Erle Gardner - The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

“Now then,” Mason said, “do you tell me what it’s all about, or do you sign that agreement?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you can—” She stopped abruptly in mid-sentence.

“Well?” Mason asked.

She took a deep breath, then seemed to relax. “I’ll be only too glad to sign it. Have your secretary type it up at once, will you please, because I’m in a hurry.”

Mason said, “One thing about you: when you yield, you yield with good grace!”

Her quiet smile was enigmatical.

“And now,” Mason said, “we can start being friends.”

“Now,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind.”

And she sat in frigid silence until Della Street brought in the document together with a fountain pen, an acknowledgment blank, and her notarial seal.

Mason checked the document and passed it over to Helen Reedley for her signature. Helen Reedley all but snatched the pen that Della Street was holding, glanced through the document hastily, and affixed a scrawled signature.

Mason extended the inked pad. “And if you don’t mind,” he said, “the thumbprint.”

She slammed her thumb down on the inked pad and banged it on the paper, groped for a cleansing tissue, failed to find one, brought out an expensive handkerchief, and smeared the ink from her thumb all over the handkerchief.

“Do you,” Della Street asked, “solemnly acknowledge that you are Helen Reedley, that you have signed this document, and that it is your free and voluntary act?”

“Yes! And now let me get the hell out of here before I smash something.”

Mason said calmly, “Miss Street, will you please show Miss Reedley the way out?”

Della Street very deliberately stamped her notarial acknowledgment on the certificate over her signature, moved over to the exit door and held it open. Helen Reedley, her head high, swept through.

“Good afternoon, Miss Reedley,” Della said.

There was no answer.

Della waited until the automatic door-check had clicked the door shut. Then she came back to Mason’s desk.

“Gosh, Chief, did you see the way she looked me over?”

“I did,” Mason said. “And it was just because of that look that I may have been a little harsher with her than I would otherwise have been.”

“Forget it!” laughed Della. “It’s just the way one woman looks over another. I don’t think your brunette friend would take kindly to any competition. Was that a gun she was carrying in her purse?”

“Darned if I know. There was something heavy and solid in there. When the purse hit the carpet, it hit with quite a thud. Some of the lighter stuff spilled out, but the heavy thing, whatever it was, stayed inside. I tried to draw her out to see if she would admit it was a gun, but she wouldn’t.”

“I’d hate to have that woman looking for me with a gun,” said Della.

“I’m not certain but that—”

The telephone interrupted him, and he nodded to Della.

She picked up the instrument.

“Yes... hello... Yes, Gertie, I’ll tell him.” She turned to Mason. “Eva Martell on the line wanting to know if there have been any new developments.”

“I’ll talk with her,” Mason said. — “Hello, Eva. Helen Reedley has been here. She’s just left the office. I think there’s no doubt that she is the Helen Reedley who owns that apartment and presumably is the owner of the things in it. At any rate, the document she signed will put you folks in the clear provided you follow Hines’s instructions. I’ve been trying to get him on the phone but haven’t been able to locate him. Are you to go right back?”

“Yes,” Eva Martell said. “‘He told us that just as soon as we got an okay from you we were to go right back to the Reedley apartment and pick up where we’d left off. Gosh, though, we’d like to do some shopping.”

“Go ahead and do your shopping if you want to. But remember you’re being shadowed. Remember, too, that Hines has said you mayn’t go to your own apartment.”

“Yes, I know. But there are some things in the window of a department store near here that have been very hard to get. Suppose— Well, could you pretend to Mr. Hines that you had trouble reaching us? That there was some delay? We’d like to—”

Mason laughed. “Go right ahead. I think Hines is so anxious to keep you that he’ll put up with almost anything. Otherwise, Helen Reedley would never have consented to all those terms I laid down.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason. I suppose you have her authorization in writing?”

“In writing,” Mason said, “acknowledged before a notary and stamped with her thumbprint.”

Eva Martell laughed. “Well, I guess that should do the job.”

“I hope so. Are the men still on your trail?”

“Yes. And some other men just came in. They are looking us over, and—”

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Mason said. “Go about your business just as though you had no idea you were being followed. Then get a taxi, go back to the Reedley apartment, and resume housekeeping. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Gosh, Mr. Mason, you’ve taken a load off my mind. What did Helen Reedley look like? Anything like me?”

“Very much like you, so far as physical characteristic are concerned.”

“How about temperament?”

“It’s not temperament, it’s temperature!”

“Well, I hope I’m not ice cold.”

Mason laughed. “I saw Helen Reedley under circumstances that encouraged a rise in temperature.”

“Is she prettier than I am?”

“She’s definitely not in the same class with you,” Mason said.

“Well... thanks. I was wondering... I’ve noticed Mr. Hines looking me over — and, well, you know... Thank you, Mr. Mason.”

“You mean you’re falling for Hines?”

“No, no, nothing like that. Definitely not. Only one can’t help wondering, in the circumstances. But I mustn’t keep you. Good-by, Mr. Mason — and thank you again.”

It was around six-thirty when Mason, who had been working late at the office, heard the persistent buzzing of the switchboard in the outer office and said to Della Street, “Perhaps you’d better answer it, Della. It may be Eva Martell. We have a dinner date with Paul Drake at seven o’clock, so we won’t have time to see anyone.”

Della Street nodded and went out to the switchboard. She came hurrying back. “It’s Eva Martell, Chief. She says she has to talk with you right away. I’ve plugged her in on your line if you want to talk with her.”

Mason picked up the phone. “Hello, Eva. Where are you now, at the apartment?”

The voice that came over the line was almost hysterical with excitement. “Mr. Mason, you’ll have to tell us what to do. We’re back at the apartment. Something has happened! We’d like to have you over here right away.”

“I’m just getting ready to leave here,” Mason said, “but I have a dinner date in twenty minutes. What seems to be the trouble?”

“I don’t want to tell you over the phone. I’d like to have you come over right away if you could.”

“Something serious?” Mason asked.

“Something quite serious, I’m afraid.”

Mason glanced at his watch and frowned. “I’m terribly busy,” he said. “Why not tell me now? That telephone at the Reedley apartment doesn’t go through any downstairs switchboard, and the document that has just been signed protects you on just about anything that can happen. Tell me what’s worrying you.”

“It’s Robert Hines,” Eva replied, her tone charged with excitement. “He’s sitting in a chair here in the apartment, and there’s what looks like a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. He’s dead — I’m sure of it!”