Erle Gardner - The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

At this hour, Adams Street was a pedestrian’s no man’s land. Stretching between the business and the residential districts, it was far enough from the shopping centers so that people having occasion to use the street walked only far enough to make connections with the nearest streetcar or bus.

Perry Mason, having concluded a difficult case in one of the outlying courts, was driving slowly, relaxing after the nerve strain of a courtroom battle. Della Street, instinctively knowing Mason’s moods, as befitted a good secretary remained silent.

Mason was always interested in people, and his eyes occasionally strayed from the road ahead when breaks in traffic enabled him to scrutinize such pedestrians as were on the street. Now he slowed, moved over to the extreme right-hand lane of traffic. The car was rolling along at a scant fifteen miles an hour.

“Notice it, Della?” he asked.

“What?”

“The street corners.”

“What about them?”

“The brunettes.”

She laughed. “Window-shopping?”

“No, no,” Mason said impatiently. “Look at them. Every street corner has a brunette standing waiting. They’re all dressed in dark clothes, all wear some sort of a fur around the neck. — Here’s another one at this corner. Notice her now as we pass.”

Della Street studied the trim brunette who was standing as though waiting for a streetcar on a street where there were no streetcar tracks.

“Neat,” she said.

Mason said, “Bet you five bucks there’s another one at the next corner.”

“No takers.”

The next corner also held a brunette almost identical in appearance. She too was wearing a dark dress with silver foxes around her neck.

“How long,” Della Street asked, “has this been going on?”

Mason said, “I’m ashamed to say I don’t know. I’ve seen five or six of them. Let’s go back and see how many of them there are.”

Mason watched his opportunity, made a U-turn, and sped back along the boulevard. Della Street, knowing how much of his success was due to his ability to make instantaneous appraisals of character, and to a sympathetic understanding of human nature, saw nothing unusual in the fact that Mason should interrupt a busy schedule to count the brunettes who were standing at corners on the south side of Adams Street.

“Well,” Mason said at length, “we seem to have passed them. I count eight.”

“Check,” she said smiling.

“And Lord knows how many more were ahead of us there when we turned back. What say, Della? Do we take a chance on having this first one cry, ‘Wolf, wolf’?”

“You can’t be ruled off for trying,” Della said.

Mason once more made a U-turn.

“There’s a parking space there right next to the corner,” Della Street said. “We can’t overlook an opportunity like that.”

“Can’t for a fact,” Mason admitted, swinging his car in close to the curb.

The brunette flashed them a glance of quick interest, then became studiously absorbed in watching the traffic, ignoring their obvious scrutiny.

As Mason got out of the automobile he said, “You’d better come along to lend an air of quasi-respectability to this, Della.”

Della Street slid out of the car with a quick, lithe motion and inserted her hand in Mason’s arm.

Mason walked up to the young woman and raised his hat.

The girl instantly swung toward him and flashed a smile. “Are you Mr. Hines?” she asked.

“The great temptation is to say yes,” Mason told her.

She ceased smiling. Her eyes, becoming wary, sized up Mason and Della Street. “Surely not one of those things,” she said coldly.

“Hardly,” Della Street said, assuming her most friendly manner.

The girl said abruptly to Perry Mason, “Is this a joke? I’ve seen you before. I know you... Oh,” she said, “now I have it. I saw you in court. You’re Perry Mason, the lawyer.”

Della Street nodded. “And I’m his secretary. Mr. Mason couldn’t help wondering about all of you being here.”

“All of us?”

“Every street corner for blocks,” Mason said, “has a brunette wearing a dark dress and a fur.”

“How many blocks?”

“At least eight.”

“Yes, I’d supposed there’d be quite a few applicants.”

“Know any of them?” Mason asked.

She shook her head, then after a moment said, “I know one of them — my roommate and pal, Eva Martell. I’m Cora Felton.”

“And I’m Della Street,” Della said, and then added laughingly, “And now that we’re acquainted, would you mind telling us what it’s all about? Mr. Mason won’t settle down to work as long as he has an unexplained mystery on his mind.”

Cora Felton said, “It’s a mystery to me too. Did you by any chance see the ad?”

Mason shook his head.

She opened her purse, took out a want ad that had been torn from a paper, and handed it to Mason. “It started with this,” she said. The ad read:

WANTED: Neat, attractive brunette, age twenty-three to twenty-five, height five feet four and one-half inches, weight one hundred and eleven pounds, waist measurement twenty-four inches, bust measurement thirty-two. Weight and measurements must be absolutely exact, and the applicant must be free for colorful, adventurous work that will pay fifty dollars a day for a minimum of five days, maximum of six months. Successful applicant may select her own chaperone, who will be with her constantly during period of employment at salary of twenty dollars a day and expenses. Telephone Drexberry 5236 and ask for Mr. Hines.

“And you applied for the job?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“By telephone?”

“That’s right.”

“And talked with Mr. Hines?”

“I talked with a man who said he was Mr. Hines’s representative. He said that I was to wear a dark suit and be sure to have some sort of a fluffy fur around my neck, go to this corner promptly at four o’clock this afternoon, and wait here until five. In the event I was not selected, I would be given ten dollars for my trouble.”

“When did you answer the ad?”

“About eleven o’clock this morning.”

“It was in this morning’s paper?”

“Yes. That is, it was in a trade paper widely read by actresses. It was published this morning.”

“I presume you were advised that there were other applicants?”

She laughed and said, “I knew it. Within an hour after I telephoned, my roommate — Eva Martell — came in and I told her about it, and she rang up. She’s a brunette of almost exactly my build. We can wear each other’s clothes, even to gloves and shoes.”

“And what did Mr. Hines tell her?”

“Not Mr. Hines — the man who said he was Mr. Hines’s representative. He told Eva to meet him at four o’clock at a point four blocks farther down the street. So there must have been three other applicants accepted for consideration between the time I applied and the time she phoned.”

Mason looked at his watch. “Well, it’s five minutes to five now. You’ve been here since four?”

“That’s right.”

“Notice anything unusual? Anyone looking you over?”

She laughed at him and said, “Heavens, Mr. Mason, everyone in the city has been looking me over. I never felt so conspicuous in my life. I’ve had wolves bark at me, coyotes yelp, and airedales whistle. People on foot have tried picking me up. People in automobiles have offered to take me wherever I wanted to go, and other people have just twisted their necks half off.”

“And yet you haven’t been asked to take the job?”

“Not even a tumble from Mr. Hines. I suppose, of course, he must either have looked me over, or had his representative do so. When I decided to come here, I made up my mind I’d get a good look at whoever was sizing me up. But — well, you just take any girl who answers that description and let her stand unescorted on a street corner such as this for an hour, and you’ll see how much chance she’d have to separate the wheat from the chaff!”