The Case of the Terrified Typist

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “But how about a man?” Della Street asked. “Apparently, the letters were sent to a man and—”

  “And they were found in the ladies’ restroom.”

  “Yes, that’s so.”

  Mason studied one of the letters. “Now, these are rather peculiar, Della. They are written in a whimsical vein. Listen to this:

  “‘My dearest Prince Charming,

  “‘When you rode up on your charger the other night, there were a lot of things I wanted to say to you, but I couldn’t think of them until after you had left.

  “Somehow the glittering armor and that formidable helmet made you seem so virtuous and righteous that I felt a distant creature from another and more sordid world…. You perhaps don’t know it, Prince Charming, but you made quite a handsome spectacle, sitting there with the visor of your helmet raised, your horse with his head down, his flanks heaving and sweating from the exertion of carrying you on that last mission to rescue the damsel in distress, the setting sun reflecting from your polished armor …’”

  Mason paused, glanced up at Della Street, and said, “What the devil!”

  “Take a look at the signature,” Della Street said.

  Mason turned over two pages and looked at the signature—“Your faithful and devoted Mae.”

  “You will notice the spelling,” Della Street said. “It’s M-A-E.”

  Mason pursed his lips thoughtfully, said, “Now, all we need, Della, is a murder to put us in a thoroughly untenable position.”

  “What position?”

  “That of withholding important evidence from the police.”

  “You’re not going to tell them anything about Mae Wallis?”

  Mason shook his head. “I don’t dare to, Della. They wouldn’t make even the slightest effort to believe me. You can see the position I’d be in. I’d be trying to explain that while the police were making a search of the building in order to find the woman who had broken into the offices of the South African Gem Importing and Exploration Company, I was sitting innocently in my office; that I had no idea that I should have mentioned the typist who dropped in from nowhere at exactly the right time, who seemed completely terrified, who was supposed to have been sent from Miss Mosher’s agency, even though, at the time, I knew that she hadn’t been sent from Miss Mosher’s agency.”

  “Yes,” Della Street said, smiling. “With your connections and reputation, I can see that the police would be at least skeptical.”

  “Very, very skeptical,” Mason said. “And since it’s bad for the police to develop habits of skepticism, Della, we’ll see that they aren’t placed in an embarrassing position.”

  Chapter 4

  It was three days later when Perry Mason unlocked the door of his private office and found Della Street waiting for him, his desk carefully cleaned and for once the pile of mail far to one side.

  “Chief,” Della Street said in a voice of low urgency, “I’ve been trying to get you. Sit down and let me talk with you before anyone knows you’re in.”

  Mason hung up his hat in the hat closet, seated himself at the desk, glanced at Della Street quizzically and said, “You’re certainly worked up. What gives?”

  “We have our murder case.”

  “What do you mean ‘our murder case’?”

  “Remember what you said about the diamonds? That we only needed a murder case to make the thing perfect?”

  Mason came bolt upright in his chair. “What is it, Della? Give me the low-down.”

  “No one seems to know what it’s all about, but Duane Jefferson of the South African Gem Importing and Exploration Company has been arrested for murder. Walter Irving, the other member of the company, is out there in the outer office waiting for you. There’s a cablegram from the South African Gem Importing and Exploration Company sent from South Africa, advising you that they are instructing their local representative to pay you two thousand American dollars as a retainer. They want you to represent Duane Jefferson.”

  “Murder?” Mason said. “Who the devil is the corpse, Della?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know very much about it. All I know is about the cablegram that came and the fact that Walter Irving has been in three times to see you. He asked that I notify him just as soon as you arrived, and this last time he decided that he wouldn’t even take chances on the delay incident to a telephone call but was going to wait. He wants to see you the minute you come in.”

  “Send him in, Della. Let’s find out what this is all about. Where’s that tin box?”

  “In the safe.”

  Mason said, “Where’s the desk Mae Wallis was using when she was here?”

  “I moved it back into the far corner of the law library.” “Who moved it?”

  “I had the janitor and one of his assistants take it in for us.”

  “How are you on chewing gum, Della?”

  “Pretty good. Why?”

  Mason said, “Chew some gum, then use it to plaster that wad with the diamonds in it back on the desk in exactly the same place you found it.”

  “But there’ll be a difference in freshness, Chief. That other gum is dry and hard now, and the new gum that I chew will be moist and—”

  “And it will dry out if there’s a long enough interval,” Mason interrupted.

  “How long will the interval be?”

  “That,” Mason told her, “will depend entirely on luck. Send Walter Irving in, Della, and let’s see what this is all about.”

  Della Street nodded and started for the outer office.

  “And fix that gum up right away,” Mason reminded her.

  “While Irving is in here?”

  Mason nodded.

  Della Street went to the outer office and returned with Walter Irving, a well-dressed, heavy-set man who had evidently prepared for the interview by visiting a barber shop. His hair was freshly trimmed, his nails were polished, his face had the smooth pink-and-white appearance which comes from a shave and a massage.

  He was about forty-five years old, with reddish-brown, expressionless eyes, and the manner of a man who would show no surprise or emotion if half of the building should suddenly cave in.

