The Case of the

  Drowsy Mosquito

  Erle Stanley Gardner

  Chapter 1

  SUN soaked the city streets, filtered through the office window so that the sign reading, PERRY MASON, ATTORNEY AT LAW, was thrown in reverse shadow where the sunlight splashed across the massive table loaded with law books.

  It was a benign California sun that still held a touch of the growing greenery of spring. Later on in the season, this sun would burn down from the heavens with a fierce intensity that would dry the countryside to a baked brown, sucking every bit of moisture from the air, leaving a cloudless sky like that of the desert only a hundred and fifty miles to the east. Now it was a golden benediction.

  Across the desk, Della Street held a fountain pen poised over the pages of a shorthand notebook. Mason, a pile of correspondence in front of him, skimmed through the letters, dropped some in the wastebasket, tossed others to Della Street with a few crisp comments. Only in cases of the greatest importance did he dictate the exact wording of his reply.

  The pile represented accrued correspondence over a period of three months. Mason detested answering letters, and only tackled his mail when the pile had assumed threatening proportions despite the daily weeding of Della Street’s skillful fingers.

  The door from the outer office opened abruptly and the girl who operated the switchboard at the reception desk said, “You have two clients out there, Mr. Mason. They’re very ; anxious to see you.”

  Mason looked at her reprovingly. “Gertie, a balmy sun beckons from a cloudless sky; a client, who owns a big cattle ranch, has asked me to inspect a boundary line that’s in dispute. The ranch contains twenty-five thousand acres, and I have just asked Della how she would like to ride a horse with me over rolling cattle country. Think of it, Gertie, acres of green grass, live-oak trees with huge trunks and sturdy limbs. In the background, hills covered with sagebrush, chamise, and chaparral; and behind them, a glimpse of snow-capped mountains outlined sharply in the clear air of a blue back-drop … Gertie, do you ride a horse?”

  She grinned. “No, Mr. Mason. I have too much sympathy for the horse. The out-of-doors is a swell place on moonlight nights, but aside from that I like food and leisure. My idea of a perfect day is to sleep until noon, have coffee, toast and bacon in bed, and perhaps a dish of deep red strawberries swimming in thick yellow cream that melts the sugar when you pour it on. So don’t try to tempt me with bouncing up and down on the hurricane deck of a cattle pony. I’d shorten his wheelbase and ruin his alignment, and he’d wreck my stance.”

  “Gertie, you’re hopeless. As an assistant cowpuncher, you’re a total loss. But how would you get along as a bouncer, a Mickey Finn chasing unwelcome clients out of the office? Tell them I’m busy. Tell them I have an important appointment—an appointment with a horse.”

  “They won’t chase. They’re insistent.”

  “What are they like?” Mason asked, glancing speculatively at the electric clock on the desk.

  “One of them,” she said, “is a typical picture of middle- age prosperity. He looks like a banker or a state senator. The other is—well, the other is a tramp, and yet he’s a dignified tramp.”

  “Any idea what they want?”

  “One of them says it’s about an automobile accident, and the other wants to see you about a question of corporation law.”

  Mason said, “That settles it, Gertie. The tramp’s entitled to justice and may have trouble getting it. I’ll see him. But the banker, with his question of corporation law, can go to some other attorney. I’m damned if I—”

  Gertie said, “It’s the tramp that wants to see you about the corporation law.”

  Mason sighed. “Gertie, you’re hopeless! Your mind is steeped in strawberries swimming in cream, hot coffee-cake, and sleep. A tramp comes to my office to consult me on corporation law, and you treat it as a purely routine affair! Della, go out and chase the banker away. Treat the tramp as an honored guest. We’ll put off our horseback riding until tomorrow.”

  Della Street followed Gertie through the door to the reception room. She was back in a matter of five minutes.

  “Well?” Mason asked.

  “He’s not a tramp.”

  “Oh,” and Mason’s tone showed disappointment.

