Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

“How do you know she’s short of cash?”

“Haggling over the motel room, for one thing. It took her half an hour in Bakerfield to find a place where the rate suited her. She’s drinking coffee and not eating much. She started out with premium gasoline; then she started mixing premium and standard, now she’s running on standard grade gasoline.”

“No credit card?” Mason asked.

“No credit card. She’s paying cash.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “stay with her, Paul. I’ll be seeing you.”

Mason left the detective, walked on down the corridor, opened the door of the private office, and said to Della, “Well, how did it go?”

“Wonderful,” Della Street said.

“Good night’s sleep?”

“Fine.”

“And you took a cab to work?”

She smiled and said, “No, Chief, I didn’t. I knew that this was on you, that you weren’t going to bill Olney, so I took one bus, transferred, took another bus and got here right on the nose.”

Mason frowned. “You should have taken a cab.”

“I saved you four dollars and ninety cents,” she said, “not including a tip.”

Mason was thoughtful a moment, then said, “It’s that spirit of loyalty that makes me feel...”

“Yes?” Della prompted.

“Sort of humble,” Mason said. “I hope I can deserve it.”

“What do you hear from Drake?” she asked abruptly. “I told him I thought you’d stop in on your way here.”

“I stopped in,” Mason said. “Durant has holed up somewhere and disappeared.”

“What about Maxine?”

“Maxine is making tracks north. She’s just about running out of cash.”

The phone rang.

Della Street picked it up, said, “It’s Paul, Perry.”

Mason picked up the telephone on his desk and said, “What is it, Paul?”

“Another line on your friend, Maxine Lindsay.”

“What about her?”

“She wired Mrs. Phoebe Stigler at Eugene, Oregon, to wire twenty-five dollars to her care of Western Union, Redding, and waive identification.”

“How do you know?”

“She wired from Merced,” Drake said. “My man got on the job, insisted the girl at the counter had lost the telegram he’d handed her and she started looking through the file. My man became thoroughly disliked but got a look at the wire Maxine had sent.”

“Okay, Paul,” Mason said. “Check on Phoebe Stigler at Eugene. Find out all about her.”

The telephone rang. Della Street picked up the instrument and said, “Yes, Gertie? What is it?... Just a minute.”

She turned to Perry Mason and said, “Mr. Hollister of Warton, Warton, Cosgrove and Hollister, is calling.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “All right,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

He picked up the telephone, said, “Good morning, Mr. Hollister. How’s everything this morning?”

“Perhaps not so good,” Hollister said.

“In what respect?” Mason asked.

“This witness, Maxine Lindsay.”

“What about her?”

“I have been analyzing the situation,” Hollister said, “and our whole case hinges upon her, and upon the availability of her testimony.”

“Well?” Mason asked.

“At the start I had of course thought that the situation hinged upon the question of whether the painting which Rankin had sold our client, Otto Olney, was a genuine Phellipe Feteet.

“I had felt that since Rankin’s veracity and integrity as a dealer had been put into question, the main issue in the case would depend upon establishing the authenticity of the painting which Rankin had sold our client.”

“Exactly,” Mason said.

“However, there seems to be absolutely no question about the authenticity of the painting. It would seem that the way the situation shapes up at present, the only issue of fact is whether Durant made the statement that the painting was spurious. Now, it has occurred to us this morning that this hinges entirely upon the testimony of one witness.

“I may point out to you, Mr. Mason, that we have an office conference every morning at eight-thirty, discussing the problems which we have in connection with our litigation, and Mr. Warton, our senior partner, pointed out that the entire litigation at this point seems to depend upon establishing the fact that Durant made this remark, and that in turn is dependent upon the testimony of only one witness.”

“Well, one witness can establish a point all right,” Mason said.

“You have no question but what that witness is acting in good faith?”

“Why should I?” Mason asked.

“Suppose,” Hollister said, “that — well, suppose this witness should marry Collin Durant before the case came to trial. Then she would be unable to testify against her husband and my client would find himself in a very precarious position.”

“Did you have any information on which to base that?” Mason asked.

“No information — one of the partners raised the point.”

Mason said, “I don’t have any partners, Hollister, and therefore I don’t have any office conferences with people who think up things to worry about.”

“I thought I’d let you know our thinking in the matter,” Hollister said stiffly.

“Okay,” Mason said, “why not cut the Gordian knot right now? Why not serve notice on Durant that you’re going to take his deposition? Why not ask him the question right out in the open, did he or did he not make a statement to Maxine Lindsay that the Phellipe Feteet that was hanging in the salon of Otto Olney’s yacht was a fake?”

“I’ve thought of that,” Hollister said.

“Well, what’s wrong with it?”

“I guess there’s nothing wrong with it. I... I’ll... I think I’ll discuss that with my partners.”

“Do that,” Mason said. “If the fellow says he never made any such statement, then you know what his defense is. If he says he made it and the picture is spurious, then you know what you’re up against. In any event, let’s find out what the score is... What makes you think she’s going to marry Durant?”

“Well, at our partnership meeting we just started thinking about what could happen, what the possibilities were. If something should happen that... Well, that we had got our client out on a limb, we wouldn’t like that, Mr. Mason.”

“I wouldn’t like it either,” Mason said.

“Well, I’m glad to have had this opportunity to talk with you,” Hollister said. “The more I think of it, the more I feel that we should find out where we stand and I think taking Durant’s deposition is perhaps the best course immediately available. I will prepare the necessary papers and we’ll proceed at once.”

“Do that,” Mason said.

He hung up the phone, turned to Della Street, said, “Here we are standing on a rug with somebody ready to jerk it out from under us.”

“So what do we do?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned and said, “Spike the rug down so that when the guy jerks, he loses a set of fingernails.”

“What do we do next?” Della Street asked.

“Now,” Mason said, “we gently ease ourselves out of the office without telling anyone where we’re going, and we go to the apartment of Maxine Lindsay and see just what we can find.”

“You mean we take the canary?”

“We take the canary,” Mason said, “and while we’re there we go through the place with a fine-toothed comb. We look for any sort of a clue we can get.”

“And then what?”

“Then,” Mason said, “we ask Mr. Hollister of Warton, Warton, Cosgrove and Hollister if he would like to have associate counsel in the case.”

“The associate counsel being who?”

“Being me,” Mason said. “It’s about time someone with guts got into the thing. We take the deposition of Collin Durant. We ask him a series of the most embarrassing questions imaginable. We ask him whether he has ever been sued before for proclaiming a painting spurious. We ask him whether he did or did not state that the Otto Olney Feteet was spurious. We ask him how long he has known Maxine Lindsay. We ask him if he has ever been married. We ask him the names of his wives. We ask him the places where he got divorces.”