Эрл Гарднер - Case of the Cautious Coquette

“But,” Mason told him, “you certainly don’t expect me to pass up this lead, do you?”

Drake pushed back his plate and picked up the check. “Hell, no,” he said. “Do you want to pay the exact amount of this check at the present time, Perry, or have it presented on my expense account later on and take a chance that the amount will be about ten per cent higher at that time?”

Mason took the check, said with a grin, “I think it will be a damn sight smarter to pay it now... That letter bothers me, Paul. If it were on the up-and-up the writer would have copied the license number from the notebook and asked for the hundred bucks.”

“It’s a trap of some sort,” Drake said.

“Well the bait interests me, Paul.”

“That’s the theory on which traps are constructed,” Drake said.

Della Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary, had placed mail in three piles on the lawyers desk. The “important” pile was squarely and suggestively in the middle of the blotter.

Mason, entering through the door which led directly to his private office, removed his latchkey, grinned at Della Street and then frowned at the position of the mail on the desk.

“Hi, Della.”

“Good morning,” she said. “You’ve seen Paul Drake?”

“Yes.”

“His office was trying to get in touch with us. I knew you were having breakfast with him.”

Mason hung up his hat, regarded the pile of mail, and said, “I take it those are letters which can’t be put off any longer.”

She nodded.

Mason said, “Add this. Put it on top of the ‘important’ pile.”

“What is it?”

“A letter Paul Drake received.”

“About that witness?”

“Yes.”

“What does it say?”

“Read it.”

Della Street took the letter, started skimming swiftly through it, then her eyes narrowed as she began to read more slowly and carefully. “Where’s the key?” she asked at length.

Mason took it from his vest pocket.

Della Street looked at the key for a moment, then returned to the letter and read it entirely through once more.

“What do you make of it?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know.”

“A trap?”

“For whom?” she asked.

Mason said, “Now, there, Della, you’ve got me.”

“If someone thought Drake would turn this letter over to you and that you would go there personally, I would say that it might be a trap for almost anything, but in view of the ad in the paper, the natural assumption would be that Paul Drake would send one of his men — just any one of his men.”

Again Mason nodded.

“So,” Della Street said, “if we rule out a trap, then what?”

“Could it have been written by the woman herself?” Mason asked.

“Why?”

“Perhaps an attempt to sell out the mysterious boy friend who didn’t want to be recognized, and then get the hundred dollars for herself later on?”

“Now that could be,” Della Street said.

“I wanted to get the feminine angle,” Mason said.

She laughed. “There aren’t any feminine angles, they’re curves.”

“Then this is a fast curve. What’s your guess?”

“I don’t like to stick my neck out, but I’d say your theory is the right one. It’s a girl who wants a hundred dollars. She wants the Drake Detective Agency to discover the license number, find out it’s the car that’s wanted, and then she’ll call for the reward. She’ll do it all very surreptitiously so that the boy friend who was in the car with her doesn’t know she’s furnished the tip... Can you prove it’s the car once you find it?”

“I think so,” Mason said. “The car was going plenty fast. It shot in ahead of the Finchley Ford. Mrs. Finchley tried to stop, couldn’t, and hit the hind end of this mysterious black sedan. Evidently the bumper on the black sedan hooked under her front bumper, swung her car completely around. She lost control and slammed into the lamppost, her twenty-two-year-old son was thrown out against the lamppost and smashed his hip.”

“Then technically,” Della Street said, “she ran into the black car instead of the black car running into her.”

“That’s what the driver of the black car will probably try to claim,” Mason said, “but having speeded away from the scene of the accident, hell hardly be in the position to make any defense that can’t be torn to pieces.”

“Can he say he didn’t know he’d hit anything?”

“There must have been too much of an impact for him to get by with that. We can tell more when we see his car — if we ever do.”

“What are you going to do about your mysterious Lucille Barton?”

“I’m going to go see her.”

“Use the key and enter her apartment?” Della Street asked. “You’d better be sure you have witnesses and...”

Mason shook his head. “There’s no reason to enter the apartment while she’s away. If she’s the witness we want, we can find out by talking with her. At least we should be able to.”

“Between the hours of two and five?”

“Nope. That’s when she’ll be gone,” Mason said, looking at his watch and grinning. “Between the hours of ten and eleven is the time I’m picking.”

“Want a witness?”

“I don’t think so, Della. I think I can do more by just dropping in and talking with her.”

“Going to say anything about this letter?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Della Street looked ruefully at the pile of important mail in the middle of Mason’s blotter.

“You go ahead and answer it,” Mason said, following her glance. “Figure out whatever needs to be done, and...”

“Chief, those are letters that simply must have your personal attention.”

“I know,” Mason said, “but think of Lucille Barton, probably sleeping late, the license number of the car that is responsible for Bob Finchley’s broken hip in the upper right-hand pigeonhole of the desk in the living room... Sounds like rather an elaborate apartment for a working girl. What do you suppose Lucille Barton does?”

“Who said she worked?” Della asked.

Mason said to Della Street, “Make a copy of this letter, Della. I’m going to take a copy along with me and leave the original here. I may want to show her the letter but I see no reason for showing her the original.”

Della Street nodded, moved over to her secretarial desk, ratcheted paper into the typewriter, and Mason watched while her skilled fingers flew over the keyboard.

Mason surveyed the finished results, said, “That looks a lot better than the original, Della.”

“The original,” she said, “was written by someone who had a hunt-and-peck system, but was awfully good at it, someone who had developed a lot of speed.”

“That’s the way I doped it out,” Mason said.

“Probably on a portable typewriter.”

Mason folded the copy of the letter Della Street had made, returned the key to his vest pocket, said, “I’m on my way.”

“If you get arrested,” Della Street observed smilingly, “let me know and I’ll be down with the checkbook and bail.”

“Thanks.”

“And if she isn’t home,” Della said, ceasing to smile, “please don’t use that key.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. There’s something about it I don’t like.”

“There’s a lot about it I don’t like,” Mason said. “What do you bet I don’t walk in on a corpse, Della?”

“No takers.”

“You keep that letter and the original envelope with the postmark in the safe,” Mason told her. “I may have to square myself with the police.”

“Meaning you’re going to walk in if she isn’t home?”