The Case of the Lonely Heiress

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Marilyn Marlow said desperately, “I tell you, she was dead when I got there!”

  The room suddenly became tense with a sudden silence. No one moved. No one spoke. It was for the moment as though no one breathed.

  Marilyn Marlow plunged on desperately. “I went there to see her. I went up, and—well, she was dead.”

  “How did you get in the door?”

  “I had a key, but I didn’t have to use it. The door was open when I got back.”

  “Who gave the key to you?”

  “Rose. She wanted me to come up and go play tennis with her. She gave me a key so I could walk right in and go up the stairs.”

  “What did you do with the key?”

  “I left it on the table.”

  “Then what happened to it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess … someone could have taken it—anyone.”

  “Sure, sure!”

  “I tell you, anyone could!”

  “Okay. Let’s forget the key for the moment. What happened after you got in?”

  “She was dead.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

  “I … I didn’t want to get mixed up in it.”

  “Well, you’re mixed up in it now. You’d better come clean. What happened?”

  “She was lying there on the floor just as … just as you found her.”

  “Come on, come on,” the sneering voice said. “Don’t forget that we’ve got a tab on everyone that came and went. We want to know the truth with no more runaround. You’d better explain while the explaining is good!”

  She said desperately, “Well, Mr. Mason came there at my suggestion.”

  Once more there was one of those sudden tense silences.

  “Go on,” the sneering voice said.

  That silence had been too abrupt, too exultant. It suddenly occurred to Marilyn Marlow that she had given them information they had not had before, that in some way this thing was a plant. She said, “I don’t think I care to tell you anything else.”

  “Now, ain’t that something!” the sneering voice said. “She traps herself. She admits she’s in the room with the murdered person. She admits she was there when the crime was committed and now she goes hotsy-totsy and says she doesn’t care to discuss it with us. Wouldn’t that jar you?”

  “I wasn’t there when the crime was committed!”

  “Oh, yes, you were, sister. Don’t try to lie out of it now. It’s too late.”

  “I tell you I wasn’t!”

  “Yeah, you claim you came in there afterwards. What did you do with the knife?”

  “I tell you I didn’t have any knife. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I …”

  “So you go call up Perry Mason,” Sergeant Holcomb interrrupted. “And what did Mason do?”

  “I tell you I’m not going to talk about things any more. If you want to get any statements out of me, I insist that I see my lawyer before I say anything.”

  “No use locking the stable door after the horse’s been stolen,” Holcomb said. “You’ve admitted you were there.

  You’ve admitted you called Perry Mason and got him to come. Now then, what did you two hatch up? How did it happen that Mason slipped you out of there?”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “You said you called Mason up. How does it happen your fingerprints weren’t on the telephone receiver?”

  She clamped her lips shut in a tight line.

  Questions were coming at her now, thick and fast. Her eyes were weary from the pitiless glare of the brilliant light. Her ears ached with the words that were being bounced off her eardrums. Her nervous system was raw and quivering from the beating it had taken, and these incessant sneering questions pounding in on her consciousness made her cringe as though from a series of actual blows.

  “How about that letter you got from Rose Keeling? What’d you do with it? Why did you destroy it? Who told you to destroy it?”

  She tried to assume an external appearance of calm disdain.

  “Come on,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “let’s hear the rest of it. You knew that if she changed her testimony you were licked on the whole will case. Your only hope was to murder her so that she couldn’t change her testimony.”

  “Yes,” the sneering voice said. “Then you could use the testimony she’d given at the probate of the will and get by on that.”

  Marilyn Marlow sat silent.

  “Notice that she isn’t denying it,” the voice taunted.

  “We’ve accused her of murder, and she hasn’t denied it. Remember that!”

  “I do deny it!” she stormed.

  “Oh, you do? We thought you’d quit talking.”

  “I’m denying that I murdered her.”

  “But you do admit you were in the apartment after she was dead, and you didn’t notify the police.”

  “I …“

  She realized suddenly she was being trapped into further conversation, and clamped her lips shut.

  “Come on,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “let’s have the rest of it.”

  She sat silent, quivering inwardly, but trying to preserve a calm exterior.

  “Okay,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “let’s let the newspaper reporters take a crack at her.”

  Someone opened the door. Men came pouring into the room. Someone said, “Look up a little, Marilyn.”

  A flashlight blazed into brilliance, but her eyes were so accustomed to the glare of the big light that she hardly noticed the flash bulb.

  Other flashlights shot off in succession. Photographers moved about, pointing cameras. Then a newspaper man said, “Okay, Miss Marlow. How about a little statement. It isn’t going to hurt you any, you know; give you an opportunity to get your side of the case presented to the readers.”

  “No comment,” she said.

  “Come, come, Marilyn, don’t be like that. That’s being dumb. That’s not going to do you any good. A lot depends on public sentiment and public sentiment goes a lot according to first impressions. Get your story before the readers right at the start of the case. Look at all these gals who kill ’em and get off. Every one of them took the newspaper readers into their confidence right at the start.”

  “No comment,” she said desperately.

