Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Shapely Shadow

“He didn’t recognize the woman?”

Drake shook his head. “He only saw her back.”

“Evidently he noticed her.”

“He noticed her shape. And about all he can say is that in his opinion she was young and shapely.”

“What does he mean by young?”

“Somewhere in the twenties.”

“It’s hard to tell a woman’s age from her back,” Mason said.

“Are you telling me?” Drake grinned. “Now then, I suppose you want the latest on Theilman.”

“What’s the latest on Theilman?”

“He hasn’t been found.”

“That was the earliest,” Mason said.

“However,” Drake said, “we have another angle on the case — or another curve, if you want to call it that. His secretary has also disappeared.”

“What!” Mason said.

“That’s right — and that, in case you want to know, has lessened the police activity very much.

“This morning, when Mrs. Theilman had reported her husband had disappeared and gave them information leading them to believe that her husband might have been blackmailed, the police took a very keen and instant interest.

“Now then, having found that Theilman’s secretary has also disappeared, the police are still going through the motions but they’re conducting their investigation with a somewhat cynical smile.

“They’ve made inquiries at Theilman’s bank and find that he has been diverting a good many securities into the form of cash during the past three weeks.”

“For three weeks?” Mason asked.

“Three weeks.”

“What happened yesterday morning, anything?”

“Yesterday morning,” Drake said, “Theilman got another five thousand in cash.”

“Only five thousand?” Mason asked.

“Don’t say ‘only’ in that tone of voice when you’re talking about five thousand,” Drake said, “particularly when you carry it in the form of cash in twenty-dollar bills.”

“It was in twenty-dollar bills?”

“That’s the way he wanted it, yes.”

“Let’s see,” Mason said. “Five thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills would be...”

“Two hundred and fifty twenty-dollar bills,” Drake said.

Mason opened his billfold, took out some bills of various denominations, placed them in a pile on the desk.

“How much paper money do you have with you, Paul?”

“Don’t be silly,” Drake said, “you’re talking to a detective.”

Della Street opened her purse. “I’ve got some fives and ones. Will that help?”

“They all weigh about the same,” Mason said. “Here, Della. Go out and weigh these bills on the postal scales and see approximately how much they run.”

Della Street took the bills Mason had handed her, went to the outer office and returned to hand the bills back to Perry Mason. “They run about twenty to the ounce,” she said.

“All right,” Mason said, pulling forth a scratch pad, “let’s say twenty bills to the ounce. That would be three hundred and twenty bills to the pound. That would be six thousand, four hundred dollars if they were all twenty-dollar bills. Ten pounds would be sixty-four thousand dollars. Twenty pounds would be a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars. Twenty-five pounds, a hundred and sixty thousand dollars.”

“Hey, wait a minute, you two!” Paul Drake said. “What the heck. You’re getting into high finance. What are you trying to do, figure how much a million dollars in twenty-dollar bills would weigh?”

“Something like that,” Mason said, frowning thoughtfully across the desk at Della Street.

“Well,” Drake said, “your man Theilman drew out five thousand dollars yesterday morning. As I said, he’d been drawing out money from time to time.”

“All in twenty-dollar bills?” Mason asked.

“I believe so. The banker wasn’t communicative on a general basis. He answered police questions when they were put to him specifically, but he protected himself and his depositor wherever he could.

“Now then,” Drake went on, “we come to the juicy chapter in Theilman’s life.”

“You mean his divorce?”

“His divorce and remarriage,” Drake said. “Theilman is a guy who sees green pastures on the other side of the fence.”

“An optical illusion?” Mason asked.

“Not in this case,” Drake said. “You should have seen the pasture.”

“I saw it,” Mason said.

“The heck you did!”

Mason nodded.

“Ever see it in a bathing suit?”

Mason shook his head.

“Take a look,” Drake invited, taking a photograph from his brief case. He passed the picture across to Mason.

Della Street moved over to look over the lawyer’s shoulder.

“Is that a bathing suit?” Della Street asked.

“That’s what it’s supposed to be — at least, according to the caption on the photograph. That was a publicity photograph released when the corespondent in the case was appearing in Las Vegas.”

“That,” Della Street announced, “is a green pasture. There’s no optical illusion about that.”

“There isn’t, for a fact,” Drake said. “However, the thing that I thought you’d be interested in was the fact that Day Dawns took a flying trip to the Orient and, strangely enough, that trip coincided with a business trip which Morley Theilman took to Hong Kong; a fact which was duly noted by Carlotta Theilman’s investigators and which you will find incorporated in the complaint for divorce filed by Carlotta Theilman.”

“I trust it was an enjoyable trip,” Mason said.

“It must have been,” Drake said, “but the thing that should interest you particularly, and which will probably interest the police when they find it out, is that when Day Dawns secured her passport she naturally secured it under her own name rather than her stage name.”

“And the correct name?” Mason asked.

“The correct name,” Drake said dryly, “was Agnes Bernice Vidal.”

“What!” Mason exclaimed.

Drake grinned. “It’s always a pleasure to uncover information that gives you a jolt, Perry.”

Mason glanced at Della Street and then back to Paul Drake. “I’ll be damned!” he said.

“Thought you’d like to know,” Drake said. “So far the police, apparently, haven’t stumbled onto that choice bit of information. When they do get it, it’s possible they may take a little more interest in the case.”

Mason was thoughtful. “I can’t help remembering,” he said, “that the second Mrs. Theilman observed that if anyone tried to tamper with her security she’d jerk the rug out from under them so fast they wouldn’t know what had happened until they hit the floor.”

“Well,” Drake said, “what I’m reporting may or may not be rug-jerking. I’m simply giving you the facts. It’s up to you to put them together. But in view of your comments about five thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills weighing somewhat less than a pound, I am beginning to think that you know facts that I don’t want to know.”

“You may have something there,” Mason admitted.

“In that case,” Drake said, “having dropped my bombshell, I’ll retire to my dugout and let you mop up the pieces.”

Mason stopped him at the door. “You have another job, Paul, and I want some fast action — find that secretary.”

Della Street moved over to her typewriter.

“You got a description?” Drake asked.

Mason nodded toward Della Street. “Della’s typing it out for you now, Paul — name, age, clothes, all the things one woman notices about another woman.”

When Paul Drake had left the office Mason turned to Della Street. “Well,” he asked, “what about the description you gave Paul? Did you paint her as a demure young thing?”