The Case of the Troubled Trustee pm-78

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  "Get me that report from Drake's operative, Della. Let's study it again."

  Della Street went to the file, returned with a report on the dead man.

  Mason thumbed through the numerous typewritten sheets of flimsy. "The guy seems to have been pretty much of a lone wolf," he said, "never married, an oil worker, then down and out-sort of a sharpshooter.

  "He may have been a professional blackmailer. He had something on the Steer Ridge Oil and Refining Company that was worth money to someone, or at least he thought it was. He was fighting for proxies… and he must have had something rather degrading on Fred Hedley-probably a prior marriage that had never been dissolved."

  Mason slowly thumbed through the pages of the report; then went back and reread it.

  Abruptly the lawyer straightened himself in the office chair, started to say something, checked himself, looked up at Della and back to the report.

  "Something?" she asked.

  "I don't know," Mason said thoughtfully.

  The lawyer got up and started pacing the floor. Della, knowing his habits, sat very quietly so she would not interrupt his thinking. Later on, when the lawyer had clarified the situation in his own mind, she might ask him questions so that by answering those questions he could crystallize his thoughts, but right at the moment she knew he needed an opportunity for complete concentration.

  Mason suddenly paused in his pacing.

  "Della," he said, "I want an ad in the papers that will be in the night editions."

  As she started to say something, Mason said, "I know that's impossible. I know those want ad pages are printed in advance, but I want this in a box somewhere in the newspapers, entitled, 'Too Late To Classify,' or something of that sort. Tell them that it's important to get it in. Money's no object."

  "What's the copy?" she asked.

  "Make it this way. Put the initials, capital P, capital M; then, 'The thing that was too hot for the grass on the golf course is now even more valuable than ever. Call this number at nine o'clock sharp and follow instructions.' "

  "And the number?" Della Street asked.

  Mason said, "Go to a service station in Hollywood. Find a telephone booth; get the number.

  "Now then, you're going to have to work fast. You're going to have to get co-operation from the papers. Tell them it's a red-hot tip and if they'll put the ad in and say nothing about it to anyone, they may get a red-hot story later on.

  "Then, while you're pulling wires, I'll get Paul Drake and we'll get an operative we can trust who will be at this number at exactly nine o'clock with instructions to act as decoy in case somebody bites on our little scheme."

  "And in case no one bites?" Della Street asked.

  "Then," Mason said, "Burger can show that Paul Drake got another fifty-dollar charge on his bill."

  Della Street typed out the want ad, said, "I'm on my way."

  Mason called Paul Drake. "Paul," he said, "I want an operative to be at a public pay station at nine o'clock sharp tonight, and if he is contacted there, to make an appointment to meet whoever calls at one of the most lonely, secluded spots your man will be able to pick Out during the afternoon.

  "That spot has to be wooded. It has to be within a reasonable distance of the highway. It has to be unlighted."

  "Have a heart, Perry," Drake said. "About the only place I know of would be a golf course, and we've had enough of golf courses in this case."

  "Golf courses are out," Mason said. "Try a city dump."

  "Suppose no one calls the operative when he's in the service station?"

  "Then," Mason said, "we'll give him a call and give him further instructions.

  "Get busy, Paul. This is of real importance. It may be the payoff."

  "You have a live lead?" Drake asked.

  "I'm playing a hunch," Mason said. "It's a wild hunch, but it may pay off."

  Mason hung up; then picked up the other telephone and said to Gertie at the switchboard, "Get me Homicide at the police department, Gertie. I want to talk to Lieutenant Tragg."

  "No one else, if he's out?"

  "If he's out," Mason said, "I don't even want anyone to know who's calling."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Perry Mason, Lt. Tragg, Della Street, Paul Drake and one of Drake's operatives huddled in the dark shadows of a g'roup of stunted trees.

  In their nostrils was the sour smell of a city dump.

  "You certainly picked a sweet-smelling place," Lt. Tragg said.

  Drake, speaking in a hushed voice, said, "It was the only one that we could find that gave us what we wanted."

  Tragg said, "Now, let's have this definitely understood. There's to be no publicity."

  "No publicity unless you give it publicity," Mason said.

  "I don't publicize my wild goose chases," Tragg said. "I don't want the D.A.'s office to know anything about this, and I'm risking my official neck just trying to play ball with you."

  "I've put the cards on the table," Mason said.

  "You certainly did, and I never saw such a collection of jokers in my life," Tragg grunted.

  Paul Drake nervously reached for a cigarette, then checked himself as he remembered the admonition of no smoking.

  Night insects shrilled in the distance. Somewhere a chorus of frogs started croaking, then lapsed into silence, then started croaking again.

  "Suppose no one calls him?" Tragg asked.

  "At five minutes past nine," Mason said, "one of Drake's operatives will call him. The phone will ring and the man in the booth will pick up the receiver just as though it were a bona fide call."

  "And then?" Tragg asked.

  "Then he'll start for here."

  "And if anyone calls?"

  "We'll know we're on the right track," Mason said.

  "Well," Tragg told him, "that's the trouble with amateurs. You get crazy ideas. I'll bet ten to one no one calls him."

