The Case of the Lazy Lover

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “So Allred got a bright idea. Why not keep me from getting to work on the case by seeing that I had two checks. One of them could be forged. He felt certain that when I got two checks in the same amount I’d refrain from doing anything until I could get in touch with Mrs. Allred.

  “And Allred felt he only needed just one day’s time. By Monday night it would be all over. And if he could fog the issues so the check Mrs. Allred sent me wasn’t cashed on Monday, it would never be cashed then because a person’s death automatically cancels any outstanding checks.

  “Mrs. Allred had hurriedly typed the letter to the bank at Las Olitas. It was lying there on the table by her typewriter and checkbook. Allred slipped a sheet of carbon paper underneath it, traced the signature with a pointed instrument, perhaps the point of a nail file, on a check and made out the body of the check after Mrs. Allred had left. Remember, he didn’t go to Springfield with them, but followed them after a few minutes.

  “He made his wife believe that Patricia Faxon had run into Fleetwood with her automobile. You can follow Allred’s reasoning all the way through. He wanted to murder Fleetwood, and he made two attempts at it. He thought he had killed Fleetwood the first time when he slugged him with a club and left him lying by the hedge.

  “Allred ran along the side of the hedge when Fleetwood started to leave the place. He was waiting on the street side of the hedge, just as Fleetwood came out on the patio side at the opening by the driveway. It only took one good, heavy blow to crumple Fleetwood to the ground. Allred thought he had killed him. Then Allred dragged the body back a little ways, took his own car and parked it in such a position that when Patricia came driving up, it was almost certain that she would cut a corner of the hedge. Even if she hadn’t, Allred could have gone out and crumpled the fender after the car was in the garage and then had Patricia thinking she had struck Fleetwood with that fender as she made the turn.

  “Then Fleetwood regained consciousness. That meant Allred had to work out some other bulletproof murder scheme. When Fleetwood pretended amnesia, Allred saw another opportunity. He got Fleetwood to go with Mrs. Allred, Mrs. Allred telling Fleetwood she was his married sister, and Allred coming to me and saying that Fleetwood had run away with his wife.”

  “Allred certainly went in for complicated schemes,” Drake said.

  “He schemed himself right into a grave,” Mason said. “Evidently he hired a car and driver to take him to the Snug-Rest Auto Court and just about the time he was getting there, Fleetwood must have been trying for a getaway.

  “Allred had a gun and he forced Fleetwood to stop the car and let him in. From that point on, Fleetwood’s story could be the truth. The only part about it that’s a he is the story about Mrs. Allred’s being in the luggage compartment. And Fleetwood and Bernice Archer hatched up that story to account for the bloodstains on the carpet of the luggage compartment.”

  “And Mrs. Allred changed her story to you because she felt that was her best way out?” Della Street asked.

  “Sure. Fleetwood and his girl, Bernice Archer, made such a convincing story that Mrs. Allred suddenly realized she stood a better chance of going free by falling in with their story than by trying to tell the truth. The artistic way Bernice fixed up the story was that it gave Mrs. Allred almost a perfect out on a plea of self-defense—and, of course, it got Fleetwood out of a jam.

  “Circumstantial evidence never lies, but it isn’t always easy to interpret it correctly.”

  “Well, all’s well that ends well,” Della Street said. “This case certainly expanded into a lot of complications from a forged check. I suppose it was that check which really aroused your suspicions, Chief.”

  Mason smiled. “The thing which really made me suspicious was the stories everyone had about the lazy lover. The picture of Fleetwood eloping with Mrs. Allred and then sitting back and letting her do all the running around and registering at the motel while he sat in the car, too lazy to move. Well, somehow when that picture was sketched I began to think Allred might have something up his sleeve in the way of a whole deck of marked cards.”

  “That’s a good way to file it,” Della Street said smiling, “The Case of the Lazy Lover.”

