Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

Drake blinked thoughtfully.

“Durant,” Mason went on, “had no bank account that meant anything. He couldn’t pay his rent. He was in debt. He bought painters’ supplies and ran behind. Then he paid off with hundred-dollar bills. That was two weeks ago. He had painting supplies sent to a beatnik artist. He paid the artist in hundred-dollar bills. Then he was broke again. Then he wanted Maxine out of town. He didn’t have any money to give her. He went away. He came back. He had hundred-dollar bills.”

“You mean he had another bank account under an assumed name?” Drake asked.

“The banks were closed,” Mason said.

“I’m tired,” Drake told him. “I don’t want to cope with it.”

“Go get a Turkish bath,” Mason told him, “and you can cope tomorrow.”

The lawyer turned to Della Street. “I’m taking you home, Della, and tomorrow at eight-thirty we have a conference in the office.”

“Nine-thirty,” Drake said.

“Eight-thirty,” Mason repeated.

“Nine.”

“Eight-thirty.”

“All right,” Drake said. “Eight-thirty. What’s an hour out of a night’s sleep?”

Mason opened the door of his office promptly at eight-thirty.

Della Street evidently had been there for some time. The electric coffee percolator had filled the room with the aroma of coffee.

As Mason walked in, Della Street smiled a greeting, turned the silver spigot and filled a cup with steaming coffee.

“Paul?” Mason asked.

She shook her head. “Not at his office yet and he hasn’t shown.”

Mason looked at his watch, frowned.

Abruptly Drake’s code knock sounded on the door.

Mason indicated the coffee percolator to Della, said, “I’ll open the door.”

The lawyer opened the door. Drake entered and almost mechanically extended his hand as Della Street put the cup and saucer in it.

“Now, that’s service!” Drake said.

“Up and at ’em, Paul,” Mason told him. “This is the day you’re going to have to cope.”

“What do we cope with?” Drake asked.

“Police,” Mason said. “We have to know how much of a case they have against Maxine. There’s something they’re not releasing. We have to find out about Collin Durant’s hundred-dollar bills. When he needed money bad enough he could get it, in hundred-dollar bills. But he had to need it for some dire business necessity. For personal expenses such as paying his rent, he didn’t have money.”

“He had it all right,” Drake said, “but he wasn’t putting out. He had it stashed away somewhere. When you get hundred-dollar bills after the banks close, you have the money cached away somewhere.”

“Ten thousand bucks?” Mason asked.

Drake sipped the coffee, said after a moment, “He was going places. He had cleaned out his whole hiding place.”

“All right,” Mason said, “try and find it.”

“I can help you on the police end,” Drake said after a moment.

“How come?”

“I stopped by the office. One of my men had a report. He’d talked with a newspaper reporter. They had Maxine in a show-up box. Some woman identified her absolutely and positively. The police were tickled to death.”

Mason put down his coffee cup, started pacing the room.

Paul Drake held out his empty coffee cup. Della Street filled it.

“They aren’t taking her before a grand jury,” Drake said. “They’re going to file a complaint and have her bound over for trial and prosecute the case by information.”

“Where did you get all this?” Mason asked.

“My operatives were working all night,” Drake said. “I haven’t had a chance to do more than skim through the reports. I took a quick look and then came on in here.”

Mason picked up his brief case. “I’m going down to have a talk with Maxine,” he said.

“Want me with you?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head. “I’m going to talk with her and see at what point she starts lying. She’d be more cautious with another woman present. I want to have her turn on the charm and try to make a believer out of me.”

“She’s already done that or you wouldn’t have taken the case,” Drake said.

“I know,” Mason said. “I felt that way yesterday. Today I need a little reassurance.”

“You’ll fall for her all over again, hook, line and sinker,” Drake said.

“I hope I do,” Mason told him. “If she can sell her story to me the way I feel this morning, she can sell it to a jury.”

Della Street said, “Don’t be a square, Paul. That’s why he’s going to see the girl.”

“Oh, Lord,” Drake moaned. “You picked up the jargon last night. I’m a square!”

The phone rang. Della Street picked up the receiver, said to the switchboard operator, “What is it, Gertie?”

She reached hurriedly for a pencil, made shorthand notes, asked, “Is that all?” and hung up.

She turned to Mason.

“A wire from George Lathan Howell, the consulting art expert. He asks you to convey his undying affection to Maxine and says he is sending you his check for two thousand dollars as his campaign contribution.”

Drake whistled. “That girl,” he announced, “ has something! When do I get to meet her, Perry?”

The lawyer grinned. “Whenever you make a two-thousand-dollar campaign contribution, Paul.”

Maxine said tearfully, “I’ve followed your instructions, Mr. Mason. I haven’t talked and it’s been very, very hard.”

“Have they used any third-degree stuff?” Mason asked. “Did they keep you up all night?”

“No, not that. They let me get to sleep about midnight. But the newspapers were the bad ones.”

“I know,” Mason said. “Told you that the worst thing you could do was to keep silent; that if you’d give them a break and give them an interview, they’d handle it in such a way that it would arouse public sympathy; that if you didn’t give them a story, the only thing they could do was to describe you in a way that would alienate the public.”

“How did you know?” she asked.

“It’s the standard line,” Mason told her. “But I don’t want you making any statement until I’ve had a chance to check what information the police have.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It makes this difference,” Mason said. “Many and many a person would have gone scot-free if he hadn’t started lying about something that was completely nonessential. The police couldn’t prove the suspect was guilty of the crime but they could prove the suspect guilty of lying and then the person went all to pieces.”

“I’m not going to lie.”

“What about your canary?” Mason asked.

“I had one,” she said. “I want to know what happened to him. I tell you, I had a pet canary.”

“See what I mean?” Mason said.

“No, I don’t,” she told him indignantly.

“And,” Mason went on, “a lot depends on what the evidence shows as to the time of the murder. They’ll do everything in their power to influence the pathologist to fix the time of death as early as possible.

“Now, you’re going to have to help me, Maxine. You say you went to the bus station, phoned Paul Drake’s office, left word with him and then waited there.”

She nodded.

“Think,” Mason said. “Try and remember some of the people who were there. You are an attractive girl. You were hanging around the telephone waiting for a call. You were nervous. People would size you up.

“There’d probably be a wolf who was wondering if he could offer a little sympathy and make a pitch. There was probably a matronly woman who wondered if she should go over and give you a pat on the back.”