Erle Gardner - The Case of the Substitute Face

“If they’d done that,” Mason said, “they probably wouldn’t have had the ambulance waiting. Let’s look around.”

They walked back to the car, circled three blocks, and Mason said, “Let’s try this place. Looks like the only storage garage in the neighborhood.”

“Is Morgan Eves’s car here?” Mason asked the garage attendant.

“No.”

“He keeps it here, doesn’t he?”

The attendant studied Mason. “Yes,” he said, “he keeps it here.”

“When’s he going to be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look here,” Mason told him. “I want to find out something about that car. What condition is it in, do you know?”

“Why do you want to find out?”

“I’m interested in buying it,” Mason said. “Eves made a proposition to the agency for a new car. They figured he wanted too much for his old car, but they said if they could sell it at that price they’d make the deal. I have a car I can trade in for a good allowance if I handle this bus. I want to find out if it’s in good shape.”

“Well, it’s in good shape,” the attendant said. “He keeps it running like a watch.”

“How soon will it be where I can look at it?”

“I don’t know. Eves had a whole bunch of baggage piled in it when he took it out. He didn’t say how long he was going to be gone.”

“His wife with him?” Mason asked, casually.

“A woman was with him. I didn’t know he was married.”

Mason said, “I gather it’s his wife. The automobile salesman thought it was. You don’t know where I could reach him?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t think he went to Los Angeles?”

“I don’t know where he went. He didn’t say how long he was going to be gone. He comes and goes, and we don’t ask any questions.”

“When did he leave?”

“Yesterday afternoon about three o’clock.

Mason said, “Oh, well, the deal will wait for a couple of days. If he doesn’t show up then I’ll have to do something else. Thanks a lot.”

Back in the car, Drake said, “You won’t get anywhere trying to ride that bird’s back trail, Perry. He’s been through the mill.”

Mason said, “I have another idea, Paul. The nurse had a camera. She was taking snapshots of a couple of steamers we met.”

“Well?” Drake asked.

“Well,” Mason said, “she got in early yesterday morning. They didn’t pull out until early yesterday afternoon. She had some films with her. There’s a chance she left those films to be developed and printed down at the photographer’s place.”

“Not if she’d been going away, she wouldn’t,” Drake pointed out.

“No,” Mason told him, “but suppose she didn’t know she was leaving? Suppose she thought she was going to stay there in the flat? She’d have taken the films down the first thing. Then, if she’d been called away, she’d have left some word as to when she’d be back for the films or left a forwarding address, or there may be something in the pictures she took which will give us a line on what we want.”

Drake said, “You’re playing with dynamite on this thing, Perry.”

“I know I am.”

“And,” Drake persisted, “it’s something you can’t afford to be mixed up in. Perry. We’ll send the operative in to pick up the films, and if there’s a squawk about it he can take the rap and—”

“Nothing doing,” Mason interrupted. “I won’t ask a man to take any chances I won’t take myself. Drive over there and park. I’m going in and see what I can find out.”

It had started to drizzle again by the time Mason walked down half a dozen steps from the street into a little cement are away. He pushed open the door of the picture shop. A bell tinkled in a back room, and a woman in the late forties, wearing a blue smock, came through a curtained doorway to regard the lawyer with lackluster black eyes.

“I called to pick up the pictures for Mrs. Morgan Eves,” Mason said. “They may be under the name of Evelyn Whiting.

“But she wanted them mailed to her,” the woman said.

“I know,” Mason said casually, “but that was before she knew I was coming in. She asked me to pick them up.”

The woman opened the drawer and selected two flat yellow envelopes. “There’s six dollars and seventy-five cents due, ” she said.

Mason produced a ten-dollar bill, glanced at the back of the envelopes. The name, “Mrs. Eves,” had been scrawled on the envelopes in pencil. There was no address.

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “She told me they wouldn’t be over five dollars.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, “my prices are cheaper than she could get them done downtown. Six dollars and seventy-five cents is the lowest I can make it.”

Mason said, “I can’t understand it... How were you to receive your money if you’d mailed them out?”

“I was going to send them collect. I was just getting ready to mail them.”

“Tell you what you do,” Mason said. “I don’t want to take the responsibility of paying six dollars and seventy-five cents, but you get them ready and mail them right away because Mrs. Eves is in a hurry for them. You can mail them collect and I’ll tell her they’re on the way.”

The woman nodded, pulled out films and prints, packed them in a box which had been used for photographic paper, wrapped up the box, went to the back of the store and addressed a gummed paper sticker. Mason said abruptly, “Oh, well, I’ll take a chance. After all, there’s only a difference of a dollar and seventy-five cents, and I’m quite certain it’ll be all right. They’d be delayed quite a bit in the mail.”

“Just as you say,” the woman said, as Mason again offered her the ten-dollar bill. “When will Mrs. Eves be back?”

“It’ll be a week or so.”

“How’s her patient getting along?”

“The man with the broken neck?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

“It certainly is a shame,” she said. “Think of having to wear something like that strapped around your head and shoulders. She said he’d been wearing it for weeks. She brought him over on the ship from Honolulu. I’ve been wondering how he was getting along.”

“Brought him out in an ambulance, didn’t they?” Mason asked.

“Yes. They carried him up on a stretcher. I’ve been wondering who’s taking care of him. There doesn’t seem to be anyone coming or going from upstairs.”

“I think they moved him,” Mason said.

“I haven’t seen nor heard any ambulance.”

“You’ve known her husband long?” Mason asked.

“Oh, ever since he’s been here.”

“Did you see him before... before...?”

“You mean before he got married? Oh, yes, he was in here getting some things and I chatted with him. By the way, how was that picture frame I sent up? Was that what Mrs. Eves wanted? She ordered it over the telephone and I rushed upstairs with it.”

“I think I heard her say it was a little small,” Mason said.

“Well, it was just the size she ordered. She told me to get her an oval frame for a picture which had been trimmed down from an eight by ten print into an oval size.”

Mason said, “I don’t know much about it. After all, I’m just a neighbor.”

She gave him his change and handed Mason the package. Mason thanked her, tucked the package under his arm and stepped out into the drizzle.

“Draw something?” Drake asked, as Mason opened the door of the car.

“I’ll say I did. She not only left her films there but left a mailing address. The chap with the broken neck isn’t Eves.”

Mason entered the car, placed the package on his lap and he and Drake studied the address.