“Very well,” Mason said, “Let’s look at it from another angle. The fire was laid in the fireplace, but hadn’t been lit, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, it’s rather chilly there in the mornings?”

  “Quite chilly.”

  “And at night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, according to your theory, the alarm went off at five-thirty, and Mr. Sabin got up to go fishing, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And cooked himself rather a sketchy breakfast?”

  “A hasty breakfast, you could call it,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “When a person gets up at five-thirty in the morning on the opening day of the season, he’s anxious to get out and get the fish.”

  “I see,” Mason said. “Now, when Mr. Sabin came back from his fishing trip, he was in very much of a hurry to get something to eat. We may assume that the first thing he did when he entered the house, and immediately after removing his boots, was to get himself something to eat. Next in order of importance would have been washing the fish and putting them in the icebox. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Yet, according to your theory,” Mason said, “after he got back, he took enough time to lay the fire in the fireplace, all ready for lighting, before he even took care of his fish.”

  Sergeant Holcomb’s face clouded for a moment, then he said, “No, he must have done that the night before.” Having thought a minute, he added, triumphantly, “Of course, he did it the night before. He didn’t have any occasion for a fire in the morning: it was cold when he got up, but he went right out in the kitchen and cooked his breakfast, and then went out fishing.”

  “Exactly,” Mason said. “But he had reason for a fire the night before, I believe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In other words,” Mason said, “we know that he was at the cabin at four o’clock on the afternoon of Monday, the fifth. We can surmise that he remained at the cabin until shortly before ten o’clock in the evening, when he went out to place a phone call. If it was cold Monday evening, why didn’t he light a fire?”

  “He did,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “He must have. There’s no evidence to show that he didn’t.”

  “Exactly,” Mason went on. “But when the body was found, a fresh fire was laid in the fireplace. Now, according to your theory, he either laid that fire Monday night, in a grate that had just been used—or else he laid it the next day, after he got back from fishing. That is, he took time to lay the fire before he even took care of his fish. Does that seem logical to you?”

  Sergeant Holcomb hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, that’s one of those little things. That doesn’t cut so much ice. Lots of times you’ll find little things which are more or less inconsistent with the general interpretation of evidence.”

  “I see,” Mason said. “And when you encounter such little things, what do you do, Sergeant?”

  “You just ignore ’em,” Sergeant Holcomb said.

  “And how many such little things have you ignored in reaching your conclusion that Fremont C. Sabin was murdered by Helen Monteith?”

  “That’s the only one,” Sergeant Holcomb said.

  “Very well, let’s look at the evidence from a slightly different angle. Take the alarm clock, for instance. The alarm was run down, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where was this alarm clock placed?”

  “On the shelf by the bed—or rather on a little table by the bed.”

  “Quite close to the sleeper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Within easy reaching distance?”

  “Yes.”

  “And, by the way,” Mason said, “the bed was made, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “In other words, then, after getting up in the morning, at five-thirty, to go fishing, Mr. Sabin stopped long enough to lay a fire in the fireplace, long enough to make his bed, long enough to wash his breakfast dishes?”

  Sergeant Holcomb said, “Well, it wouldn’t take a man so very long to make his bed.”

  “By the way,” Mason inquired, “did you notice whether there were clean sheets on the bed?”

  “Yes, there were.”

  “Then, he not only must have made the bed, but must have changed the sheets. Did you find the soiled linen anywhere in the cabin, Sergeant?”

  “I don’t remember,” Sergeant Holcomb said.

  “There are no laundry facilities there. The soiled laundry is taken down in Mr. Sabin’s car and laundered in the city, and returned to the cabin from time to time?”

  “I believe that’s right, yes.”

  “Then what became of the soiled sheets?” Mason asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sergeant Holcomb said irritably. “You can’t always connect up all these little things.”

  “Exactly,” Mason said. “Now, let’s get back to the alarm clock, Sergeant. The alarm was entirely run down?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The clock had a shut-off on it, by which the alarm could be shut off while it was sounding?”

  “Yes, of course, all good clocks have that.”

  “Yes; and this was a good clock?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet the alarm had not been shut off?”

  “I didn’t notice … well, no, I guess not. It was completely run down.”

  “Yes,” Mason said. “Now, is it your experience, Sergeant, as an expert interpreter of circumstantial evidence, that a sleeper permits an alarm to run entirely down before shutting it off?”

  “Some people sleep more soundly than others,” Sergeant Holcomb said.

  “Exactly,” Mason agreed, “but when a man is aroused by an alarm clock, his first natural reflex is to turn off the alarm—that is, if the alarm is within reaching distance, isn’t that right?”

  “Well, you can’t always figure that way,” Sergeant Holcomb said, his face slowly darkening in color. “Some people go back to sleep after they shut off an alarm, so they deliberately put the alarm clock where they can’t get at it.”

  “I understand that,” Mason said, “but in this case the alarm was placed within easy reach of the sleeper, apparently for the purpose of enabling the sleeper to shut off the alarm clock just as soon as it had wakened him, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “But that wasn’t done?”

  “Well, some persons sleep sounder than others.”

