The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  He helped her into her car, closed the door.

  “Chief, let me take it.”

  “What?”

  “The spool of tape recording.”

  Mason shook his head.

  “They wouldn’t search me.”

  “You forget,” Mason told her. “You’re in this thing too. You were up there at Brogan’s apartment this morning.”

  “Chief, I wish you wouldn’t—”

  “It’s all right, Della,” he told her. “There are times when an attorney has to take chances if he’s going to represent his client.”

  “Who’s your client?” she asked sharply.

  “Technically, I suppose it’s Sylvia Atwood, but actually I think we’re representing the cause of justice.”

  “Well,” Della Street said, “personally I don’t think they’re the same.”

  “Perhaps they aren’t,” he conceded. “We’ll try to find out. Meet me at the office. Try not to get pinched for speeding. I’m going fast.”

  “I’ll be right on your tail,” she told him.

  Mason jumped in his car, started the motor, pushed it into speed. From time to time he looked in his rearview mirror. Each time he looked Della Street was pounding along right behind him.

  Mason swung his car into the parking space at the office and Della Street parked her car directly beside his.

  Mason walked over to join her. “Okay, Della, we’ve made it so far.”

  “So far, so good,” she said.

  They went up in the elevator in silence, walked down the corridor to Mason’s private office.

  Della Street opened the door with her latchkey. Mason entered the office. Once inside they moved with the silence of conspirators. Della Street pulled a tape recorder from the closet, connected it up, turned it on and motioned to Perry Mason for the spool of recorded tape.

  Mason handed it to her. Della Street put it on the tape recorder, ran the free end of the tape through the recording head, put it on the take-up spool, glanced at Mason.

  Mason nodded, said, “Keep the volume down, Della.”

  Della Street turned the volume down low, started the machine on playback.

  There was a moment of silence, then a few sounds of electrical static. Suddenly the voice of J. J. Fritch came out of the loud-speaker.

  Della Street immediately turned down the volume another notch.

  In silence they sat listening to the conversation between the two men who were now dead, the voices startlingly life-like.

  After some five minutes Mason said, “Okay, Della, switch it off. There’s no question but what this is it. Also there’s no question in my mind but what it’s a fake recording.”

  “Yes, you can hear the difference in some of those questions, the ones that have been spliced in when J. J. Fritch went to a sound studio and—”

  The door from Mason’s outer office opened.

  “I’m not seeing anyone, Gertie,” Mason called out sharply.

  The door continued to open.

  Della Street jumped to her feet. She gave an expression of annoyance and started toward the door.

  The door swung all the way open. Lt. Arthur Tragg of the Homicide Squad stood on the threshold.

  “Hello, Perry,” he said. “Hello, Miss Street.”

  “You!” Mason said.

  Della Street promptly pulled the plug which shut off the current from the tape recording machine, wound up the connecting wire and started to put on the cover.

  “Leave it,” Tragg said.

  “How come?” Mason asked.

  “As it happens,” Tragg said, “I have a search warrant.”

  “A search warrant?”

  Tragg nodded.

  “For what?”

  “This office.”

  “And what the devil do you expect to find in this office?” Mason asked.

  Tragg said, “I’m sorry, Mason, I hate to do this to you. I came myself instead of letting Holcomb come because I didn’t want any trouble and I was afraid Holcomb might rub it in.”

  “What’s the occasion of the search warrant?”

  Tragg said, “I am searching for a certain master spool of spliced tape which was stolen from the apartment of J. J. Fritch this morning.

  “I have a couple of my men in the outer office keeping your receptionist occupied. She felt certain you weren’t in so she didn’t try to ring the phone and tip you off.”

  “We just came back,” Mason said. “I hadn’t reported to her that we were in the office.”

  “So I gathered,” Tragg said. “I started in here armed with my search warrant, got as far as the door, heard the sound of a tape recording being played back, so I eased the door open a crack and listened. Now if you don’t mind I’ll take that spool of tape into custody as evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?” Mason asked.

  “Evidence of motive in the murder of J. J. Fritch. And if you can keep your shirt on, Perry, I’m going to take a chance and tip you off to some valuable information.”

  “What?” Mason asked.

  “I’m sticking my neck out,” Tragg said. “I shouldn’t do it.”

  Mason started to say something, then, at the expression he saw on Tragg’s face, held his comment.

  “Go ahead,” he invited.

  Tragg said, “You are in a spot.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Mason told him.

  “You’ve been in spots before and got out of them. This time you’re going to have a job getting out.”

  “Go on,” Mason said.

  Tragg said, “Your client, Sylvia Atwood, got to George Brogan’s apartment this morning right around eight-forty to keep a nine o’clock appointment. She was twenty minutes early. She went in and did a lot of prowling.”

  “And that puts me in a spot?” Mason asked.

  Tragg grinned. “You haven’t heard me out yet.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason said. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

  “Sylvia Atwood,” Tragg went on, “entered that apartment around eight-forty. She was in there searching for a spool of tape that was purported to have a conversation between her father and J. J. Fritch on it, the spool of recorded tape that you and Miss Street were just listening to on your machine.”

