The Case of the Lonely Heiress

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Tragg and the officer conversed in low tones for a moment or two, then the officer started back toward the car. Tragg returned to Mason. “What were you two trying to put over, Mason?”

  Mason said, “I feel I’ve been inconvenienced about enough. After all, Lieutenant, I’ve told you all I know, and I have work to do.”

  Tragg nodded.

  “Moreover,” Mason said, “there’s a lot of stuff at the office that Miss Street has to take care of.”

  Tragg pursed his lips, started to say something, checked himself.

  “One of us has to get back,” Mason insisted.

  Tragg apparently changed his mind. He called out suddenly to the officer in the police car, “Take Miss Street up to Mr. Mason’s office, leave her there and then follow instructions.”

  “Okay,” the big officer said, and almost immediately little puffs of smoke began to come from the exhaust of the big police car.

  “You can come back upstairs with me,” Tragg said to Mason. “I want to talk with you a little further.”

  “Only too glad to oblige,” Mason said.

  The big police car rocketed into motion.

  “I’d like her to get there in one piece,” Mason said.

  “Oh, sure, sure,” Tragg assured him casually. “That officer will handle her as though she were a crate of eggs. He’s one of the best drivers in the business.”

  “He seemed unduly suspicious.”

  “That depends on what you mean by ‘unduly,’” Tragg said. “He said you were trying to whisper.”

  “I wanted to give Della Street some instructions about a business matter.”

  “You can trust our discretion.”

  Mason said, “I don’t have to trust anyone’s discretion. I have a right to run my business, and I certainly don’t have to broadcast instructions to my secretary over a police network …”

  “Okay, okay,” Tragg interrupted, “no hard feelings, Mason. I merely wanted to make sure I had a straight story out of you. Now, let’s take a few minutes here, and then I see no reason why you can’t be on your way. Show me just how this door was standing partially open when you came here.”

  Mason said, “Now, I’m not certain about that, Tragg. I thought I heard a buzzer somewhere, and—you know how these electric buzzers release a door catch.”

  Tragg, watching Mason narrowly, nodded his head. “Go on,” he said curtly.

  “Well,” Mason said, “I rang the bell and then I thought I heard a buzzer. I can’t be absolutely certain of it. I pressed against the door, and the door opened, so I naturally assumed my ring had been answered.”

  “You don’t know whether the door was ajar or not?”

  “I acted rather mechanically. I heard what I thought was a buzzer, and pushed the door.”

  “You don’t think it was a buzzer now?”

  Mason said, “A dead woman can hardly push a buzzer button.”

  “That’s right,” Tragg said, and then added after a moment, “You had Della Street with you?” “Yes.”

  “Of course, Mason, you wouldn’t want to suppress any evidence.”

  “What do you mean—evidence?”

  “Just what I said.”

  “I take it,” Mason said, “that you are referring to evidence concerning the murder. As far as any other evidence is concerned, I not only have a right to suppress it, but it becomes my duty to do so.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “I’m supposed to protect the interests of my clients. I’m supposed to keep their confidences.”

  “Their confidences, yes, but that doesn’t mean you can suppress any evidence.”

  “I can suppress evidence of anything I damn please,” Mason said, “just so it isn’t evidence that points to a crime.”

  “There might be a difference of opinion,” Tragg said, “as to just what evidence points to a crime and just what doesn’t.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to think you had the final decision in that matter.”

  “You think I’m holding something back?”

  Tragg said, “I’m interested in how you got in, that’s all.”

  “I told you.”

  “Obviously, you must have been mistaken when you say you thought you heard the buzzer.”

  “That, of course, is a logical conclusion.”

  “Do you know of any motive for the murder?” Tragg asked.

  “I had never even met the woman.”

  “Nurse, wasn’t she?”

  “So I understand.”

  Tragg said, “Well, sit down here, Mason. I’ll be finished with you in a few minutes. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve checked up on some stuff in here.”

