Erle Gardner - The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

“Now, Lieutenant Tragg didn’t say anything to me,” Mason said, “but my best guess is that he’s starting to trace this equipment, and that shouldn’t be too hard. I would gather that it’s very modern, very recent, very expensive, and right up to the minute. Whoever bought that equipment probably didn’t pay all cash for it. It’s probably being purchased under contract. There are serial numbers on the machines. Lieutenant Tragg will get those serial numbers. He’ll call up the manufacturers. They’ll refer him to their local agency. The local agency will get out its contracts and...”

“Oh, my God!” Fulda said, and sat down in the chair as though somebody had knocked the props out from under him.

Mason nodded to Mrs. Fulda. “I think,” he said, “your husband is going to want some of that coffee.”

She continued to stand in the doorway for a moment, then silently glided into the kitchen. The swinging door closed, then, after a moment, was pulled open and left open.

“I’d never thought of the serial numbers,” Fulda said.

“You should have,” Mason told him. “You should have thought of that the first thing.”

“I felt — felt I could— Well, I didn’t realize they’d trace me that way or that soon.”

“What’s your story?”

“I want time to think.”

“I know,” Mason said, “you came home, got out of your clothes, mussed up your hair a little bit and decided you’d bluff it out. You scared your wife half to death, and you’re pretty badly frightened yourself now. What happened to frighten you?”

“I–I don’t know.”

“All right, let’s find out. Tell us your story and tell it fast. There’s just a chance we can help you.”

“I–I don’t know what to do.”

“Start talking.”

“I specialize in sound equipment—”

“Yes, I know.”

“In recording conversations — blackmail and things of that sort in the criminal field, and recording speeches and depositions, courtroom proceedings and so forth in the noncriminal field.”

“Tell us about the Keymont Hotel,” Mason said.

“Not so long ago,” Fulda said, “I did a job for Morris Alburg. It was — well, it was confidential.”

“It won’t be,” Mason said.

“Well, it is now.”

“By the time the district attorney starts asking questions—”

“That’s different.”

“I’ll read about it in the papers then.”

“All right,” Fulda said, “you’ll read about it in the papers, but until you do, it’s confidential. All I can say is it was a blackmailing job, and it was carried through very successfully.”

“How long ago?”

“A little over a year.”

“Then what?”

“So yesterday afternoon Morris Alburg came to me. He wanted me to fix a setup in the Keymont Hotel, and — well, of course, it had to be very confidential and...”

“Go on,” Mason said, “that isn’t what’s worrying you. Tell us what’s worrying you.”

“Well,” Fulda said, “the damn fool told me that he was wanted by the police and that put me in a spot.”

“Did he say what he was wanted for?”

“He said they were looking for him and he was keeping under cover.”

“And you took the job on that basis?”

Fulda nodded morosely.

“All right,” Mason said, “you don’t need to tell the police all the conversation you had with your client. So far as you were concerned it was a routine job. What did you do?”

“I got my sound equipment together, went up to the hotel, told the clerk my sister was coming on an evening plane and I wanted two rooms, preferably adjoining.”

“And he wouldn’t give them to you?”

“He said he didn’t have two adjoining rooms, but he did have two rooms on the same floor. I asked him where they were located and he said they were 721 and 725, so I told him I’d take a look at them.”

“You went up and looked them over?”

Fulda nodded.

“Then what?”

“They were ideally suited. I told him that I was going to move in, that I’d sleep for a while before dinner and didn’t want to be disturbed because I was going to meet my sister on the night plane.”

“How did that register?”

“He gave me a knowing leer and let it go at that.”

“So what did you do?”

“All of this modern sound equipment is fixed so it resembles hatboxes, suitcases and that stuff.”

“I know,” Mason said.

“The bellboy got a hand truck and we moved the stuff up. We distributed it. Some in 721, some of it in 725.”

“Then what?”

“Then after the boy left, I moved it all down to 725, all the recording machinery and all that stuff, and left nothing in 721 but a microphone. I did a good job concealing that.”

“How? In the wall?”

“No. These new jobs are slick. The bug was in a reading lamp I clamped to the head of the bed. Aside from the fact it looked too classy for the dump it was in, it was perfect. I ran the wires along the picture molding, then out through the transom and down the corridor and into 725. I had to work fast, but I was all prepared to work fast, and I did a good job of it.”

“Then what?”

“Then I tested the equipment to see that it was working, and then left word for Morris Alburg to come to room 721, that everything was all right.”

“How did you leave word?”

“I called the number he had given me and said that if Morris came in to say that Art had told him everything was okay.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Then what?”

“Then I holed up in 725.”

“Wasn’t the equipment automatic?”

“That’s right, but I wanted to make certain that it was working. And I thought Alburg would want a witness. It was new equipment and I wanted to monitor the conversations myself. You should always do that if you’re going to testify. You can’t introduce evidence if you simply show that you went away and left a room, and when you came back you found certain acetate discs on the machine, you...”

“Don’t bother trying to educate me on the law of evidence,” Mason said. “Tell me what you did.”

“Well, I lay down in 725 and went to sleep.”

“When did you wake up?”

“I woke up about eight-thirty or nine o’clock, I guess. I went out and had something to eat and called that number again and asked if Morris Alburg had been in. They said he had and that he’d received my message.”

“You didn’t tell them who you were?”

“Just Art.”

“All right, then what?”

“I filled up on a good dinner. I got some sandwiches and a thermos bottle of hot coffee, and went back to the hotel.”

“Then what?”

“I read for a while, then dozed off, and was suddenly awakened by the sound of my equipment being turned on.”

“What happened?”

“Well, that stuff is equipped so that when there are voices in the room that’s wired the machines turn on automatically and start recording. I heard the click of the switch, and there’s a green light that comes on on the recording machine when everything is working all right. I jumped up off the bed, went over and saw that everything was coming in all right. I plugged in earphones and could hear the conversation.”

“What was the conversation?”

“Morris Alburg and some woman were talking and — well, I couldn’t get it.”

“What couldn’t you get? You mean the recording didn’t come in clearly or what?”

“Oh, the equipment was working fine. It was the conversation that I couldn’t follow. It was a peculiar conversation.”

“What was peculiar about it?”

“Well, evidently Morris and a woman were in there and they were expecting you to come, and Alburg said, ‘He’ll be here any minute. I phoned him and he said he’d come right up,’ and the woman said something about him being late, and then all of a sudden the conversation seemed to veer off on a peculiar tangent.”