Drake nodded.
“Now why had Callender opened the fan? Undoubtedly to show it to someone. Why did he want to show it to someone? Because he wanted to prove something in connection with the fan or in connection with the ownership of the fan.
“Lois Fenton told me that Sheldon had previously rented a room down in the rooming house on Lagmore Street because she wanted a room for Jasper Fenton. Jasper was to go there.
“You can see what happened. Jasper Fenton went to the hotel. He kept his two-o’clock appointment with John Callender, and John Callender told him very coldbloodedly that Jasper could tell his sister that unless she returned to him Jasper Fenton was going to jail. He had just received one of the fans from Cogswell. He held that fan up to show Jasper that I hadn’t found the horse, only a fan. That was Jasper Fenton’s opportunity.
“Jasper Fenton knew that Lois wouldn’t go back to Callender no matter what happened. That meant Callender was going to send Fenton to jail. The plumes of the fan momentarily screened Fenton from Callender’s eyes. The Japanese sword was on the table. The first Callender knew, the blade was being shoved into his chest. He dropped the fan and grabbed at the blade, cutting his fingers to the bone. He died almost instantly.”
“But why did Jasper Fenton go back to the room at 2:44?” Drake asked.
Mason said, “That was the only decent thing Jasper Fenton ever did. After he had left the hotel, he remembered that the fan was lying there in a pool of blood. He knew that it was his sister’s fan. He knew that the fan would link her with the crime. He went back to the hotel, went up to Callender’s room, went in, grabbed the fan, slapped it against the wall to remove the blood, concealed it under his coat and came out.
“Notice the evidence, Paul. The man was wearing an overcoat when he came to the hotel. He pushed open the door of Callender’s room and went in without knocking. Why? Because he knew that a knock would do no good. He also knew that the door was unlocked. If he hadn’t known Callender was dead, he would have knocked on the door.”
Drake nodded.
“Fenton got the fan,” Mason said. “He went to the room in the rooming house — the one Arthur Sheldon had taken for him. There he became panic stricken. He had this blood-soaked fan and he didn’t know what to do with it. He went out to get a drink. He kept on drinking. In the meantime, Sheldon had checked out of the Richmell Hotel. He had no place to go. He remembered this room that he had secured for Jasper Fenton. He decided he’d go up and share the room with Fenton. He found the key on the board. He entered the room. He found the blood-soaked fan. He called Lois. Lois thought Sheldon had killed Callender, and Sheldon, making a martyr of himself to save Lois, because he thought she was guilty, decided to skip out so the police would blame the crime on him. And that is the situation in a nutshell, Paul. I’d have had the case solved a long time ago if I’d only believed my client was telling me the truth when she told me that wildly improbable story about the fan.”
“What’ll they do with Fenton?” Drake asked.
Mason grinned. “That’s Burger’s headache. Callender was blackmailing Fenton. He was forcing himself on Fenton’s sister. No jury in the world will give him first-degree murder. If he gets a good lawyer he can make it manslaughter.”
“But what was Irene Kilby doing in that room for the ten minutes she was there?”
“Searching for that agreement. When she found Callender dead she was just cold-blooded enough and just selfish enough to look around and try and find that agreement. She looked every place except the place where it was.”
“Where’s that?”
Mason grinned. “I don’t know for certain, Paul, but let’s look at the evidence. Callender kept that room in the hotel. He came up from the Valley, trying to get away from the heat and he carried that Japanese sword with him. The reason he carried that Japanese sword with him was because the handle of that sword was the place he’d chosen to conceal the documents he was using, the agreement Lois had signed, the forged checks.”
“My God, Perry, that sounds logical.”
“It is logical,” Mason said. “That’s where the documents were.”
“How do you know?”
Mason smiled. “The sword was in court as an exhibit. After court adjourned and during the excitement I pulled out the pin and slipped the handle off the blade. The documents were inside.”
Mason opened his billfold, took out the agreement signed by Irene Kilby and Lois Fenton, said with a grin, “After all, a lawyer should do something for a client. I left the forged checks in there for Hamilton Burger to discover.”