The Case of the Queenly Contestant

“The evidence indicates she had been dead for some time. You didn’t notice that the blood was all dried?”

“I noticed it,” Mason said. “But if the woman was alive, I was going to do everything I could to give her help.”

“As soon as you touched her you knew that she was dead?”

“Yes — and had been dead for some time.”

“You ever talked with this Agnes Burlington before?”

“No, I hadn’t.”

“What do you know about her?”

“She was a nurse.”

Tragg looked across the steering wheel into Ellen Adair’s eyes. “This woman is your client?” he asked.

“Right,” Mason said. “This is my client.”

“And you say she’s a responsible businesswoman?”

“She’s head buyer for the big department store of French, Coleman and Swazey.”

Tragg looked past Ellen Adair to Della Street and smiled. “And we know all about the incomparable Della Street, your secretary.

“All right,” Tragg said; “let’s hear from this young woman. What’s your name?”

“Ellen Adair.”

“Ellen Adair is hardly in a position to make a statement,” Mason said. “She’s my client.”

“Stop her any time you want her to stop talking,” Tragg said, smiling. “Go ahead; let’s hear what you have to say.”

Ellen Adair said, “I came here with Mr. Mason and Miss Street. We found the woman dead and promptly called the police.”

“Did you touch anything?”

“We left things just as we found them.”

“Why did you come here?”

Mason shook his head and smiled. “We’re getting into the matters I prefer not to discuss at this time.”

Tragg said, “You just came in here, found the dead woman, and called the police?” His eyes were studying Ellen Adair’s face.

“Yes,” she said.

“All right,” Tragg announced; “you folks can leave now. We know where to reach you if we want you.”

“Thanks,” Mason said.

“Not at all,” Tragg said with exaggerated courtesy. “It’s a real pleasure to cooperate with people who are so anxious to cooperate with us.”

Chapter Eleven

“Is that all there is to it?” Ellen Adair asked in a surprised tone of voice as Lieutenant Tragg turned back toward the duplex house and Mason started the motor.

“That isn’t all there is to it,” Mason said. “This is only the very start.”

“But he didn’t question me at all about what I knew about the dead woman or why we were here or...”

“Because,” Mason said, “he felt certain that I wouldn’t let you answer all the questions he asked and, if you did answer them, he had no way of knowing if you were lying.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Up to this point,” Mason said, “Lieutenant Tragg knows very little more about the murder as such than we do.

“We can estimate the time of death, but we have to rely on rigor mortis, on lights that have been left on, on a sprinkling system which has been turned down very low and left running for some time.

“Probably Agnes Burlington was killed some twenty-four hours earlier.

“But rigor mortis is one of the most deceiving methods of determining the time of death. Sometimes rigor mortis is virtually instantaneous; sometimes it is very slow in forming.

“There are other methods of determining the time of death — body temperature, the time when food was ingested, the condition of the food in the stomach and intestines, and all that.

“Tragg knows that we are all responsible people. We aren’t going to try to duck out of any inquiry. He knows that I have told him the truth, but he isn’t certain that I’ve told him all the truth. In fact, he is almost certain that I have withheld certain vital pieces of information, such as why we were anxious to interview Agnes Burlington, what the case is all about, why you are my client, and all the rest of it.”

“I am your client, am I not?” she asked as Mason turned the car back onto the boulevard.

“I suppose so,” the lawyer said wearily. “I’m stuck with you now. You didn’t want me to represent you anymore, then you came back in a panic. Why did you come back in a panic, Ellen?”

“I didn’t come back in a panic. I got to thinking things over and decided that if there was two million dollars involved, there was going to be enough publicity so I couldn’t escape it. I felt that they would find me and I felt that they’d find Agnes Burlington, and then they’d find Wight and... well, I decided that it was about time for me to come out in the open and that Wight was going to have to adjust himself sooner or later to the realities of the situation.

“I thought it would be a lot easier on him to adjust to the realities if he had two million dollars.”

“And so you came back to me.”

“So I came back to you,” she said.

Mason drove silently for several blocks, then said, “You’re a pretty cool sort of a customer, Ellen.”

“I’m intensely human,” she said, “but I try to control myself.”

“That’s what I’m getting at,” Mason said, “You have a certain amount of control. Right now you’re just as cool as a cucumber.”

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

“You were hysterical a short time ago.”

“I got over the hysteria. And, of course, a sudden emotional storm like that has the tendency, to clear the atmosphere.”

“And leave you cool, calm and collected.”