Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Crooked Candle

“That’s your hard luck.”

“You mean I’m here as a witness?”

“Well, in a way — yes. There’s a crime under investigation.”

“If I’m held as a witness,” Della Street said, “you have to get a court order to hold me. If I’m arrested, you have to take me before the nearest and most accessible magistrate without any unnecessary delay.”

“Well, we’re just sort of waiting to get the magistrate,” the officer said with a smile.

“Have it your own way,” Della said, “but when charges are made against you, don’t say I didn’t warn you. You look like a man who has a long police career back of you. It would be a shame if you did something now that would keep you from getting a pension.”

“Say, what are you talking about?”

“About the fact that if you are guilty of a violation of my rights, and if charges should be preferred against...”

“Say, listen. I’m just obeying orders.”

“Orders that you’re to hold me here without letting me communicate with a lawyer?”

“Well, that I’m to hold you here.”

Della Street smiled triumphantly. “You know what the higher-ups will say when someone starts putting on the pressure. They’ll say, ‘Why, we just instructed that officer to give them seats in an anteroom. We didn’t tell him they were under arrest. We supposed, of course, they were willing to remain there voluntarily in order to help us investigate the crime. We certainly didn’t tell him they weren’t to communicate with an attorney. We thought, of course, he’d know enough to see they weren’t deprived of their constitutional rights. If he violated the law, he did it on his own. We aren’t responsible. We never gave him any such orders.’ ”

The officer said, “Say, wait a minute. You’re like my wife. Women are all the same.”

He scraped back the chair and, frowning portentously, lumbered to the door. He opened it, stood in the corridor, holding the door in his hand so that it was open five or six inches.

Carol Burbank said, “Good work. Miss Street. You’ve got him worried.”

The officer raised his voice, “P-s-s-s-s-t, Jim!”

Abruptly he pulled the door shut.

The girls were left alone for some five minutes, then the door opened again, and the officer said, “The Lieutenant will see you now.”

“I have nothing to say to anyone.”

“Well, you want to use a telephone, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there isn’t any telephone in this room. You want to go to a room where there’s a telephone, or don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then come this way.”

The girls arose, followed the officer down a corridor which echoed to the sound of their steps. The officer opened a door and, with a very evident gesture of relief, said, “Okay, Lieutenant, here they are.”

Lieutenant Tragg sat at a plain oak desk in a corner of the room. There were three chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of the desk.

“Sit down,” he invited courteously.

Della Street said, “I want to telephone Mr. Mason.”

“I want to ask you a few questions first.”

“I want to telephone Mr. Mason.”

Tragg said, “Now, listen. I don’t want to pick on you, Miss Street, but when Perry Mason starts using you to pull chestnuts out of the fire for him, I have no other alternative. I’m going to connect Perry Mason with what has happened, and the only way I can do it is through you.”

“What’s happened?” Della Street asked.

“You know as well as I do what’s happened. You and Perry Mason have been trying to suppress evidence.”

“Bosh!” Della said.

“You went whizzing down to pick up Miss Burbank and spirit her away where she couldn’t be found.”

“What are you talking about? I took Miss Burbank to a hotel and registered her under her own name. Does that look as though I were concealing a witness? All you had to do was consult the register and...”

“Yes, I know,” Tragg said. “It was done very cleverly, but the purpose for which it was done was to conceal this witness.”

“Try and prove it,” Della challenged.

“That,” Tragg said, “is the unfortunate part. Due to the clever ruse of registering Miss Burbank under her own name, I can’t prove it.”

“Then what are you holding me for?”

“But,” Tragg added with a triumphant smile, “I can hold you on one thing — and that is your attempt to conceal evidence.”

“What evidence?” Della Street asked.

With a sudden dramatic gesture, Lieutenant Tragg whipped open a drawer in his desk, pulled out a pair of woman’s shoes. “I suppose,” he said, “you’ll say that you’ve never seen these before?”

“I haven’t,” Della Street promptly declared.

Tragg’s smile was supercilious, “Unfortunately, Miss Street, that story doesn’t check with the facts. Perry Mason instructed Miss Carol Burbank to take these shoes, wrap them in a brown paper parcel, take them to the parcel checking station at the Union Terminal, check them and get a receipt. She did that. She got a claim check. She passed the claim check on to you. You took the claim check, placed it in an envelope and wrote the name ‘Perry Mason’ on that envelope in your own handwriting.”

For a long four or five seconds, Della Street said nothing. Then she asked, “What’s wrong with those shoes?”

Lieutenant Tragg picked up a magnifying glass, examined a section of the shoe just above the leather sole. “There’s nothing wrong with them, Miss Street. The shoes are all right. It’s you who are in the wrong. Those shoes...”

The door abruptly jerked open, Perry Mason pushed his way into the room, “Okay, Lieutenant, that will be about all.”

An officer showed his head through the door, “Did you send for him?” he asked.

“I did not,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

The officer entered the room. “Out!” he said to Perry Mason.

Della Street said very rapidly, “Lieutenant Tragg, this is my attorney. If I am to be accused of any crime, he is my counsel. If I’m not to be accused of any crime I have absolutely nothing to say as a witness, and will have nothing to say unless I am subpoenaed and examined in the regular manner.”

Mason said, “As attorney for both of these young women, I demand that they be taken before the nearest and most accessible magistrate immediately.”

Tragg’s smile was dry. “Unfortunately, Mason, this is Sunday. I’m afraid you won’t find any magistrate available until Monday morning when...”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Mason interrupted. “Judge Roxmann has done me the favor of going to his court. He’s sitting there waiting.”

Tragg slowly pushed back his chair. He sighed wearily. “All right,” he surrendered, “that does it.”

Mason motioned to Della and Carol.

“You mean we can go now?” Carol asked.

Tragg didn’t answer. Mason moved over, held the door open. Della Street stalked out. Carol followed. Tragg said as Mason started to close the door, “She’ll be back before midnight, Mason, and the next time she’ll stay.”

Mason pulled the door closed behind him. So far as giving any sign, he might not have heard what Tragg said.

Carol Burbank seated herself in Mason’s office, said, “I heard what Lieutenant Tragg told you as we were leaving the office. How long have I got?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “It depends upon whether your father has been arrested, and on what he’s said.”

She said, “I don’t think they can trap Father, only...”

“Only what?” Mason asked as her voice trailed off into silence.

She said, “He’s on a spot.”