“And that’s the real, honest-to-goodness truth, Mr. Mason—every word of it!”
“I want to believe your story, Mrs. Winters,” Mason told her. “I’m anxious to believe you’re innocent. But the story you have just told doesn’t convince me, and I don’t see how you can possibly expect a jury to believe it.”
“Oh, I can improve on it, Mr. Mason, if I have time,” she assured him.
“You mean you’re going to change that story?”
“Sure—to make it better.”
“Regardless of the facts?”
She snorted. “Facts don’t mean a damn thing. Lots of times, the truth isn’t very convincing. But I’m pretty good at fixing up stories, Mr. Mason, and I can improve this one considerably. As it is, I’ve told you the real truth—I wouldn’t tell that to anyone else.”
“You want me to believe that after you first left the apartment, and went down to the lobby, and then came back up in the elevator, both Hines and the murderer walked in without your seeing them; that they walked into the bedroom; that the murderer killed Hines with your gun that he had picked up from the sideboard; that he replaced the gun, took Hines’s wallet and threw it on the floor, and then was trapped in the bedroom by your return?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s the way it happened?”
“That’s the way it must have happened.”
Mason looked at her. “That is,” he went on, “just to make the thing more convincing, the murderer took that wallet containing something over three thousand dollars and tossed it on the floor, so that you could find it and walk off with it?”
“You don’t believe me, do you, Mr. Mason?”
“No.”
“That’s exactly the way it happened. Cross my heart and hope to die, Mr. Mason, I’m telling you the truth.”
“How do you suppose Hines got into the apartment house without your seeing him?”
“I don’t know.” There was a moment of silence. Then she said, “He had to get there, Mr. Mason. If he was killed with my gun, he had to be there before I left—no matter who killed him. His body was there in the bedroom.
“It was for a fact,” the lawyer conceded. Then he asked abruptly, “How about that number Hines gave you so that you could call him? Did he tell you where the phone was located?”
“No.”
“And while you were telephoning, you didn’t see him come into the apartment house? Neither you nor Eva saw him enter?”
“No—nobody came in during the few minutes we were there before I started upstairs.”
Mason said, “There’s one way of putting the facts together so your story isn’t quite so implausible. I’ll investigate that theory.”
“What’s that?”
“That Hines lived in another apartment in the same building, and that was the apartment where the telephone was located.”
“Yes. That’s so. That must be it. That would make my story sound better, wouldn’t it?”
Mason studied her.
“Now you’re sure this story you’ve told is the truth.”
“It’s the truth, Mr. Mason,” she said, and after a moment added, “but I haven’t a damn bit of confidence in it.”
11
FROM A phone booth in the reception room at the jail, Mason called Paul Drake.
“How are you coming?” Paul asked.
“Not so good,” Mason admitted, “but I have a lead, Paul.”
“What?”
“Have Della give you the telephone number the girls were instructed to call in order to get in touch with Robert Hines. Find out where that phone is located. I’m particularly anxious to find out whether Hines had an apartment there in the Siglet Manor on Eighth Street.”
“I think the police have dug up everything there is to know about your friend Hines,” Drake said. “He didn’t live there—he lived in a downtown residential hotel and had had the same room there for five years. He was single, and rather taciturn; he played the ponies occasionally, and seems to have done a bit of sharp-shooting here and there. He was tighter than the bark on a tree when it came to putting money out.”
“Just check on that telephone number anyway, Paul. It’s important. Get me the lowdown on it as soon as you can. What have you found out about that apartment where Reedley hangs out? Or rather, about his neighbor?”
“We may have struck pay dirt there, Perry. Her name’s Daphne Gridley. She’s a commercial artist. She’s also done some work as an interior decorator. She’s been there five or six years in the apartment house, and apparently it was through her efforts that Reedley got the apartment he’s in now.”
“What does she look like, Paul?”
“Class.”
“How old?”
“Twenty-six or twenty-seven.”
“Blonde or brunette?”
“Chestnut-haired.”
“Knows her way around?”
“I think so.”
“Making money?”
“She inherited a flock of it five or six years ago. She only does the art stuff to keep busy.”
“Well, it doesn’t do us any particular good, Paul, except that it checks with what we discovered. There’s a certain amount of personal satisfaction in that.”
“What you discovered,” Drake corrected. “And you just can’t ever tell. It might help if you had something on Reedley, and I think I can find out a little more if I go to work on the Gridley woman. How about it?”
“Use your judgment. I seem to have a bear by the tail and I’m going to need all the help I can get. Chase down that number right away, Paul. I’ll call you back inside of twenty to thirty minutes.”
“Okay,” Drake said, “I suppose the police will have beaten us to it, but there’s no harm in giving it the once-over. They can’t rule you off for trying, Perry.”
“Trying is right. I’ve got to hit the high spots. However, I have a hunch the police may not know about this. Hines was mixed up in some gambling activities, and the police know all about those. But it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they hadn’t bothered to chase down that phone number—perhaps they didn’t even get it from the women. Well, I’ll call you back.”
