Erle Gardner - The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

“Yes.”

“But Hines wasn’t supposed to know anything about the boy friend. That was supposed to be a secret from him!”

“That’s the way I understood it, too — but the number was there.”

“How did you know it was Helen’s friend’s number?”

“We had a lucky break there. I had my men checking up on all the telephone numbers on that pad. One of them happened to be working today on this Arthur Clovis — at Clovis’s apartment — when suddenly Helen Reedley came to call on Clovis. The operative who was there had no idea who she was, naturally, but he gave me a description of her a little while ago that checked all right.”

“Better watch those descriptions, Paul,” Mason said. “Don’t forget how easy it was to find brunettes of that same physical description.”

“I know, but the Reedley girl has something else that sticks out like a sore thumb. The operative made a note in parentheses after the description — he called her ‘high-voltage.’ That’s certainly Helen Reedley.”

Mason nodded. “Sounds that way. Now how about Arthur Clovis? What does he do?”

Drake grinned as he fished a cigarette case out of his pocket. “You’ll get a real kick out of this, Perry.”

“Okay, let me have it. What does he do?”

“He works in a bank.”

“What bank?”

Drake lit the cigarette and blew out the match deliberately. “The bank where Orville L. Reedley keeps his account.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! What job?”

“Assistant cashier. Evidently a nice chap — dreamy-eyed and idealistic. From all we can find out, he’s been saving some money and planning to go into business for himself.”

“Then he’s quite well acquainted with Orville Reedley?”

“I should suppose so.”

“Probably handles his deposits, cashes his checks, and all that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Say, wait a minute, Paul. Do you suppose he’s the one that cashed Reedley’s check and recorded the numbers on those hundred-dollar bills?”

“Gosh, Perry, he may have been.”

Mason frowned. “Let’s give this some thought, Paul. If Hines had Arthur Clovis’s phone number, it must mean he’s been doing some gumshoeing of his own. Ostensibly, he was just a nice, cooperative little tool for Helen Reedley. Really, he was laying the foundation for a sell-out. He must have got that telephone number by snooping around Helen Reedley’s apartment. And that gives us a picture. Helen Reedley gave him her keys and the run of the apartment, so that he could fix up this substitute brunette convincingly. He used the keys to prowl around whenever the apartment was unoccupied.

“That means only one thing, Paul — blackmail. Or a sell-out, if you look at it from the other angle. Now that gambler, let’s suppose he’s in love with Helen Reedley. Any idea who he might be?”

“Hines went around some with Carl Orcutt,” Drake replied. “Orcutt used him for little things.”

“Check on Orcutt, Paul.”

“That’ll be tough. My operatives won’t want to work on him. The guy’s pretty hard, Perry. Anybody that gets in his way is likely to become a casualty.”

“Well, see what you can do. And how about Helen Reedley’s calling on Clovis today? Why wasn’t he on his job at the bank?”

“Oh, he isn’t working today — he’s at home, sick. Probably all broken up over the way things are going for Mrs. Reedley.”

Mason got up and started to pace the floor. “Hang it, Paul, this begins to have ramifications. Why should Arthur Clovis be broken up?”

“Well, we’ve heard how sensitive he is, you know. And — after all — the bird was killed in Helen Reedley’s apartment.”

“Sensitive or not, Clovis must be a pretty good egg, or Helen wouldn’t have fallen for him. I’d guess that he would be willing to take the gaff if he had to.”

“Yes,” Drake said. “You may be right, at that.”

“Your man didn’t have much of a talk with him?” asked Mason.

“No talk at all — didn’t even see him. Didn’t have to, as it turned out. He was going to represent himself as coming from an insurance company to check on a policy application Clovis had made. But when he got to the house — But first let me tell you about the house. It’s one of those with no attendant in the lobby — just a whole string of bells in the vestibule. You ring the apartment you want, and a buzz signal opens the door and tells you to come up. And there’s a speaking tube in case the person upstairs wants to find out who it is, before buzzing the door open.

“Well, my man had planned to snoop around the apartment house for a while, get a line perhaps on how long Clovis had been there, and even see him if he could get in. But as he was standing there in the vestibule, checking up on the address and making sure that Clovis did live there, this woman came hurrying in from the street and jabbed her linger on Clovis’s bell. She gave it a short push, a long one, and then two more short ones. The buzzer sounded right away and she went on in. He got a pretty good description of her, and gave it to me.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Apparently some time within the last hour or so. He reported just before I came up here.”

Mason was silent for a few moments as he paced the floor, deep in thought. Then he said, “The thing just doesn’t click, Paul. There’s something wrong somewhere, some discrepancy in character... Of course, no one checks the accuracy of the lists turned in by the bank employees.”

“You mean the lists of serial numbers?”

“That’s right. A cashier’s cash has to balance at the end of the day; but he can take out all the hundred-dollar bills he wants, make up the amount with twenties, and report giving hundred-dollar bills to anyone.”

“You mean that those hundred-dollar bills that Hines had didn’t come to him through the husband?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “But when the assistant bank cashier who has reported giving hundred-dollar bills to a husband turns out to be the boy friend of the husband’s estranged wife, and those bills show up in the wallet of a man who was murdered in the wife’s apartment — well, after all, Paul... it does make me skeptical.”

“Hell,” Drake said, “when you put it that way, it makes me skeptical, too! Let’s go see the guy.”

Mason nodded. “I want to wait for Della. She’s gone down to pick up some cash.”

“Not in hundred-dollar bills, I hope?”

Mason grinned. “In hundred-dollar bills, Paul. And I only hope the bank keeps a record of them. Here she is now.”

Della Street breezed into the office. “Hi, Paul! Here’s the money, Chief.”

“Okay, get that letter written. I’m going out with Paul. Probably back in three-quarters of an hour.”

“Rumor around the courthouse is that Harry Gulling is laying for you, Perry.”

“Let him lay,” Mason said. “He may lay an egg.”

Mason pushed the button opposite the name Arthur Clovis, giving a short ring, then a long, and then two shorts. Almost instantly the buzzing of the door signified that the electrically controlled catch had been released and Drake, who was waiting, pushed the door open.

“What’s the number?” Mason asked.

“Two-eleven.”

“An elevator?”

“I don’t know. But here are the stairs, anyhow.”

“Okay, we’ll walk up,” Mason said.

They climbed to the second floor, found the apartment they wanted, and Mason tapped gently.

The door was flung open. A man’s voice said, “Why, Helen, what brings you back—” He stopped in open-mouthed astonishment.

Mason thrust out his hand, his smile was affable. “Mr. Clovis, I believe?”