  “Good morning, Mr. Mason. I guess you don’t know me. I’ve seen you in the elevator and you’ve been pointed out to me as being the smartest criminal lawyer in the state.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said, shaking hands, and then added dryly, “‘Criminal lawyer’ is a popular expression. I prefer to regard myself as a ‘trial lawyer.’”

  “Well, that’s fine,” Irving said. “You received a cablegram from my company in South Africa, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They’ve authorized me to pay you a retainer for representing my associate, Duane Jefferson.”

  “That cablegram is a complete mystery to me,” Mason said. “What’s it all about?”

  “I’ll come to that in a moment,” Irving told him. “I want to get first things first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your fees.”

  “What about them?”

  Irving raised steady eyes to Mason. “Things are different in South Africa.”

  “Just what are you getting at?”

  “Just this,” Irving said. “I’m here to protect the interests of my employers, the South African Gem Importing and Exploration Company. It’s a big, wealthy company. They want me to turn over a two-thousand-dollar retainer to you. They’d leave it to your discretion as to the balance of the fee. I won’t do business that way. On this side of the water, criminal attorneys are inclined to grab all they can get. They—Oh, hell, Mr. Mason, what’s the use of beating around the bush? My company has an idea that it’s dealing with a barrister in a wig and gown. It doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to deal with a criminal lawyer.”

  “Do you?” Mason asked.

  “If I don’t I’m sure as hell going to try and find out. I’m protecting my company. How much is it going to cost?” “You mean the to
tal fee?”

  “The total fee.”

  Mason said, “Tell me about the case, just the general facts and I’ll answer your question.”

  “The facts are utterly cockeyed. Police raided our office. Why, I don’t know. They found some diamonds. Those diamonds had been planted. Neither Jefferson nor I had ever seen them before. Our company is just opening up its office here. Some people don’t like that.”

  “What were the diamonds worth?”

  “Something like a hundred thousand dollars retail.”

  “How does murder enter into it?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you even know who was murdered?”

  “A man named Baxter. He’s a smuggler.”

  “Were these his diamonds—the ones the police found in your office?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  Mason regarded the man for a few seconds, then said, “How the hell would I know?”

  Irving grinned. “I’m a little touchy this morning.”

  “So am I. Suppose you start talking.”

  “All I can tell you for sure is that there’s some kind of a frame-up involved. Jefferson never killed anyone. I’ve known him for years. My gosh, Mr. Mason, look at it this way. Here’s a large, exceedingly reputable, ultraconservative company in South Africa. This company has known Duane Jefferson for years. As soon as they hear that he’s been arrested, they’re willing to put up whatever amount is required in order to secure the very best available representation.

  “Mind you, they don’t suggest they’ll advance Jefferson money to retain counsel. The company itself instructed me to retain the best available counsel for Jefferson.”

  “And you suggested me?” Mason asked.

  “No. I would have, but somebody beat me to it. I got a cablegram authorizing me to draw a check on our local account in an amount of two thousand dollars and turn that money over to you so you could start taking the necessary legal steps immediately. Now if my company pays your fees, who will your client be?”

  “Duane Jefferson.”

  “Suppose Jefferson tries to get you to do something that isn’t in his best interests. What would you do—follow his instructions, or do what was best for him?”

  “Why do you ask that question?”

  “Duane is trying to protect some woman. He’d let himself get convicted before he’d expose her. He thinks she’s wonderful. I think she’s a clever, two-timing schemer who is out to frame him.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I wish I knew. If I did, I’d have detectives on her trail within the next hour. The trouble is I don’t know. I only know there is such a woman. She lost her head over Duane. He’ll protect her.”

  “Married?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  “What about the murder case?”

  “It ties in with smuggling. Duane Jefferson sold a batch of diamonds to Munroe Baxter. That was through the South African office. Baxter asked Jefferson to arrange to have the diamonds cut, polished and delivered to our Paris office. Our Paris office didn’t know the history of the transaction. It simply made delivery to Baxter on instructions of the South African office. Usually we try to know something about the people with whom we are dealing. Baxter juggled the deal between our two offices in such a way that each office thought the other one had done the investigating.

  “Baxter had worked out one hell of a slick scheme. He had faked a perfect background of respectability.”

  “How did you find out about the smuggling?” Mason asked.

  “His female accomplice broke down and confessed.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A girl named Yvonne Manco.”

  “Tell me about it,” Mason said.

  Didn’t you read the account about a fellow jumping overboard from a cruise ship and committing suicide a while back?”

  “Yes, I did,” Mason said. “Wasn’t that man’s name Munroe Baxter?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I knew I’d heard the name somewhere as soon as you mentioned it. How does the murder angle enter into it?”

  Irving said, “Here’s the general sketch. Yvonne Manco is a very beautiful young woman who sailed on a cruise ship around the world. She was the queen of the cruise. The ship touched at Naples, and when Yvonne started down the gangplank, she was met by Munroe Baxter, a man who had the appearance of a Frenchman, but the name, citizenship and passport of a United States citizen. You must understand all of these things fully in order to appreciate the sequence of events.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason said.

