Free The Case of the Fenced-In Woman by Erle Stanley Gardner

vegetables on the road home."
    "And where were you during the rest of the time?"
    "Driving around and doing a little window – shopping."
    "See anyone you knew?"
    She shook her head.
    "In other words," Mason said, "no alibi."
    "What do you mean, no alibi? Why do I need an alibi?"
    "Figure it out for yourself," Mason invited.
    "But you said Loring was on the other side of the fence, in the other part of the house and…"
    "His body," Mason said, "is lying within a few inches of the barbed – wire fence. He may very well have staggered a few steps before he fell. He could have stood on one side of the fence, you could have stood on the other, and you could have pushed that knife through the fence.
    "There's one other possibility. You could have slipped into the pool, dived under the barbed wire, entered the living room, stabbed your husband and then returned the same way."
    "All right, I could have! That doesn't mean I did."
    "Where's your bathing suit?"
    "It's a skimpy suit. I've been a model, Mr. Mason, and frankly I think a lot of our so – called modesty about our figures is the result of hypocrisy and unclean thinking. I'm proud of my figure. I guess I'm something of a nudist. I-"
    "Never mind all that," Mason interrupted, "and never mind how skimpy your bathing suit is, where is it?"
    "In the shower room off the pool-and it's wet. I took a late afternoon swim yesterday and washed out my suit. I intended to hang it out in the sun to dry today but realize now I forgot to do so."
    "All right," Mason told her. "I'm glad to see I've snapped you out of it. Someday you'll thank me."
    "What is it you're supposed to have snapped me out of?"
    "Of the blue funk that was gripping you when you first realized you were going to be questioned by the officers. Now then, clean up that mess, get rid of the broken glass and all of the junk before the police get over here to question you. You've got your self – possession back, now keep it."
    Mason ran quickly from the kitchen through the utility room to the side door, walked out and got in his car. No one noticed him as he drove down the graveled driveway to the big post set in cement and to which one end of the fence was anchored.
    He left his car in the driveway, ran up the steps to the house, found the front door standing open and was about to enter when a uniformed officer in charge of the small group of newspaper photographers and reporters herded the group out of the door. "You boys know the rules as well as I do," the officer said. "We'll give you all the facts we feel we can release, but you can't go trooping around getting all the clues messed up and you know it. You had no business down there in the first place. Now you're going to have to wait outside until the inspection is over. We can arrange for you to use the phone, but that's all."
    Mason walked through the reception hall to the arched doorway and looked down. One officer was roping off the section of the living room where Carson's body was lying. Another was questioning Morley Eden, who looked up and said, "Oh, there you are, Mason! What the devil! I've been looking all over for you. The officer wants to know who put in the call, who discovered the body, what you had to do with it and all of that stuff. I told them they'd better ask you." He came up the steps.
    "Quite right," a dry voice said from behind Mason's shoulder. "You should make an explanation, Perry."
    Mason turned to face Lieutenant Tragg's enigmatic professional smile. "Another body?"
    "Another body," Mason said.
    "Getting to be quite a habit with you, isn't it?"
    "It's also a habit with you, isn't it?" Mason asked.
    "That's my business," Tragg said. "I come in contact with bodies."
    "So do I," Mason told him. "I didn't discover this one. The reporters discovered it."
    "And you happened to be here at the time?"
    "I happened to be here at the time."
    "How delightfully opportune," Tragg said. "Now perhaps you'd like to tell us about it, Mason."
    Mason said,