Эрл Гарднер - Case of the Cautious Coquette

“Your first husband is alive?” Mason asked.

She went back to balancing the spoon on the cup.

“Is he?”

“Yes.”

“And you have seen him recently?”

“Mr. Mason, why do you ask that question?”

“I don’t know. I’m simply trying to get information.”

“But I don’t see why you...”

Abruptly Mason threw back his head and laughed, said, “You’re a very ingenious young lady, Lucille. I have to give you a medal for ingenuity, but I’m not interested in your case, although I will admit that the unconventional approach intrigues me.”

“What do you mean, the unconventional approach?”

Mason said, “You saw the ad in the paper. You evidently had some way of knowing that I was representing the Finchleys. You thought that if you could get me here and get me in a rather disadvantageous position, you...”

She pushed back the chair, her eyes were blazing. “Mr. Mason, that’s absolutely uncalled for! That’s entirely untrue. I don’t even know what ad you’re talking about! And there’s certainly been no attempt to get you into what you are pleased to refer to as a ‘disadvantageous position’! What do you think I am, anyway?”

“Well, what are you?” Mason asked.

“I’m a woman. I’m human and I’ve been disappointed in love. And I don’t want to have my alimony reduced. I know you can scare my ex-husband to death. If he only thought I knew you, and that you were interested in me — in my case, I mean...”

Mason pushed back his chair, got to his feet, bowed and said, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe you, and I can’t waste any more time. It was a good attempt. I’m sorry that I can’t fall for it. Perhaps if I had been caught in your apartment between two and five I might have been forced to take your case. Thanks for the coffee.”

Mason picked up his hat, walked to the door. “And that business of pretending you can’t remember where you were day before yesterday is just a little too crude. Bait another trap and try another lawyer, Mrs. Barton.”

And Mason pulled the door shut, leaving her standing there, her face flushed and angry.

“Come on,” Della Street said, “give.”

Mason grinned. “A very nice girl with wheat-colored hair, laughing blue eyes, a luscious strawberry mouth with white, pearly teeth.”

“Oh, my Lord,” Della Street said. “He’s in love.”

Paul Drake said, “How old, Perry?”

“Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty.”

Della Street brought a thesaurus and placed it on Mason’s desk.

“Thank you, Della,” Mason said. “Now let’s see, Paul. How do I find exactly the words with which to describe her?”

Mason turned the pages, said, “Ah, yes, here we are, Paul — virtuous, maidenly, virginal, vestal, upright, moral, worthy, honorable...”

“What does she do for a living?” Drake asked.

“You would ask that,” Mason told him.

“Come on,” Della Street insisted, laughing, “let’s have the story.”

Mason walked over and sat on the corner of his desk, the left foot on the floor, the right foot swinging in an arc in much embarrassment at their kidding.

“He’s afraid to tell,” Drake said.

“I do believe he’s blushing,” Della charged.

Mason said, “Well, if you want to know the truth, it was a trap.”

“Badger game?” Drake asked.

“Don’t be silly,” Mason told him. “Apparently this girl read the ad in the Blade and decided that while a detective agency was after the information, a lawyer must be in back of the detective agency.”

“Go ahead,” Drake said, “tell me about what happened when you opened the door.”

“Apparently,” Mason said, “she was in the bathtub.”

“Oh, oh!” Drake observed.

“So,” Mason said virtuously, “I noiselessly withdrew to the corridor, waited two minutes, then knocked on the door. She let me in. You’d get a kick out of her apartment, a lot of perfectly grand furniture, which must have come from a settlement when her marriage broke up, mixed with some terrible junk which could have been part of the furniture in the place.

“There’s an Oriental rug that’s worth a lot of money. It’s a beauty, and the desk is an antique that’s in perfect condition. The ash tray and glasses show she was entertaining a man last night and didn’t even bother to empty the ash tray when she went to bed — and they didn’t break up the party until the Scotch was all gone.

“But she’s clever. She seems almost naive in her excessive friendliness, but back of it all she must be a scheming, cautious gold-digger. She was very friendly. Having lured me into close quarters, she sized me up before planning the kill.”

“What’s the catch?” Drake asked.

“The catch,” Mason said, “is that she wants some attorney to handle an alimony matter with her ex-husband. Having used the bait to lure me into the apartment, she proceeded to use her eyes, teeth, and her figure to hold my personal and undivided attention while she tried to interest me in a project to keep her ex-husband, one Willard Barton, who, I understand, is a rather practical, hardened, and exceedingly ingenious individual, from reducing her alimony to a figure materially less than the two hundred dollars a week which it costs her to live.”

“Did she say anything about a retainer?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned; and said, “Not a word.”

“You’re sure the thing was a plant?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “Judge for yourself.”

He took from his pocket the sheet of pink stationery. “Here’s some stationery that I mooched from the drawer in the table, Della. You might compare it with the stationery of the letter which we received. I also used the typewriter. We can check to see if this same machine was used in writing that letter.”

Della Street hurried to the files, brought out the original letter, held the two sheets of stationery side by side, and said, “The paper’s the same.”

“How about the typewriter?” Drake asked.

They bent over the desk studying the alignment of the type. “It’s the same.” Mason said. “Notice that ‘g’ is a little out of alignment, and the T has dropped down a little and is canted over to the right.”

“Well, that settles it,” Drake said. “Hang it, I was hoping we had a lead. The hundred-dollar reward offer should get some action.”

“Give it time,” Mason said. “Remember the paper was hardly off the presses when this woman had her brain storm.”

“Well,” Della Street said, “since you have now spent most of the morning in a romantic adventure, I take it there’ll be no objection on your part to tackling that pile of mail that’s marked ‘important.’”

Mason dismissed Drake with a gesture. “My nose, Paul, is being held to the grindstone... Let me know if you get any answers to the ad.”

Drake nodded.

When he had left the office, Mason and Della Street settled down to work. Coffee and sandwiches were brought in at noon, and by one-fifteen they had most of the mail out of the way.

Gertie, the office receptionist, appeared with a letter. “A letter for you, Mr. Mason,” she said. “It came by messenger. I thought you’d want to see it.”

Mason groaned. “That, Della, is the reward of virtue. We try to get this pile of mail whittled down and what happens? More comes pouring in.”

Della Street picked up a paper knife and slit the edge of the envelope, saying as she did so, “A plain stamped envelope with a special delivery stamp put on it, and — there’s something in here, chief, something heavy.”