  “Apparently, Munroe Baxter had at one time been in love with Yvonne Manco. According to the story that was given to the passengers, they had been going together and then the affair had broken up through a misunderstanding.

  “Whoever wrote the script did a beautiful job, Mr. Mason.”

  “It was a script?” Mason asked.

  “Hell, yes. It was as phony as a three dollar bill.” “What happened?”

  “The passengers naturally were interested. They saw this man burst through the crowd. They saw him embrace Yvonnes Manco. They saw her faint in her arms. There was a beautiful romance, the spice of scandal, a page out of this beautiful young woman’s past. It was touching; it was pathetic—and, naturally, it caused an enormous amount of gossip.”

  Mason nodded.

  “The ship was in Naples for two days. It sailed, and when it sailed Munroe Baxter was pleading with Yvonne Manco to marry him. He was the last man off the ship; then he stood on the pier and wept copiously, shedding crcodile tears.”

  “Go on,” Mason said, interested.

  “The ship sailed out into the Mediterranean. It stopped in Genoa. Munroe Baxter met the ship at the dock. Again Yvonne Manco swooned in his arms, again she refused to marry him, again the ship sailed.

  “Then came the pay-off. As the ship was off Gibraltar a helicopter hovered overhead. A man descended a rope ladder, dangled precariously from the last rung. The helicopter hovered over the deck of the ship, and Munroe Baxter dropped to the deck by the swimming pool, where Yvonne Manco was disporting herself in the sunlight in a seductive bathing suit.”

  “Romantic,” Mason said.

  “And opportune,” Irving said dryly. “No one could resist such an impetuous, dramatic courtship. The passengers virtually forced Yvonne to give her consent. The captain married them on the high seas that night. The passengers turned the ship upside down in celebration. It was wonderful stuff.”

  “Yes, I can imagine,” Mason said.

  “And, of course,” Irving went on, “since Baxter boarded the ship in that dramatic manner, without so much as a toothbrush or an extra handkerchief, how would the customs people suspect that Munroe Baxter was smuggling three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds in a chamois-skin belt around his waist?

  “In the face of all that beautiful romance, who would have thought that Yvonne Manco had been Munroe Baxter’s mistress for a couple of years, that she was his accomplice in a smuggling plot and that this courtship was all a dramatic hoax?”

  “I see,” Mason said.

  Irving went on, “The stage was all set. Munroe Baxter, in the eyes of the passengers, was a crazy Frenchman, a United States citizen, of course, but one who had acquired all the excitability of the French.

  “So, when the ship approached port and Yvonne Manco, dressed to the hilt, danced three times with the good-looking assistant purser, it was only natural that Munroe Baxter should stage a violent scene, threaten to kill himself, break into tears, dash to his stateroom and subsequently leap overboard after a frenzied scene in which Yvonne Manco threatened to divorce him.”

  “Yes,” Mason said, “I remember the newspapers made quite a play of the story.”

  “It was made to order for press coverage,” Irving said. “And who would have thought that the excitable Munroe Baxter carried with him three hundred thousand dollars in diamonds when he jumped
overboard, that he was a powerful swimmer who could easily swim to a launch which was opportunely waiting at a pre-arranged spot, and that later on he and the lovely Yvonne were to share the proceeds of a carefully written, superbly directed scenario, performed very cleverly for the sole purpose of fooling the customs men?”

  “And it didn’t?” Mason asked.

  “Oh, but it did! Everything went like clockwork, except for one thing—Munroe Baxter didn’t reappear to join Yvonne Manco. She went to the secluded motel which was to be their rendezvous. She waited and waited and waited and waited.”

  “Perhaps Baxter decided that a whole loaf was better than half a loaf,” Mason said.

  Irving shook his head. “It seems the lovely Yvonne Manco went to the accomplice who was waiting in the launch. At first, the accomplice told her that Baxter had never showed up. He told her that Baxter must have been seized by cramps while he was swimming underwater.”

  “Did this take place within the territorial waters of the United States?” Mason asked.

  “Right at the approach to Los Angeles Harbor.”

  “In daylight?”

  “No, just before daylight. You see, it was a cruise ship and it was gliding in at the earliest possible hour so the passengers could have a maximum time ashore for sight-seeing.”

  “All right, Baxter was supposed to have drowned,” Mason said. “What happened?”

  “Well, Yvonne Manco had a horrible suspicion. She thought that the accomplice in the launch might have held Baxter’s head underwater and might have taken the money belt.

  “Probably, she wouldn’t have said anything at all, if it hadn’t been for the fact that customs agents were also putting two and two together. They called on the lovely Yvonne Manco to question her about her ‘husband’ after it appeared that she and her ‘husband’ had sailed on another cruise ship as man and wife some eighteen months earlier.”

  “And Yvonne Manco broke down and told them the whole story?” Mason asked.

  “Told them the whole story, including the part that it had been Duane Jefferson who had been involved in the sale of the jewels. So police became very much interested in Duane Jefferson, and yesterday afternoon, on an affidavit of Yvonne Manco, a search warrant was issued and police searched the office.”