Erle Gardner - The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

He could hear the phone ringing repeatedly, and then Della Street’s voice, thick with sleep, saying, “Hello, yes— Who is it, please?”

“Wake up, Della,” Mason told her. “The fat’s in the fire.”

“Oh, it’s you, Chief!”

“That’s right. Is the phone by the side of your bed?”

“Yes.”

“Then jump out of bed,” Mason told her. “Go splash cold water on your face, then get back to the telephone. I want you wide-awake for this and can’t take chances on you going back to sleep. They may cut me off any minute.”

“Just a second,” she said.

Over the telephone Mason could hear the thud of her feet on the floor. A moment later she was back, saying, “Wide-awake, Chief. What is it?”

Mason said, “I’m at the Keymont Hotel. Morris Alburg called me and asked me to join him in room 721. He failed to meet me there. Someone else did.”

“Man or woman?” she asked.

“Woman.”

“Was it...”

“Careful,” Mason warned. “No names. Just keep listening, Della.”

“All right, go ahead.”

Mason said, “You remember that first night we were talking with Morris Alburg he mentioned that he had at one time employed a detective agency instead of a lawyer.”

“Yes, it seems to me— Yes, I remember. Why, is that important?”

Mason said, “We have the residence number of the cashier at Alburg’s restaurant. Evidently she knows something about his business affairs, and he trusts her.

“Get your clothes on, Della, call a taxi, start working the telephone. Get Morris Alburg’s cashier to tell you the name of the detective agency Morris employed. In case she doesn’t know it, get her to meet you in Alburg’s restaurant. Have her open the office safe, get at his books. Then take the classified telephone directory and get the names of all the licensed private detectives in the city. Then start checking back on Alburg’s books. You’ll probably find a check record listed alphabetically, or else you may find it listed some other way — I don’t know just how he keeps his books... Are you following me?”

“Right abreast with you.”

“Get his books,” Mason said, “and start checking any remittances which he may have made against the list of the private detective agencies.”

“Okay. Suppose we find one. Then what do we do?”

“Wait for me,” Mason said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can get there.”

“You just want that information. You don’t want us to get in touch with the agency?”

“It isn’t a woman’s job,” Mason said. “It’s going to be a tough, hard-boiled, dog-eat-dog proposition... In case the phone rings at Alburg’s place, answer it. I may call you.”

“I’m getting started right now,” she said, her voice crisp and alert.

“Good girl,” Mason told her.

He hung up the telephone, went back to a chair in the lobby, read the newspaper for a while, then strolled over to chat with the plain-clothes man at the desk.

“I guess it’s all right to let you send out uncensored telephone calls,” the man said, his voice showing anxious speculation. “Nobody told me it wasn’t all right, and nobody told me it was.”

“Oh, sure,” Mason said, “no one would want to interfere with my business. After all, a citizen has some rights.”

The plain-clothes man grinned, then suddenly looked up at the door.

Mason followed the direction of his eyes and saw an efficient, trim-looking young woman, clad in a somewhat mannishly tailored outfit, leaving an automobile and being escorted into the hotel by a uniformed officer.

Mason waited until they were halfway across the lobby, then stepped forward with a smile, said, “Minerva Hamlin, I believe.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, yes,” she said. “You must be Mr. Mason. I’m...”

The uniformed officer stepped in between them and said, “Nix on it. No talking. No conversation.”

“Good Lord,” Mason protested, “what kind of an inquisition is this?”

“You heard me,” the officer said. “No conversation.”

He took Minerva Hamlin’s arm and hurried her toward the elevator.

The plain-clothes man behind the desk stepped out into the lobby and said, “Sorry, Mr. Mason, but you aren’t supposed to talk with witnesses, yet.”

“Good Lord,” Mason said, “she’s one of Paul Drake’s assistants. I employed her. I’m paying the bill for her time right now.”

“I know, but orders are orders. We’re working on a murder case.”

“Can you tell me why all this air of mystery? What all this elaborate trap is about? Why people are being held here and not permitted to leave the hotel?” Mason demanded indignantly.

The plain-clothes officer grinned a slow, friendly grin, and said, “Hell, no,” and then added, “and you’re a good enough lawyer to know that, too. Go on back and sit down.”

Mason watched the elevator indicator swing slowly around until it came to the second floor and then stop.

“The officers must have taken over the bridal suite for their interrogations,” Mason said.

The plain-clothes man laughed. “A bridal suite in a dump like this,” he said.

“Isn’t that what it is?” Mason asked.

“Hell, they’re all bridal suites.”

“Had much trouble with the place?”

“Ask Sergeant Jaffrey the next time you see him. He’s on the Vice Squad. He knows the place like a book.”

“Any homicides?” Mason asked.

“It isn’t that kind of a joint. Just a dump. It...”

A light flashed on on the switchboard, and the plainclothes man put the headset over his head, said, “Yes, what is it?... Right now?... Okay, I’ll send him up.”

He turned to Mason and said, “They want you upstairs, same room. You know, the ‘bridal suite.’”

“Okay,” Mason said.

“Can I trust you to go up by yourself without doing any exploring, or shall I delegate an officer to...”

“I’ll go right up,” Mason said.

“All right, you know where it is.”

“Sure,” Mason said.

“On your way. They’re waiting.”

Mason pressed the button on the elevator. When the cage came back to the ground floor, he got in, closed the door, pressed the button for the second floor, stepped out of the elevator, and the uniformed officer in the corridor jerked his thumb toward the suite. “They’re waiting for you, Mr. Mason.”

Mason nodded, entered the suite, noticing as he did so that the notebook of the shorthand reporter had now been half-filled with notes, indicating that the somewhat dejected-looking Paul Drake, who seemed as wilted as a warm lettuce leaf, had been submitted to a searching interrogation.

Drake gestured toward the young woman, said, “This is my night switchboard operator, Perry, Minerva Hamlin.”

“How do you do, Mr. Mason,” she said, with the close-clipped accents of a young woman who prides herself on her business efficiency.

Mason said, “Tragg, I’ve told you that I was responsible for Miss Hamlin being sent down here. I wanted to find out the identity of the person who was in room 721 with me.”

“We know all about that,” Sergeant Jaffrey said.

Lieutenant Tragg produced a photograph. “Now, Miss Hamlin,” he said, “we’re going to ask you a question. It’s a very important question both to you and to your employer. I want you to be very careful how you answer it.”

“Why, yes, of course,” she said. “I’m always careful.”

“I may as well tell you,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “that a murder has been committed in this hotel. We are investigating that murder and certain things indicate that we’re working against time. I don’t want to threaten you, but I do want to warn you that any attempt to stall us or to delay matters may make quite a difference. I think you are aware of the penalties for suppressing evidence.”