Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crimson Kiss

“Chief, you simply have to eat.”

Mason walked over to the desk. “Look at ’em,” he said. “Photographs! And Drake had the devil’s own time obtaining them — copies of the police photographs — the body on the floor, glass on the table, an overturned chair, a newspaper half open by a reading chair, an ordinary, mediocre apartment as drab as the sordid affair for which it was used. And somewhere in those photographs I’ve got to find the clue that will establish the innocence of a woman, not only innocence of the crime of murder, but innocence of the crime of betraying the man she loved.”

Mason crossed over to the desk, picked up the magnifying glass which was on his blotter, started once more examining the pictures. “And, hang it, Della,” he said, “I think the thing’s here somewhere. That glass on the table, a little Scotch and soda in the bottom, Fay Allison’s fingerprints all over it. Then there’s the brazen touch of that crimson kiss on the forehead.”

“Indicating a woman was with him just before he died?”

“Not necessarily. That lipstick is a perfect imprint of a pair of lips. There was no lipstick on his lips, just there on the forehead. A shrewd man could well have smeared lipstick on his lips, pressed them against Clements’ forehead after the poison had taken effect, and so directed suspicion away from himself. This could well have happened if the man had known some woman was in the habit of visiting Clements there in that apartment.

“It’s a clue that so obviously indicates a woman that I find myself getting suspicious of it. If there were only something to give me a starting point. If we only had a little more time.”

Della Street walked over to the desk. The cool tips of her fingers slid over Mason’s eyes. She said, “Stop it. Come and get something to eat. Let’s talk it over...”

“Haven’t you had dinner?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I knew you’d be working and that if someone didn’t rescue you, you’d be pacing the floor until two or three o’clock in the morning. What’s Paul Drake found out?”

She picked up the sheets of flimsy, placed them together, folded them, stacked up the photographs, put the flimsy on top of the photographs, and anchored everything in place with a paperweight. “Come on, chief, I’m famished.”

Mason walked over to the coat closet. Della had to stand on tiptoes to help him with his topcoat. The lawyer took his hat, switched out lights, and walked down the corridor with Della Street.

But he didn’t really answer her question until after he had become relaxed in one of the booths in their favorite restaurant. Then he pushed back the plates containing the wreckage of a thick steak, shoestring potatoes, golden-brown toasted and buttered French bread, and a lettuce and tomato salad.

He poured more coffee, then said, “Drake hasn’t found out much, just background.”

“What, for instance?” Della Street asked.

Mason said wearily, “It’s the same old seven and six. The wife, Marline Austin Clements, apparently was swept off her feet by Carver Clements’ determination to get her, by the sheer power of the man.

“She overlooked the fact that after he had her safely listed as one of his legal chattels, with title in good order, he used that same acquisitive, aggressive tenacity of purpose to get other things he wanted. Marline was left pretty much alone. That’s the price one has to pay for marrying men of that type.”

“And so?” Della asked.

“And so,” Mason said, “in the course of time, Carver Clements turned to other interests. Hang it, Della, we have one thing to work on, only one thing, the fact that Clements had no key on his body.

“You remember the four people who met us in the corridor. They had to get in that apartment house some way. Remember the outer door was locked. Any of the tenants could release the latch by pressing the button of an electric release. But if the tenant of some apartment didn’t press the release button, it was necessary for any visitor to have a key in order to get in.

“Now then, those four people got in. How? They must have had a key. Regardless of what they now say, one of them must have had a key.”

“The missing key?” Della asked.

“That’s what we have to find out.”

“What story did they give the police?”

“I don’t know. The police have them sewed up tight. I’ve got to get one of them on the stand and cross-examine him. Then we’ll at least have something to go on.”

“So we have to try for an immediate hearing and then go it blind?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Was that key in Fay Allison’s purse Carver Clements’ missing key?”

“It could have been. If so, either Fay was playing house or the key was planted. In that case when was it planted, how, and by whom? I’m inclined to think Clements’ key must have been on his body at the time he was murdered. It wasn’t there when the police arrived. That’s the one really significant clue we have to work on.”

Della Street shook her head. “It’s too deep for me. but I guess you’re going to have to wade into it. I can tell you one thing. Louise Marlow is a brick. I’ve known her since I was a child. If there’s anything she can do to help, you can count on her.”

Mason lit a cigarette. “Ordinarily I’d spar for time, but in this case I’m afraid time is our enemy. Della. We’re going to have to walk into court with all the assurance in the world and pull a very large rabbit out of a very small hat.”

She smiled. “Where do we get the rabbit?”

“Back in the office,” he said, “studying those photographs, looking for a clue, and...” Suddenly he snapped to startled attention.

“What is it, chief?”

“I was just thinking. The glass on the table in seven-oh-two, there was a little whiskey and soda in the bottom of it, just a spoonful or two.”

“Well?” she asked.

“What happens when you drink Scotch and soda, Della?”

“Why... you always have a little. It sticks to the side of the glass and then gradually settles back.”

Mason shook his head. His eyes were glowing now. “You leave ice cubes in the glass,” he said, “and then after a while they melt and leave an inch or so of water.”

She matched his excitement. “Then there was no ice in the woman’s glass?”

“And none in Carver Clements’. Yet there was a thermos jar of ice cubes on the table. Come on, Della, we’re going back and really study those photographs!”

Judge Randolph Jordan ascended the bench and rapped the court to order.

“People versus Fay Allison.”

“Ready for the defendant,” Mason said.

“Ready for the prosecution,” Stewart Linn announced.

Linn, one of the best of the trial deputies in the district attorney’s office, was a thin-faced, steely-eyed, cautious individual who had the mind of an accountant, an encyclopedic knowledge of law, and the cold-blooded mercilessness of a steel trap.

Linn was under no illusions as to the resourcefulness of his adversary, and he had all the caution of a boxer approaching a heavyweight champion.

“Call Dr. Charles Keene,” he said.

Dr. Keene came forward, qualified himself as a physician and surgeon who had had great experience in medical necropsies, particularly in cases of homicide.

“On the tenth of this month did you have occasion to examine a body in apartment seven-oh-two at the Mandrake Arms?”

“I did.”

“What time was it?”

“It was about two o’clock in the morning.”

“What did you find?”

“I found the body of a man of approximately fifty-two years of age, fairly well-fleshed, quite bald, but otherwise very well preserved for a man of his age. The body was lying on the floor, sprawled forward, head toward the door, feet toward the interior of the apartment, the left arm doubled up and lying under him, the right arm flung out, the left side of the face resting on the carpet. The man had been dead for several hours. I fix the time of death as having been during a period between seven o’clock and nine o’clock that evening. I cannot place the time of death any closer than that, but I will swear that it was within those time limits.”