  "We'll know pretty quick," Mason said, consulting his wrist watch and then raising the antenna on a walkie-talkie.

  "He isn't carrying a walkie-talkie with him, is he?" Tragg asked.

  "No," Mason said. "But he does have a citizen's band transceiver on his car, but I wanted to use a walkietalkie for receiving because we don't want to have any loud noises."

  Suddenly the walkie-talkie in the hands of Perry Mason made squawking noises, then a little pinched voice said, "Do you read me?"

  "I read you. Come in," Mason said. "What's happened?"

  "I'm on my way out."

  "Call?"

  "Only the decoy one we'd arranged."

  "Okay," Mason said, his voice showing disappointment, "we'll follow plan number two. Over and off."

  The lawyer snapped down the antenna on the walkietalkie.

  "Well," he said dejectedly, "it looks as if you win, Lieutenant."

  Tragg snorted. "I would have bet you a hundred to one-a thousand to one."

  "Well," Mason said, "the only chance now is that someone was watching and will follow him in a car."

  "That's a good ten-thousand-to-one bet," Tragg said. "I'm holding you to your promise, Mason, that you'll never betray me on this."

  "You have my word," Mason told him. "Come on, let's deploy out into the shadows near the road. Drake's man is instructed to get out of the car and walk directly toward the dump for thirty-five paces, then stop, stand in the open for a few seconds, and then move into the shadows and drop to the ground."

  Tragg said, "All right, we've stuck our necks out this far. Now we'll play along with your plan number two."

  They moved slowly according to prearranged plan into the dense shadows near the roadway.

  "How long will it take him to get here?" Tragg asked.

  "We figured twelve minutes on a trial run this afternoon," Mason said.

  "All right," Tragg said, "I've held the bag on your snipe hunting this far and I may as well throw twelve minutes down the rathole."

  They waited until headlights appeared on the dirt road-headlights which
danced up and down over the bumpy road, at times sending a beam up into the trees, at times pointing down as the car negotiated the bumps.

  "That road is full of nails and tire hazards," Drake said. "I'll bet we have tire trouble with one of these cars."

  "Don't be so pessimistic," Mason said. "Lieutenant Tragg has infected you with the gloom bug."

  The car came to a stop. The headlights were switched off. A dark figure jumped from the car, walked rapidly for thirty-five steps, then stood for approximately thirty seconds, then moved into the shadows and dropped to the ground.

  "Well," Tragg said, "the show's over. We may as well call it a night and go home."

  "Wait a minute," Mason said. "We've got to give our quarry a chance."

  "Your quarry!" Lt. Tragg snorted sarcastically.

  "Silence!" Mason warned. "I think I heard the motor of a car."

  They remained silent.

  Drake said in a harsh whisper, "You're right. A car without headlights!"

  The little group remained tense as the sound of a motor became plainly audible, a motor in a car which was being driven without headlights.

  Abruptly the car came to a stop.

  "If this thing works," Tragg muttered, "I'll be a monkey's uncle." And then after a moment, he added ruefully, "And if it doesn't work and this ever gets out, I'll be the monkey himself."

  "Hush!" Mason whispered.

  They held their positions, listening and watching. The dark shadows played tricks on their eyes. Once Della Street grasped Mason's arm, said, "Something moved."

  No one else, however, had seen the movement.

  They waited five minutes. Tragg sucked in his breath, starting to say something when, suddenly, they all saw a figure silhouetted against a patch of night sky.

  Mason pressed the button of the powerful flashlight he was holding.

  A figure interfused a forearm between eyes and flashlight. There was a glint of metal on blued-steel, then an orange spreading flash and the whistle of a bullet going past Mason's head.

  The lawyer extinguished the flashlight. "Come on!" he said.

  The group ran forward.

  Twice more the reddish orange flame spurted into the night. Twice more they heard the whistle of bullets, then there were no more shots.

  "We use plan three!" Mason shouted. "We don't want to kill unless we have to, and we don't want to move in and be sitting ducks."

  They froze into immobility for what seemed an interminable period of silence, then, suddenly, they heard the roar of a car motor as it throbbed into life, and a second later headlights came on. The car, a hundred yards down the road, tried to make a U-turn, stalled, backed, crashed into a tree, then started forward.

  The group ran to Lt. Tragg's police car which had been hidden in the brush. They climbed in hurriedly. Tragg throbbed the motor into life, switched on the red light, hit the siren, and at the same time called in on the radio asking the dispatcher to head off a car which was proceeding at high speed from the dirt road into the dump, asking that roadblocks be put up on the principal paved roads leading from the dirt road.

  The car had traveled wildly, the taillights glowing like red rubies.

  Tragg, driving the car with police competency, hustled over the road, gaining on the car ahead.

  Abruptly the lights on the other car were switched off.

  "Trying to find a side road to turn down," Tragg grunted, and switched on a powerful searchlight.

  The searchlight not only held the car ahead in the beam of its illumination but the reflection in the windshield blinded the driver.

  Again the lights of the car ahead were switched on, but during the period of dark driving the car had lost valuable ground.

