Erle Gardner - The Case of the Substitute Face

“I didn’t say he was my boyfriend!” she blazed.

“Sure not,” Mason agreed, dropping ice cubes into the glass, “probably just a chap who knocked at the door with an armful of magazines. He was working his way through college and you wanted to help him out, so you subscribed to a club of half a dozen magazines, and got this wrist watch as a premium.”

She held a bottle of Scotch over the glasses and said, “A little more of that sarcasm, and you won’t get any drink.”

“Under those circumstances,” Mason assured her, smiling, “we’ll discontinue the sarcasm.”

Her hand held the whiskey bottle tilted over the glass as she studied him. “You,” she announced, “are putting on this hard-boiled act. You’re not really like that. Why don’t you snap out of it and be natural? What are you trying to do, frighten me?”

For a moment Mason was disconcerted, then he laughed and said, “Thanks for the compliment. I’m not trying to act hard-boiled. I’m trying to act like a gentleman.”

“Baloney!” she said, and poured the whiskey.

“Make mine light,” Mason warned.

She continued pouring, until she had a good two fingers of whiskey in the bottom of the tumbler.

“Okay,” Drake said, “just make them all alike.”

She carefully measured the liquor into the three glasses. The detective squirted in charged water and said, “That’s fine. Do we drink here or do we go back to the other room?”

“We go back to the other room.”

When they had seated themselves, Drake looked around and said, “Nice apartment.”

“I like it.”

“Been here long?”

“Three months.”

“This place,” the detective remarked, “runs into money.”

“If,” she told him, “you’re interested in the rents, you might talk with the management.”

Mason laughed. She shifted her eyes to his and said, “Why don’t you snap out of it? You and I could be friends.”

“Thanks,” Mason said.

Her eyes made an interested survey of his features. She nodded slowly, sipped her drink, and said, “You put on that hard-boiled act to frighten me, didn’t you? Now, why did you want to scare me?”

“We want to find out about that wrist watch,” Mason said.

“What about it?”

Drake interposed hastily. “Take it easy, now, Perry. She’s handing you a little soft soap. Personally, I don’t want to prosecute her on the charge of receiving stolen property, because I don’t think she knew it was stolen, but that’s just what I think. You know what’ll happen if we let her out of this and it turns out she’s a fence. We’ll be guilty of compounding a felony.”

She shifted her eyes to Drake’s and said, “The more I see of this, the more fishy it sounds to me. Mr. Rooney is a busy man. If you’re trying to pull something, you’d better beat it while the beating’s good. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourselves in a lot of trouble.”

“Trouble’s our middle name,” Mason grinned, clinking the ice in the glass. “What does Rooney do?”

“He’s an executive.”

“Where?”

“In a big company.”

“What sort of a company?”

She smiled sweetly at him, and said, “After all, it was the wrist watch that was stolen, wasn’t it? Mr. Rooney wasn’t stolen, was he?”

“I don’t know,” Mason countered. “Was he?”

“Not that I ever heard of.”

“He isn’t married, is he?”

“Poof!”

“No kidding, is he?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you engaged to him?”

“I think we were talking about wrist watches, weren’t we?”

“I’m trying to get a line on him,” Mason told her, “because if he bought this watch in good faith, that’s one thing, if he bought it from a crook, knowing it was stolen, that’s another thing. This wrist watch is worth fifteen hundred dollars. If he picked it up for a hundred or two, it’s a pretty good sign he knew it was stolen.”

“Well,” she said emphatically, “he didn’t pick it up for a hundred or two. Mr. Rooney is a sport and a spender.”

“We’ll talk with him when he comes, ” Mason said. “What’s your opinion of the European situation?”

“I haven’t any.”

There followed several seconds of silence, then Marjory Trenton said, “Suppose you tell me about you?”

“What about me?” Mason asked.

“You’re a lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you want to frighten me?”

“Take it easy. Perry,” Drake warned.

She moved her chair a few inches nearer Mason’s. The negligee slid back along the silk of her stockings. “Is this,” she asked, “a game of some kind? Because if it is, you might just as well come out in the open and be frank.”

“All I want is that wrist watch,” Drake interposed hastily.

“I think this is a racket. I don’t think your wife ever had a wrist watch.”

A latchkey clicked back the lock of the outer door. Marjory Trenton frowned at the sound, started to get to her feet, then sank back in the chair. Drake grinned at her discomfiture. She flashed him a disdainful glance, drew her negligee around her. The door opened, and a man in the late forties, with a dark mustache, very black eyes, and hair which had turned gray at the temples, recoiled as he saw the two men.

“Come in, Rooney,” Mason invited, “and close the door behind you.”

Rooney indignantly kicked the door shut. “What’s the idea?” he demanded of Marjory Trenton. “Why didn’t you tell me these men were here? Who are they, and what the hell...?”

“Take it easy,” Drake cautioned. “We’re doing this to give you a break. We’re trying to save you a lot of publicity.”

Rooney’s face became cold and cautious. “What do you mean, publicity?” he asked.

“Simply this,” Drake said. “The wrist watch you gave this little lady was stolen from my wife. Now then, what I want to know is how it happens you were dealing in stolen property.”

“You’re crazy,” Rooney said.

“Not so you can notice it,” Drake rejoined.

Rooney turned to Marjory Trenton. “This is a skin game. These men are trying to shake you down for something. They’re blackmailers. I suggest you call the police.”

“Suits me,” Mason said.

She flashed him a warning glance. “That was what they wanted to do all along. I thought it would be better to keep it out of the papers.”

Rooney sat down. “Look here, there’s been some mistake. I bought that watch.”

Mason said, “If you’ll tell us which pawnshop....”

“It wasn’t a pawnshop. What sort of a man do you think I am? I bought it at a reputable jeweler’s.”

Mason’s smile was patronizing. “I understand how you feel,” he said. “You want to put up a good front with your girlfriend. But this sort of thing isn’t going to help you any. You’re in a spot, and she’s in a spot, and the only way you can get out is to come clean.”

Marjory Trenton said, “Go ahead, Custer, tell him the truth. I’ve had that trick played on me before. A man gets a bargain at a pawnshop, picks up a box from a first-class jeweler and...”

“I tell you I didn’t do any such thing!” Rooney exclaimed hotly. “I got that watch at Coontz Cutter, and paid thirteen hundred and fifty dollars for it!”

Mason yawned.

Marjory Trenton became impatient. “Listen,” she said, “are you going to keep stalling around, trying to save your face and get us all in hot water? I don’t want to have to go up before the D.A. and explain how I happened to come by that watch. I’ll have my pictures in the paper and it’ll look like hell.”

“Maybe you think I want my picture in the paper!” Rooney shouted.