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Perry Mason Mysteries

  Chapter 1

  Perry Mason extended his hand for the oblong business card which Della Street was carrying as she entered the lawyer’s private office.

  “Who is it, Della?”

  “Robert Caddo.”

  Perry Mason studied the card, then smiled. “LONELY LOVERS PUBLICATIONS, INC.,” he read. “And what seems to be Mr. Caddo’s troubles, Della?”

  She said laughingly, “They are what he described as ‘complications’ arising from an ad which he has been running.”

  She handed Mason a copy of a cheaply printed magazine entitled Lonely Hearts Are Calling.

  “It looks like a cheap edition of a mail-order catalogue,” Mason said.

  “That’s what it is.”

  Mason raised his eyebrows.

  “At any rate, that’s almost what it is,” Della qualified. “You see, there are stories in the front part, and then in the back there are classified ads, and there is a blank on the back inside cover that can be torn along the perforated lines and turned into a mailing envelope with a message folded on the inside.”

  Mason nodded.

  “I gather from Mr. Caddo that all such messages received at the office, properly addressed, will be forwarded to the advertiser to whose box they are addressed.”

  “Very interesting,” Mason said.

  “For instance,” Della went on, opening the magazine at random, “here’s Box Number 256. Would you pexrhaps like to communicate with Box 256, Mr. Mason? All you have to do is to tear off the back cover, cut it along the perforated lines, write your message, then fold it, place a seal on it, and deliver it by any means you may select to the office of Lonely Lovers Publications, Inc.”

  “Tell me more about Box 256,” Mason grinned. “I think we’re going to enjoy Mr. Caddo.”

  Della Street read the classified ad:

  Refined woman of forty, with rural background, wishes to contact man who is fond of animals.

  Mason threw back his head and laughed. Then suddenly he quit laughing.

  “What’s the matter, Chief?”

  “After all,” Mason said, “it’s ludicrous and yet it’s tragic. An unmarried woman of forty, with rural background, finds herself in the city with no friends. She probably has a cat or two. And she … What does Caddo look like?”

  “He’s about thirty-eight, high cheekbones, big ears, large blue eyes, partially bald, big Adam’s apple, tall, has big feet, and sits rigidly erect in the chair. He won’t lean back and relax. He makes me nervous just watching him.”

  “And his trouble?”

  “He said he could only tell me that it was due to peculiar complications which he’d have to explain to you personally.”

  “Let’s have a look at him,” Mason said.

  Della Street said, “Don’t throw the magazine away. Big-hearted Gertie out at the switchboard is all worked up about it. She wants to write letters to all of them and cheer ’em up.”

  Mason thumbed through the pages of the magazine, musing half to himself.

  “Looks like a racket,” he muttered. “Take this first story—’A Kiss in the Dark,’ by Arthur Ansell Ashland—‘Never Too Late for Cupid,’ by George Cartright Dawson…. Let’s have a look at our friend Caddo, Del-la. He may be someone we want to take apart.”

  Della Street nodded, slipped back through the door into the outer office, and returned with a man who was tall in a gangling, loose-jointed way, with a static, vacuous grin seeming to betoken a continuous attempt to placate and mollify a world which somehow kept him on the defensive.

  “Good morning, Mr. Caddo,” Mason said.

  “You’re Perry Mason, the lawyer?”

  Mason nodded.

  Caddo’s thick, si
newy fingers squeezed the lawyer’s hand. “I’m mighty glad to meet you, Mr. Mason.”

  “Sit down,” Mason invited. “My secretary says you’re publishing this magazine.” He indicated the magazine on the desk.

  Caddo’s head nodded in eager assent. “That’s right, Mr. Mason, that’s very true.”

  The light from the window glinted on the smooth, shiny expanse of his high forehead as he bowed. The big ears seemed to dominate the face. One almost looked for them to flap in accord, much as the reflex wagging of a dog’s tail helps to communicate his emotions.

  “Just what is the object of the magazine?” Mason asked.

