The Case of the Careless Cupid, page 1
part #79 of Perry Mason Series
The Case of the
Careless Cupid
Erle Stanley Gardner
Foreword
Not enough Texans appreciate the fact that one of their true pioneers lives in Corpus Christi. This is regretfully so because Dr John Pilcher’s pioneering is in the still badly neglected field of forensic medicine.
The mathematical probabilities are overwhelming that the death of every reader of this book will raise legal problems. His death may involve the payment of double indemnity accidental death benefits on an insurance policy. This same policy may contain a suicide exclusion clause which means that the company doesn’t pay the beneficiaries one nickel if the deceased commits suicide within two years after the policy goes into effect.
There may also be a valid legal question of death payments under workmen compensation laws; or wrongful death lawsuits arising out of automobile or other accidents. Many deaths also bring up strange but vital inheritance problems; and we haven’t even mentioned homicide!
The law has four categories into which all deaths fit: natural causes, accident, homicide or suicide. This classification, however, just doesn’t happen automatically. Perhaps as many as 30 per cent of all deaths are extremely difficult to classify correctly. Some deaths that look for all the world like suicides are proved to be accidental, after expert investigation. It may turn out that the driver of an automobile suffered a heart attack before the accident, so that the accident was actually caused by the heart attack, rather than the heart attack being caused by the accident.
There are difficult medical questions; and the medical cause of death should always be made by a skilled and experienced specialist in forensic medicine.
Still, in Dr Pilcher’s home state of Texas, only four cities provide a Medical Examiner system where this vital medical question must be made by a forensic pathologist. In the other areas of Texas, a Justice of the Peace acts ex officio as coroner; and it is up to this non- medical man to see that the medical question is settled properly. Texas, of course, is not alone in adhering to the ancient coroner system. Thirty-nine other states have not progressed to the Medical Examiner system.
John Pilcher first recognized the need for forensic medicine during his six-year tenure (1931–37) as Professor of Pathology at the University of Texas Medical School – Galveston Branch. When he went into private practice in Corpus Christi in 1937, he volunteered his medical services to the administration of justice.
“For many years,” John Pilcher reminisces, “I was the only pathologist in south-east Texas, south of Houston and east of San Antonio, and had to cover any request for forensic pathology within a radius of 75 miles. At that time, autopsies for gunshot wounds, stabbing and so on were not considered necessary. The old-time sheriff in this region, or possibly the Justice of the Peace, could take a gross, eyeball look and see that the victim had been shot or stabbed; and that settled that. The sheriff then decided who was guilty before the case got to Court; and as often as not, that also settled that!”
John Pilcher’s case files read like the great mystery stories of all time. During one two-year period, his life was threatened; and on the advice of the prosecutor and judge, he carried a .45 revolver for self-protection. His colleagues called him the “pistol-packing pathologist.”
“We’re still fighting for a state-wide Medical Examiner system.” John Pilcher says, “so that more sophisticated medical and police science technics can be applied to the investigation of all deaths. There still aren’t enough forensic pathologists to go around. We drastically need medical research in every facet of death. Only then will we be able to prevent many of the miscarriages of justice that take place now in both civil and criminal cases, because the facts of death were not properly investigated and evaluated.”
John Pilcher’s devoted wife, Etta Mae, has worked gruelling hours beside him in the laboratory. She is an expert photographer and has taken the official pictures of many of his heartrending cases.
The Pilchers have visited my ranch. Our friendship began years ago when John and I became members of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. I have admired his calm, deep, professional approach to the problems of death, which are really the problems of the living; and I sincerely appreciate his loyal friendship.
It, therefore, gives me genuine pleasure to dedicate this book to a modern pioneer in a vitally important field:
JOHN PILCHER, MD,
Forensic Pathologist,
Corpus Christi, Texas.
Erle Stanley Gardner
Chapter One
Selma Anson pushed back her plate and drank the last of the coffee. She picked up the bill which had been placed on the metal tray at the edge of the table, added up the amount, put at the bottom of the bill: Tip 20 per cent, signed her name and the number of her apartment.
As she arose from her chair, a man who had been eating a leisurely breakfast at a corner table put down the folded newspaper which he had been reading in between sips of his coffee, got to his feet, straightened his shoulders, buttoned his coat, and paused at the cashier’s desk.
The man evidently had the exact change because he didn’t have to wait but started moving casually out of the dining-room, across the luxurious lobby of the apartment hotel, only a few feet behind Selma Anson.
She shortened her step.
The man hesitated near the door.
Selma Anson said, “Suppose you and I have a little talk.”
The man kept his eyes focused on the street, apparently immersed in thought.
“I’m talking to you,” she said.
The man gave a surprised start, turned and looked at Selma Anson as one would regard a perfect stranger who had shown symptoms of mental aberration.
