Erle Gardner - The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

“Going to do?” Clovis exclaimed. “I’m going to see Orville Reedley and tell him that he can’t ruin Helen’s life by arbitrarily refusing her a divorce. She doesn’t need his consent, really. It might not be pleasant — it might be... To hell with it! I’ll fight. I’m not going to be pushed around.”

“Are you absolutely certain that Hines didn’t cash a check?”

“When?”

“When he called at the bank.”

“Hines cash a check? Absolutely not! Not at my window. He couldn’t have cashed it there anyhow, because I don’t have any H clients. But from the way he talked I don’t think he had any money in the bank. I didn’t check to find out, but I don’t think he has a dime with us.”

“You’re sure you didn’t give him five hundred dollars, and then tell the police that the five hundred had been delivered to Orville Reedley on a check he had cashed?”

“Mr. Mason — please! What on earth gave you any such idea as that?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said, and added somewhat wryly, “And I wish I did. Does Mrs. Reedley know you plan to talk with her husband?”

“I told her I was going to.”

“What did she say?”

“She pleaded with me not to. She said that would spill the beans; that her husband would never consent to a divorce and that we would have played right into his hand.”

“Look here,” Mason said. “Did you ever, under any circumstances or for any length of time, have a key to Helen Reedley’s apartment?”

“Hang it, Mason, that’s a slanderous insinuation! You can’t—”

“Keep your shirt on. Answer my question. Did you at any time have a key to Helen Reedley’s apartment?”

“No.”

“Not for any period of time, no matter how brief? Not just to go and get something for her?”

“No!”

Mason said, “Hines had a key.”

“He was working for her. He had to go in and out.”

“And you never had a key, not even for a brief period? She never sent you up there to get something for her?”

“Absolutely not! If Helen had wanted anything in her apartment, she’d have got it herself. She would never have thought of sending me up there with a key.”

“I’m trying to get certain points cleared up. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern yet, and I’m trying to get the real facts. I was hoping you could help me.”

“I can tell you this much: Orville Reedley is intensely jealous and possessive — absolutely impossible! He refused to give his wife a divorce and swore that he’d contest any divorce she’d apply for. She had placed herself in his power by telling him that she cared for someone else.”

“Any witnesses to that conversation?”

“No — there were just the two of them. But that’s one thing about Helen Reedley, she wouldn’t lie for anybody; she wouldn’t even shade the truth. If her husband ever got on the witness stand and repeated that conversation, Helen wouldn’t deny it — she isn’t built that way. You can bank on that: Helen won’t lie!”

Mason was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You were on duty at the bank when Hines showed up and talked with you?”

Clovis nodded.

“That was the day of the murder?”

“That’s right.”

“You saw Helen Reedley that same day?”

“Yes, she was in the cafeteria where I usually eat lunch.”

“What time?”

“Twelve-thirty.”

“You knew she’d be there?”

“Well, I... ”

“You’ve seen her there before?”

“Yes.”

“Sat at the same table with her?”

“Well, naturally.”

“You told her about Hines?”

“Yes.”

“And then what happened?”

“Why, we ate lunch — that’s all.”

“Did she say anything to lead you to believe she was at all concerned over the conversation you’d had with Hines?”

“Not exactly. She said she knew him slightly.”

“And what time did you leave her?”

“Well, it was about — oh, I’d say a little after one-thirty.”

“A little after one-thirty?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you had lunch at twelve-thirty?”

“I did.”

“Do you have more than an hour for lunch?”

“Well, I... I wasn’t feeling well that afternoon and took the rest of the day off. I had one of my headaches — eyestrain.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “tell me the truth, because I can verify it by checking up on your record at the bank. How many days have you missed work in the last six months because of those headaches?”

Clovis hesitated.

“Come on,” Mason said, “let’s be frank. How many days?”

“The afternoon of the third — and today.”

“You’ve had a hundred-percent record at the bank up until the day Hines was murdered?”

“Why keep referring to it as the day the man was murdered? It was the third of this month!”

“All right, we’ll call it the third. Where did Helen Reedley go when she left the cafeteria on the third?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you try to follow her?”

“Mr. Mason, I’ve been patient with you and answered a lot of questions about matters that are really none of your business, if I may say so. Now I am going to ask you and your companion to leave. Really — I’m too nervous to answer any further questions.”

“Then I am to assume that you did try to follow her?”

“Mr. Mason, will you please leave this apartment?”

Mason nodded to Paul Drake. “I guess that’s as good as we want,” he said. The two men walked across to the door. Just before Mason stepped out into the corridor, he turned and shot a rapid-fire question at Arthur Clovis. “Did you follow her all the way to the Siglet Manor Apartments?”

In dignified silence, Clovis walked over and closed the door behind them.

“Well,” Mason said out in the corridor, “that’s that!”

“What do you make of it, Perry?”

“Darned if I know,” Mason said. “He’s trying to cover for her, for something. He knows something that has him worried sick — Lord knows what it is. He’s no weak sister, but he’s certainly a nonbelligerent! A high-voltage girl like Helen Reedley would fall for the big, dynamic type, and then on the rebound — as her mother instinct came to the fore — she’d fall for some clean-cut young chap who is sensitive, shy, and retiring, but has a nice clean mind and a healthy imagination.”

“Meaning Arthur Clovis?”

“Arthur Clovis comes pretty close to answering that description.”

“So what do we do?” Drake asked.

“We go back and wait for something to break. We’ve stretched several wires almost to the breaking point. What I want right now is to have something crack that will give Gulling a jolt. He’s going to get me before the Grand Jury. I want to have this preliminary hearing slap him in the face with a surprise before he gets me there.”

In those tense few moments before the arrival of the judge on the bench, the whispered comments of the spectators sounded like a continual hissing. What came as considerable surprise to the initiate was the fact that Harry Gulling was present personally at this preliminary hearing, representing the district attorney’s office and thus advertising to those who knew their way around the courthouse that this was indeed the “grudge fight” it had been called in the papers.

Perry Mason looked up as a deputy sheriff brought in Adelle Winters and Eva Martell. The lawyer rose, shook hands with the two defendants, and saw that they were seated beside him.

“I’m so sorry about that taxicab,” Eva Martell whispered. “I thought I would drive by the apartment that Cora and I shared, and if the police weren’t watching it... It was foolish — I don’t know why I did it.”