He took Mrs. Davenport’s arm, took her over to a deserted corner of the courtroom and said, “What was this you were telling me, that you had never opened that box of candy?”
“Mr. Mason, I’m telling you the truth. I never opened that box of candy.”
“Your fingerprints got on the candy,” Mason said.
“There’s something wrong. Those can’t be my fingerprints. They have been forged in some way.”
Mason said, “The question of forged fingerprints comes up every once in a while, but so far as I know there’s never been a case on record where a jury has held that a defendant’s fingerprints were successfully forged. Not when the fingerprints were left in place. When they have been lifted there’s another angle to the case. These prints are in place.”
Myrna Davis lowered her eyes. “Well,” she said in her low voice, “those aren’t my fingerprints. They can’t be.”
“Because you didn’t open the box of candy?”
“Because I didn’t open the box of candy.”
Sara Ansel came bustling forward from the back of the courtroom where she had been seated as a spectator.
“Mr. Mason,” she said, “may I talk with you?”
Mason nodded.
She pushed her way through the swinging gate and entered the railed enclosure reserved for officers of the court.
“Mr. Mason. I know, I absolutely know that Myrna didn’t do any of those things they claim she did. She didn’t feed Ed Davenport any bacon and eggs. He didn’t eat a thing while we were there. He was barely conscious and could hardly talk and she didn’t enter that room after Dr. Renault had left. She—”
Myrna looked coldly at Sara Ansel. “Go away,” she said.
Sara Ansel said, “Myrna, my dear, I’m trying to help you.”
“You’ve done everything you could to betray me,” she said.
“Myrna, do you realize what you’re saying?”
“Of course I do.”
Sara Ansel said, “You can’t. You’re upset and excited. Now, Myrna, dear, I know how your prints got on the candy. You gave Ed a full box, all right. You put it in his suitcase. But there was another partially filled box in the living room. You and I had been eating candy. There were two boxes in the living room, both partially empty. You consolidated those two partially empty boxes. So your fingerprints were on some of those candies you handled. Ed must have taken that box you consolidated as well as the one you packed in his suitcase.
“Then while he was in Paradise he must have eaten that fresh box you had put in his suitcase. That left the other box in his suitcase—the one you had consolidated from the two partially empty boxes.
“I’m almost certain that box the officers have now is the one you fixed up from the two open boxes. I could almost swear to it.”
Without a word to Sara Ansel, Myrna turned to the officer. “Will you please take me back to jail?” she said. “I’m tired.”
The officer led Myrna Davenport away. Sara Ansel turned to Mason and said angrily, “Well, can you beat that!. Here I try to be of some help to her and I get slapped down like that.”
“Well,” Mason said, “you have to admit that you tried to do everything you could to help the Los Angeles authorities make a case against her.”
“That was when I was excited and—the poor child. She never harmed a fly. I am sorry. I am terribly sorry for what I did, Mr. Mason, but I’m certainly not going to go around turning the other cheek to that mousy little nincompoop. Why, if it hadn’t been for me Ed Davenport would have robbed her blind. He’d have had her funds so involved she wouldn’t have had a cent in the world except what he was willing to give her, and then he’d have left her. I know it just as well as I know anything. I’ve been around men enough to know them.”
“Are you going to be here for a while?” Mason asked.
“Certainly. You heard what the judge said. I’ve got to be here.”
“I may want to talk with you,” Mason told her.
“Well, you’ll find me at the Hotel Fresno.”
“Thanks, you may be seeing me. I may want to ask you some more questions—about the candy.”
Chapter 12
Perry Mason, Paul Drake and Della Street gathered in Mason’s suite in the Californian Hotel.
“Well,” Mason said, “we’re at least getting the situation clarified.”
“Clarified!” Paul Drake exclaimed. “It’s mixed up until I can’t make head or tail of it and I doubt if anyone else can.”
“Why, Paul!” Mason said. “As it now stands there’s only one person in the world who could have murdered Edward Davenport.”
“You mean Myrna?” Drake asked.
Mason smiled. “How would Myrna have gone about murdering him?”
“That’s easy,” Drake said. “After she arrived in Crampton she could have given him a dose of cyanide of potassium, then called Dr. Renault to come down on an emergency.”
“Then how would she have removed the body?”
“By having some male accomplice slide the body out of the window and then put on the red-spotted pajamas and jump out when he was certain a witness was watching—a witness who was far enough away so he could see the man’s figure but couldn’t see his face.”
“Very interesting.” Mason said. “But how would she have known that her husband was going to get sick when he reached Crampton?”
“She didn’t care when he got sick,” Drake said. “She was an opportunist. She simply administered the poison because she found him sick. She wouldn’t have cared whether he’d been taken sick in Crampton, Fresno, Bakersfield, Paradise or Timbuktu.”
“That’s fine.” Mason said. “But you’re overlooking the grave. How did Mrs. Davenport know there was a grave waiting out there three miles out of town?”
“Because she’d dug it.”
“When?”
“She’d probably gone up the week before and dug the grave, or else had her male accomplice do it.”
“Then,” Mason said, “she must have known he was going to get sick at the exact moment he reached Crampton.”
Drake started scratching his head. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Who did murder him?” Della Street asked.
“Someone who knew that he was going to be sick when he reached Crampton,” Mason said.
“But who could that have been?”
Mason said, “I have an idea but it’s going to take a little checking. As nearly as I can tell only one person was in a position to know what was going to happen.”
“Who?” Della Street asked.
Mason said, “I won’t make any predictions at present. We’ll go out and look for some additional evidence while our friend, Talbert Vandling, is having an argument with the district attorney in Los Angeles.”
“An argument?” Drake asked.
“Sure,” Mason said. “Don’t think the district attorney of Los Angeles is going to be anxious to take over now.”
“Why not?”
“Because Fresno started in on the case. It made a pass at convicting Myrna Davenport and then suddenly backed up when it found the facts were all cockeyed.
“If the district attorney of Los Angeles could have had her convicted of any crime in Fresno, even the crime of being an accessory after the fact, or of having negligently administered poison, he’d have been only too glad to have prosecuted her for the murder of Hortense Paxton. Then when she took the stand he’d have impeached her by showing she’d been convicted of a felony and shown what the felony was. After that she wouldn’t have stood a ghost of a chance.