Erle Gardner - The Case of the Lame Canary

In the taxicab, Mason said, “We’ll cover the gambling places. I don’t know about Rosalind, but Rita Swaine doesn’t impress me as one who would stay in a hotel room — not in a city like Reno.”

“What do we do when we locate her?” Della asked. “Try to shadow her?”

Mason shook his head and said, “We put it up to her, cold turkey.”

“Suppose she tells us to go jump in the lake?”

“In that event,” Mason said, “we’ll get rough with her.”

“How rough can you get, Chief?” Della asked, stealing a sidelong glance as she added demurely — “with a woman.”

“Plenty,” he told her. “You only see me on my good behavior.”

The cab-driver turned and said, “Where do you want to go?”

“The main stem,” Mason told him,

“You mean Virginia Street?”

“Wherever the night life is thickest.”

The cab-driver said proudly, “There’s life all over this city, brother, twenty-four hours a day. I’ll drive down Virginia once, then turn around and come back, and you can pick the place you want to get out at.”

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the business district was crowded with people of various descriptions. Cowpunchers in high-heeled boots clump-clumped along the sidewalks. Men in shirt sleeves, without coats or neckties, rubbed elbows with men who might have served for fashion plates. An occasional couple in evening clothes sauntered from doorway to doorway, while women, evidently from ranches, went swinging past with the long, easy strides of those who live in the open.

The driver passed under the arched sign bearing the illuminated legend in blazing letters:

“Okay,” Mason told him, “drive back slowly. We’ll get out on the other side of the railroad track.”

The cab-driver ventured a suggestion. “If you folks wanted to get a license,” he said, “I could—”

Della Street laughed and shook her head. “Why speak of love,” she asked, “when there’s work to be done?”

She tucked her arm through Mason’s, and, together, they walked a block to the left, turned to the right, and started making a survey of the bars and gambling houses. The third place they entered was The Bank Club. Here, faro, roulette, wheels of fortune, craps, and twenty-one furnished the main attraction to the Goddess of Chance, each having its little circle of devotees ringed by curious spectators.

Della Street clutched Mason’s arm. “There she is!” she exclaimed.

“Where?” Mason asked.

“Over at the Wheel of Fortune. See her with that good-looking beige wool coat over the brown print dress?”

Mason nodded and said, “She’s changed her clothes since she was in the office.”

“Of course she has. She must have come up here by plane. That couple is with her.”

“You mean the ones over on the left?”

“Yes.”

Mason stood attentively watching the little knot of people who placed bets ranging from five cents to a dollar, while the wheel of fortune whirled its clattering course.

The woman next to Rita Swaine was chestnut-haired, brown-eyed, alert and vivacious. She was wearing a black dress with a frill of white at the throat, and a saucy, tight-fitting black hat. While Mason was watching her, she won a fifty-cent bet placed on the ten-dollar bill. The attendant slid ten, fifty-cent pieces across the glass top of the table. The young woman threw back her head and laughed.

“She’s not wearing any rings,” Mason observed speculatingly. “That may mean everything or nothing.”

He shifted his eyes to the hatless young man who was with her, a man in the late twenties, slightly above the average height, with the broad shoulders, slim hips and easy grace of an athlete. Light glinted from his dark curly hair as his head moved. His eyes were black, smoldering with intense fires. The face was volatile and animated. On the whole, a man who, once seen, would be easily remembered, a man who would be quite capable of gathering a woman into his arms, regardless of spectators, husbands or consequences. Della Street said, under her breath, “And I’ll bet he’s a swell dancer.”

Mason pushed past her, strode forward, and slid a silver dollar across the glass top so that it rested on the twenty-for-one. Rita Swaine, without looking up, silently moved over to give the newcomer room. The other young woman raised frank, speculative eyes, swept Mason’s face in interested appraisal, turned to the man at her side, and said something in an undertone. The wheel of fortune spun with a rapid whir which slowly resolved itself into individual sounds as the stiff leather tongue beat a fateful tattoo against the metal protuberances. Slowly, the wheel came almost to a stop. The leather tab hesitated for a moment, then, with one last faint slap, slid over into the twenty-for-one subdivision.

It was inevitable that Rita Swaine should look up at the man who had just won twenty dollars. It was as she raised her eyes that Mason, scooping in his winnings, said, “Are you going to introduce your friends?”

For a moment there was panic in Rita Swaine’s eyes, then she controlled herself, slid fifty cents over on the twenty-for-one, said, “Just in case this should repeat — Rossy, this is Perry Mason.”

Mason half turned, to look down into brown eyes which were no longer laughing, into a pleading, upturned face. “I thought so,” Rosalind Prescott said simply. “I asked Jimmy if it wasn’t.”

“And Mr. Driscoll,” Rita said.

Mason shook hands, felt the impact of the black eyes on his, the long, firm fingers which circled his hand. The face itself was as watchfully expressionless as that of the gambler back of the faro deck.

“How did you do it?” Rita Swaine asked.

“It’s a secret,” Mason told her. “Where can we talk?”

“Rossy’s room at the Riverside,” Rita said. “—Oh, there’s Miss Street. Good evening, Miss Street.”

Della smiled. Mason introduced her to Rosalind Prescott and Jimmy Driscoll. As though they had been casual tourists, sauntering from place to place in search of entertainment, they strolled out of The Bank Club and walked to the Riverside Hotel.

Mason dropped behind and said, “I’m sorry, Della, but you’re not going up with us. This thing is loaded with dynamite. Stay here in the lobby and keep one of the house phones in your hands. If anyone comes in who looks like an officer, and who asks for Rita Swaine or Rosalind Prescott, get a call through to the room and tip me off.”

She nodded.

“And don’t let the others know what you’re doing,” he warned.

As they entered the lobby of the hotel, Della Street said, “Chief, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll run into the dining room and see if I can get a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I haven’t eaten anything, and I’ll have a terrific headache if I don’t get something.”

Mason nodded, said casually, “Okay, Della. Come up when you get through. What’s your room number, Mrs. Prescott?”

“Three thirty-one.”

“Let’s go,” the lawyer said.

It was Jimmy Driscoll who carefully closed and locked the bedroom door, after first making certain no one was loitering in the corridor. Then he opened his arms to Rita Swaine, and said, “Never mind, sweetheart, we’ll see it through together.”

Mason walked across the room, sat on the bed, flung an elbow over the brass rail at the foot, crossed his long legs and said casually, “You folks don’t need to keep that up, you know.”

“Keep what up?” Rita Swaine asked, spinning around to face him.

“That phony love act,” Mason said, “Your sister might get jealous, Rita.”

“What do you mean?” Rita Swaine demanded.