  They hounded her for some five minutes more, trying every expedient to get her to talk.

  Then they took more photographs and left.

  The police started on her once more, and Marilyn Marlow, by this time so thoroughly weary that her very soul felt numb, could hear her own voice mouthing words which sounded as if the words were emanating from her mouth through the medium of some ventriloquist saying from time to time, “No comment…. No comment…. I will not discuss the matter until my attorney is here…. I demand that you call my attorney.”

  They were at her like a pack of yapping dogs, worrying the heels of some high-strung, nervous horse. She felt that she wanted to run, if only some avenue of escape would open up….

  A door opened. She sensed a tall figure standing in the doorway. A man’s quiet voice said, “What’s going on here?”

  Sergeant Holcomb said, “We’re getting a statement from Miss Marlow.”

  “How are you getting it?”

  “We just asked her questions. We …”

  “Shut off that light!” Lieutenant Tragg ordered. “Shut it off instantly!”

  A light switch clicked and suddenly her tired, aching eyes were able to relax as the bright light ceased to beat into her brain through her weary eyes.

  “I sent Miss Marlow up here for questioning,” Lieutenant Tragg said angrily. “I didn’t mean that she was to be browbeaten. She’s just a witness.”

  “Witness, hell!” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I don’t want to seem disrespectful, Lieutenant, but she’s admitted to being in the house just about the time the crime was committed. She claims that Rose Keeling was dead at the time, but there’s no evidence to back her up. And then she called Perry Mason. She got Mason
to go up there, and Mason evidently fixed things up so she could take a powder. She admits that she used the telephone in there to call Mason. Remember, her fingerprints weren’t on the receiver, just Mason’s prints, not another print there. The thing had been wiped and polished clean as a whistle.”

  “Nevertheless,” Tragg said angrily, “I do not care to have Miss Marlow submitted to the indignity of an inquisition. You men get back to your posts. I’ve left assignments for you. Get out and get busy. Try and get some evidence by using your head and your feet instead of mouths.”

  With the glaring overhead light out, Marilyn Marlow could see Lieutenant Tragg clearly now, a tall, somewhat slender, well-knit individual whose clean-cut features were a welcome relief from the heavy faces of the officers who had been leering at her.

  There was a general scraping of chairs, a shuffling of feet. Men sullenly left the room, until finally only Lieutenant Tragg was there with her.

  “I’m sorry about this, Miss Marlow. Was it really quite terrible?”

  “It was ghastly,” she said with a note of hysteria creeping into her voice. “That light got to beating down on me until—I just couldn’t get away from it anywhere. I …”

  “I know,” Tragg said sympathetically.

  “It gave me a beastly headache and … I hardly knew what I was saying.”

  “I understand. Won’t you come into my office?”

  He escorted her through a door into an inner office, gave her a comfortable chair, carefully turned the desk light so that the blessed shadow enveloped her, left the light shining on the desk blotter and on Tragg’s features.

  Tragg took a cigar from his pocket, then paused with the match halfway to the cigar. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  He lit the cigar, settled back in the chair, said casually, in a well-modulated voice, “The life of an officer is not a happy one.”

  “No, I suppose it isn’t.”

  “I have been going all day,” Tragg said, “hitting a pretty hard pace. This whole case is, of course, a tragedy to you. To me it’s just another case, one that has to be investigated and cleaned up.”

  He took the cigar from his mouth, stretched, yawned, regarded the tip of the cigar for a moment, then puffed out more blue smoke. “I guess Rose Keeling was a rather peculiar girl,” he said.

  “I think she was.”

  “Any idea how she happened to write you that letter?”

  “What letter?”

  Tragg said, “The one that she sent you. I believe yesterday. The Endicotts have a carbon copy of it.”

  “No, I don’t know what caused her to write it.”

  “Think there was any truth in it?”

  “Definitely not. I don’t think there was anything irregular about the execution of that will. I talked with her before Mother died and I’ve heard her tell what happened several times, and I just can’t account for that letter.”

  “By the way,” Tragg said quite casually, “the carbon copy of that letter isn’t the best evidence. Of course, we can use it if we have to, because it’s a bona fide carbon copy and there’s no question but it’s in the handwriting of Rose Keeling. But I’d like to have the original. Do you happen to have it with you?”

  He extended his hand as casually as though he had asked her for a match.

  “Why, I … no, not with me.”

  “Oh, it’s at your apartment?”

  “I … I don’t know where it is.”

  Tragg raised his eyebrows. “You received it yesterday—or was it this morning?”

  “This morning.”

  “Oh, yes, I see. That is the reason you went to see Rose Keeling.”

  “No, Lieutenant. Frankly, it isn’t.”

  “No?”

  Lieutenant Tragg raised his eyebrows with just the right expression of polite incredulity.

  There was an apologetic knock at the door. Tragg frowned, said, “I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  The door opened a crack.

  “Skip it,” Tragg said over his shoulder. “I’m busy. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  A man’s voice said, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I’m a deputy sheriff and these papers have to be served right now.”

  “I don’t want to have any … oh, all right, I’ll take them.”