  “I don’t quite make him out,” Della said. “His clothes are not exactly shabby, but they’re well worn and sun-bleached. I place him more as a man who has lived outdoors for some definite purpose, and he’s taciturn and suspicious. He won’t tell me a thing about his business.”

  “Let him get sore and leave then,” Mason said irritably.

  “And he won’t do that. He’s waiting with the patience of a—of a burro. Chief, I’ve got it! The man must be a prospector. I should have realized it sooner. He has the stamp of the desert on him, the patience acquired from associating with burros. He’s here to see you, and he’s going to see you—today, tomorrow, or next week. Someone told him to see Perry Mason, and he’s going to see Perry Mason.”

  Mason’s eyes twinkled. “Bring him in, Della. What’s his name?”

  “Bowers. He didn’t give me any first name or initials.”

  “And his residence?”

  “He says just a blanket roll.”

  “Splendid! Let’s have a look at him.”

  Della smiled knowingly, withdrew and returned with the client.

  Bowers, standing in the doorway, surveyed Mason with an appraisal which held just a trace of anxiety. He was neither deferential nor affable. There was about the man an aura of simple dignity. The sun-bleached workshirt was scrupulously clean, although it had been laundered so many times it had gone limp and frayed around the collar. The leather jacket was evidently made of buckskin, and it definitely was not clean. It had been worn until various incrustations of dirt had brought to it a certain polish, like the glaze on pottery. The overalls were patched and faded—but clean. The boots had acquired a pastel shade from long miles of plodding travel. The broad-brimmed hat had seen years of service. Perspiration had left deep permanent stains around the hatband. The brim had curled up into a distinctive swirl.

  The man’s face dominated his clothing. Behind that face, a simple, unpretentious soul peered out at a world that was largely foreign. Yet the eyes held no bewildered expression. They were hard, determined and self-reliant.

  “Good morning,” Mason said. “Your name is Bowers?”

  “That’s right. You’re Mason?”

  “Yes.”

  Bowers walked across the office, sat down across from Mason and glanced at Della Street.

  “That’s all right,” Mason said. “She’s my secretary. She keeps notes on my cases. I have no secrets from her, and you can trust her discretion.”

  Bowers clasped the brim of his hat between bronzed fingers, rested his forearms on his knees, let the hat swing back and forth.

  “Just go ahead and tell me your troubles, Mr. Bowers.”

  “If it’s all the same with you, call me Salty. I don’t like this Mister stuff,”

  “Why ‘Salty’?” Mason asked.

  “Well, I used to hang around the salt beds in Death Valley quite a bit and they got to calling me that. That was when I was a lot younger, before I teamed up with Banning.”

  “And who’s Banning?”

  “Banning Clarke. He’s my partner,” Salty said with simple faith.

  “A mining partner?” ‘ “That’s right.”

  “And you’re having trouble with him over a mine?” Mason asked.

  “Trouble with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “My gosh!” Salty exploded. “I told you he was my partner. You don’t have trouble with a partner.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m protecting him. It’s a crooked corporation—a crooked president.”

  “Well, just go ahead and tell me about it,” Mason invited.

  Salty shook his head.

  Mason regarded the man curiously.

  “You see it’s this way,” Salty explained. “I ain’t smart like Banning. He’s got education. He can tell you about it.”

  “All right,” Mason said crisply. “I’ll make an appointment with him for—”

  Salty interrupted. “He can’t come. That’s why I had to come.”

  “Why can’t he come?”

  “The doc’s got him chained down.”

  “In bed?”

  “No, not in bed, but he can’t climb stairs and he can’t travel. He has to stay put.”

  “His heart?”

  “That’s right. Banning made the mistake of housing-up. A man that’s lived out in the open can’t house-up. I tried to tell him that before he got married, but his wife had sort of highfalutin’ ideas. Once Banning got rich—and I mean stinking rich—she got the idea he had to get high hat. Well, I shouldn’t say anything against her. She’s dead now. What I’m telling you is that a desert man can’t house-up.”

  “Well,” Mason said good-naturedly, “I guess we’ll have to go and see Banning.”