  “Go on,” Mason said, “we’re listening.”

  “Sylvia Atwood will eventually admit,” Lt. Tragg went on, “that at about nine o’clock she came to the liquor closet. She opened the door, and then gave a terrific scream, turned and ran in panic to confront you and Della Street at the door of Brogan’s apartment.”

  “How very, very interesting,” Mason said. “I suppose you’re going to claim that after having been in there for twenty minutes she suddenly discovered the body of J. J. Fritch?”

  “No, I’m not,” Tragg said. “That’s just the point. She is.”

  “Go on,” Mason said.

  “The point is that she knew you and Della Street would be there at the door of the apartment at about nine o’clock. She waited until she heard you outside the door, then she moved to the liquor closet, climbed up on a chair, jumped to the floor so as to give a jar, let out a terrific scream, turned and ran toward the door.”

  Mason said, “I’m listening, Tragg.”

  “And then,” Tragg went on, “she told you and Miss Street that the body of J. J. Fritch was in there, and you told her to stand at the door with Della Street, reading the note that Brogan had left on the door for you, pretending that you had just come to the place.

  “You told them that you were going into Fritch’s apartment and search for a master tape recording, that there was about one chance in a hundred you might find it, that as soon as Brogan showed up Sylvia Atwood was to press the bell button on Fritch’s apartment twice.

  “As soon as you heard that signal you were going to come to the door of Fritch’s apartment. You would wait until the two young women and Brogan had entered Brogan’s apartment, and then you’d come along treading on their heels, pretending t
hat you’d been parking the car.”

  Mason’s eyes narrowed.

  “Well?” Tragg said.

  “I suppose,” Mason said, “from all of the detail with which you are giving this conversation, you must have heard it from the lips of some witness?”

  “That’s right,” Tragg said, “although I’d probably be disciplined if anybody knew I’d told you.”

  “And, under the circumstances, the witness could be none other than Sylvia Atwood. Since she’s my client I won’t comment on her veracity or the motives which might have prompted her.”

  “You’re wrong,” Tragg said.

  “Wrong in what?”

  “Wrong in guessing the identity of the witness who told us this, who related the conversation.”

  “Well, who was the witness?” Mason asked.

  “Perry Mason.”

  “Oh, I see. Talking in my sleep again, eh?” Mason observed jocularly.

  “No,” Tragg said, “you’ll have to think a long while before you get the answer, Perry.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “Brogan had laid a trap for you. He wanted to find out what you and Mrs. Atwood really felt about the evidence he had, about whether you were planning to pay off, or whether you were going to fight. So he arranged to be in a poker game which would keep him out all night. He left his apartment door unlocked and left a note on it for you stating that if he happened to be a few minutes late you were to go on in and sit down.

  “And then he installed a tape recorder with a microphone so ingeniously placed that it would pick up sounds from within the apartment and sounds on the outside of the door in the corridor. He plugged in an electric clock of the type used to turn on radio or television sets and set the time control at eight-fifty.

  “You’d be surprised to find how clearly the sounds of Sylvia Atwood jumping on the floor, her scream and the subsequent conversation among the three of you come in on that tape recording.

  “George Brogan broke down under Sergeant Holcomb’s questioning and told Holcomb the whole business, and gave him the tape.”

  “I see,” Mason said. “My answer is, ‘no comment.’”

  “I thought that would be your answer,” Tragg said. “As a matter of fact I like you, Mason. I think your methods are too damn unconventional. I think you go too far to protect your clients. I think you’ve skirted the edge of the penitentiary before, and I don’t like to see you do it again. I’m telling you this as a friendly tip-off so you won’t make a statement that is at variance with the facts of the case. Remember those facts can be established by the sound of your own voice, the sound of Della Street’s voice and Sylvia Atwood’s voice.”

  “Thanks,” Mason said dryly.

  “No thanks at all,” Tragg told him. “Now, under the authority of this search warrant, I’m going to take that spool of tape recording which you were clever enough to find in the Fritch apartment.”

  “Suppose I didn’t find it there?” Mason said.

  Tragg grinned. “Don’t be silly, Perry. In view of Brogan’s tape recording stating that you were going in there to look for that specific piece of property, you stand a fat chance denying how you happened to acquire it. As a matter of fact, it was on the strength of Brogan’s tape recording that I was able to get an order to search your office.

  “Quite naturally the judge who issued the search warrant wasn’t particularly keen about it. It wasn’t until after he’d listened to the tape recording that he rather reluctantly issued the warrant.

  “I decided to serve it myself because I was afraid Holcomb would be so keen on trapping you that he might goad you into making some statement that would prove embarrassing later, when you were confronted with that tape recording.”

  Mason got up from behind his desk, hesitated a moment, walked over and shook hands with Lieutenant Tragg.

  “Now then,” Tragg said, “I’ll take the tape recording.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason told him. “And incidentally, Tragg, while you’re about it, check the whereabouts of George Brogan every minute of the time last night.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tragg said, “that’s been done.”

