The coroner nodded assent.
Mason stepped forward and said in a low, kindly voice, “I don’t wish to subject your nerves to any undue strain, Miss Monteith, but I’m going to ask you to try and bring yourself to look at this parrot. I’m going to ask you to study it carefully, and I’m going to ask you whether this is the parrot which your husband brought home to you.”
Helen Monteith made an effort at self-control. She turned and looked down at the lifeless parrot in the cage, then quickly averted her head. “I c-c-can’t,” she said, in a quavering voice, “but the parrot my husband brought home had one claw missing. I think it was from his right foot. My husband said he’d caught the foot in a rat trap, and...”
“ This parrot has no claws missing,” Mason said.
“Then it isn’t the same parrot.”
“Just a moment,” Mason said; “I’m going to ask you to make another identification.”
He nodded a signal to Paul Drake, who, in turn, passed the word to an operative who was waiting in the corridor. The operative came through the door carrying a caged parrot.
Amid a silence so tense that the steps of the detective could be heard as he walked down the carpeted aisle, the caged parrot suddenly broke into shrill laughter.
Helen Monteith’s lips quivered. Apparently she was restraining herself from hysteria by a supreme effort.
Mason took the caged parrot from the operative. “Hush, Polly,” he said.