  Mason sat down in a chair in the living room and Tragg went back to the bedroom. Mason, from time to time, saw brief white flashes of light in the hall as the photographer in the bedroom shot off flash bulbs. The lawyer impatiently looked at his watch, nervously pulled a cigarette case out of his pocket, snapped it open, struck a match and started smoking.

  The officer who was standing in the doorway on guard said, “If you don’t mind, Mr. Mason, you can put that burnt match in your pocket. It might be confusing if you dropped it in an ashtray.”

  Mason nodded, and pushed the burnt match down into his pocket.

  The door from the south bedroom opened, and Tragg said, “All right, Mason, I don’t think there’s any need to detain you any longer. You have your car here?”

  “Yes,” Mason said.

  “We’ve got nothing more to ask you right at the present time. You can’t remember anything else?”

  “I think I’ve told you all I can,” Mason said.

  “Okay,” Tragg said breezily, “on your way,” and to the officer at the door, “Let Mr. Mason out.”

  Mason said good afternoon to Tragg, walked past the officer, down the stairs, walked a half block to where he had parked his car, got in and drove until he saw a sign announcing a telephone pay station.

  Mason dropped a coin, dialed his office, and in a matter of seconds had Gertie on the line.

  “Quick, Gertie,” Mason said, “I want to get the address of Ethel Furlong, the other witness to that will, and …”

  Gertie’s voice was sharp with excitement. “Della Street’s already got it. She went tearing out there in a taxi. It’s way out on South Montet Avenue—number 6920.”

  “Thanks,” Mason said. “Don’t let anyone know where I am. In case the police should telephone, simply tell them I haven’t showed up at the office yet but that you’re expecting me. You say Della went out in a taxi?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago did she leave?”

  “About three or four minutes ago. The police brought her to the office. She said they certainly gave her one wild ride. That big cop goes like mad, and, of course, with the siren …”

  “I understand,” Mason said. “I presume I can get there about as soon as she does.”

  “Mr. Mason, can you tell me what’s happened? Della Street was in too much of a hurry …”

  “I am, too,” Mason said. “It’ll keep. Just close up the office at five, Gertie, and go on home.”

  “Aw gee, Mr. Mason, I’d like to stay if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I don’t think there is. I’ll phone you if I need you. Good-by.”

  Mason jumped in his car and made time out to the cross-town boulevard. It was a twenty-minute drive to where South Montet Avenue crossed the boulevard in the fifty-two-hundred block.

  Mason turned right, and had only gone two blocks when he overtook the taxicab in which Della Street was riding.

  Mason drew alongside and pressed the button of his horn.

  Della looked up, first with apprehension, then with glad surprise. She tapped on the glass, signaling the driver to stop.

  When the driver had brought his cab to a stop, Della Street paid him off and climbed in with Mason.

  “How did you do?” Mason asked her
.

  “Swell, but my gosh, I had a wild ride up to the office!”

  “The cop try to pump you?”

  “No.”

  “Not a word?”

  “No.”

  “Try to date you?”

  “No.”

  Mason said, “There’s something funny about that chap, but I don’t know what it is. Now let’s go to see what Ethel Furlong has to say.”

  They found the number to be an apartment house on the west side of the street. Della Street ran her hand down the list of cards and said, “Here she is—apartment 926.”

  She pressed the bell repeatedly.

  There was no answer.

  Mason frowned. “Just our luck not to have her home, Della. Press one of the other buttons. We’ll see if we can’t get someone to let us in.”

  Della Street pressed two or three buttons at random, and, after a moment, someone buzzed the catch on the outer door.

  Della Street and Mason entered the building and took the elevator to the ninth floor.

  As they approached the door of 926, Della Street said, “There’s an envelope pinned to the door.”

  “Probably a note saying when she’ll be back,” Mason said.

  They walked rapidly down the corridor. Della Street, in the lead, said, “It’s an envelope addressed to you, Chief.”