  “How far from here does he live?” Della Street asked with sudden inspiration.

  “About a hundred miles,” Salty announced casually.

  Mason’s eyes twinkled. “Put a notebook in a brief case, Della. We’re going to see Banning. I’m interested in the miner who housed-up.”

  “He ain’t housed-up now,” Salty said hastily. “I fixed that as soon as I got there.”

  “But I thought

you said he was,” Della said.

  “No, ma’am. The doctors say he can’t leave the place, but he ain’t housed-up.”

  “Where is he then?” Mason asked.

  “I’ll have to show you. It’d take too long to explain, an’ when I got done, you wouldn’t believe me, anyway.”

  Chapter 2

  AT thirty miles an hour, Perry Mason turned right at the city limits of San Roberto, trailing along behind the battered, unpainted 1930 pickup in which Salty Bowers was leading the way.

  The car ahead turned sharply and began to climb.

  “It looks as though he’s going to give us a whirl through the exclusive residential district,” Della Street said.

  Mason nodded, took his eyes from the road long enough to glance at the ocean far below—a blue, limpid ocean with a fringe of lazy surf, a border of dazzling white sand outlining the fronds of palm trees.

  The driveway skirted the crest of sun-drenched hills, spotted with country estates of the wealthy. In a small amphitheater below, less than a mile away, Mason could see the dazzling white of the little city of San Roberto.

  “Why do you suppose he’s taking us up here?” Della Street asked. “He certainly can’t—” She broke of! as the dilapidated car ahead, wheezing and knocking, rattling and banging, yet covering the ground with dogged efficiency, swung abruptly to a halt by the side of a white stucco wall.

  Mason grinned. “By George, he lives here. He’s opening the gate.”

  Della Street watched as Salty’s key clicked back the lock on a big gate of ornamental grillwork.

  Salty Bowers returned to his automobile and wheezed it through the gates, and Mason followed.

  There were a good six acres in the place, a location where real estate was valued by the inch.

  The spacious Spanish-style house with white stucco and red tile had been designed to fit into its surroundings. It sat back high up on the sloping ground, as if it had simply settled itself to enjoy the view. The terraced grounds had been so skillfully landscaped that it seemed as if Nature herself had done most of the work, and man had only added an occasional path, a few stone benches and a fish pond.

  The high stucco wall wrapped an air of privacy about the estate, and, at the far corner, outlined sharply the weird forms of desert growth, cacti, creosote and even the gawky arms of a cactus palm.

  Della Street all but gasped at the view which swept out before them in a vista of blues, dazzling whites and restful greens.

  “Is this Banning Clarke’s house?” Mason asked Salty when the latter had moved up to his running board.

  “Yep. This is her.”

  “A beautiful house.”

  “He don’t live there.”

  “I thought you said he did.”

  “He don’t.”

  “Pardon me. I misunderstood you. I asked if this was his place.”

  “It’s his place. He don’t live in the house. I pulled him out of that. We’re camped out down there in the cactus. See that little column of smoke going up? Looks like he’s cooking up a bite to eat. It’s just like I told you. He housed-up. That put his pump on the blink. So I sort of took over. He’s too weak to go gallivantin’ around the desert yet. The doc says he can’t even climb stairs. I’m gettin’ him back in shape. He’s better now than he was last week—better last week than he was last month.”

  “You’re eating and sleeping out there in the grounds?”

  “Uh-huh. That’s right.”

  “Then who’s living in the house?”

  “People.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll let Banning tell you about that. Come on. Let’s go see him.”

  They walked down a trail into the sandy corner devoted to a cactus garden. Here prickly pear grew in ominous clumps. Cholla cactus seemed delicate and lacelike. Only those who were acquainted with the desert would realize the wicked strength of those barbed points or the danger that lurked in the little balls of spine-covered growth which dropped to the ground from the parent plant. Here also were spineless cacti growing to a height of some ten feet, furnishing a protective screen as well as a windbreak for the rest of the garden.