“Don’t try to play it innocent,” she said. “You’ve been following me for something over a week now, keeping me under surveillance. I want to know what it’s all about.”
“I’ve been following you!” the man exclaimed.
“You have been following me,” Selma Anson repeated firmly.
The man, somewhere in his early thirties, was of medium height and average build. He wore a dark grey business suit and a quiet tie. Hurrying through a subway entrance, he would not have received a second glance.
“I think there’s been some mistake, madam,” he said, and started to move away.
Selma Anson was in her early fifties. She had kept her figure, her poise, her sense of humour, and her proud independence. Since the death of her husband a year ago, she had prided herself upon living her own life as an individual. She frequently said, “I like what I like and not what I’m supposed to like because of some mass rating. And I very much dislike the things I don’t like.”
Right at the moment it appeared that the man to whom she was talking was one of the things that she didn’t like.
“I don’t know what the idea is,” she said, “but you’ve been dogging my steps for the last week that I know of. Everywhere I go I see you, and I have gone to some places where I would not ordinarily have gone for the sole purpose of seeing if you would show up.
“You were always there.
“Now, I’m going to tell you something. I don’t like to create a public scene. I don’t know just what my rights are, but the next time I see you I’m going to slap your face. And after that, I’m going to slap your face every time I see you. That, I think, will cause enough commotion so that we’ll find out what this is all about.”
The man’s eyes snapped with indignation. “You slap my face,” he said, “and I’ll teach you something about the law of assault and battery. I’ll ask for compensatory damages and exemplary damages, and if you don’t think I can do it and put a nick in that bankroll of yours, you just talk it over with any good lawyer.”
With that, the man lunged at the revolving door, went out to the street and disappeared.
Chapter Two
Della Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary said, “You have half an hour before your next appointment. Could you possibly see a Mrs Selma Anson?”
Perry Mason frowned, looked up from the Supreme Court case he was reading, said, “What does she want, Della?”
“Someone’s been following her and she wants to know what will happen if she slaps the man’s face.”
“A nut?” Mason asked.
Della Street shook her head. “She isn’t the type given to imagining things; she isn’t neurotic. She’s just a sweet individual, but I have an idea she has a mind of her own. My best guess is that she’s going to slap and slap hard.”
“How old?”
“Early fifties?”
“Money?”
“She’s wearing thirty-dollar shoes. She has an alligator handbag. Her clothes are quiet but expensive. She’s well groomed and …”
“Chunky?” Mason interrupted.
“A very nice figure. She’s quietly well-kept. Well … you have the feeling she’s been through a lot and learned a lot.”
“I’ll see her,” Mason said, “and talk with her long enough to get her story. But you know how it is, Della: so many people get to feeling that someone’s following them, they want to see a lawyer, and the first thing you know you’re tied up with some neurotic individual who becomes an office pest.”
Della Street said indignantly, “What do you think you pay me my salary for? I can weed those people out as far as I can see them.”
Mason grinned. “All right, let’s talk with Mrs Anson and see how close
Della Street nodded, went to the outer office and returned with Selma Anson.
“Mr Mason,” she said.
Selma Anson briefly studied the lawyer’s powerful frame, wavy hair, granite-hard features, then smiled.
“How do you do, Mr Mason. I told your secretary generally what I wanted. Someone’s been following me, and it’s not that I’m imagining things. I understand you have an appointment within a few minutes.
“You’re a busy man. You’re going to want a retainer. I’m prepared to give you any reasonable retainer.”
“And just what do you want?” Mason asked. “What do you expect me to do? But please sit down, Mrs Anson.”
She seated herself in the client’s chair and said, “I put up with this man just as long as I could stand him.
“This morning I was having breakfast in the dining-room of my apartment hotel. He was there, keeping an eye on me, planning to see where I went today.”
“What did you do?”
“I walked up to him and told him that I was sick and tired of having him follow me around, that if I saw any more of him I was going to slap his face and keep on slapping it every time I saw him.”
“And what did he say to that?” Mason asked.
“He said that I’d better see an attorney and find out what would happen to me. He said that he would sue me for actual damages and – some other kind of damages.”
“Exemplary damages?” Mason asked.
“I guess so, yes. Could he collect double damages?”
“It depends on the facts,” Mason said. “Compensatory damages are awarded to compensate a person for another’s wrongful act. Exemplary damages or punitive damages, as they are sometimes called, are imposed upon a person who has injured another under circumstances of deliberate wrongdoing or oppression. Such damages are awarded as a means of punishing the wrongdoer and setting an example to others who might be tempted to do the same thing.”
“How much would they be?” she asked.
“How much would what be?”
“These punitive or exemplary damages you talk about.”
Mason laughed and said, “You really mean that you’re going to slap his face, Mrs Anson?”
“I really mean it.”