  Mason said incredulously, “It has my name on it?”

  “That’s right.”

  Della Street handed him the envelope, which had on the outside the words, “Mr. Perry Mason,” written in the even, regular strokes of a literate hand.

  Mason pulled back the flap on the envelope. “Still damp,” he said. “It was sealed only a minute or two ago.”

  He unfolded the note, read the message and then suddenly broke into laughter.

  “What is it?” Della Street asked.

  Mason said, “I’ll read it to you:

  “‘Dear Mr. Mason:

  “‘Thanks very much for the tip which enabled us to get Ethel Furlong’s story before you had a chance to foul it up for us. Tragg had called the office of the Probate Clerk and had her name and address. Thanks to your erudite conversation with the estimable Miss Street, I was able to anticipate your plans. You may be interested to know that I had high marks in forensic debate and was on the college debating team which won the 1929 conference championship. My physiognomy became badly marred because of a mistaken impression that I was possessed of the necessary pugilistic ability to carve a career for myself in. that profession. Don’t worry about Ethel Furlong. She’s in nice safe hands, and by the time we get done with her, we’ll have her story all down in black and white, with her signature at the end of it. After that, it won’t do much good to have you try to change it. Best wishes.

  “‘Driver of Car 91.’”

  Della Street said indignantly, “Why, the dirty…!”

  Mason, grinning broadly, said, “It shows the danger of judging people by the way they look. He sat there and played dumb and let us tell him all of our plans.”

  “Just where does that leave us?” Della Street asked.

  “Temporarily,” Mason said, “it leaves us behind the eightball.”

  “And what do we do now?”

  “Return to the office,” Mason said, “and start Paul Drake doing a lot of leg work. And the next time we meet a ‘dumb’ cop, Della, we’ll forget the broken nose and cauliflower ear, and look him over to see if he has a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging from his watch chain. Let’s go.”

  12

  The two Endicott brothers and the one sister had moved into the big mansion home which had been left them under the terms of George Endicott’s will.

  Years ago the house had been one of the show places of the city. Now it was an anachronism, a big wooden-gabled structure with side porches, spacious grounds, shade trees, lawns, summer houses, terraces, winding walks and sunken pools. It seemed more a museum than a dwelling.

  Mason turned his car in at the driveway, which, together with the big garage, had been constructed as a modern improvement. The hard-surfaced driveway cut through in a businesslike straight line past the winding walks which followed the contours of the terraced grounds.

  The lawyer stopped his car under the protecting portico of what had once been a shelter over a carriage entrance. He climbed three stairs and rang a bell which jangled sharply in the dark bowels of the ancient house.

  Mason rang a second time before he heard slow steps, and then the door was opened by a man whose bald head, fringed with white hair, whose sharp, piercing eyes, beaklike nose and thin lips gave him the appearance of a reincarnated predator.

  “I would like to see any one of the Endicott family,” Mason said.

  “I’m Ralph Endicott.”

  Mason handed the man his card. “I’m Perry Mason, a lawyer.

  “I’ve heard of you. Won’t you come in?”

  “Thank you.”

  Mason followed Endicott in through a gloomy, paneled passageway redolent with the splendor of a bygone age.

  His guide opened the door and said, “Won’t you step in here, please, Mr. Mason?”

  This room was thoroughly in keeping with the rest of the house, a large, spacious library, in the center of which was a massive mahogany table on which were three huge table lamps. The shades, some four feet in diameter at the bottom, were composed of heavy leather, and the clustered lamps on the interior poured forth illumination upon the huge table and sprayed light out through the openings in the tops of the shades.

  Three chairs had been drawn up at this table. Two of them were occupied, and the third, which evidently was where Ralph Endicott had been sitting before he went to answer the bell, was pulled slightly back from between the other two.

  The two people who looked up at Mason’s entrance had a certain family resemblance.

