Erle Gardner - The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

“What information do you have?”

“I’ve put some of my cards on the table. After you’ve followed suit, we’ll try another lead.”

“Look here, Mason,” Reedley demanded abruptly. “Don’t detective agencies sometimes sell you out? Isn’t there a double cross?”

“Sometimes.”

“What do you know about the Interstate Investigators?”

“What do you know about them?”

“They were recommended to me by a friend.”

“When did you go to them?”

“What do you mean?”

“How soon did you have them put men on the job after you approached them?”

“Almost immediately.”

“Then it couldn’t have been a leak through the Interstate Investigators. There must have been time for this ad to be inserted, and time for the women to get installed in the apartment; and that must all have been done before the Interstate men got on the job. Therefore, there must have been a tip-off two or three days before you went to the detective agency. Who was the friend who recommended that agency?”

“Does that make any difference? I didn’t tell him what I intended to do.”

“Perhaps you didn’t need to. Perhaps you were just asking about some detective agency?”

“I asked him what he knew about the Interstate outfit.”

“All right, who was he?”

“I don’t think I care to tell you that.”

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

There was silence for several seconds. Then Mason turned to Drake and nodded. “I guess that’s about all, Paul.” And Mason got up.

“Don’t go yet,” Reedley said. “Sit down.”

Mason said, “Hines had a key to your wife’s apartment. Have you met Hines?”

“No.”

“I’ve met your wife. She seems to be rather high-voltage.”

“High-voltage is right.”

“Hines was not exactly a weak sister, but he was sort of nondescript. I can’t imagine his appealing to your wife.”

“It takes all sorts of people to make a world. You can never tell who is going to appeal to whom.”

“That’s right. Just the same, Hines impressed me as being rather weak.”

“Mason, let’s be frank. I don’t give a damn if the man was the anemic ruin of a misspent past. If he had a key to Helen’s apartment, that’s all I want.”

“If he’d lived, you’d have named him in a divorce action?”

“I can still use that key business to soften up my wife’s demands.”

“It might be a two-edged sword,” Mason warned him.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Hines was murdered.”

“Meaning that... Oh, I see.”

There were several seconds of silence. Then Reedley said, “Don’t be foolish, Mason. I didn’t even know the man. I don’t like your insinuation.”

“I’m not being foolish, and I’m not making any insinuations.”

“You’re coming damn close to it.”

“Not at all. It makes no difference to me. I was merely interested in what course you’d pursue under certain circumstances. Therefore I was pointing out all the facts.”

“Well,” Reedley admitted, “you pointed out a fact that hadn’t occurred to me.”

“And that may be important,” Mason added.

“It may be damned important,” Reedley grudgingly conceded. “Have you any suggestions?”

“About what?”

“About the way to handle that business of the key?”

Mason shook his head. “Ask your lawyer.”

“I haven’t a lawyer.”

“Then I’d suggest you get one. How about the reports you received from the Interstate people?”

“What about them?”

“You have them here?”

“Yes. That is, the ones sent out yesterday. They mail them out twice a day.”

“I’d like to look at them.”

“Why?”

“You might say it was merely as a matter of curiosity.”

“Just whom do you represent?”

“It might be the brunette who got the job.”

“Posing as my wife?”

“I wouldn’t say that. She was simply given a job.”

“You say you’ve met my wife?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“At my office.”

“When?”

“Within the last forty-eight hours.”

“How much ‘within’?”

Mason smiled and shook his head.

“What did she want?”

“It wasn’t what she wanted — it was what I wanted.”

“Well, what did you want?”

“I don’t think I’m entirely in a position to tell you that.”

“Then I’m not in a position to show you the reports of the agents from the Interstate.”

“Well, I guess that covers the situation,” Mason said with a smile as he got to his feet. “You know where my office is in case you want to give me any information.”

“What would I get if I did give it to you?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On the information that you had, and on the information that I had, at the time.”

“Okay, I’ll think it over.”

“Good night,” Mason said.

Reedley escorted them to the door, his manner that of a poker player who has sized up a bet and doesn’t know whether to quit, raise, or call, but wants a little time to think it over.

Back in Drake’s car, the detective said, “Gosh, Perry, you certainly did a job on that.”

“We didn’t get very far,” Mason said, a little ruefully.

“Didn’t get very far?” Drake echoed. “You got all the information there was. He confirmed the situation you’d suspected about the reason for hiring the brunette actress and all that.”

“There’s some more to that that I’d like to find out about. Did you notice his apartment, Paul?”

“What about it?”

“He’d evidently furnished it himself.”

“Sure. You don’t get that type of furniture in furnished apartments, even the swanky ones.”

“The whole effect was very — very harmonious, wasn’t it, Paul?”

“It’s a darn swell place, Perry.”

“No,” Mason contradicted. “The word for it isn’t ‘swell’ — it is ‘harmonious.’ Nice Venetian blinds, beautiful draperies and upholstery, good pictures effectively hung, handsome Oriental rugs, and a lot of excellent furniture — and all in a color scheme that is exactly right.”

“What are you getting at?” Drake asked. “What’s the apartment got to do with the thing we’re talking about? It’s a swanky apartment, probably sets him back five or six hundred a month unfurnished. So what?”

“You saw what Reedley is like — a man filled with turmoil and restlessness. It’s driving him from one thing to another as he goes through life. There’s an inner conflict, a desire for power, a certain ruthlessness. He’s like a volcano rumbling with molten lava — you can’t tell just when he’s going to erupt.”

“Okay, I’ll agree with you on all that.”

“What I’m getting at,” Mason said, “is this: a man with that temperament never furnished an apartment in the way that one’s furnished.”

“Oh-oh!” Drake exclaimed.

“You see it now, don’t you? There’s a woman’s touch there. Another thing — did you notice that telephone conversation of his?”

“What about it?”

“He was rather enigmatical.”

“It was from the Interstate,” Drake said. “They were relaying on some information to him and he was sitting tight because he didn’t want to discuss it while we were there.”

“What makes you think it was the Interstate?”

“He used the word ‘information,’ didn’t he?”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “Now think back a minute. Before the telephone rang, what was he doing?”

“He sat there and talked with us.”