“Okay,” Drake said. “But you’d better play them pretty close to your chest, Perry. This is beginning to look a little tough for the Winters woman.”
“Are you telling me!” Mason said. “And the worst bit of evidence you don’t even know. Well, I’m not representing her—that’s one consolation.”
Mason hung up, returned to his auto, and drove a dozen blocks to a rooming house run by a woman who had once been a client.
“Hello, Mae,” Mason said. “How’s our girl friend?”
“Fine, Mr. Mason. She’s in 211. I took up some breakfast to her about an hour and a half ago. She doesn’t want to be any trouble and didn’t want to bother me, but I told her you said she mustn’t be seen in public until you had things fixed up.”
“Right,” Mason said. “Thanks a lot, Mae.”
Mae Bagley was a tall blonde woman in the early thirties. Her face could be hard, but as she looked at Perry Mason her eyes softened. “I didn’t even put her on the register, Mr. Mason, just in case they did get a tip-off or anything. Two-eleven is supposed to be vacant.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, Mae.”
“You said to bury her, and when you say anything—well, that’s all there is to it.”
“That’s nice of you, but it’s taking chances—”
“I’d take ’em for you any day, Mr. Mason.”
“Thanks, Mae. You’re a good egg. I’ll go on up.”
Mason climbed the stairs to the second floor and tapped on the door of 211.
Eva Martell opened it so quickly that it seemed she must have been sitting by the door waiting for the lawyer’s arrival. She was dressed for the street and her face lit up when she saw who it was.
“Oh, I’m so glad to see you! I thought it was the woman coming for the dishes.
I wanted to take them down to her, but she said you had . . . But do come in and sit down. Here—take this chair, it’s the most comfortable. I’ll sit over here by the window.”
Mason seated himself, took out his cigarette case, opened it, and offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. “I’ve been smoking too much, and I’m getting a bit nervous. Just waiting, not knowing what’s going on. Tell me, Mr. Mason, is Aunt Adelle out yet? Have you been able to fix things up?”
Mason lighted a cigarette. “I have some bad news for you, Eva. I’m not going to beat around the bush because there isn’t time. I’m going to hand it to you straight from the shoulder.”
Her face showed tension, but her eyes were unflinching. “Go ahead,” she said.
“Police have what seems to be a dead-open-and-shut case against Adelle Winters.”
“For . . . you mean . . .”
“For murder and theft.”
“Theft?”
“Or perhaps robbery. You remember the well-filled wallet that Hines had, from which he took the bills with which he paid you?”
She nodded.
“Police found that wallet in Adelle’s possession when the matron searched her at the jail. There was something over three thousand dollars in currency left in it.”
“Why, Mr. Mason, that’s incredible! She couldn’t have taken it. Why, she’d have told me something about it if—”
“She took it all right,” Mason said. “She told me so.”
“When?”
“Just a short time ago. When she told me she went back upstairs to get the gun, she found the wallet lying on the floor there in the living room. Presumably Hines must have been dead in the bedroom right then, with his murderer crouching beside the body.”
“Without a gun?”
“Without the murder weapon, anyway.”
“Mr. Mason, I can’t believe it!”
“You can’t believe it! What do you think a jury’s going to do?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Well,” Mason said, “that leaves you right in the middle of a mess. I tried to patch things up with the district attorney’s office and ran up against a brick wall. They’re laying for you.”
“As an accomplice?”
“As being mixed up in the whole business, along with Adelle Winters.”
“But I didn’t know a thing about it!”
“You signed an affidavit that contained a false statement.”
“Well, I . . . I didn’t see any reason for them to . . . You know how it was, Mr. Mason!”
“You remember that, when you discovered the body, you telephoned to me at my office and asked me to come out there?”
“Yes.”
“At that time, where was your Aunt Adelle?”
“Right there.”
“In the room with you—the living room of the apartment?”
“Yes.”
“And where was the body?”
“In the bedroom.”
“Now what was your Aunt Adelle doing while you were telephoning to me?”
“She—let’s see—she went over and examined the body to make certain the man was dead.”
“And while she was doing that, she could very well have lifted the wallet from the inside breast pocket of the coat, where she knew he carried it.”
“Mr. Mason, Aunt Adelle wouldn’t do anything like that!”
“But she could have done it.”
“She wouldn’t have.”
“She could have done it?”
“Yes. She could. She had the opportunity, but she simply wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, Hines was killed with her gun. His wallet with something over three thousand dollars in it was found in her possession. The D.A. could even make out a case of deliberate robbery, during which the victim had resisted and been shot. It’s a mess, and you’re mixed in it. The D.A. has given me until twelve o’clock to turn you in. I’m sorry, Eva, but I’m going to have to do it.”
“Anything you say, Mr. Mason.”