  “It’s a means of communication, a means by which lonely people are brought together, Mr. Mason.”

  “It has a newsstand circulation?”

  “Not exactly. It’s sold through certain outlets. And then I have a small subscription list. You see, Mr. Mason, nothing is quite as cruel and impersonal as the solitude of a big city.”

  “I believe the theme has been the subject of poetic expression,” Mason said dryly.

  Caddo flashed him a quick glance from his big eyes, then grinned vaguely. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “We were talking about the magazine,” Mason prompted.

  “Well, you see, this has the sort of stories that appeal to people who are hungry for companionship, people who are alone in the city, alone in life. We cater largely to women who have arrived at an age when they are afraid love may be about to pass them by permanently, an age of loneliness, an age of panic.”

  And Caddo’s head once more embarked upon a series of regular, rhythmic nods, as though some inner clockwork mechanism had started him mechanically agreeing with himself.

  Mason opened the magazine, said, “Your stories seem rather romantic, at least the titles.” “They are.”

  Mason skimmed through the story entitled “A Kiss in the Dark.”

  “Don’t read that stuff,” Caddo said.

  “I just wanted to see what sort of stories you were publishing. Who’s Arthur Ansell Ashland? I can’t remember ever having heard of him.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t ever have heard of anyone whose stuff appears in my magazine, Mr. Mason.”

  “Why not?”

  Caddo coughed deprecatingly. “Occasionally one finds it necessary, almost imperative, in fact, to do considerable detail work in order to be certain that there will be an ample supply of stories carrying out the general theme of the magazine.”

  “You mean you write them yourself?” Mason asked.

  “Arthur Ansell Ashland is a house name,” Caddo admitted modestly.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “The magazine owns the name. We can publish anything we want to under the name of that author, using that by-line as a tag.”

  “Who wrote this story?”

  Caddo’s big teeth showed in a grin. “I did,” he said, and once more started nodding a steady rhythm of affirmation.

  “And how about this next one, by George Cartright Dawson?”

  The nodding continued without the slightest change in tempo.

  “You mean you wrote that one too?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Mason.”

  Mason watched the light glinting from the high forehead as the head continued to nod.

  “And the next story?” he asked.

  There was no slightest change in the tempo of the nodding.

  “For the love of Mike,” Mason said, “do you write the whole magazine?”

  “Usually. Sometimes I find a story I can buy at my regular space rates of one-quarter of a cent a word.”

  “All right,” Mason said crisply. “What are your troubles?”

  “My troubles!” Caddo exclaimed. “I have them by the thousand! I … Oh, you mean why did I come to see you?”

  “That’s right.”

  Caddo opened the magazine which Della Street had placed on Mason’s desk. With a practiced hand, he thumbed the pages and stopped at Ad 96. “Here we have it in a nutshell,” he said.

  He passed the ad across to Mason.

  Mason read:

  I am a girl of twenty-three, with good face and figure. I am the type the wolves all say should be in Hollywood, although Hollywood doesn’t seem to think so. I am an heiress with a comfortable fortune coming to me. I am tired of the people who know who I am and are quite obviously making love to me for my money. I would like very much to form a new circle of acquaintances. Will some personable young man between the ages of 23 and 40 write to tell me he knows how I feel. Also, when you write, tell me something about your background. Enclose a picture if possible. Communicate with me at Box 96, care of this magazine.

  Mason frowned.

  “What’s the matter?” Caddo asked.

  “Quite obviously this is a fake,” Mason said acidly. “No intelligent heiress would even read your magazine. A good-looking heiress would be far too busy and far too intelligent to waste her time reading such tripe, let alone sending in an advertisement for you to publish. This is the cheapest type of exploitation.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Caddo said.

  “You should be.”

  “I mean I’m sorry that you can’t understand.”

  “I think I do understand. I would say that this ad was the result of a collaboration by Arthur Ansell Ashland and George Cartright Dawson.”