  “You mean that he wasn’t wakened until after the alarm had run down?”

  “Yes.”

  “But after an alarm runs down, it ceases to make any sound, does it not, Sergeant?”

  “Oh, all that stuff isn’t getting you anywhere,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The alarm was run down. He certainly got up. He didn’t lie there and sleep, did he? He got up and went out and caught a limit of fish. Maybe the alarm ran down and didn’t wake him up, and he woke up half an hour later, with a start, realizing that he’d overslept.”

  “And then,” Mason said with a smile, “despite that realization, he paused to get himself breakfast, washed the breakfast dishes, made the bed, changed the sheets on the bed, laid the fire in the fireplace, and took the soiled bedclothes in his car down to the city to be laundered. Then he drove back to go fishing.”

  Sergeant Holcomb said, “All that stuff is absurd.”

  “Why is it absurd?” Mason asked.

  Sergeant Holcomb sat in seething silence.

  Mason said, “Well, Sergeant, since you seem to be unable to answer that question, let’s get back to the alarm clock. As I remember it, you made some experiments with similar alarm clocks, didn’t you, to find out how long it would take them to run down?”

  “We made experiments with that same alarm clock,” the sergeant said. “We made experiments with other alarm clocks and we wired the manufacturer.”

  “What did you find out?” Mason asked.

  “According to the manufacturer, the alarm clocks would run down thirty to thirty-six hours after they’d been completely wound. According to an experiment we made with that clock, it ran down in thirty-two hours and twenty minutes after it was wound.”

  “In that case,” Mason said, “the alarm clock must have been wound about twenty minutes after six o’clock, is that right?”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Mason said. “I’m simply asking you to interpret the evidence for the benefit of the jury, which is the thing you set out to do, Sergeant.”

  “Well, all right, then the clock was wound at twenty minutes past six. What of it?”

  “Would you say at twenty minutes past six in the morning, or at twenty minutes past six in the evening?” Mason asked.

  “In the evening,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “The alarm went off at five-thirty. He wouldn’t have wound the alarm clock in the morning, and if he had, he’d have wound up the alarm again. It was wound up at six-twenty in the evening.”

  “That’s fine,” Mason said, “that’s exactly the point I’m making, Sergeant. Now, you have examined the long distance telephone bills covering calls which were put in from that cabin?”

  “I have.”

  “And you found, did you not, that the last call listed was one which was placed at four o’clock in the afternoon, on Monday, the fifth of September, to Randolph Bolding, examiner of questioned documents?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you talked with Mr. Bolding about that call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Mr. Bolding know Mr. Sabin personally?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you ask him whether he recognized Mr. Sabin’s voice?”

  “Yes, I did. He knew it was Sabin with whom he was talking. He’d done some work for Sabin before.”

  “And Sabin asked him about some conclusions he had reached on some checks which had been given him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Bolding told him that, of course, the checks were forgeries; that he hadn’t yet decided whether the endorsements on the back were in the same handwriting as the specimen which had been furnished him. And didn’t he say he was inclined to think they were not?”

  “Yes, I gathered that.”

  “And what else did Mr. Sabin say?”

  “Mr. Sabin said he was going to send him another envelope, containing half a dozen more specimens of handwriting from five or six different people.”

  “Was that envelope received by Mr. Bolding?”

  “It was not.”

  “Therefore, Mr. Sabin never had an opportunity to mail that letter?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Now, let us return for the moment to the identity of the murderer. We now understand that Mr. Sabin suspected Steve Watkins of having forged checks in a very large amount. A handwriting expert was checking Watkins’ handwriting. Now, if Watkins had been guilty, what’s more natural than for him to have tried to silence Mr. Sabin’s lips by murder?”

  Sergeant Holcomb’s lips curled in a sneer. “Simply because,” he said, “Watkins has a perfect alibi. Watkins left in an airplane, in the presence of a reputable witness, shortly after ten o’clock on the night of Monday the fifth, for New York. Every moment of his time is accounted for.”

  “Exactly,” Mason said, “If we act on the assumption that Fremont C. Sabin was murdered on Tuesday, the sixth, but the trouble with your reasoning, Sergeant, is that there is nothing to indicate he was not murdered on the fifth.”

  “On the fifth?” Sergeant Holcomb exclaimed. “Impossible. The fishing season didn’t open until the sixth, and Fremont Sabin would never have fished before the season opened.”

  “No,” Mason said, “I daresay he wouldn’t. I believe it’s a misdemeanor, isn’t it, Sergeant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And murder is a felony?”

  Sergeant Holcomb disdained to answer the question.

  “Therefore,” Mason said, “a murderer would have no conscientious scruples whatever against catching a limit of fish on the day before the season opened. Now, Sergeant, can you kindly tell the coroner, and this jury, what there is about your reasoning any stronger than a string of fish?”

  Sergeant Holcomb stared at Perry Mason with startled eyes.

