In the hospital surroundings, with wax-like lids closed over the burning power of his hypnotic eyes, he seemed wasted, tired, as robbed of power as a burnt-out electric globe.
Mason stood in the doorway long enough to note that the bedclothes were rising and falling with the even respiration of a man who is sleeping under the quieting influence of a powerful narcotic. Then he closed the door, took Della Street’s arm, and tiptoed down the corridor.
“What does that mean?” she asked, as Mason pressed the button for the elevator.
“Don’t you know?” he asked.
She shook her head.
Mason said with a smile, “I’m still jealous of my reputation as a prophet. I don’t dare risk it, but I think perhaps we’ll drop around to Dr. Sawdey’s residence for a little chat.”
Chapter 15
Mason’s taxicab slid to a stop in front of one of the newspaper offices. A brightly lighted office on the ground floor marked the Want Ad Department. A separate doorway to the street made it easy for persons desiring to place want ads to approach the long counter where two quick-moving young women waited on the persons who came in with ads to be placed in the classified column, or with answers to be delivered to advertisers.
Mason paid off the cab, said, “Might as well come in, Della, and help me look.”
One of the young women behind the counter approached him. Alert eyes sized him up. She said, “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like back copies of your paper for the last week. I just want to look at them here.”
She reached under the counter, took out a hinged stick through which had been filed copies of newspapers.
“Do you have two of these?” Mason asked. “I’d like to have my secretary assist me.”
“You don’t wish to remove them from the office?”
“No.”
She walked down the counter a few feet, took out another file, and handed it to Della Street.
“What do we look for?” Della Street asked.
“We may not find it,” he said, “but I rather think we will. A small paragraph somewhere on an inside page, an account of a Mr. Luceman who was cleaning a revolver when it accidentally dropped and exploded. It will probably be written in a somewhat humorous vein. Dr. L. O. Sawdey will have been called in to give emergency treatment.”
Della Street, for the moment, did not look at the newspaper. Instead she looked at Mason, comprehension dawning on her face. “Then you mean that...?”
Mason interrupted her. “Once more I am not risking my reputation as a prophet. Let’s get the facts first, and make deductions afterwards.”
Mason plunged at once into the pages of the paper, but it was Della Street who found the notice first. “Here it is,” she said.
Mason moved over to look over her shoulder.
The article read:
It was an unlucky day for Carr Luceman who resides at 1309 Delington Avenue. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when Luceman heard the noise made by a prowler trying to effect an entrance through the back screen door. Luceman sat up in bed to listen. The more he listened, the more certain he became that a prowler was cutting the screen.
Luceman, who despite his sixty-five years is a rugged individualist given to direct action, disdained to summon the police. He decided to teach the burglar a lesson he would not soon forget.
As Luceman expressed it, “I didn’t intend to try to hit him, but I most certainly did intend to give him the scare of his life.”
With this in mind, Luceman took a.38 caliber revolver from his bureau drawer, put on a pair of felt-soled bedroom slippers, and noiselessly tiptoed to the kitchen. As he opened the door from the dining room, he could distinctly hear the sounds of someone cutting through the screen on the back door.
Luceman cocked his revolver.
The doughty householder crept forward. Bearing in mind the admonition of a general who had exhorted his men to wait until the whites of the eyes were visible, Luceman tiptoed across the kitchen. He saw a dark form silhouetted against the screen of the back door — and promptly deposited his cocked revolver on the kitchen table — for the “burglar” was Luceman’s cat. Luceman had forgotten to give the animal its customary bowl of warm milk. The cat had sought to remind him by jumping to the screen. After hanging there for several seconds, it would drop back to the porch floor, then repeat the maneuver.
Luceman opened the back door, unlatched the screen, let in the irate cat, and approached the icebox in the kitchen. He had opened the door and was in the act of taking out a bottle of milk when the cat, purring in expectation of its deferred repast, jumped to the kitchen table and, in true feline manner, rolled over in squirming abandon. The cocked revolver teetered on the edge of the table. Luceman dropped the milk bottle, and tried to catch the weapon before it hit the floor. He was too late. The gun eluded his grasp. The bullet crashed into Luceman’s right thigh, inflicting a painful wound. The cat, frightened by the noise of the explosion, dashed out of the back door, and Luceman, painfully wounded, tried to crawl to the telephone. The shock and pain, however, caused him to lose consciousness, and it was not until nearly four A.M. that he recovered sufficiently to call Dr. L. O. Sawdey who lives in the neighborhood.
Luceman will be on the inactive list for several days, but, aside from that, need expect no bad effects, as the bullet missed the principal arteries and only grazed the bone. The “burglar” at latest accounts had not returned. Perhaps it has decided it is less trouble to prowl the alleys in search of nocturnal quadrupeds, and forego its milk diet.
Mason glanced at Della Street, smiled, walked over to the counter, and said, “Could you let me have one of these papers of the fourteenth? I’d like to answer some of the ads in it.” He deposited a nickel on the counter and after a few minutes the girl supplied him with a copy of the paper.
Mason thanked her and escorted Della Street back to the automobile. “We will now have a chat with Dr. Sawdey, who is doubtless back from the hospital by this time,” he said.
Mason rang the bell of Dr. Sawdey’s residence. After several moments, the man they had seen at the hospital opened the door.
“Dr. Sawdey?” Mason asked.
The doctor nodded, looking shrewdly from Mason to Della Street, then down to where the taxicab was waiting. He might have been making a diagnosis. “It’s late,” he said, “and except in matters of extreme emergency...”
Mason said, “I will detain you only a moment, Doctor. But I’m a friend of Carr Luceman. I knew him back East, and thought I’d look him up. I had his address, and drove down there as soon as I...”
Dr. Sawdey said, “He had an accident. He’s at the Parker Memorial Hospital. Unfortunately, he can have no visitors.”
Mason’s face showed his concern. “I heard he’d had an accident,” he said. “I want very much to see him, and I think he’d like to see me. I only expect to be here for another twenty-four hours. Would it be possible for me to see him in that time?”
“I’m afraid not. He has overtaxed himself. I warned him particularly against that very thing. As a result, he’s weakened his resistance, and complications have set in. It’s going to be necessary for him to be kept absolutely quiet for several days.”
Mason said, “I might wait over if by day after tomorrow...”
Dr. Sawdey said positively, “I am certain that it will be necessary to keep him quiet for at least three days.”
Mason said, “Gosh, that’s a shame. I’ll send him a card. I’m awfully sorry I missed him. Have you known him long, Doctor?”