Erie Gardner - The Case of the Lazy Lover

“I...”

Knuckles tapped on the door of the apartment.

Frank Inman opened it.

A plain-clothes officer stepped inside and said to Tragg, “Lieutenant, may I talk with you a moment? There’s some additional information just came in over the police radio in the car.”

Tragg stepped out in the corridor. Inman said to Mason, “As far as I’m concerned, we can get along without you.”

Mason merely smiled.

Lieutenant Tragg came back and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Allred. I made a mistake.”

He was watching her with narrowed eyes.

“You mean there wasn’t an automobile accident? You mean my car didn’t go over the grade?”

“No,” Tragg said. “I mean that there was an accident. I mean that your car did go over the grade. I mean that there’s a dead man locked in the car, and I mean the car was deliberately driven over the grade in low gear. The thing I made the mistake on was the identity of the body. When the police made the first identification, they got off wrong because they found a billfold containing a driving license, social security number and a few other things belonging tb Robert Gregg Fleetwood; but after a while they also uncovered a billfold of someone else, and when they saw the descriptions they came to the conclusion that the dead man had been carrying Fleetwood’s billfold, but wasn’t Fleetwood at all.”

“Then who was he?” Mrs. Allred asked.

Tragg snapped the information at her as though he had been turning the words into bullets, “Your husband, Bertrand C. Allred,” he said. “Now tell us how he got in your car and was driven off the grade.”

“Why, I... I...”

“And how blood got over the carpet on the luggage compartment of your automobile.”

She hesitated. Her eyes wide with tragic appeal, she looked at Mason.

Frank Inman saw the glance. He stepped forward and took Mason’s arm. “And as far as you’re concerned,” he said to the lawyer, “this is where you came in and this is where you go out. Hold everything, Lieutenant.”

Tragg said, “I’d like an answer to that question now.”

Inman, taking Mason’s arm, pushed him out toward the corridor.

Mason said, “You can’t keep me from advising my client.”

“The hell I can’t,” Inman said. “I can put you out of here, and if you get rough I’ll get a damn sight rougher.”

Mason said over his shoulder, “Mrs. Allred, your rights are being curtailed. As your lawyer, I advise you to say absolutely nothing until the officers cease these highhanded methods. I want your silence not to be considered as any indication of guilt, or because you’re afraid anything you say might incriminate you, but simply as a protest against the highhanded and illegal methods of these police officers.”

Lieutenant Tragg said irritably to Inman, “You’ve done it, now. You’ve given him a chance to make a speech and make a good excuse.”

“I don’t give a damn,” Inman said. “That woman’s either going to explain her dead husband, or she’s going to be put under arrest.”

Mason said, “You can always reach me at my office, Mrs. Allred, or through the Drake Detective Agency.”

“Come on,” Tragg said, “we’re going to take a ride. Both of you women are going to headquarters.”

Inman pushed Mason out into the corridor, pulled the door of the apartment shut.

Mason walked down the corridor, took the elevator down to the lobby and said to the sleepy night clerk, “Where’s the phone booth?”

The night clerk regarded him curiously. “You live here?” he asked.

“No,” Mason said. “I’m an investor. I’m thinking of buying this hotel merely as an investment. How much do you suppose I should raise wages in order to get courtesy from the employees?”

The night clerk smiled dubiously, said, “The telephone booth is over there, in the corner.”

Mason went over and phoned Paul Drake’s office.

“Where’s Paul?” he asked the night operator.

“He went home and went to bed, said not to disturb him for anything short of murder.”

Mason grinned. “Okay, ring him up. Tell him that you’re following his instructions to the letter.”

“What do you mean?”

Mason said, “I mean that Bertrand C. Allred was murdered up on the mountain grade above Springfield. Then he was locked up in Mrs. Allred’s car, the car put in low gear and driven down over a steep grade. Drake has a man in Springfield. Tell him to get that man on the phone and have him start up there in a hurry! I want information, I want photographs and I want Fleetwood. You get that all down?”

“Yes, Mr. Mason. Do you want to talk with Mr. Drake?”

“Not now,” Mason said. “I’m working on another angle of the case and I don’t want to be tied up in a telephone booth when the time comes for action.”

He hung up, left the telephone booth, strolled to the door of the lobby, and looked out.

It was getting daylight. The sun was not up as yet, and the street outside showed cold and gray in the colorless light of dawn.

A police car with red spotlight and siren was parked at the curb. The radio antenna was stretched to its full capacity. The plain-clothes officer who had taken the message to Lieutenant Tragg was seated behind the wheel. The motor was running, and little puffs of white smoke put-put-put-put-put-putted from the end of the exhaust.

Mason stood there looking out of the door for a matter of some five minutes. The light strengthened. The objects on the street began to show color.

Mason glanced at his wrist watch, stretched, yawned and strolled over to glance at the indicator of the automatic elevator. It was still on the eighth floor.

The lawyer pressed the button which brought the elevator back down to the ground floor. He opened the door just far enough to break the electrical contact and kept the door from closing by inserting a pencil between the door and the door jamb. He then took a seat in the lobby, near the elevator.

Another ten minutes, and Mason heard a faint buzzing from the interior of the elevator, indicating that someone was trying to put it in service.

He walked over, removed the pencil from the door, opened the door, got in the elevator and let the spring on the door pull the door shut. As soon as the door snapped into position, the mechanism of the elevator gave a sharp, metallic click, and the cage started rumbling upward.

Mason stood over in the corner where he would be out of sight to anyone opening the door.

The cage lumbered up to the eighth floor, came to a stop.

The doors were opened. Inman pushed Mrs. Allred and Patricia into the elevator, followed them in. Tragg entered the elevator and closed the door. Inman said, “And if your lawyer is waiting in the lobby, don’t try to talk with him. You get me?”

They turned to face the door, and Mrs. Allred gasped as she saw Mason.

Inman jerked his head at the sound of the gasp. His hand started streaking for his gun. Then he stopped the motion midway to his holster.

“Ground floor?” Mason asked, and promptly pressed the button.

The cage started rumbling down to the ground floor.

Tragg said drily to Inman, “I told you he was smart.”

“What have you told them?” Mason asked Mrs. Allred.

“Shut up,” Inman said.

“Nothing at all,” Mrs. Allred said. “I followed instructions.”

“Keep on following them,” Mason said. “They’ll try everything in their power to make you talk. Simply tell them that your silence is a protest against their highhanded methods and that you want to have an interview with your attorney before you say anything. Remember that you were making a full and frank statement of everything that had happened until they became arbitrary and started pushing me around.”