  “He has an alibi?”

  “Ironbound, copper-riveted, a lead-pipe cinch. He was playing poker with seven men. One of them happens to be a friend of the Chief of Police.”

  “What time did the game start?”

  “About ten o’clock and it lasted until Brogan broke away this morning about eight-fifteen, stating he had an important appointment, that he was going to have to hurry to get a cup of coffee and a little breakfast, that he wouldn’t have time to clean up. He’d been trying to break away ever since seven o’clock, but he was winning and they kept holding him on for one more round.”

  “He was there all the time?”

  “He was out of the game about thirty minutes around five o’clock in the morning,” Tragg said. “He had a losing streak, had dropped all of the money he had, and went out to call on a friend to get some cash. He returned at about five-thirty with fifteen hundred dollars. The murder was committed between midnight and three o’clock this morning.”

  “You’re certain?” Mason asked.

  “I’m certain,” Tragg said. “At least the autopsy surgeon is. Now use your head on this thing, Perry, and don’t get in over your necktie.”

  “Thanks for the buggy ride,” Mason told him.

  “Not at all,” Tragg said.

  He took the spool of tape recording, scribbled a receipt to Mason, turned and left the office.

  Della Street looked at Mason with wide eyes.

  Mason shrugged his shoulders.

  “Chief, can’t you tell them—shouldn’t you tell them where you really got that tape recording?”

  “Not yet,” Mason said.

  “Later on no one will believe you.”

  “They won’t believe me now.”

  “But, Chief, Sylvia can’t help you if you wait to tell your story. They’ll think it’s something you’ve hatched up between you. You should protect yourself now by telling the whole truth and calling on Sylvia and Edison Doyle and—”

  “We tell the police nothing,” Mason interrupted. “This is a law office, not an information bureau.”

  “It will get you in bad,” she said.

  “Then I’ll have to be in bad. I’ve been in bad before, and I probably will be in bad again.”

  “What do we do?”

  Mason motioned toward the telephone. “Get Sylvia Atwood on the line. Tell her to get up here just as fast as she can make it.”

  Chapter 10

  Sylvia Atwood sat in the client’s chair in Mason’s office. Her eyes were fixed steadily on the lawyer now. There were no more flickering glances. She was regarding him as cautiously as a poker player appraises someone who has just shoved a stack of blue chips into the pot.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “That’s all of it,” Mason said. “We were playing the tape recording to make sure what it was and Tragg walked in with a search warrant.”

  “So the police have it now?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Mr. Mason, you should have done as I told you.”

  “What?”

  “Told them that my father got that tape recording, that he—that he is responsible for what happened up there in the apartment.”

  “The death of J. J. Fritch?”

  “Yes.”

  “I couldn’t tell them that,” Mason said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know that he was.”

  “Well you know it now.”

  “No, I don’t. That’s why I asked you to come here. I want to know exactly what happened. I want to get the complete details. You tell me exactly what happened and be careful what you say. Della Street is going to take notes and, in addition to that, I’m going to have a tape recorder taking down everything you say.”

  “I’m your client,” she flared at him. “You’v
e no right to treat me as though I were an adverse party—a suspect.”

  “You’re a client,” Mason admitted, “and you also may be a suspect. Now start talking.”

  Her eyes flashed for a moment, then she said, “Very well, I’ll tell you the facts, the true facts, and I’ll tell you all of them.”

  “Go ahead.”

  She said, “After your conversation with Dad yesterday afternoon he was very upset.”

  “Naturally,” Mason said, “but you must remember that the thing that upset him was not my conversation but what J. J. Fritch had told him.”

  “Please don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Mason. I’m not blaming you. Actually your conversation with him quieted his nerves and helped him a lot, but I’m simply trying to fix it from the standpoint of time. It was after you had left yesterday afternoon that we realized Dad was in such a terribly nervous state.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “We tried to reach Dr. Flasher and couldn’t. He was out on an emergency case, but he had left medicine for Dad and we gave him some of that medicine. It was medicine that was supposed to quiet him and do something to make it easier for the heart to work.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “Then what happened?”

  “Dad was nervous. He didn’t want to sleep. We sat in the room with him. He dozed from time to time. He didn’t think he was sleeping at all. Sometimes he dozed as much as half an hour. By ten o’clock he had quieted down a lot.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason said.

  “Edison Doyle had been there earlier in the evening. He, of course, knew all about what was happening. We talked it over and decided we’d take turns keeping an eye on Dad. We thought he might—well, we thought he might take a turn for the worse and might want somebody there on the job.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Edison had some sketches that he had promised against a deadline. They simply had to be out this morning. He said that he’d go up to his office and work until a little after midnight, that he’d come out then and be in a position to take over.”

  Again Mason nodded.

  “We had it agreed that Hattie was to go to bed and get some sleep, that I’d sit up until Dad went to sleep, that then I’d get a couple of hours’ sleep. We left a key to the back door under the mat so Edison could come in whenever he got through with his work. He felt that would be one or two o’clock in the morning.