  A six-foot wall built of varicolored rocks skirted the cactus garden. “All rocks from desert mines,” Salty explained. “Banning built that wall in his spare time before his heart went bad. I hauled in the rocks.”

  Mason let his eye run over the highly colored rocks. “You kept the rocks from each mine separate?” he asked.

  “Nope. Just hauled ‘em in and dumped ‘em. They’re just color rocks. Banning arranged ‘em.”

  The little trail twisted and turned, detouring the cactus patches, making it seem as if they were walking through the desert itself.

  In a little cove in the cacti, a very small fire was burning in a rock fireplace on top of which had been placed a couple of strips of iron. Straddling these iron strips, a fire-blackened agateware stewpan emitted little puffs of steam as the boiling contents elevated the lid in spasmodic jerks.

  Beside the fire, squatting on his heels, watching the flame with an intensity of concentration, was a man of perhaps fifty-five. And despite the fact that he was thin, he seemed to have gone soft. The flesh had sagged under his eyes, dropped down on cheeks and chin. In repose, the lips seemed flabby and a little blue. Only when he looked up and his visitors caught the steel-gray impact of his eyes was it apparent that while the body had gone soft the soul within the man was hard as nails.

  He straightened up. A smile lighted his face, his pearl- gray cowboy hat came off in a sweeping bow.

  Salty Bowers said succinctly, “This is him,” and then after a moment. “The girl’s the secretary … I’ll watch the beans.”

  Salty moved over to the fire and assumed a squatting position, sitting on the heels of his boots looking as though he could be comfortable in that position for hours. His attitude was that of a man whose duty has been done.

  Mason shook hands.

  “You’re just in time for a little bite of lunch—in case you can eat plain prospector’s grub,” Banning announced, glancing surreptitiously at Della Street.

  “I’d love it,” she said.

  “There aren’t any chairs, but you don’t need to scrape away the sand to make certain there isn’t a sidewinder in the place where you’re going to sit. Just sit down.”

  “You seem to have quite a little desert of your own here,” Mason said by way of making conversation.

  Clarke grinned. “You haven’t seen it all, yet. How about taking a look around my little domain before you sit down?”

  Mason nodded.

  Clarke led them around a large clump of cactus into another little cactus-enclosed alcove. Here, two burros stood with heads lowered, long ears drooping forward. A couple of worn packsaddles were on the ground, together with a litter of pack boxes, ropes, a tarpaulin, a pick, shovel and gold pan.

  “Surely,” Mason said, “you don’t use these here?”

  “Well,” Clarke said, “we do and we don’t. The outfit belongs to Salty. He couldn’t be happy away from his burros and I don’t think they’d be happy away from him. And somehow you wake up feeling better if a burro bugles you awake than when you just sleep yourself out. Now, over here—right over around this trail, if you will, please. Now over here we have—”

  Banning Clarke abruptly ceased talking, whirled to face Mason and Della Street, lowered his voice almost to a whisper, spoke with swift rapidity. “Don’t ever mention this in front of Salty. They’ve set a trap for him—a woman. Once this woman marries him, she’ll live with him a couple of months, sue him for a divorce, and either grab his stock or tie it up in litigation. He’s absolutely loyal. He’ll do anything I ask him. I’ve told him I want him to pool his stock in a certain mining company with mine. The minute that woman finds out she can’t get control of the stock, she’ll never marry him. He doesn’t know this—why I’m doing it. He doesn’t understand what’s back of all this, but once this woman realizes that stock has been tied up so she can t get her hands on it she’d no more think of marrying him than she would of jumping into a hot furnace. Don’t say anything about this.”

  Almost immediately Clarke raised his voice and said, “And this is our bedroom.”

  He indicated another little sanded alcove. Two bedrolls were neatly spread out in the shade of a big cactus.

  “Someday I’m going to move out of here and back into the real desert. It won’t be today, tomorrow, or the next day, but I’m starved for the desert. I don’t suppose I can explain it so you’ll understand.”

 

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