  The deputy sheriff walked into the room, holding papers in his hand. He said, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. You understand it’s all in the nature of a duty. We have to do it and this lawyer is burning my tail.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Writ of habeas corpus for Marilyn Marlow,” the deputy sheriff said, “ordering that she be brought into court day after tomorrow at two o’clock and in the meantime that unless there is some charge filed against her, she be released on bail in the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars. Perry Mason is downstairs depositing twenty-five hundred dollars in cash with the bail clerk. He’ll be up here with a receipt in a matter of seconds.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” Tragg said. “Get out.”

  The deputy sheriff left the room, pulled the door shut behind him.

  “This isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Tragg said irritably. “These are the tactics lawyers use when they have guilty clients.”

  Marilyn Marlow said nothing.

  “Now then,” Tragg said, “suppose you tell me a little more about why you really went to see Rose Keeling, and …”

  Knuckles sounded on the door and then the door opened and Perry Mason said, “I’m sorry, Tragg. That’s all.”

  “You get the hell out of here,” Tragg said. “This is my private office. I …”

  “Stay here till you rot!” Mason said. “Come on, Miss Marlow, you’re leaving.”

  “The hell she is,” Tragg said.

  “The hell she isn’t,” Mason told him. “She’s released on bail on habeas corpus. Here’s the bail receipt and you have a writ of habeas corpus served on you, stating that she is to be released on bail.”

  “Unless she’s charged with something,” Tragg said.

  “Go ahead and charge her,” Mason said. “Put any charge against her and I’ll have bail.”

  “Suppose I charge her with murder?”

  “Then I won’t have bail,” Mason said, “because I can’t get it.”

  “All right, you crowd my hand and I’ll charge her with murder.”

  “Phooey!” Mason said. “If you charge her with murder, then you’ve laid an egg that you can’t hatch.”

  Tragg said, “You push me and I will.”

  “Go ahead. I’m pushing you. I’m representing Miss Marlow. She’s been released on habeas corpus. She’s going with me. There’s an officer here to see that the court order is carried out. The order specifically states that she is to be released from custody, pending a hearing on the habeas corpus, upon giving bail in the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars. That bail has been put up in cash and I have here a receipt from the bail clerk. Come on, Miss Marlow.”

  Marilyn arose from the chair. She thought for a moment that her knees would buckle and she would pitch forward on her face. But she took a deep breath and started walking, expecting every moment to hear a blast from Lieutenant Tragg.

  Tragg, however, sat there, stiff in hostile silence, while. Mason held out his hand to take her arm. The deputy sheriff took the other arm.

  “You’re going to regret this, Mason!” Tragg said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Incidentally, I have some questions to ask you.”

  “Come to my office any time,” Mason said.

  “I might have you come here.”

  “Not without a warrant, Tragg.”

  “I might get a warrant.”

  “That’s your privilege.”

  The door closed. The deputy sheriff said, “Well, I guess that’s all, Mr. Mason.”

  “Just see us out of the building, if you will,” Mason said.

  He helped Marilyn Marlow down the stairs.

/>   “You’re trembling,” he said.

  “I’m a wreck,” she admitted. “I just want to get somewhere where I can cry. I think I’m going to have hysterics.”

  “Was it bad?” Mason asked.

  “It was terrible.”

  Mason shook hands with the deputy sheriff. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Okay, Mr. Mason. I was just doing my duty. You had the papers. I was ordered to serve them, and I served them.”

  “Thanks again,” Mason said.

  She heard the rustle of paper, caught a glimpse of green currency, then Mason was helping her into his automobile and the car was purring away through the city streets.

  “What happened?” Mason asked.

  “It was terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. …”

  She felt her voice rising higher and higher. The word “terrible” was wedged in her mind. Her tongue kept repeating it without any conscious volition on her part.

  Mason suddenly slammed the car to a stop. “Forget it!” he said. “Seconds are precious. They may charge you with murder at that. Go ahead and tell me what happened. Start crying after you’ve told me what happened. And save the hysterics until we’re out in the clear.”

  There was something in the granite-hard eyes of the lawyer that brought back a measure of her self-control.

  She said, “Lieutenant Tragg asked me to come to his office. He asked me to show him some of the jewelry that my mother had been given by George Endicott. Then Lieutenant Tragg suggested very tactfully that I’d better wear as much of it as possible, because if I left the place alone, it just might be that some sneak thief might get in and …”

  “Did they photograph you?” Mason asked.

  “The police? No.”

  “Anyone take pictures?”

  “Yes. The newspaper men came in.”

  Mason swore under his breath.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Mason said angrily, “It’s the way the police play ball with the newspapers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A nice bit of publicity for the police,” Mason said. “They got you all dolled up in the jewelry that your mother had received from Endicott. Then the newspapermen are permitted to photograph you. They’ll have pictures all over the morning papers with the caption, ‘HEIRESS BEING QUIZZED AT OFFICE OF LIEUTENANT TRAGG OF HOMICIDE SQUAD, WEARS FORTUNE IN JEWELRY MOTHER RECEIVED FROM DEAD BENEFACTOR.’”