Erle Gardner: The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

Morris Alburg led the officers back to the booth.

“What happened to the jane who was here with you?” one of the officers asked.

“Went home,” Mason said. “I’m on my way myself, Morris. I was only waiting long enough to pay the check.”

“There isn’t any check,” Alburg said. “This is on the house.”

“Oh, come,” Mason protested. “This...”

“It’s on the house,” Alburg said firmly.

His eyes flicked to Mason’s with a quick flash of meaning.

“What did you find out over there?” Mason asked.

“Hell,” one of the officers said, “the whole situation is screwy. This gal just took a powder, that’s all. Those three certainly didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Who are they?”

“Out-of-town people; that is, two of them are. The girl’s here in town. Same old story. The girl is employed as a secretary in the sales department in one of the firms here. These two guys are out-of-town buyers. They’re trying to get a party organized. That is, they were. I guess they’re scared to death now.”

“What sort of a party?” Mason asked.

“They were asking this girl if she had a friend. The girl phoned her roommate. The trio were just killing time, having dinner, and waiting to go places and do things until the other girl joined them.

“Now we’ve thrown a scare into the guys and they’re filled with a desire to get the hell back to their hotel, and write reports. They’re shivering so hard it’s a wonder their shoes don’t shake off.”

“What about the girl?” Mason asked.

“She’s okay. She didn’t know the waitress here — is absolutely positive of it. She got a look when the waitress put down the tray with the three glasses of water on it... The girl is a nice enough kid, but she’s been around. She’s secretary in the sales department. We’ll check her tomorrow if we have to, up where she works.”

“And what frightened the waitress?” Alburg asked.

“How the hell do we know?” the officer said impatiently. “She may have seen a boy friend outside, or she may have thought she did, or she may have got a telephone call. Anyhow, we’ll investigate. Tomorrow somebody will check in at the hospital, see how she’s getting along, and if she’s conscious she’ll answer questions. Nothing else we can do here.”

Morris Alburg’s face showed relief. “That’s the way I feel about it,” he said. “Nothing here that frightened her. It must have been a phone call... People don’t like police to come in and ask questions about who they’re taking to dinner. I’ve lost three customers right now.”

“We don’t like to do it,” the officer said, “but in view of the circumstances, we had to find out who they were. Okay, Alburg, be seeing you.”

The officers went out. Alburg turned to Mason, wiped his forehead. “The things a man gets into,” he moaned.

Mason said, “Della went out to get some information for me. She took the fur coat along. I didn’t know whether you wanted the officers to see it.”

“Of course I didn’t want them to see it. I saw Miss Street go out. She was wearing the coat. I’m tickled to death. I wanted those officers out of here quick. I didn’t dare seem too anxious. Then they’d think I was trying to cover up something, and then they’d stick around, stick around, and stick around. You are my lawyer, Mr. Mason.”

“Anything you want me to do?” Mason asked. “I thought, perhaps, you had something in mind from the way...”

“Keep that fur coat,” Alburg said. “If anybody shows up looking for the waitress, asking questions about her, about her check, about anything, I’ll send them to you. You represent me all the way. How’s that?”

“What do you mean by ‘all the way’?”

“I mean all the way.”

“You shouldn’t be involved in any way,” Mason pointed out. “If you didn’t know her, and...”

“I know, I know,” Alburg interrupted. “Then there’ll be nothing to do. You don’t do it and send me a bill. That’ll suit you, Mr. Mason, and it’ll suit me. But if anything happens, you’re my lawyer.”

“All right,” Mason said tolerantly. “If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

“Don’t have to tell you what?”

“What you’re not telling me.”

“What makes you think I’m not telling you something?”

“Because I haven’t heard you say it — yet.”

Morris threw up his hands. “You lawyers! You don’t take nothing for granted. Detectives are different. Lawyers I’m afraid of. A while back I hired detectives. A good job they did, too.”

“Why detectives, Morris?”

“I had trouble. Anybody can have trouble. Then I want detectives. Now I want a lawyer. The best!”

“Fine,” Mason said, smiling at the other’s nervousness. “And now, Morris, since this is on the house, I’m going back and have some of your apple pie alamode while I’m waiting for Della Street.”

“She’s coming back?” Alburg asked.

“Sure,” Mason said. “She just got out so the fur coat could get out of the door without having the officers ask a lot of questions.”

“I am glad to see them go,” Alburg said. “You know, they could have saved me customers. The way they shake those people down, everybody is talking. I’ve got to go back now. I circulate around the tables, and reassure everybody.”

“What’ll you tell them?” Mason asked.

“Tell ’em?” Alburg said. “Tell ’em any damned thing except the truth... I have to tell so many lies I get so I can pull lies out of the air. I’ll say these people parked their automobile and some drunk ran into it. He smashed in the rear end. Police were trying to find out who the car belonged to and whether to make charges against the drunk. That’s why they were looking at driving licenses.”

Mason grinned. “That doesn’t sound very convincing to me, Morris. I doubt if it will to your customers.”

“It will by the time I get done with it,” Morris said.

Mason went back to the booth, waited an anxious ten minutes, then the curtain was pulled to one side and Della Street, with the fur coat wrapped tightly around her, her face somewhat flushed from exercise in the cold air, said, “I drew a goose egg.”

“Sit down,” Mason invited, “and tell me about it.”

“Well,” Della Street said, crestfallen, “I guess I’m one heck of a detective.”

“What happened, Della?”

“He went out to the street, started walking down the sidewalk, suddenly hailed a crusing taxicab and jumped in.

“I pretended to show no interest until he had got well under way, but I got the cab’s number. Then I ran out and desperately tried to flag down a taxi.”

“Any luck?”

“None whatever. You see, he had walked for about half a block and picked up a cruising taxi. He had all the luck. Of course, he timed it so that he would.”

Mason nodded.

“When I tried it, the luck was all bad. Some people came out of the restaurant and wanted a cab, and the doorman ran out with his whistle. Naturally the next cruising cab passed me up in order to do a favor to the doorman. Your car was in the parking lot.”

“Did you lose him?” Mason asked.

“Wait a minute,” she said, “you haven’t heard anything yet. I ran to the corner so I’d have a chance on cabs going in two directions. I waited and waited, and finally a cab came down the cross street. I flagged it and jumped in.

“I told the driver, ‘A cab just went down Eighth Street and turned right at the corner. I want to try and catch it. I don’t know where it went after it turned right, but give this bus everything you have and let’s keep going straight on Eighth Street in the hope we can overtake him.’