooded, deliberate murder, as you call it?"

"Then he can either plead guilty or get some other attorney to represent him."

"Who's going to decide whether he committed a cold-blooded murder?"

"I am."

"But you're not going to decide hastily. You won't jump at conclusions? Promise me you won't."

"I never do," he said grinning. "Good morning, Sergeant Holcomb."

Sergeant Holcomb, who had been striding down the corridor toward them, looked from Perry Mason to Edna Hammer. His eyes were glittering with suspicion. "It looks very much," he said, "as though you're instructing this young woman what to say."

"So often appearances are deceptive, Sergeant," Perry Mason said suavely. "Miss Hammer, permit me to present Sergeant Holcomb."

The sergeant paid not the slightest attention to the introduction. "How does it happen you're here?" he asked Perry Mason.

"I'm negotiating an agreement between a chap by the name of Maddox, and Mr. Peter Kent."

"And where's Peter Kent?"

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you."

"Why not?"

"It would be betraying the confidence of a client."

"Bosh and nonsense!"

Mason bowed and said, "That's the way you feel about it, Sergeant. I feel that it would be betraying a professional confidence. That means, of course, it's merely another one of those differences of opinion we have so frequently."

"And after you've said that," Sergeant Holcomb said, "then what?"

"After that, I'm quite finished."

"I still don't know where Kent is."

"Doubtless," Mason said, "there are other sources of information available to you."

Holcomb swung to Edna Hammer, "You're his niece?"

"Yes."

"Where's your uncle now?"

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you."

Holcomb's face darkened with rage. "I've sent for Sam Blaine, the deputy district attorney. You two come into the living room." Sergeant Holcomb turned on his heel and strode down the long corridor toward the living room.

"You," Perry Mason told Edna Hammer, "had better tell them the truth."

"I can't."

He shrugged his shoulder, placed his hand under her elbow, walked down to the living room with her. They found the others assembled, a solemn, hushed group. Sergeant Holcomb looked at his watch, said, "Sam Blaine, the deputy district attorney, should be here any minute. I want to ask a few questions. Who's the dead man?"

Duncan, raising his voice, said, "I'm an attorney. I think I can be of some help to you in this. I have some very valuable information."

"Who's the dead man?" Holcomb asked.

"He's Phil Rease, a half-brother of Peter Kent," Maddox answered.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Frank B. Maddox. I'm Mr. Kent's business partner, the President of the Maddox Manufacturing Company of Chicago."

"What are you doing here?"

"Straightening out some business matters with Mr. Kent, and this is Mr. Duncan, my attorney."

"You're the one Mason was dealing with?" Holcomb asked.

"Mr. Mason," Duncan observed pompously, "represented Mr. Kent. He was here last night, and he spent the night in this house. He had a doctor with him. Dr. Kelton, I believe the name was."

Holcomb turned to Mason, asked, "Where's Kelton?"

"He had some important cases. He couldn't wait. Naturally, you can locate him at any time you desire."

Maddox volunteered a statement. "This man, Mason," he said, "Dr. Kelton, and Miss Hammer knew that some one had been murdered. They didn't know who it was. They were prowling around looking us over this morning. They thought I was the one that had the knife stuck in me."

"How did you know someone was murdered, Mason?" Sergeant Holcomb asked.

Mason's eyes widened. "I didn't."

The door opened, and Arthur Coulter, the butler, showed a dapper young man, with eye glasses from which dangled a long, black ribbon, into the room. "Here's Sam Blaine," Sergeant Holcomb said. "He'll take charge of things."

Blaine, freshly shaven, his tan shoes glittering, his white linen gleaming, smiled inclusively, and said, "Just a minute while I get posted." He led Sergeant Holcomb off to a corner where the two conversed for several moments in low tones. When they had finished, Blaine returned, drew up a chair at the head of the table, opened his brief case, produced a notebook and said, "Did any of you hear anything suspicious during the night?"

Duncan cleared his throat importantly. "I'd like to make a statement," he said, "I think I can tell you exactly what happened."

"Who are you?" Blaine asked.

"John J. Duncan, a lawyer."

"Go ahead," Blaine invited.

"Shortly after midnight last night I was wakened by someone walking past the French windows. It was moonlight. The shadow fell across me. I am a very light sleeper. I think the person was barefooted."

"What did you do?"

"I had a glimpse of this person walking past my room. There's a cement porch in front of the French windows. I jumped to my feet and ran to the windows. It was full moon. I saw someone sleepwalking."

"How do you know this person was sleepwalking?" Blaine asked.

"From the manner in which the person was attired, and the peculiar walk. The figure wore a nightgown. The head was thrown back. I knew instantly it was a sleepwalker."

"Was it a man or a woman?"

"Er – Er – well, you see, it was moonlight and…"

"Never mind answering that question now," Blaine said hastily, "what did this person do?"

"Walked across the patio, fumbled around with one of the coffee tables for a minute and raised the lid. Then the figure disappeared through a door in the north side of the patio – a door which enters a corridor."

"You saw this?"

"Very clearly."

"How do you fix the time?"

"By the clock which was by my bed."

"What time was it?"

"Quarter after twelve o'clock. I couldn't get back to sleep for a long time."

Blaine asked Edna, "Are you Miss Edna Hammer?"

"Yes."

"What do you know about this?"

"Nothing."

"Did you see anyone enter your room last night?"

"No."

"Was your door locked or unlocked?"

"Locked. I'm nervous at night. Almost a month ago I had a new spring lock put on my bedroom door. I have the only key to it."

"Did you know someone had been murdered this morning?"

"Certainly not."

"Did you leave your room last night?"

She hesitated and said, "Where I was last night doesn't have any bearing on the matter."

Blaine asked, "Where is Peter Kent?"

"Ask Perry Mason," Sergeant Holcomb said, "he seems to know."

Mason said, "My client, Mr. Kent, is absent on a business matter which has nothing whatever to do with the present situation."

"When did he leave?"

"I can't answer that question without betraying the confidence of a client."

"When's he coming back?"

"I think I can promise that he'll return either late tonight or early tomorrow morning."