The Case of the Queenly Contestant

“Oh, she’ll understand.”

“No, we’re all right where we are,” Mason said in a tone of finality, opening the door on the driver’s side, then crossing behind the car to open the door for Della Street and then Ellen Adair.

They walked up a cement walk which led to a porch with two front doors, one on the left and one on the right.

Mason pressed the bell button on the door on the left.

There was no sound of motion from within the house, only the sound of the bell jangling.

“She doesn’t seem to be home,” Ellen said.

“Oh, I think probably she’s home,” Mason said. “The lights are all on. She may be busy for the moment.”

“Perhaps the bell didn’t ring.”

“No, I could hear it inside the house,” Della Street said.

Once more Mason pressed the button, and again from the interior of the house was the unechoing sound of the bell.

“Well,” Mason said, “I suggest we go back to the car and wait five or ten minutes and try again. After all, she may be taking a shower.”

“Perhaps she’s in the kitchen and can’t hear the bell. She might have a dishwasher running or perhaps she’s got a clothes-washing machine going and... Why not go around to the back and take a look?” Ellen asked.

Mason said, “The other side of the house is dark — the other unit of the duplex. The people there are probably out, but I don’t like to go wandering around at the back of houses.”

Mason tried the bell button twice more, then moved over a few feet along the porch to press his forehead against the cold glass of the windowpane.

“See anything?” Della Street asked.

“I can see the interior of the living room,” Mason said, “through a half-inch crack where the drapes aren’t pulled tightly together. I can see... Hold everything!”

“What is it?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “I can see the foot of a woman.”

“What’s she doing?” Della Street asked.

“Nothing,” Mason said. “The foot is in another room which may be a bedroom. The toe is pointed straight up. It shows through the crack in the door.”

“Oh, good lord!” Ellen said. “If anything’s happened to her, I... Let me see.”

She moved over to stand beside the lawyer, pressing her hands against the glass in order to form a shield for her eyes, cutting out the rays of light which might come in at the sides.

Mason said, “That foot looks strangely still. Evidently a woman is lying on the floor. Try the front door, Della. See if it’s locked. Knock at the same time you press the bell button.”

“She’s unconscious,” Ellen said. “She isn’t moving an inch.”

“The front door’s locked,” Della Street reported.

Mason said, “I think we’d better call the police.”

“No, no, no!” Ellen protested. “Not until we’ve tried to find out what it’s all about. If she’s just drunk or drugged or something, we’ve simply got to get her testimony before anyone else can get to her. Can’t you understand what it means to me to have her get on the stand and tell the truth?”

Mason hesitated.

Ellen Adair said, “If she’s drunk and passed out and...”

“It’s early for her to have passed out from drinking,” Mason said. “All right, let’s go around to the back of the house and try the back door. And, incidentally, we’ll see if there’s another window we can peep in and perhaps get a better view.”

The lawyer walked down the front steps, started across the lawn for the driveway, paused after taking a couple of steps, and said, “This soil is plenty soft. Somebody’s been sprinkling the lawn quite heavily. There’s an underground irrigation system which is still running at a trickle. It’s been on for some time.”

“Let’s go around the other way, circling around the other side of the duplex,” Ellen said.

“That puts us in the position of being trespassers,” Mason observed, “but we may as well go the whole way now we’ve started.”

He led the way across the lawn on the other side of the duplex bungalow, around to the back, over to the west side of the duplex, and climbed a short flight of steps to a service porch and said, “Oh-oh, the door’s open a crack. I think we can get in here.”

“Well?” Ellen asked as Mason hesitated.

Mason paused a moment, then said, “All three of us keep together. Be careful not to touch anything. Be sure that we call out as soon as we get the door open.”

Mason pushed the door open. “Anybody home?” he called in a loud voice. Then, as there was silence, the lawyer shouted, “Hello! Miss Burlington!”

There was no answer.

The lawyer moved across the kitchen and into a lighted living room, turned to the right into a bedroom in which drapes were drawn over the widows and electric lights were turned on, and then suddenly froze into rigid immobility.

“All right,” Mason said, “this is it. Keep back.”

The woman who was lying on the floor was perhaps forty-two or forty-three years of age, with dark hair streaming out over the floor, part of the ends matted in a pool of dried blood.

She was wearing shoes, stockings, a garter girdle, and a bra.

The lawyer said to the two women, “Keep back and don’t touch anything!”

Mason stepped gingerly forward, bent over the body, and picked up a limp, cold arm.