Erle Gardner - The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

“Know him?” Mason asked, turning to Paul Drake.

“Sure, I know him,” Drake said.

“What sort of a fellow is he?”

“All right. I think he’s on the square. He’s — Gosh, Perry, I bet that’s it, all right.”

“What is?”

“Fulda just recently put in a line of ultramodern sound equipment. He was telling me about it. Some of this latest automatic stuff, too.”

“Where does he live?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “His office is...”

“Where does he live?”

“I’ve checked the telephone directory,” Della Street said, “and he has an address on East Colter Avenue — 1325. I don’t know whether it’s an apartment house or...”

“East Colter,” Mason said musingly. “That probably will be a residence... Telephone his office, Della, just to make certain he isn’t there and — No, he won’t be. He’ll be at home if the police haven’t picked him up as a witness, and, of course, we have no way of knowing that until we can get out there. Come on, Paul, let’s go.”

“Do you want me to wait here?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head. “That’s the information we want. Close up the place, send the cashier home, turn out the lights, and forget about the whole thing, Della. Take the cashier out for a cup of coffee and some ham and eggs if she wants them. Get her to keep her mouth shut.”

“She’s a good girl. I think she will. She...”

“Okay,” Mason said, “we’re going out to round up Fulda. Thanks a lot, Della.”

“I hope he’s the one you want, Chief.”

“He has to be,” Mason said. “The whole thing checks in. Get the books back in the safe and close the place up, Della. The police may be around here before too very long. Come on, Paul, let’s go.”

Traffic signals on the through boulevard changed from the static amber warning signals to synchronized stop-and-go lights when they were half a mile from East Colter Avenue. Mason slowed down in order to ease his way through the signals, then turned on East Colter Avenue and found the number.

“Doesn’t look as though anyone’s up,” Drake said.

Mason parked the car at the curb, ran up the steps to press the front doorbell.

After he had rung for the third time, slippered feet sounded in the corridor, and a sleepy-eyed man in dressing gown, pajamas and slippers, opened the door and blinked at his visitors.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

Paul Drake said, “You know me, Fulda. I’ve met you a couple of times and...”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Drake. How are you?”

“This is Perry Mason,” Drake introduced.

“I’m very glad to know you, Mr. Mason. You’ll pardon my appearance... What seems to be the matter? Is there something I can do for you?”

“We want to talk,” Mason told him.

“Now?” he asked.

“Now’s the best we can do,” Mason said. “I’d have preferred an hour ago.”

Fulda raised inquiring eyebrows, started to say something, checked himself, and said, “Come in.”

A woman’s voice called anxiously from a bedroom, “What is it, Arthur?”

“It’s all right, honey,” Fulda said, his voice edged with impatience. “Go back to sleep. Just a couple of men to...”

“Who are they?”

“A detective I know and...”

Bare feet hit the floor. There was a shuffling sound, then a moment later a woman, in housecoat and mules, stood in the doorway.

Fulda’s voice held savage rebuke. “I’m sorry it bothered you, honey. Go back to bed.”

She continued to stand there in the doorway.

“My wife,” Fulda said. “This is Mr. Mason and Paul Drake, honey. Paul Drake’s a detective who has an office...”

“Oh, a private detective.”

“Yes,” Fulda said. “Don’t worry. Just go back to bed.”

She hesitated a moment, then smiled, and said, “Make yourselves at home. Can I fix you some coffee?”

“You don’t need to get up, honey.”

“No, it’s all right. I’ll fix some coffee. Just a few minutes. Do sit down.”

Fulda pressed a button which turned on a gas furnace, said, “Sit down, gentlemen. I take it this is something urgent?”

“That’s right,” Mason said. “We haven’t got a lot of time.”

“How much time?”

“I don’t know. Tell me all you know about that job at the Keymont Hotel.”

Fulda, who had been lighting a cigarette, paused, and held the match near the end of the cigarette. “The Keymont Hotel?” he asked.

“Room 721,” Mason said. “Come on, make it snappy.”

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about, Mr. Mason.”

Mrs. Fulda, who had started for the kitchen, stopped at the swinging door, holding it partially open, waiting and listening.

Mason said, “Don’t be a sap, Fulda. You were in on that job. You wired the rooms. Now I want to know how long you stayed there. I want to know whether you were there personally, or whether you had somebody on the job, or...”

“Good Lord,” Fulda said. “Do you mean to say you two have come barging out here and pulled me out of bed in order to ask me a fool question like this?”

“Exactly.”

Fulda made a show of anger. “Well, I resent that! I have absolutely nothing to say to you gentlemen. If you want to ask me questions about routine business, you can come to the office after nine o’clock. Furthermore, I see no reason for being questioned. Now, since you gentlemen seem to be in a hurry and working on an urgent matter, I’m not going to detain you any further.”

Mason said, “That’s your position?”

“That’s my position.”

“Want to change it?”

“No.”

Mason said, “I think you’re covering up, Fulda. I have an idea you were in on that job. If you were, it’s pretty important that we find out just what...”

“I know you, Mr. Mason, and I know your reputation, and I don’t intend to be browbeaten in my own home. I’ve given you my answer and that’s final. Now, do you gentlemen want to come to my office at nine o’clock?”

“No,” Mason said.

“All right, you don’t have to.”

“We’re going to talk right here.”

“We’ve already talked.”

“Sure we have,” Mason said. “We’ve said about one-half of what we’re going to say.”

“It seems to me I have already expressed myself clearly. I’ve said everything I care to say.”

Mason said, “All right, now I’ll tell you something.”

“You don’t need to tell me a thing, Mr. Mason.”

“I know,” Mason said. “You’re one of these smart fellows, you know it all.”

“Mr. Mason, I resent that.”

“Go right ahead,” Mason said, “resent it. If you were really smart you’d at least listen until you knew what the score was.”

“I know what the score is right now.”

“Like hell you do,” Mason said. “There was a murder committed in the Keymont Hotel.”

Fulda made an elaborate gesture of shrugging his shoulders. “I guess those things happen even in the best of hotels.”

“And the Keymont isn’t the best,” Mason reminded him.

Fulda said nothing.

“The Homicide Squad went into action,” Mason went on. “They found that room 721 had been wired. The wires ran into another room. Presumably there was a lot of high-priced equipment in use; equipment that recorded conversations, automatic stuff that would switch on and off...”

“And simply on the strength of that you come to see me?”

“And,” Mason continued, without apparently noticing the interruption, “Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide is very anxious to find out who had done the wiring.”

“Naturally he would be.”