  Reflected light from the big reading lamps on the table splashed illumination on their faces and etched them into white brilliance against the somber background of booklined shelves.

  “Mr. Mason,” Ralph Endicott said, “permit me to introduce you to my brother and sister. Mrs. Parsons, may I present Mr. Perry Mason, a lawyer. And this, Mr. Mason, is my brother, Palmer Endicott.”

  “Good evening,” Mason said, giving his most cordial smile. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  The others bowed coldly.

  “Won’t you be seated, Mr. Mason?”

  “Thank you,” Mason said.

  Ralph Endicott drew up a chair for Mason directly across the table from where the others were sitting, then walked around to take his place once more in the third chair between the other two.

  Mason had a chance to size up the brother and sister while Ralph was seating himself.

  Palmer was a thin-faced, bushy-haired individual, somewhere in the seventies. He had about him a look of perpetual skepticism. Lorraine Endicott Parsons quite evidently lavished care upon herself, such care as could be given in home treatments. She sat haughtily erect in stiff-backed, uncompromising truculence. Her face had begun to sag, but her chin was up; her hair was frosty white, and there was the cold ruthlessness of self-righteous respectability in her posture. There was about all three of them an appearance of shabby gentility which added to the over-all family resemblance. Clothes were dark in color, old-fashioned in cut, and well worn.

  “Just what do you want, Mr. Mason?” Ralph Endicott asked.

  “I’m a lawyer,” Mason said. “I’m representing interests adverse to you. You have a lawyer, Paddington C. Niles. I tried to call him. His secretary said he was on his way here. I don’t want to talk with you until he arrives.”

  “What do you want to talk about?” Ralph Endicott asked.

  “Rose Keeling is dead. I want to ask you about circumstances which may have led to her death or …”

  “Rose Keeling dead!” Mrs. Parsons interrupted with cold disbelief. “She can’t be dead. That would greatly embarrass us. Are you certain of your facts, Mr. Mason?”

&n
bsp; She regarded him as though she expected him to wither and crawl under the table under the impact of her disapproving stare.

  Mason said, “She’s quite thoroughly dead. Someone stabbed her as she stepped out of the bathtub. I’m investigating that murder, and time is precious. I’d like to know whether any of you have been in touch with her recently. All I want to know is whether you saw her today, whether she phoned you and, if so, when.”

  Ralph Endicott said slowly, “This, of course, was the thing we had to fear.”

  Mrs. Parsons said, “A creature who had stooped to taking advantage of a man’s incompetencies and depriving his relatives of what is justly theirs, would stop at nothing.”

  “Meaning?” Mason asked.

  “I am making no specific accusations.”

  “That sounded like an accusation.”

  “You are free to interpret my remarks any way you wish.”

  “My I ask whom you’re representing?” Palmer Endicott inquired.

  Mason shook his head. “My client is not willing to have an announcement made at the present time.”

  “I take it you’re not representing the authorities. There’s nothing official about your investigation.”

  “Not in the least,” Mason said. “I want you to have your lawyer, and I want to know if any of you had been in touch with Miss Keeler earlier in the day. That’s all I want to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because a murder has been committed. I’m trying to get the time element straightened out. I want to know when she was killed. And I’m anxious to find out the latest hour at which she was alive. I think she may have called one of you today. I don’t give a hang about the nature of the conversation. I only want to know the time of the conversation. Your lawyer’s supposed to be here. I want him present. Where is he?”

  “He’s coming,” Ralph Endicott said. “When we heard your ring we felt certain that it was Mr. Niles. He’s due here now for a conference. That’s why we’re sitting in the library.”

  Mason said, “I want to see him. I …” He broke off as the electric bell boomed a summons through the house.

  “That will be Niles now,” Mrs. Parsons said with calm conviction.

  Ralph Endicott pushed back his chair, said, “Excuse me,” went to the door and returned in a few moments with a florid-faced man in the fifties who beamed optimism and geniality.