Erle Gardner - The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

“You’ve messed this all up now,” Tragg said, “so there aren’t any fingerprints on it.”

Mason said, “That certainly was careless of me.”

“Damned if it wasn’t!” Tragg flared angrily.

“Of course,” Mason went on, “if the Homicide Department had telephoned me and said, ‘Look here, Mason, we’re not ready to announce it right at the moment, but in about fifteen minutes there’ll be a murder committed in room 815, and the young woman who’s talking with you at the moment is going to room 815’ — then, of course, I would have taken steps to preserve fingerprints...”

“We don’t want any sarcasm,” Tragg said, “we want facts.”

“That’s what you’re getting.”

“What about the lipstick?” Tragg asked.

Mason, watching Tragg’s face for expression as a hawk might watch the entrance to a rabbit warren, said, “You’ll notice the end of that lipstick looks as though it had been rubbed across some relatively rough surface, rather than merely used to decorate some woman’s mouth.”

“And what do you deduce from that?”

Mason, his eyes gimlets of watchful inquiry, said, “I thought someone might have used the lipstick to write a message.”

“And what did you find?”

“We found a message,” Mason said.

“Where was the message?”

“It was on the underside of the table.”

“That was all?” Tragg asked.

“What do you mean, that was all?”

“You only found one message?”

Mason said, “I was trying merely to explain things to save Paul Drake embarrassment.”

“Don’t save anybody embarrassment,” Tragg said. “Did you find more than one message?”

Mason remained silent.

Tragg whirled to Drake. “Did you find more than one message?”

Drake glanced at Mason.

The lawyer nodded.

“Yes,” Drake said.

“Where was the other one?” Tragg asked.

“On the back of the mirror.”

“What were those messages?”

“I can’t remember them verbatim,” Drake said. “They’re still there.”

“Did you try to decipher them? The one on the underside of the table, did you feel that it was in code, and did you crack the code?”

“Sure,” Mason said. “It wasn’t much of a code. It related to the room’s telephone directory, volume three, page two-sixty-two, line fifteen of the left-hand column. That was the listing of Herbert Sidney Granton.”

The door of the room opened. Sergeant Jaffrey returned, nodded to Lieutenant Tragg.

“And the other message?” Tragg asked.

“On the back of the mirror,” Drake said. “We didn’t decipher it. We thought it might be the license number of an automobile. We were about to look it up when you gentlemen came in.”

“Now was there something that made you feel one of those messages was a decoy?” Tragg asked Paul Drake.

Drake said, “I think Mason and I had some discussion about the messages, and whether they were both — well, what — well, how they happened to be written.”

“What was the discussion?”

“Gosh, I can’t remember all of it.”

“Remember some of it then.”

“I’ll interpose a question,” Sergeant Jaffrey said. “Did Mason tell you the name of the client who telephoned him and told him to be there in that room?”

Drake shifted his position.

“I want an answer, yes or no,” Jaffrey said.

Drake hesitated, then said, “I believe he did.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t think I have to tell that,” Drake said.

Jaffrey glanced at Tragg. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t think I have to tell you.”

Tragg’s face held no expression, but there was a swift glitter of triumph on the face of Sergeant Jaffrey.

Abruptly Mason said, “Go ahead and tell him, Paul. Give him the names of the clients, tell him everything that happened in that room.”

Drake looked at him in surprise.

“Don’t you get it?” Mason said. “They’re trying to trap you so they can take your license away from you. They were outside of that door during all of our conversation, or else there was a bug in the room, and they have the whole damn thing. All they’re trying to do now is lay a trap so that they can get your license.”

Sergeant Jaffrey came up out of the chair with a bound. He walked over to Mason and grabbed hold of the lapels of his coat, jerking the lawyer up out of the chair. His beefy shoulders were packed with power. One big, hamlike hand locked itself in the folded layers of the lawyer’s coat and the other was drawn back for a punch.

Tragg came up out of his chair hastily. “Hold it, Sergeant, hold it,” he said sharply, and then added, “A shorthand reporter is taking down all of this conversation.” Then he went on smoothly, “The shorthand reporter, of course, is not trying to take down the motions of everyone in this room or describe what is happening every time anyone gets up out of a chair.”

He glanced quickly at the shorthand reporter to see that the man appreciated the hint he was dropping.

Slowly Sergeant Jaffrey released his grip on Mason’s coat.

Mason straightened out the lapels of his coat and said, “I think Sergeant Jaffrey lost his temper, Paul. You can see that lie grabbed me and messed up my coat and necktie and was on the point of hitting me when...”

“That’s merely Mr. Mason’s conclusion,” Jaffrey said smugly. “I did no such thing. I merely put my hand on his shoulder.”

Lieutenant Tragg said wearily, “I told you, Sergeant, that we’d do better if we interrogated these men separately. I think we’d better do it now.”

“All right, wise guy,” Sergeant Jaffrey said to Mason, “now go on back down to the lobby and wait.”

“And I take it,” Mason said, “that while Sergeant Jaffrey was gone from the room, he sent an officer up to Drake’s office to bring Minerva Hamlin up here.”

“Out, wise guy,” Jaffrey said, holding the door open, “and if you don’t get out fast this is once I really can ‘ lay my hand on your shoulder ’ and the shorthand record will show I was amply justified.”

“I’m leaving at once, Sergeant,” Mason said, smiling, “and I’d advise you to answer all questions about everything that took place in that room, Paul.”

With which Mason bowed himself out of the room.

He had barely crossed the threshold when the door slammed with such force that it threatened to dislodge the plaster.

The uniformed officer waiting outside the door said to Mason, “Back to the lobby, Mr. Mason.”

Mason took the elevator to the lobby and started for the street door.

A uniformed officer barred his way.

“I’ve been interrogated and discharged,” Mason said.

“No one’s told me you’re discharged,” the officer said.

“I’ve told them all I know. I’ve been interrogated by both Lieutenant Tragg and Sergeant Jaffrey. What more do you want? I have work to do.”

“Perhaps they’ll want to interrogate you again.”

“They didn’t say so.”

“They didn’t say anything about letting you go. Not to me.”

“They kicked me out.”

“Then wait in the lobby.”

Mason went back to the desk. The clerk had been displaced by a plain-clothes man who seemed affable but who evidenced no desire to assist Mason in his predicament. “Plenty of chairs over there, Counselor,” he said. “The morning newspaper has come in, in case you care to read.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “Any restrictions on telephoning?”

“Not so far as I know.”

Mason located a lone telephone booth, crossed over to it, dropped a coin and dialed the number of Della Street’s apartment.