Erle Gardner - The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

Della Street answered the phone.

“You on the job, Della?”

“Just got here,” she said. “I have the cashier — it was a job getting her up out of bed and down here and...”

“You have the safe open?”

“Yes. She has no recollection of any detective agency, and Alburg didn’t keep a check register. But we’ve found a mass of check stubs, and we’re going through them, comparing them with names of the private detectives in the classified directory. It’s a terrific job. Where can I reach you if we strike pay dirt?”

“Sit right there until I get there,” Mason said, “unless, of course, you should get anything within the next few minutes. In that case call me at Paul Drake’s office. I’ll be there for a while, then I’ll join you within fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“All right. We’ll keep plugging, Chief, but it’s a terrific job. He paid for meats and groceries, paid help and personal bills, all from one checking account, and we have stacks of check stubs here.”

“Stay with it,” Mason said. “I’ll be there to help as soon as I can tie up some loose ends. Be good.”

“ ‘Bye now,” she said, and hung up.

Mason drove to his office building, swung his car into the all but vacant parking lot and rang the bell for the elevator.

The night janitor said, “Good morning, Mr. Mason. You’re certainly an early bird this morning.”

“Not early, late. Has Paul Drake gone up?”

“About five or ten minutes ago.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “Take me up.”

“You must be working on something big,” the janitor said hopefully.

“Could be,” Mason told him, signing the register in the elevator.

When the elevator came to a stop, Mason stopped at the door of the Drake Detective Agency, pushed open the door of the reception room and saw Paul Drake standing, with a rather puzzled expression, looking down at Minerva Hamlin, who was sitting rigidly, her mouth an angry straight line.

Drake looked up and said, “Hello, Perry. I’m not doing so good.”

“Is the purpose of your visit,” Minerva Hamlin asked acidly, “to influence me in my testimony? Am I supposed to commit perjury as part of the routine duties of this office?”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “Take it easy. No one wants you to commit perjury.”

“Well, Mr. Drake seems to challenge my identification.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, “let’s not get off on the wrong track. The identification of the woman who came out of room 721 may be a matter of the greatest importance.”

“I’m not entirely dumb, Mr. Mason. I think I understand that.”

Mason said, “That woman told me that she was Dixie Dayton.”

“Well, she certainly should know who she is.”

“But,” Mason went on, “there were reasons why it might have been to the advantage of certain people to run in a ringer.”

Minerva Hamlin sat in front of the switchboard, coldly erect and determinedly silent.

“Now, then,” Mason went on, “you did a very good job. You stepped in on an emergency in a marvelous manner, and...”

“You may spare the flattery, Mr. Mason.”

“I’m not flattering you. I’m telling you that you got on the job, and did a swell job, but the fact remains that you had to be masquerading as a maid in order to pick up the trail of the woman who came from room 721. You didn’t dare to do anything that would make you look too conspicuous. Your whole plan of operation was to try to look inconspicuous.”

“I will agree with you that far.”

“So,” Mason said, “you weren’t in a position to stare at the woman who came out of the room.”

“I didn’t have to stare.”

“You followed her down the corridor.”

“That’s right.”

“You must have had only a momentary glimpse of her face.”

“I saw her face.”

“But it was necessarily a momentary glimpse.”

“Mr. Mason, are you trying to make me out a fool or a liar, or both?”

“I’m simply pointing out certain obvious facts,” Mason said. “Therefore it’s difficult for you to make an identification of that face from a photograph. If you saw the person herself it might be different, but...”

“I am quite certain that the woman whose photograph I saw was the woman who left room 721. Moreover, she went directly to room 815 and took a key from her purse. You have heard the testimony of the night clerk, who is very positive that the woman is the one who rented room 815.”

“That’s just the point,” Mason said. “They had you in a position where they brought a lot of subtle influence to bear on you. They had the clerk identify the photograph as being that of the woman who rented room 815. Therefore it was only natural that you’d assume...”

“I am not that easily influenced, Mr. Mason. I think I am able to do my own thinking, and I think I am rather efficient in that thinking. May I say that I don’t like this attempt to make me change my testimony?”

“Good Lord,” Mason said with exasperation, “I’m not trying to make you change your testimony. I’m only trying to point out to you the importance of being certain, and the fact that it was exceedingly difficult for you to have had a good enough look at the face of that woman to make a positive identification.”

“I am quite capable of making my own decisions, Mr. Mason. I am a very determined person, Mr. Mason.”

“Damned if you aren’t!” Mason said, and turned on his heel. “Come on, Paul, we’re going places.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you when we get started.”

Drake said, “I have some long-distance calls coming in from the East...”

“Forget them.”

“I gather,” Minerva Hamlin said icily, “that you don’t care to tell me where Mr. Drake can be reached in case those calls come through.”

“I don’t know where he can be reached,” Mason said.

She turned back to the switchboard with an aggressive shrug of her shoulders.

Drake followed Mason out into the corridor.

“Good Lord, what a girl,” Mason said. “Where the hell did you get her, Paul?”

“Through an employment agent. She’s certainly efficient, Perry.”

“She thinks she’s efficient,” Mason said. “She’s a woman who wants to do her own thinking for herself, and then wants to do your thinking for you... Come on, Paul, we’re going down to Morris Alburg’s.”

“There won’t be anyone there this early in the morning.”

“Forget it,” Mason said. “Della Street is down there checking over the books. If Alburg was responsible for having room 721 wired I think we can find something. I’d like to beat the police to it for once in this case.”

“Of course,” Drake said, “so far you don’t have any positive evidence that the room was wired, and...”

“That’s the evidence I’m going after,” Mason said. “Come on, you can ride with me.”

“Why don’t you ride with me, Perry?”

“I can’t take that long. Come on, we’re going places.”

Drake groaned. “At least, Perry, have some decent regard for safety even if you don’t for the speed laws. At this hour of the morning traffic is beginning to pick up and — well, it’s dangerous.”

“I know,” Mason said. “Get in.”

Mason whipped his car out of the parking lot, swung it down the street and gathered speed. Paul Drake, rigidly bracing himself, glanced apprehensively at each intersection as Mason snaked the car through the early-morning traffic, and finally braked it to a stop in front of Alburg’s restaurant.

He banged on the door and Della Street opened it.

“Getting anywhere, Della?” he asked.

“We’ve just struck pay dirt, Chief,” she said. “A check for a hundred and twenty-five dollars was made a year and a half ago to an Arthur Leroy Fulda, who is listed as a private detec...”