“She wants to tell you. Chief, you aren’t really obligated to represent Mrs. Davenport in this case. This is a murder case. Your agreement with her was to represent her in the estate matter and—”
Mason interrupted with a shake of his head.
“No?” Della asked.
“No,” Mason said. “When I take a client I stay with that client.”
“I know,” she said, “but—well, wait until you talk with Sara Ansel.”
“You’ve talked with her?”
“Generally.”
“How does it look?”
“Bad.”
“All right,” Mason said, “suppose Myrna’s guilty. She’s at least entitled to a fair representation. She’s entitled to her day in court. She’s entitled to her constitutional rights. She’s entitled to be confronted with the witnesses against her and to have them cross-examined. But somehow I can’t feel this case is as black as it seems.”
“It couldn’t be,” Della Street said. “Do you want to talk with Mrs. Ansel now?”
“Bring her in,” Mason said. “Why didn’t you get some sleep, Della?”
“Because I wanted to be on the job so you could get some rest. I can catch forty winks after lunch. If you get mixed up in this thing you’re really going to be busy. And there are several longdistance calls. Among them a call from the district attorney of Butte County.”
“I wonder what he wants,” Mason said, and then smiled.
“Yes,” Della Street remained demurely, “I wonder.”
“Well, let’s take things one at a time,” Mason said. “I’m in conference at the moment. I can’t be disturbed by any calls. I’ll be available in thirty minutes. Now let’s see what Mrs. Ansel has to say.”
Della Street nodded, picked up the phone and said to Gertie at the switchboard, “Mr. Mason is in now, Gertie. Tell Mrs. Ansel he’ll see her at once. I’m coming out to escort her in.”
Della Street left the office and returned with Sara Ansel, who had ceased all pretext of keeping herself well groomed. Her face was haggard and tired. There were swollen pouches under her eyes. Such make-up as she was wearing had been hastily applied and it was quite apparent she had had no sleep.
“Mr. Mason,” she said, crossing the office toward him and literally grabbing his hand, “you must do something. We’ve got to extricate ourselves from this thing. It’s terrible.”
“Sit down,” Mason said. “Calm yourself. Tell me just what happened.”
“Everything’s happened.”
“Well,” Mason said, “tell me about it.”
“I can never forgive myself. I can never forgive myself for being such a fool. I let that little minx pull the wool right over my eyes and … and then I got you into it. I thought I knew something about human nature, and in the relatively short time I had known her that woman became almost like a daughter to me. She seemed so helpless, so imposed upon, so frightfully inadequate to cope with the situation. And now to think of what has happened.”
“Go on,” Mason said. “Tell me about it. You may not have too much time, you know.”
“Why that woman is a regular Lucrezia Borgia. She’s a minx, a poisoner, a murderess.”
“Please give me the facts,” Mason said, seating himself and studying Sara Ansel.
“Well,” she said, “to begin with the coroner exhumed the body of Hortense Paxton. He found she’d been poisoned. Myrna Davenport did it.”
“When did you learn all this?”
“Well, it all started when we got home. There was a notice of a telegram under the door. Myrna called the telegraph office and it seems some friend of hers had sent a telegram that said to call immediately, no matter what hour of the day or night.”
“Go on,” Mason said.
“So Myrna called and this friend told her that the coroner had exhumed the body and was taking the stomach and organs for an analysis.”
“And then what?”
She said, “Believe me, Mr. Mason, I have never been so completely shocked in my life. Myrna stood there just as demure and quiet as anything, and then said, ‘Aunt Sara, before I sleep I want to do a little work in the garden.”
Mason raised his eyebrows.
“She’s a great little gardener,” Sara Ansel explained. “That was her only recreation. But—well, wait until you hear what that woman was doing.”
“I’m waiting,” Mason reminded her.
“I was just completely all in,” Mrs. Ansel went on. “I’m not young enough and resilient enough to go tearing around on these trips, taking all this excitement and experiencing all of these night plane rides. I was about ready to fall on my face, but I decided to take a hot shower and then get into bed. I went up to my room, showered, and—well, I’d better explain that that room is on the second story and it looks down on the yard in back of the patio, and what do you think I saw Myrna Davenport doing?”
“What was she doing?” Mason asked impatiently.
“Calmly proceeding to dig a hole, a very deep hole. She wasn’t gardening at all. She had a spade and she was digging a hole.”
“Go on,” Mason said.
“And right while I was watching her she took some packages, little paper packages, and dumped them in the hole and then proceeded to cover the packages with dirt. After she’d filled the hole with dirt she took sod that she had cut out and carefully patted the sod back into place, making a good smooth job of it.”
“And then?” Mason asked.
“Well, all that time I was standing at the window watching her. I’m not nosy, Mr. Mason, but I do have a normal, healthy, human curiosity.”
“So what did you do?”
“So I marched right downstairs and caught that demure little hypocrite before she’d had a chance to get rid of the spade.”
“What happened?”
“I asked her what she’d been doing and she said that when she got nervous she always liked to be out with her flowers, that she’d been spading up around some of the plants, loosening the soil and getting them so they could enjoy a new day, and now she was thoroughly relaxed and she could go in, go to sleep and sleep for twelve hours.”
“And what did you say?”
“I asked her to show me where she’d been spading, and she said that that wasn’t important and besides I should get in the house and get some sleep.”
“And then what?”
“I insisted that I wanted to see where she’d been spading. I told her that I wanted to see how she did it.”
“Well?” Mason asked.
“She’d given me the impression, Mr. Mason, of being a demure little thing, a meek little woman who could be pushed around, but you should have seen her then. She was just as obstinate as a brick wall. She wouldn’t look at me, but she didn’t budge an inch. She said in that low voice of hers that it really wasn’t important and that I was upset and nervous because of my night’s trip and that I should go back into the house.”
“And then what?”
“So then I came right out and asked her why she lied to me. I asked her why she had dug that hole, and she told me she hadn’t dug a hole.”
“What did you do?”
“So with that I snatched the shovel out of her hands and marched out across the patio to the lawn and over to the exact place where she’d been digging.”
“And then?” Mason asked.
“Then for the first time she was willing to admit what she had been doing, but there was no shame about her and she didn’t even raise her voice. She said, ‘Aunt Sara, don’t do that,’ and I asked her why not and she said, ‘Because I’ve been very careful to replace the sod over that hole so that no one will notice it. If you tamper with it. If’s going to make it obvious that something has been buried there.”