“To show that he asked Witherspoon to get him a fishing rod?” Mason asked.
“Yes. I think that’s one of the things he wants.”
Mason said, “You don’t do any fishing, do you, Miss Field?”
“I don’t have time.”
“Do you know very much about fishing rods?”
“No.”
“Is there any chance,” Mason asked, “any chance whatever, no matter how remote, that Burr could have got up out of bed?”
“No chance on earth. Not without cutting the rope which held that weight on his leg, and even then, I doubt if he could have made it. If he had, he’d have put the fracture out of place.”
“The rope wasn’t tampered with?”
“No.”
Mason said, “He didn’t want you touching that bag of his. Is that what caused your discharge?”
“That’s the way the trouble started. He kept that bag by the side of the bed, and was always delving into it, pulling out books and material to tie flies, and things of that sort. I stumbled over that bag every single time I went near the bed. So finally I told him that Id arrange the things out on the dresser where he could see them, and he could point out whatever he wanted, and Id bring it over to him.”
“And he didn’t like that?”
“It seemed to make him furious.”
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing right then, but a half hour later he wanted something, and I stumbled over the bag again. I stooped to pick it up, and he grabbed my arm and almost broke it. I can ordinarily get along with patients, but there are some things I won’t stand. However, I probably would simply have reported it to the doctor and stayed on the job, if it hadn’t been that he ordered me out of the room and told me he’d start throwing things at me if I ever came in again. He even tried to club me with a piece of metal tubing.”
“Where did he get the tubing?” Mason asked.
“It was one he’d had me get for him the night before. It had some papers in it, some blueprints. It was one of those metal tubes such as maps and blueprints come in.”
“Had you seen that on the morning of the murder?”
“Yes”
“Where?”
“He had it down by the side of the bed, down with the bag.”
“What did he do with it after he tried to club you with it?”
“He put it — let me see, I think he put it under the bedclothes. I was so frightened by that time that I didn’t notice — I have never seen a man so absolutely furious. We have trouble with patients once in a while, but this was different. He actually frightened me. He seemed beside himself.”
“And you telephoned for the doctor?”
“I telephoned and reported to the doctor that he was exceedingly violent and was insisting that a new nurse should come on the case; and I told the doctor I thought it would be better if a new nurse came out.”
“But the doctor came out without bringing another nurse?”
“Yes. Doctor Rankin thought he could fix everything all up with a little diplomacy. He just didn’t realize the full extent of what had happened, nor how absolutely violent the patient was.”
“Now, he told you the day before that someone was trying to kill him?”
She seemed embarrassed, said, “I don’t think I should talk with you about that, Mr. Mason, not without the district attorney’s consent. You see, I’m a witness in the case.”
“I don’t want to try to tamper with your testimony,” Mason said.
“Well, I don’t think I should talk with you about that.”
Mason said, “I appreciate your position. It’s all right, and thank you a lot, Miss Field.”
Chapter 21
Despite the fact that the night had been cold and that the season was early spring, the midday sun sent the thermometer climbing up toward the top of the tube, and Judge Meehan, sitting in Chambers, had relaxed into the comfortable informality of shirt sleeves and a plug of tobacco.
Mason entered just a few moments before Copeland arrived. Judge Meehan, teetering back and forth in a squeaky swivel chair behind a littered desk, nodded to them, sent a stream of tobacco-stained saliva into a battered brass cuspidor, said, “Sit down, gentlemen. Let’s see if we can find out what this is all about.”
The two lawyers seated themselves.
Judge Meehan said, “We don’t want to throw away any evidence, and if there’s something in this case that makes it look like the district attorney was barking up a wrong tree, we’d like to find out about it, wouldn’t we, Ben?”
The district attorney said, “I’m barking up the right tree, all right. That’s why you’re hearing so many squeaks.”
Mason smiled at the district attorney.
Judge Meehan said, “Personally, I’d like to know what this is all about.”
Mason said, “Around twenty years ago, Marvin Adams’ father was executed for the murder of his business partner, a man named Latwell. Latwell’s widow married a man named Dangerfield. The murder took place in Winterburg City. Adams’ father said that Latwell told him he was going to run off with a girl named Corine Hassen, but authorities found Latwell’s body buried under the cement floor in the basement of the manufacturing establishment.”
“So that’s where this Corine Hassen entered into the case?” Judge Meehan said.
“I never knew her name,” the district attorney announced. “I couldn’t understand what Mr. Mason was getting at when he was asking questions about Corine Hassen.”
“Witherspoon know anything about this?” Judge Meehan asked, the tempo of his tobacco chewing increasing somewhat.
Mason said, “Yes. He hired the Allgood Detective Agency in Los Angeles to investigate. They sent Milter; then they fired Milter because he talked too much.”
Judge Meehan said, “Of course, this is all off the record. If you boys want me to go back in there and just sit down and listen, I’ll go back and sit down and listen; but if there’s any point about that note being valuable evidence — or if Witherspoon isn’t guilty of those two murders and someone else is, it might be a good idea to have an informal chat and sort of pool our information.”
“I have nothing to say,” Copeland remarked.
Mason said, “Milter was a blackmailer. He was here to collect blackmail. The evidence shows he told his common-law wife he was about ready to make a clean-up. Now whom was he blackmailing?”
“Witherspoon, of course,” the district attorney said.
Mason shook his head. “In the first place, Witherspoon isn’t the sort of man who would pay blackmail. In the second place, Milter had no means of bringing pressure on Witherspoon. Witherspoon didn’t care if all the facts about that old murder came out. He was getting ready to force his daughter to call of the engagement and wipe the thing off his books.”
“How about Witherspoon’s daughter?” Judge Meehan asked. “Hasn’t she got money?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how about her then?”
“If Milter had gone to her with that story, she’d have married Marvin Adams, anyway. He certainly couldn’t say to her, ‘Look here, Miss Witherspoon, I know something about the man you’re going with that you wouldn’t want to hear. If you’ll pay me umpty thousand dollars, I won’t tell you.’”
“That’s right,” Judge Meehan said, “but that isn’t what he’d have told her. He’d have said, ‘You pay me umpty thousand dollars, and I won’t tell your father.’ ”
“Lois Witherspoon wouldn’t have paid him any umpty thousand dollars,” Mason said, grinning. “She wouldn’t have paid him umpty cents. Shed have slapped his damn face, grabbed Marvin Adams, gone over to Yuma, got married, and defied the world.”