  “In other words,” Mason said, “having arrived at the conclusion Helen Monteith murdered Fremont C. Sabin at eleven o’clock in the morning, on Tuesday, the sixth of September, you have interpreted all the evidence on the premises to support your conclusions; but a fair and impartial appraisement indicates that Fremont C. Sabin was murdered sometime around four o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, September the fifth, and that the murderer, knowing that it would be some time before the body was discovered, took steps to throw the police off the track and manufacture a perfect alibi by the simple expedient of going down to the stream, catching a limit of fish, the afternoon before the season opened, and leaving those fish in the creel.

  “And in order to justify that conclusion, Sergeant, you don’t have to disregard any ‘insignificant’ details. In other words, there were fresh sheets on the bed, because the bed had not been slept in. The alarm clock ran down at two forty-seven because the murderer left the cabin at approximately six-twenty o’clock in the afternoon, at which time he wound the alarm clock, after having carefully planted all the other bits of evidence. The reason the alarm which went off at five-thirty the next morning wasn’t shut off is because the only occupant of that cabin was dead. And the reason the murderer was so solicitous about the welfare of the parrot was that he wanted the parrot to perjure itself by reciting the lines which the murderer had been at some pains to teach it—’Put down that gun, Helen … don’t shoot…. My God, you’ve shot me.’ The fire was laid in the fireplace because Sabin hadn’t had reason to light it that afternoon. He was wearing a sweater because the sun had just got off the roof and it was cooling off, but he was murdered before it had become cool enough to light the fire.

  “Sabin let the murderer in, because the murderer was someone whom he knew, yet Sabin had reason to believe he was in some danger. He had secured a gun from his wife, in order to protect himself. The murderer also had a gun which he intended to use, but after he entered the cabin he saw this derringer lying on the table near the bed, and he immediately realized the advantage of killing Sabin with that gun rather than with the one he’d brought. The murderer had only to pick it up and shoot. Now then, Sergeant, will you kindly tell me what is wrong with that theory? Will you kindly interpret any of the evidence to indicate that it is erroneous, and will you please explain to the jury why your whole fine-spun thread of accusation depends on nothing stronger than a string of fish?”

  Sergeant Holcomb squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, then blurted out, “Well, I don’t believe Steve Watkins did it. That’s just an out you’ve thought of to protect Helen Monteith.”

  “But what’s wrong with that theory?” Mason asked.

  “Everything,” Sergeant Holcomb asserted.

  “Point out one single inconsistency between it and the known facts.”

  Sergeant Holcomb suddenly started to laugh. “How,” he demanded, “could Sabin have been killed at four o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, the fifth of September, and yet call his secretary on the long distance telephone, at ten o’clock in the evening of the fifth, and tell him everything was okay?”

  “He couldn’t,” Mason admitted, “for the very good reason that he didn’t.”

  “Well, that shoots your theory full of holes,” Sergeant Holcomb announced triumphantly. “… Er … that is …”

  “Exactly,” Mason said; “as you have so suddenly realized, Sergeant, Richard Waid is the murderer.”

  Sheriff Barnes jumped to his feet. “Where’s Richard Waid?” he asked.

  The spectators exchanged blank glances. Two of the people near the door said, “If he was that young chap who was sitting in this chair, he got up and went out about two minutes ago.”

  The coroner said suddenly, “I’m going to adjourn this inquest for half an hour.”

  A hubbub of excited voices filled the room where the inquest was being held; chairs overturned as those nearest the door went rushing out pell-mell to the sidewalk. Sheriff Barnes, calling to one of his deputies, said, “Get on the teletype, watch every road out of town, get the city police to call all cars.”

  Mason turned to Helen Monteith and grinned. “That,” he said, “I fancy, will be about all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MASON sat in Sheriff Barnes’ office, waiting patiently for the formalities incident to the release of Helen Monteith, who sat, as one in a daze, in a chair by the door.

  Sheriff Barnes, pausing intermittently to check on telephone reports which were pouring in, tried to readjust the situation in his mind, through questions which he asked of Mason.

  “I don’t see yet just how you figured it,” he said.

  “Very simple,” Mason told him. “The murderer must have been someone who had access to the parrot, someone who had planned the murder for a long time; someone who intended to pin the crime on Helen Watkins Sabin, since he probably knew nothing of Helen Monteith. Since he knew Sabin usually took the parrot with him when he went to the cabin on the opening of the fishing season, this person, who must have been someone residing in the house, started in educating the parrot to say, ‘Drop that gun, Helen … don’t shoot…. My God, you’ve shot me!’ The whole crime had been carefully planned. Sabin was due to appear on Monday, the fifth, pick up the parrot, and go to the cabin for his fishing. The murderer had his plans all arranged, even to his manufactured alibi.

  “And then, Sabin upset plans somewhat by appearing on the second and picking up the parrot. Taking the parrot with him, he heard the bird suddenly spring his new lines—’Drop that gun, Helen … don’t shoot…. My God, you’ve shot me!’

  “Probably no one will ever know just what happened after that, but Sabin either felt that his life was in danger, or else Casanova’s repeated statements got on his nerves. He wanted to have a parrot around him, either because he liked parrots, or because in some way he wanted to fool the potential murderer—and I’m frank to confess that this substitution of the parrots has me guessing, and I won’t rest until I’ve found out—if I ever can—just what was back of it.