  “No! No! No, Mr. Mason! Please don’t,” Caddo said, holding an uplifted hand with the palm toward Mason, as though he were a traffic cop restraining an impatient pedestrian.

  “You mean you didn’t write that yourself?”

  “No, definitely not.”

  “Then you had someone do it,” Mason charged.

  “But Mr. Mason, really I didn’t. That’s what I came to see you about.”

  “All right, tell me about it.”

  The lawyer’s cynical eyes, boring into his, caused Caddo to shift uneasily. “I wish you would believe me, Mr. Mason.”

  “Give me the facts.”

  “In this business, you understand, as in any other business, once a person blazes a trail there are others who will follow it—in other words, I have imitators, and these imitators are my bitter rivals.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “One of these imitators has complained to the authorities that I am boosting the circulation of my magazine by resorting to false advertising.”

  “What do the authorities say?”

  “They’ve advised me either to withdraw this issue from circulation or prove to them that the ad is genuine. And I can’t do either.”

  “Why not?”

  “In the first place, this is not really a magazine, in the usual sense of the word. It’s sort of a pamphlet. We print a large number and keep them in circulation until they’re sold out or until the freshness has so worn off that our advertising returns cease. To call in all the magazines and print others would be out of the question. Oh, I suppose it could be done, but it would be expensive and annoying and would necessitate a lot of work.”

  “If the ad is genuine, why can’t you prove it’s genuine?”

  Caddo stroked his big jaw with long, powerful fingers. “Now there’s the rub,” he said.

  “Meaning no pun, I take it,” Mason observed with a swift glance at Della Street.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “Well,” Caddo said, still rubbing his chin, “perhaps I’d better explain to you a little something about how we work, Mr. Mason.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The only way a reader can communicate with one of the persons who has seen fit to insert an ad in my magazine is by purchasing a copy of the magazine at twenty-five cents, writing a message on the back page, and seeing that that page reaches the office of the magazine, properly addressed to the box with which he wishes to communicate. We then take the responsibility of seeing that the message is placed in the proper box. That’s all. If the message is sent to us through the mails it’s
done by the subscriber at his own risk. In fact, we suggest that it be delivered personally, but if a subscriber lives out of town, of course, he usually has to mail his message.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Now, a person who wants a pen-pal will be quite apt to communicate with several different advertisers. In other words, a person will often write ten or fifteen letters.”

  “All at the expense of buying a magazine for each letter at twenty-five cents a copy?” “That’s right.”

  “And then what?”

  “He will probably receive an answer to every letter he writes.”

  “So that he then ceases to be lonely and therefore ceases to be a customer.”

  Caddo smiled. “It hardly works out that way.”

  “No?”

  “No. A person who is truly lonely,” Caddo said, “is very apt to be so because of some facet of his own character, not because of his environment. In other words, Mr. Mason, you take a mixer, a person who is going to be popular, and put him down in a strange city where he doesn’t know a soul, and within a couple of weeks he’ll have quite a circle of friends. Of course, with a woman it’s a little more difficult, but they always manage some way. Now, the people who use my columns are, for the most part, mature people, who have something within themselves that keeps them from mixing, from making friends. A normal girl is married by the time she’s thirty. One who passes that age, still unmarried, and not from choice, is quite apt to have a personality that will doom her to a solitary life. In other words, she has erected a barrier between herself and her emotions, between herself and the world; yet she’s yearning to have someone smash that barrier. She herself lacks the power to remove it.

  “Anyhow, without going into a lot of details about the psychology of lonely people—and I can assure you, Mr. Mason, I’ve made quite a study of that psychology—the fact remains that my customers are, as nearly as I can tell, more or less steady. For instance, we’ll take the case of a hypothetical Miss X. Miss X is perhaps a spinster of forty-two or forty-three. She is wistful, lonely and essentially romantic. There are, however, certain mental inhibitions which keep her from letting herself go, so that only in the privacy of her own mind does she have these romantically gregarious thoughts.