“I would advise you not to, at least until we know more about the situation. If he has actually been following you, a jury might very well feel you were entitled to slap his face, but …”
“It isn’t something I’ve been imagining.”
Mason glanced at his watch, said, “Paul Drake of the Drake Detective Agency has his office on the same floor here in this building. He does most of my detective work.
“I would suggest that you consult him and have him put an operative on the case to shadow the person who is shadowing you, find out about him, find out where he goes, find out, if possible, whether he’s someone who is a little demented, whether he’s just trying to strike up an acquaintanceship, or whether he’s a private detective employed by someone, and if so, who employed him. Any reason anyone would want to put a detective on your trail?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You’re a widow? How do you live? Do you keep pretty much to yourself? Do you have a circle of friends? Do you …?”
“I’m a widow,” she said. “I’ve been a widow for a year. I’m trying to live my own life. I’m interested in the theatre. I go to the shows. There are some television shows I like, and a lot I don’t like. I like books, and I go to the library and spend an evening reading every once in a while.”
“Do you drive your own car?”
“I don’t own a car. I use taxicabs when I want to go anywhere around the city. And when I want to go out in the country, which I quite frequently do, I rent a car with a driver.”
“Always from the same agency?”
“Yes.”
“And do you think you’ve been followed when you’ve been out in some of these rented cars?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“By the same man?”
“I think so, yes. Sometimes I don’t get a good look at him. Sometimes I do.”
“Did he follow you here?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see him. I think I frightened him this morning. Somehow I have the impression that he’s a man who wouldn’t like to be the centre of a scene.”
Mason grinned. “A man would have to be something of an exhibitionist to welcome having a woman walk up in public and slap his face.”
“That’s what I intend to do. You’re busy. Your time’s valuable. You think I should have a private detective. How much is the detective going to cost?”
“Probably around fifty dollars a day. Can you afford that?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to get you in touch with Paul Drake?”
“Could he come in here?”
“If he’s available,” Mason said.
“I’d like to have it that way. I’d like to have you sit in on the arrangements. How much are you going to charge me?”
“You could give me a retainer of a hundred dollars,” Mason said. “There won’t be any further charge unless something unforeseen develops. But I’ll advise you and keep in touch with Paul Drake.”
“Fair enough,” she said, and opened her purse.
Mason flashed a glance at Della Street and nodded.
Della Street went to the telephone, called the Drake Detective Agency, and after a moment, said, “Paul Drake is on his way here.”
Mrs Anson had taken out a chequebook and a fountain pen and was making out a cheque to Perry Mason.
She handed it to him and said, “Fifty dollars a day for the detective. How many days?”
“Probably not over two or three,” Mason said. “You’d better discuss that with Paul Drake. He’ll be here in just a moment. Here he is now.”
Drake’s code knock sounded on the door and Della Street let him in. Mrs Anson kept writing in her chequebook.
“Mrs Anson,” Mason said by way of introduction, “this is Paul Drake of the Drake Detective Agency. He’s competent. He’s honest. And you can trust him just as you can trust a lawyer or a doctor.”
“How do you do, Mr Drake,” she said.
Drake bowed an acknowledgment, mumbled, with the words all running together, “Pleasedtomeetyou, Mrs Anson.”
Mason said, “Paul, we’re working against time. I have another appointment in a few minutes.
“Mrs Anson has a problem. Someone has been following her for something over a week. He has probably been following her longer than that, but she’s ‘been aware’ of it for the last week.
“She confronted him this morning in the dining-room of the apartment hotel where she lives, told him she was going to slap his face if he didn’t quit following her and she was going to keep on slapping his face every time she saw him.”
Drake grinned.
“He threatened to sue her,” Mason went on, “and suggested she’d better see a lawyer, so she came here. I told her that I would advise her to get a detective and shadow the man who is doing the shadowing. Got a good operative you can put on the job, Paul?”
Drake nodded, said, “OK. We shadow the shadow; then what?”
“If possible,” Mason said, “we find out whether he’s a pest, a nut, or a private detective. If he’s a private detective, we try to find out to whom he’s reporting.”
“That last will take a little doing,” Drake said.
“If he isn’t a private detective,” Mason said, “your operative could pose as Mrs Anson’s brother, or perhaps a friend of her dead husband. If he’s alert, aggressive and belligerent, he might frighten this shadow out of his wits and so dispose of the matter more or less offhand.”
Drake looked at Mrs Anson. “Can you describe this shadow?” he asked.
“I know every feature of him,” she said. “He’s a nondescript man who …”
“How does he dress?” Drake interrupted.
“Quietly.”
“How tall?”
“About five feet eight, or five feet eight and a half.”
“How old?”
“Perhaps thirty to thirty-five.”
“How much does he weigh?”
“Oh, say a hundred and fifty or a hundred and sixty.”