“I tried to do a little bargaining with the D.A.’s office. Ordinarily there would have been nothing to it, but this time Gulling, with this new evidence making him feel he’s sitting on top of the world, slapped my proposition right back in my face and gave me until noon to have you at police headquarters. I’m sorry, but he holds the trumps right now. You take a cab—no later than eleven-thirty—and drive to police headquarters and give yourself up. Say I told you to do it. Don’t answer any questions. Particularly, don’t tell them where you were last night. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Be sure not to talk. Don’t answer any questions about the crime—no matter how simple they sound. Understand?”
“Yes,” she repeated.
“A lot of people will tell you I’ve given you the wrong advice, that I’ve put your head into a noose. But you’ve got to have enough confidence in me so that—even if you get the idea I’m playing the thing the wrong way—you’ll abide by what I’ve told you. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Eva said a third time.
“Good girl! Now I’m on my way. Is there a phone here?”
“There’s a booth at the back of the hall downstairs.”
“Thanks—I’ll call from there. Be sure you have a cab here by eleven-thirty, and get to police headquarters before twelve. I’ll see you shortly after you’re booked. Keep a stiff upper lip!”
On reaching the telephone booth Mason dialed the number of Paul Drake’s office.
“Okay, Paul,” he said when he had the detective on the line. “What do you know?”
“I guess you’re clairvoyant,” Drake said. “That number’s in the Siglet Manor apartments—Apartment 412 on the fourth floor right by the staircase, and the tenant is a woman by the name of Carlotta Tipton. As nearly as we can find out, she’s something of a glamour girl who rarely leaves the apartment before eleven o’clock in the morning, pays her rent regularly, and doesn’t seem to have any steady occupation, though she wears good clothes. What does that do for you, Perry? Anything?”
Mason grinned. “That,” he said, “is going to do a lot for me, Paul. Pick up Della Street, have her bring her shorthand notebook and plenty of pencils, drive like hell to the Siglet Manor Apartment House, and wait for me. I’ll be there just as fast as I can make it!”
12
PAUL DRAKE pulled up at the Siglet Manor apartments just as Perry Mason swung his car around the corner. Mason parked just behind Drake’s automobile.
“Well, we made it,” Della Street said as the three of them formed a group on the sidewalk. “A couple of times I was a little doubtful.”
Drake said, “Evidently we’re ahead of the police on the thing, Perry. Carlotta Tipton doesn’t seem to have had any official visitors, as far as my men can find out. There’s one of the boys over there now. I’ll give him the high sign. You want us to go up with you, Perry?”
“I not only want you to go up, but if that’s one of your men, bring him along. I want witnesses.”
Drake beckoned, and a man slid from behind the steering wheel of a parked car and came over to join them.
“You folks know Frank Holt?” Drake asked. “One of my operatives. Miss Street and Perry Mason, Frank.” They nodded greetings, and Drake went on, “We’re going up to interview Carlotta Tipton, Frank. We want you along as a witness. Keep your eyes and ears open so you can remember afterward what takes place. Let’s go.”
They paused at the outer door.
“What do we do?” Drake asked. “Buzz her apartment and get her to open the door, or buzz some other apartment?”
Mason said, “If you’ve got a key that will work this thing . . . It doesn’t take much of a master key to open the outer door of a place like this.”
“Have a heart, Perry!”
“Go on, Paul, open it.”
Drake looked questioningly at Frank Holt. “Got a key, Frank?”
“Sure,” Holt said, and promptly opened t
he door.
Mason told them, “I’ll do the talking, and we’ll all keep our hats on. That’s the best way I know to impersonate an officer, and they can’t pinch you for it. Let’s go.”
They rode up to the fourth floor, and when they had located Carlotta Tipton’s apartment Mason knocked.
The sound of movement came from the other side of the door, then a noise as though something were being dragged a short distance across the floor.
The door opened. The woman who stood on the threshold drew back at sight of the businesslike group.
“What . . . what is this?”
Mason, assuming a hard-boiled manner, pushed past her into the apartment.
Everywhere there were signs of packing. Folded clothes were laid on a davenport. An open suitcase on the floor was about half-filled. Another suitcase, closed and strapped, had evidently been dragged aside in order to enable her to open the door.
She was slightly taller than average, a smooth-skinned redhead in the late twenties. She was wearing a skirt and blouse, but had not as yet put on make-up, and there was a slightly swollen look about her eyes which might have been due either to crying or to a hangover.
Della Street promptly went to a chair by the table, unostentatiously opened her notebook, and held a pencil poised over the page.
Frank Holt, walking over to stand by the window, pulled a cigar from his pocket, thrust it into his jaw at an up-turned angle, and pulled back his vest, pushing his thumbs through the armholes.
“Well, Carlotta,” Mason said, “looks rather bad, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve lost a meal ticket.”
“It isn’t . . . it isn’t that. I’ve . . . I’ve lost a friend.”
“Suppose you tell us about it?”
“He was killed—that’s all I know.”
“Sweet on him?”
The Case of the Borrowed Brunette Page 11