Erle Gardner - The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

“Anything you say, Mr. Mason.”

“I tried to do a little bargaining with the D.A.’s office. Ordinarily there would have been nothing to it, but this time Gulling, with this new evidence making him feel he’s sitting on top of the world, slapped my proposition right back in my face and gave me until noon to have you at police headquarters. I’m sorry, but he holds the trumps right now. You take a cab — no later than eleven-thirty — and drive to police headquarters and give yourself up. Say I told you to do it. Don’t answer any questions. Particularly, don’t tell them where you were last night. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Be sure not to talk. Don’t answer any questions about the crime — no matter how simple they sound. Understand?”

“Yes,” she repeated.

“A lot of people will tell you I’ve given you the wrong advice, that I’ve put your head into a noose. But you’ve got to have enough confidence in me so that — even if you get the idea I’m playing the thing the wrong way — you’ll abide by what I’ve told you. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Eva said a third time.

“Good girl! Now I’m on my way. Is there a phone here?”

“There’s a booth at the back of the hall downstairs.”

“Thanks — I’ll call from there. Be sure you have a cab here by eleven-thirty, and get to police headquarters before twelve. I’ll see you shortly after you’re booked. Keep a stiff upper lip!”

On reaching the telephone booth Mason dialed the number of Paul Drake’s office.

“Okay, Paul,” he said when he had the detective on the line. “What do you know?”

“I guess you’re clairvoyant,” Drake said. “That number’s in the Siglet Manor apartments — Apartment 412 on the fourth floor right by the staircase, and the tenant is a woman by the name of Carlotta Tipton. As nearly as we can find out, she’s something of a glamour girl who rarely leaves the apartment before eleven o’clock in the morning, pays her rent regularly, and doesn’t seem to have any steady occupation, though she wears good clothes. What does that do for you, Perry? Anything?”

Mason grinned. “That,” he said, “is going to do a lot for me, Paul. Pick up Della Street, have her bring her shorthand notebook and plenty of pencils, drive like hell to the Siglet Manor Apartment House, and wait for me. I’ll be there just as fast as I can make it!”

Paul Drake pulled up at the Siglet Manor apartments just as Perry Mason swung his car around the corner. Mason parked just behind Drake’s automobile.

“Well we made it,” Della Street said as the three of them formed a group on the sidewalk. “A couple of times I was a little doubtful.”

Drake said, “Evidently we’re ahead of the police on the thing, Perry. Carlotta Tipton doesn’t seem to have had any official visitors, as far as my men can find out. There’s one of the boys over there now. I’ll give him the high sign. You want us to go up with you, Perry?”

“I not only want you to go up, but if that’s one of your men bring him along. I want witnesses.”

Drake beckoned, and a man slid from behind the steering wheel of a parked car and came over to join them.

“You folks know Frank Holt?” Drake asked. “One of my operatives. Miss Street and Perry Mason, Frank.” They nodded greetings, and Drake went on, “We’re going up to interview Carlotta Tipton, Frank. We want you along as a witness. Keep your eyes and ears open so you can remember afterward what takes place. Let’s go—”

They paused at the outer door.

“What do we do?” Drake asked. “Buzz her apartment and get her to open the door, or buzz some other apartment?”

Mason said, “If you’ve got a key that will work this thing... It doesn’t take much of a master key to open the outer door of a place like this.”

“Have a heart, Perry!”

“Go on, Paul, open it.”

Drake looked questioningly at Frank Holt. “Got a key, Frank?”

“Sure,” Holt said, and promptly opened the door.

Mason told them, “I’ll do the talking, and we’ll all keep our hats on. That’s the best way I know to impersonate an officer, and they can’t pinch you for it. Let’s go—”

They rode up to the fourth floor, and when they had located Carlotta Tipton’s apartment Mason knocked.

The sound of movement came from the other side of the door, then a noise as though something were being dragged a short distance across the floor.

The door opened. The woman who stood on the threshold drew back at sight of the businesslike group.

“What... what is this?”

Mason, assuming a hard-boiled manner, pushed past her into the apartment.

Everywhere there were signs of packing. Folded clothes were laid on a davenport. An open suitcase on the floor was about half-filled. Another suitcase, closed and strapped, had evidently been dragged aside in order to enable her to open the door.

She was slightly taller than average, a smooth-skinned redhead in the late twenties. She was wearing a skirt and blouse, but had not as yet put on make-up, and there was a slightly swollen look about her eyes which might have been due either to crying or to a hangover.

Della Street promptly went to a chair by the table, unostentatiously opened her notebook, and held a pencil poised over the page.

Frank Holt, walking over to stand by the window, pulled a cigar from his pocket, thrust it into his jaw at an upturned angle, and pulled back his vest, pushing his thumbs through the armholes.

“Well, Carlotta,” Mason said, “looks rather bad, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve lost a meal ticket.”

“It isn’t... it isn’t that. I’ve... I’ve lost a friend.”

“Suppose you tell us about it?”

“He was killed — that’s all I know.”

“Sweet on him?”

“He was a friend.”

“Did he pay the rent?”

“No.”

“I know,” Mason said. “The reason you’re moving out is just that you want a change of scene every so often.”

She said nothing.

“Now let’s get the sketch,” Mason said. “Hines would take those telephone calls down here. Then what would he do?”

There was a bewildered expression in her eyes. “I never knew very much about Bob’s business,” Carlotta said.

“But you knew he’d get telephone calls at this number and then call someone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know who it was?”

“Not then.”

“And he’d tell her to call a certain number right away?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose you tell me about what happened yesterday. What do you know about the shooting?”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Mason.”

“Bob was a very dear friend,” she said. “He and I were going to be married. I thought a great deal of him. Then I found out he was keeping that woman.”

“What woman?”

“Why, that Helen Reedley.”

Mason flashed Drake a quick glance. “You mean that Robert Hines was keeping Helen Reedley?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen the papers this morning?”

“No. I was going to go out and get one — I don’t have any delivered. I usually get my news over the radio.”

“I see. Now how did you find out he was keeping Helen Reedley?”

“Well, he was acting strange for one thing, and then I found out about what was going on.”

“How?”

“I found he had another apartment key — the key to another apartment right here in this house.”

“Did you know the number of the apartment?”

“Yes, the number was stamped on it — Apartment 326.”

“And you knew who lived there?”

“I found out by looking on the apartment directory-downstairs.”