Erle Gardner - The Case of the Drowning Duck

Drake said, “I can’t figure that, Perry. Adams may have been innocent; but when he felt he was caught in a mesh of circumstantial evidence, he tried to lie out of it. If this gal had gone to Reno, she’d have read of Latwell’s murder in the papers, and...”

“And what?” Mason asked, as Drake hesitated.

“Probably taken a run-out powder,” the detective said, after a moment’s thought.

Mason smiled. “Well, Paul, we need a point of beginning, and we haven’t time to plod along on a cold trail. Have your correspondents see what they can do in Winterburg, but start some men working at Reno. That may make a good short cut. Let’s cover the hospital records and do all of the routine in connection with a disappearance case. Then let’s consider your suggestion. Suppose you were in Reno, wanted to disappear, and were running away from something in the East? Where would you go? Nine times out of ten it would be Los Angeles, or San Francisco, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yes,” Drake admitted, after thinking the question over.

“All right, while you’re covering Reno, cover Los Angeles and San Francisco. Look for a trace of Corine Hassen, either under her own or an assumed name.”

“An assumed name isn’t going to be easy,” Drake said.

“Oh, I don’t know. She must have used her right name on occasion, at the post office, at banks, on her driving license. See what you can do.”

“Okay, I’ll start men on it right away.”

Mason pushed his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, sunk his chin on his chest, and stared moodily at the pattern in the carpet, “Hang it, Paul, I’m making a mistake somewhere — I’ve already made it.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s just the feeling I have when I get off on a wrong trail. Perhaps it’s my subconscious trying to warn me.”

“Where could you have made a mistake?”

“I don’t know. I have a feeling it has something to do with Leslie Milter.”

“What about him?”

Mason said, “When you once get the correct master pattern, every single event fits into that pattern. It dovetails with every other event which impinges upon it. When you get a master pattern which seems to accommodate all of the events except one , and you can’t make that event fit in, it’s pretty apt to mean that your master pattern is wrong.

“Now take Milter. Milter was undoubtedly trying to get blackmail. Yet he passed the word on to that Hollywood scandal sheet. By the way, have you found out anything about that?”

“I’ve found out that the thing came as a leak. I can’t get Milter’s name in connection with it, but it’s a cinch that’s who it was.”

Mason said, “Yes, even without any information from the scandal sheet, it stands to reason Allgood fired Milter for talking. Therefore, Milter must have talked to someone. To whom? Apparently not to Lois. Not to Marvin Adams. He could have talked to Witherspoon all he wanted. No, he must have talked to that Hollywood scandal sheet.

“Now put yourself in Milter’s position. He was a blackmailer. He was carefully stalking his prey. He was in the position of a submarine that has one torpedo and is lying in wait for a dangerous destroyer. He must be certain to make a hit with that one shot in a vital spot. Under those circumstances, you can’t imagine him frittering away his ammunition. Yet that’s what the tip-off in the scandal sheet amounted to. If he got anything at all for it, it was only pin money and...”

“They never pay for tips,” Drake said. “They sometimes grant favors, but they don’t pay.”

For several seconds, Mason was thoughtfully silent; then he said, “Also note that he must have been the one who sent this special-delivery letter to me. He wouldn’t have done that if he’d been blackmailing Witherspoon or getting ready to blackmail Lois or Marvin or... by George!”

“What?” Drake asked.

Mason regarded him thoughtfully. His brows pulled together in a level line over his eyes. “Hang it, Paul, there’s one solution that would make things hang together. It’s a weird, bizarre solution when you look at it in one way, and when you look at it in another, it’s the only logical solution.”

“What are you holding out on me?” Drake asked.

“Not a thing,” Mason said. “It’s all there right in front of us. Only we haven’t seen it.”

“What?” Drake asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Roland Burr!”

“I don’t get you.”

“Get this,” Mason said. “Burr met Witherspoon. Apparently that meeting was fortuitous. Actually, it could have been arranged very nicely.

“Apparently all you have to do is to run across Witherspoon in El Templo, be interested in fly-fishing or color photography, and Witherspoon starts talking. A clever man could make a very favorable impression and... yes, by George, that’s it. That must be it. Burr, or his wife, must have picked up something. They could have tipped off the scandal sheet — or they may be planning to shake Witherspoon down, and this column was the means they used to soften him up.”

Drake pursed his lips, gave a low whistle.

Mason said, “Make a note, Paul, to find out something about Mr. and Mrs. Roland Burr.”

It was shortly before noon when Della Street came hurrying into the office. She said, “Mrs. George L. Dangerfield is waiting out there, says she simply has to see you on a matter which she can’t even discuss with anyone else.”

Mason frowned. “I thought Allgood was going to telephone and tip me off before she came down here.”

“Want me to get him on the phone?” Della asked.

Mason nodded.

A few moments later, when Allgood came on the line, his voice sounded distinctly worried. “Your secretary said you wanted to talk with me, Mr. Mason.”

“Yes, about that leak out of your office. You’ve heard about Milter?”

“Yes. Most unfortunate... When the police telephoned me, they tipped me off that he was dead, so I could cover up a lot of stuff.”

“I was there,” Mason said. “It was a swell job. Did you know that your secretary listened in on our conversation and went down to see Milter last night?”

“Yes. She finally told me everything. I could see something was on her mind this morning. She kept worrying about it, and about half an hour ago she came in and said she wanted to talk with me. She told me the whole story. I was just on the point of ringing up to ask you if I could get in touch with you. I didn’t want to call you from the office.”

Mason said, “You were going to let me know before Mrs. Dangerfield came down.”

“Yes, I will.”

“She’s here now.”

“What? The devil she is!”

“Waiting in my outer office.”

“I don’t know how she got any information about you. It certainly didn’t come through my office.”

“Nor through your receptionist?” Mason asked.

“No. I feel quite certain. That young woman made rather a complete confession. I don’t want to tell you the details over the phone. I’d like to come down to your office.”

“Come ahead,” Mason said. “Can you start right away?”

“Yes. It will take me about twenty-five or thirty minutes to get there.”

“All right, come along.”

Mason hung up the phone, said to Della Street, “Allgood says she didn’t get the tip through him. Let’s get her in here and see what she has to say. What does she look like, Della?”

“Well, she’s pretty well preserved. She’s taken care of herself. As I remember it, she was about thirty-three at the time of the trial. That would make her over fifty now. She doesn’t look it by ten years.”