Erie Gardner - The Case of the Lazy Lover

“Yeah,” Mason said sarcastically.

“Look here, Mason, if I get Fleetwood in here, and you start giving him the third-degree — well, suppose he gets on the witness stand later and you start throwing things up at him that he said at the time you were questioning him here, it’s going to look like hell.”

“For whom?”

“For me.”

“Why?”

“Because I let you question a witness.”

Mason said, “If your witness can’t answer questions when you’re here to see that I don’t bullyrag him or browbeat him, he isn’t going to make much of a witness when you put him on the stand and I have a chance to pour the questions at him when nobody can stop me.”

Tragg thought that over, said, “Okay, Mason. I’ll get him in here, but I want one thing definitely understood.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m controlling the course of the examination. Any time I don’t like your questions, I’ll tell him not to answer them. Any time I think you’re getting off the reservation, I’ll have Fleetwood taken out, and I’ll send you about your business.”

Mason yawned, lit a cigarette, said, “What are we waiting for?”

Tragg picked up a phone on his desk and said, “Send that chap Fleetwood in here. I want to talk with him again.”

A moment later a uniformed officer opened the door and pushed Fleetwood into the room.

“Hello, Fleetwood,” Mason said.

Fleetwood looked at him. “You again!”

“Sit down,” Tragg said. “We want to ask you a few questions.”

“Who does?”

“Both of us.”

“I want to sleep,” Fleetwood said.

“So do all of us,” Tragg announced gloomily. “But it doesn’t look as though we’re going to have much chance for a while.”

Mason said to Fleetwood, “Bob, you got along all right with Bertrand Allred, didn’t you?”

“Why sure.”

“The thing that brought on your attack of amnesia was a blow on the head.”

“That’s right.”

“How did it happen?”

“How do I know how it happened? I was walking along the hedge and all of a sudden, blooey, I was out like a light. The next thing I remember, I was riding in an automobile and you were talking about taking me to police headquarters. I have a confused recollection of things happening in between, but I don’t know what they were. I haven’t the faintest idea. That part of my existence is just a blank to me.”

“You keep on saying it and you’ll get so glib when you recite that formula that you’ll sound like a needle stuck on a wax record.”

Fleetwood looked at Tragg and said, “How does he get in on this? Does he have any right to sit here and pull that stuff?”

Tragg started to say something to Mason, but Mason said to Fleetwood, “You couldn’t remember anything at all from the time that blow crashed down on your head until you recovered your memory here at the police station?”

“No!”

“Not a thing?”

“No, I tell you! How many times do I have to say that?”

“During that time you didn’t know who you were?”

“No. Of course not. I was suffering from amnesia. I know what people have told me about what I did and what happened.”

“Maybe you didn’t talk with the right people,” Mason said suavely. “Now there’s a man by the name of Leighton, who is running a service station about five miles out of Springfield. He says that when Mrs. Allred stopped the car and got some gasoline and went to the rest room, you darted over to the telephone and called Donnybrook 6981. In case you don’t remember, or are having another attack of amnesia, Bob, that number is the telephone of Bernice Archer.”

“Well, what’s wrong with calling her up? She’s my girl friend.”

“I know,” Mason said. “But how did you know she was your girl friend during the period that you were suffering from amnesia and didn’t know who you were?”

Fleetwood started to say something, then changed his mind.

“And,” Mason went on, “how did you know what her number was, if you couldn’t remember anything about your past existence? How did you remember what her name was, and how did it happen that you knew that you must put through that call during the minute or two you had while Mrs. Allred was in the rest room?”

Tragg’s chair squeaked as the Lieutenant took his feet from the place where he had propped them on the edge of the wastebasket and sat suddenly upright in his chair. “What’s this guy’s name, Mason?”

“Leighton.”

“Where is he?”

“Running a service station out there. Fleetwood knows all about the place. Bob will tell you about it in a minute.”

“I tell you I didn’t know who I was and...”

“But you remembered your girl friend and remembered her telephone number!”

Fleetwood was silent, sullen under Mason’s questioning.

“Now then,” Mason said, “are you going to tell Lieutenant Tragg or am I going to bring Leighton in?”

“I didn’t talk on any call,” Fleetwood said to Tragg.

Mason grinned and said, “I thought all that part of your life was blank to you, Bob. Remember, that was during the time you were suffering from amnesia. How do you know you didn’t talk on the call?”

“You go to hell!” Fleetwood shouted, jumping out of the chair. He swung his fist back for a haymaker.

Tragg’s long arm shot across the desk, grabbed Fleetwood’s shirt collar, slammed him back into the chair.

Mason had not even moved during the time that Fleetwood lunged at him and Tragg had pulled the prisoner back into the chair.

Now Mason calmly lit a cigarette with a steady hand, blew smoke at the ceiling, said, “There you are, Tragg. There’s your murderer.”

“What do you mean?” Fleetwood shouted. “You can’t frame this on me. You’re trying to protect your client, Lola Allred.”

“Sure, I am,” Mason said. “I’m trying to protect her by uncovering the real murderer. Here he is, Lieutenant. Here’s a man who has consistently lied all the way through. He was the last man to see Bert Allred alive. Despite the fact that he tells you he got along all right with Bert Allred, he didn’t. They’d had a big battle just before Fleetwood was knocked out. It wasn’t any automobile that hit Fleetwood. He knows it and I know it! Now, then, you’ve caught him in a whole series of lies. First he says he didn’t know anything at all about who he was, and he was lying. Now he says he doesn’t remember anything about that.”

Fleetwood glanced appealingly at Lieutenant Tragg. What he saw in Tragg’s face was not reassuring.

“All right,” Fleetwood blurted suddenly. “I’ll tell you the truth, and the whole truth. Then you can see the spot I was in. Allred had a partner in some mining deals, a man named Jerome. Jerome was a pretty tough citizen. In working back over some of the books, I found where Allred had been gypping Jerome. Jerome wasn’t the sort of a man you could gyp without having to face a lot of disagreeable consequences.

“I made the mistake of letting Allred find out what I had discovered. First he tried to bribe me to silence. Then he tried to threaten me to silence. Then, all of a sudden, he became very nice and suave and started telling me it was all a mistake and that he’d explain it to me by producing some additional evidence, but that that could wait until tomorrow, that I could have dinner with them and that we’d forget about business for an evening.

“I pretended to fall for it like a ton of bricks, because I knew the man was desperate, and I was unarmed. All of a sudden I was afraid of what might happen. I just wanted to get out of there, so I told him I was going to change my clothes, and that I’d be back for dinner. I had managed to get George Jerome on the telephone earlier and told him who was talking, but Allred suddenly became suspicious and started back for the room where the phone was, and I had to hang up in a hurry and pretend I was rummaging around in the files. He finally came to the conclusion I hadn’t phoned, but he was suspicious, and very edgy.