Erie Gardner - The Case of the Lazy Lover

Mason dropped down, out of sight.

“What’s the matter?” Drake asked, speeding up.

“That fellow,” Mason said, “is George Jerome, Allred’s partner.”

“Want to try to tail him?” Drake asked.

“Hell, no,” Mason said. “It isn’t where he’s going that’s important. It’s where he’s been.”

“You mean he’s...”

“Sure,” Mason said. “He’s been calling on this girl friend of Fleetwood’s. What did you say her name was?”

“Bernice Archer.”

“Drive around the block,” Mason said, “then come on back. Perhaps we can get in the parking place that Jerome had.”

Drake said, “He’s a big brute, isn’t he?”

“Uh huh.”

“A powerful man like that could pick a fellow up and break him with his bare hands. I’d hate to get tangled with him in an alley on some dark night.”

“We may have an opportunity to do that very thing before we get done,” Mason said. “He’s mixing in this case altogether too much to suit me.”

“What does he want?”

“He says he wants to get Fleetwood’s testimony nicely sewed up in order to protect him in a lawsuit.”

Mason got back on the seat. Drake drove around the block, found that the parking place which had been vacated by Jerome’s car was still available, and skillfully parked his car.

The doors of the apartment house were closed and locked at this hour of the night, but there was an electric callboard and a buzzer system.

Drake ran his fingers down the directory until he came to the card of Bernice Archer, then pressed the button opposite it.

“Suppose she’ll use the speaking tube?” Drake asked. “If she does, what’ll we tell her?”

“She’ll probably buzz the door open,” Mason said. “She’ll think it’s Jerome coming back.”

They waited for a moment, then Drake pressed the button again.

The electric buzzer signified that the catch had been thrown back on the street door. Mason, who had been standing with his hand on the knob, pushed it open, said, “Okay, Paul, here we go.”

The small lobby was dimly lit, but they could see a corridor and an oblong of bright light which indicated the location of the automatic elevator.

“Jerome left the elevator for us,” Mason said.

They walked down the thinly carpeted corridor, entered the elevator, and Drake pressed the button.

The elevator rattled slowly upward.

“You do the talking,” Drake asked, “or do you want me to?”

“You start in,” Mason said. “Introduce yourself as a detective. Don’t say whether you’re police or private, unless she asks. Start asking her questions about Fleetwood, about when she heard from him last, and things of that sort. I’ll chip in if she gives me an opening. Don’t introduce me. She may think I’m another detective.”

The automatic elevator stopped. The door slowly opened. Drake, sizing up the numbers on the apartments, said, “Okay, Perry, it’s down here to the right.”

Drake knocked at the door.

The woman who opened it was about twenty-five, a blonde with clear blue eyes and skin which needed but little make-up. The silk robe did not conceal much of a strikingly good figure.

There was a wallbed in the room which had been let down. The covers were rumpled and the pillow showed that it had been in recent use. The door to the closet was open, showing several dresses on hangers.

Drake, assuming a hard-boiled voice, said, “I’m Paul Drake. You may have heard of me. I’m a detective.”

“May I see your credentials, please?” she asked very quietly.

Drake glanced dubiously at Perry Mason, then produced a billfold which he showed briefly, then snapped shut and started to return to his pocket.

“Just a moment,” she said, “please.” She calmly reached out for the billfold, studied the card, said, “Oh, I see. This is your license as a private detective.”

“That’s right.”

“And the gentleman with you?” she asked.

Mason grinned. “I’m Mason.”

“A detective?”

“No.”

“May I ask what you are, then?”

“A lawyer.”

“Oh,” she said, and then after a moment, “you’re Perry Mason?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you’re Mrs. Allred’s lawyer.”

Mason, beginning to enjoy the situation thoroughly, said, “That’s right.”

“Won’t you gentlemen please be seated?”

She indicated chairs for them, and went over herself to sit on the edge of the bed. The bottom part of the robe slid away from a smoothly stockinged leg. She was wearing street shoes.

“It is pretty late, isn’t it?”

Mason laughed. “Our business is rather special.”

“I suppose so.”

“And,” Mason said, “we knew that you had already been disturbed.”

“How, may I ask?”

“Bob Fleetwood called you.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You received his call?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“Simply that he had recovered his memory. I’m glad to hear it.”

“You knew then that he had lost his memory?”

“No.”

“But he told you over the phone that he had been suffering from amnesia?”

“That’s right.”

Drake said, “How long have you known Bob Fleetwood, Miss Archer?”

“About six months.”

“You’re quite friendly?”

“I like him.”

“He likes you?”

“I think so.”

“You heard that he had run away with a married woman?”

“I understood he had disappeared.”

“You heard that Mrs. Allred had gone with him?”

“No.”

“You read the papers?”

“Yes.”

“You read that police were interrogating Mrs. Allred?”

“I understood so.”

“You didn’t know that she was away with Bob Fleetwood?”

“I didn’t think so. No.”

“You knew that there was at least an intimation to that effect in the papers?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t believe he was with her?”

“No.”

“Do you believe it now?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to wait until I can talk with Bob.”

“When do you expect to see him?”

“As soon as I can see him. Whenever it will be permitted. I understand he’s being held as a material witness.”

“Did you know that Bertrand Allred had been murdered?”

“I heard it over the radio.”

“How much did Bob tell you when he telephoned you?”

“Merely that he was being detained, that he’d probably be detained for at least a day and that he’d had a spell of amnesia, that the police told him he had stayed with a man named Overbrook, but that he had recovered his memory and was feeling all right now.”

“You were glad to hear that?”

“Naturally.”

“It came as quite a surprise to you?”

“Not exactly. Bob has been subject to fits of amnesia before.”

“Oh, he has?”

“Yes.”

“You’d known about them?”

“He’d told me about them.”

“Some time before this fit came on?”

“Yes.”

Drake glanced at Mason and made a little shrugging gesture with his shoulders.

“You have an automobile?” Mason asked her abruptly.

She turned to regard Mason with the cautious appraisal of the fighter sizing up an adversary.

“Yes,” she said, at length.

“Had it long?”

“Around six months.”

Mason glanced at Drake.

Bernice Archer said, calmly, “I had it very shortly before I met Bob Fleetwood, if you’re intending to put two and two together on the six months’ period of time, Mr. Mason.”

“Not at all,” Mason said. “I just noticed the fact that you had mentioned the interval of six months on two occasions.”