  The fleeing car made a screaming turn from the dirt road onto the pavement, and suddenly the blood-red brake lights flared into brilliance as the driver frantically depressed the brake pedal.

  A police car was parked broadside in the road, and on each side of the police car were officers with drawn guns.

  "I guess that does it," Tragg said.

  "Let's hope she doesn't have enough presence of mind to throw the gun away," Mason said. "That's our best evidence."

  The fugitive's car skidded to a stop. Mrs. Hedley's hate-distorted features were illuminated by the glaring lights as she slowly got out of her car with her hands up.

  Tragg stopped his car immediately behind hers, and the party piled out.

  Mrs. Hedley looked at them with venomous hatred. Her eyes came to focus on Perry Mason's face. "How I wish I could have killed you!" she spat at him.

  Tragg pushed past her, looked in the automobile and picked up an automatic from the seat.

  "This your gun?" he asked.

  "See my lawyer," she snapped.

  "You won't need to ask any questions," Mason said.

  "Take that gun to ballistics. Check the empty cartridge case we found at the seventh tee for what the ballistics experts call the breech-block signature and you'll find the cartridge was fired from that gun."

  Another car came driving up behind. Drake's operative got out and said, "Gosh, you folks get a man into all sorts of scrapes."

  Perry Mason grinned at him. "When you get on the stand," he said, "tell Hamilton Burger that you were collecting the regular fee of fifty dollars a day and that you were shot at three times-all of which is only part of the day's work."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Paul Drake, Della Street and Kerry Dutton were gathered in Mason's office the next afternoon. Dutton, still somewhat dazed from the rapid developments of the day, said, "Would you mind telling me how you did all this?"

  Mason grinned. "I didn't," he said. "Lieutenant Tragg did. Lieutenant Tragg had to."

  "Well, the papers certainly gave Tragg a wonderful spread of publicity. One would have thought he originated the whole idea."

  "An officer has to take credit," Mason said. "It's part of the game. When Tragg consented to go with me, he knew I'd give him all the publicity if the scheme paid off-and keep him out of it if it didn't."

  "But how did you know what had happened?"

  "It was just simple reasoning," Mason said. "So simple that I almost overlooked it.

  "Palmer was killed shortly after nine o'clock, but the murderess needed a Patsy, so the murderess picked on you. She decoyed you into going to the scene of the murder because she knew Palmer had been trying to put the bite on you. Just before you arrived, the murderess fired another shot so that if anyone happened to be listening, there would be the sound of a shot that would coincide with the time the murder was supposed to have taken place.

  "Then, of course, you very stupidly played into the hands of the murderess just as she had expected you would, because she had planted Desere's gun by the body-a gun which she had taken from the bureau drawer in Desere's bedroom."

  "And the reason?" Drake asked.

  "Not the reason that any of us had thought of.

  "Palmer had been in two hotels when these stocking strangulation murders had taken place. The police had, quite naturally, considered him as a suspect, but very foolishly they didn't consider him as a witness. They didn't ask him in detail about the people he had seen in the hotel although he probably wouldn't have told them if they had asked.

  "We know now that he had seen Hedley in each of the hotels, and Hedley was the mysterious person who had registered under an assumed name and then vanished. The description fits him."

  "And Mrs. Hedley knew what her son had done?"

  "Her son has been a little bit off ever since he was a boy. She has a fierce protective instinct-an instinct which was strong enough to make her willing to kill if she had to in order to protect her boy.

  "But the point is Palmer knew what Hedley had done, and Palmer desperately needed money to win his proxy fight in the Steer Ridge Oil Company. He felt that he could ultimately gain a million if he could only get operating capital.

  "So Palmer put the bite on Mrs. Hedley. It was blackmail for t
he highest stakes possible. Either he got money or he put the police on the trail of her son on a series of murders.

  "That's always a dangerous gambit. Palmer knew that, but he was playing for big stakes. He had to take the chance.

  "And he lost his gamble."

  "Hedley, himself, didn't-"

  "Hedley, himself, didn't know anything about Palmer's murder," Mason went on. "It was his mother who was trying to protect him; his mother who killed the man who could have betrayed her son.

  "When you stop to think of it, it had to be the mother. She could have had access to the bureau drawer in Desere's apartment. She was the only one who could have secured that gun, who had a sufficiently strong motive to commit murder if she had to.

  "Hedley really gave himself away during that fight with you, Kerry. He ran into Desere's bedroom. He was looking for a nylon stocking. If he'd got his hands on one you'd have found him an expert garroter. He's had lots of practice.

  "It was thinking about that rush to the bedroom and trying to find the reason for it that started me thinking along the right line."

  Dutton shook his head. "I can still feel the arms of that metallic chair in the gas chamber."

  "You certainly led with your chin," Mason told him, "trying to protect the girl you loved and trying to surprise her with an inheritance.

  "Now then, make me a check for five thousand dollars covering my fee and Drake's expenses. Get out of here, hunt up Desere Ellis, tell her you love her and ask her to marry you."

  "That last," Dutton said, "is probably the best advice I've ever had."

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