Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

"Even so," Mason told him, "the telegraph wires are quicker. How does it happen they're just getting out this news?"

"The smart boys in Reno tried to sew it up," Drake told him. "At least, that was the plan they were working on when I left. They wanted a complete confession and weren't going to release the news until they'd got it."

"Did they get it?"

"I don't know."

"Now then," Mason said, "who was going to confess to what?"

"Hazel Fenwick," Drake said, avoiding the lawyer's eyes.

One of the deputies entered the courtroom with half a dozen newspapers under his arm. He rushed over to the district attorney, handed him one, and Burger, frowning irritably, snapped open a paper and started reading.

Mason moved over toward a corner as the deputy vanished in the direction of the Judge's chambers.

"How bad did you rank it, Paul?" he asked.

"Plenty," the detective told him.

"Well, go ahead and tell me about it."

"I'd rather you'd read about it."

"Hell!" Mason exclaimed impatiently. "I can read about the stuff they're handing the public, but what I want to know is how it happened that you slipped up on the job."

"I don't know."

"Well, go ahead and tell me the whole thing and perhaps I'll know when you get done."

"I followed your instructions," Drake said slowly, his eyes remaining downcast, "and took a plane to Reno. I arrived there, went to the telegraph office, called for telegrams, and found the message for me from Della Street telling me where to go to make the service. I stuck the telegram in my coat pocket, went up to a hotel, got a room, took off my coat and washed up. A bell boy came in to ask me if I had all the towels I wanted, and all that sort of stuff—that is, Perry, I thought at the time he was a bell boy."

"Go on," Mason said ominously. "Then what?"

"So far as I knew at the time, nothing," Drake told him, "but afterwards, when I looked through my coat pockets for that telegram, I couldn't find it. But that wasn't until quite a bit later."

"Go on," the lawyer said impatiently; "let's have it."

"Honest to God, Perry, I'd covered my back trail just as well as I could. I didn't figure I was tailed on the plane."

"Plane was crowded?" Mason asked.

"Yes, to capacity."

"Anyone try to talk with you?"

"Yes, a couple of men had a bottle and they tried to get me started. When they didn't click, a baby doll came over. Looking back at it, I can see there was something fishy about it, but right at the time I figured it was a case of a girl making her first trip by plane and being a little frightened."

"What did she do?"

"She sort of smiled at me," Drake said, "and when she was walking past my chair the plane gave a little lurch and she took a fall into my lap… Oh, hell, you know how those things happen."

"Did you talk?" Mason asked.

"Not much on the plane. You can't hear well enough. But I bought her a drink at Sacramento."

"Did you talk then?"

"A little."

"Tell her who you were?"

"I gave her my name."

"Tell her what you were doing?"

"No."

"Didn't tell her your occupation?"

"No."

"Didn't give her a card?"

"No."

"Give her any information at all?"

"Not enough to put in your eye."

"What were you talking about?"

"I don't know, Perry. I was just handing her a line. I'll swear there wasn't anything more to it than that—you know the type of stuff you dish out to a frail who seems to be falling. I pretended I thought she was a motion picture star flying over to Reno for a divorce, kept trying to place her, swore I'd seen her on the screen some place, and knew she was one of the famous actresses, but told her I didn't go to the movies much, so I couldn't be sure which one."

"She seem to fall for that line?" Mason asked.

"She ate it up."

"She was a plant," the lawyer said.

Drake exclaimed, with the irritation of a man who has lost much selfrespect and some sleep, "Of course she was a plant. What the hell! Do you think I'm dumb enough so I don't know she was a plant? But I didn't know it at the time. You wanted to know what happened and I'm telling you."

"Okay, go ahead and tell me what happened then."

"After I'd taken a wash and a drink in the hotel," Drake said, "I went down and caught a cab. I gave the cab driver the address of the apartment house."

"You didn't look at the telegram then?"

"No, I'd read it before and I remembered the address. It was easy to remember."

"Go ahead."

"I found the joint was an apartment house. I gave the apartment a ring and she buzzed the door open without asking any questions over the speaking tube. I took an elevator and went up. It was one of those wheezy automatic elevators. You know the type."

"Yes, I know," Mason said impatiently. "Go on and tell me what happened."

"I walked down the corridor to her apartment. The corridor wasn't very well lighted. I had to use a flashlight to pick up the number easily. I tapped on the door. She opened it.

"I didn't pull the papers out of my pocket right then. I kept my voice low and turned loose the best grin I could get, as though I was some guy who had been told by her sister to look her up."

"What did you say?" Mason asked.

"I asked her if she was Hazel Fenwick. She gave me a dead pan and said, 'No.

"I looked a little bit surprised, and asked her if she wasn't Hazel Basset.

"Her face took on just a bit of expression. She said no, she wasn't Hazel Basset, but she didn't make any move to close the door. I was sizing her up pretty closely, and she tallied okay with the description I had of the Fenwick woman, so I decided it was time to put her on the defensive. I held her with my eyes, whipped the papers out of my pocket and told her that I was there to make service of some papers on Hazel Fenwick or Hazel Basset.

"She said very slowly, as though she'd been memorizing it, 'My name is Thelma Bevins, but if you have papers to serve on Hazel Fenwick or Hazel Basset I'll accept service of the papers.

"Well, you know how it is in this game. You don't ask too many questions. I figured that was all the break I needed. I handed her the papers and she took them. About that time, I heard someone moving at my side. The door of an adjoining apartment on the other side opened in a hurry. I took a swift look and I saw the place was filling up with men. I didn't get the sketch, but I knew damn well no one was going to keep me from serving those papers, so I pushed them into her hands, and about that time flashlights started to go off. I thought I was the center of a circus.

"Of course I knew then what had happened, but by that time it was too late. Just to make sure, I reached for the telegram. It wasn't in my coat, but I'll say one thing: Those birds had worked fast. They'd used this fake bell boy to frisk my coat while I was washing. They'd evidently known I was coming and what I was coming for. They were laying for me. Why, damn it, one of the smart boys was even parked on the fire escape right out from the girl's windows. He stuck a camera through the window and busted the glass in order to do it. He took a flashlight just as I handed her the papers."

"Newspaper men?" Mason asked.

"Newspaper men and cops. Don't make any mistake about that town, Perry. The newspaper boys stand right in with the cops—at least, they do when it's an outsider who is getting the rooking."

"What did the cops do?"

"One of them," Drake said, "took a swing at my jaw. I got pretty much out of his way, but his fist was big as the business end of a pile driver and part of it took off a little skin. The others grabbed the girl and started strongarming her down the corridor."

"How about the papers?" Mason asked.

"Oh, it's a service all right," Drake told him, "as far as that's concerned. They rushed her down the corridor but she was still holding the papers in her right hand. I'd shoved them into her hand when I saw the place start to fill up and she'd taken them mechanically and was still hanging onto them. I think she was the most surprised woman in the world."