Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lonely Heiress

“You mean that was all an act?”

“All an act.”

“Why, I don’t believe that Lieutenant Tragg is that sort.”

“Lieutenant Tragg,” Mason said, “has a job to do. He’s given instructions as to the methods he has to employ. He doesn’t have a thing to say about what he does and what he doesn’t do. He’s a cog in a machine. The police have to get results. They have to make people talk. They use all sorts of methods. Some of them are damned ingenious. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the police are dumb.”

“Well, those first people certainly were dumb. They...”

“I’ll bet they got a lot out of you, at that.”

“They didn’t until that witness identified me.”

“What witness?”

“The woman who saw us all going in and going out of Rose Keeling’s flat.”

Mason said wearily, “Nine chances out of ten that was another police frameup. The witness was just a stooge. You didn’t see her clearly?”

“No.”

“Did she definitely state what time you came in? And what time you went out?”

Marilyn Marlow thought for a moment, then said, “No, she didn’t. She just said that I was the woman she had seen leaving at the time she had previously told the police.”

Mason sighed. “That’s an old gag. She hasn’t seen anyone. She was probably a stenographer in one of the police departments, working nights, or else she was a deputy clerk from the bail-bond office. She didn’t even know where Rose lived. She’d never seen you before in her life.”

Marilyn Marlow sucked in her breath.

“And what did you tell them?” Mason asked.

She said, “I guess — I guess that did it! I thought she had seen us all going in and coming out, and I–I was trying to save you and I told them that I had been the one who had telephoned you to come and...”

“And admitted you were there and left the place?”

“Yes.”

“That clinches things,” Mason said. “They’ll charge you with murder.”

“And when that happens, what will it do to you?”

Mason said grimly, “Plenty!”

Della Street was waiting up when Mason unlocked the door to the private office.

She jumped up out of the chair and ran to him.

“Della, what are you doing here?” Mason said. “It’s midnight.”

“I know, but I couldn’t have slept if I’d gone home. What happened?”

“They made her talk.”

“How bad was it?”

Mason hung his hat on a hook in the coat closet and said, “It’s a mess.”

“Was the habeas corpus in time to do any good?”

“Just in time to salvage some of it. But a lot of it had gone by the board.”

“How much?”

Mason said, “They worked the old gag on her. First, Sergeant Holcomb batted her around and then Tragg came in and was the perfect gentleman. He’s good at that. People feel his heart’s in the right place and sob out their souls to him.”

“What did she tell him?”

“Told him about the letter, about telephoning me, and, by implication, told them that I had either wiped fingerprints off the receiver of the telephone or had given her a chance to do so. That’s the part that’s going to hurt. Tragg will really go to town on that.”

“But she didn’t tell them specifically that she had wiped the prints off the receiver or that you had intimated she should?”

Mason shook his head. “Not specifically. It’s a plain inference from what she did tell them.”

“Where is she now?”

Mason grinned, and said, “Right now she’s out on habeas corpus. She’s not a fugitive from justice and she’s where the police are going to have one hell of a time finding her. Darned if I know why I do it, Della! But I always do.”

“Do what?”

“Stick my neck out for my clients. I should have taken the case just the way any other lawyer would have; taken the facts as they were and let the chips fall wherever they might. But no, I’m not built that way. I’m always a pushover for a client who is having the breaks go against her.”

“After all,” Della Street said, “we’re not too certain that Marilyn Marlow is as innocent as she sounds.”

“I can’t picture her as being guilty,” Mason said.

“Not of murder, perhaps, but I do think she’s holding out on us somewhere along the line. I’m not satisfied with any explanation that has been made so far of why that ad was put in the lonely-hearts magazine. I still don’t think we know what she wanted with Kenneth Barstow.”

Mason sat down at the desk, lit a cigarette, sighed wearily, then said to Della Street, “I told Paul Drake to be waiting for me. I gave him a few chores to do. Get hold of him on the telephone, will you, Della? We’ll get him in and then let him go to bed.”

“Are you going to get some sleep?”

“Darned if I know. I’m in what is sometimes referred to as ‘an unenviable position.’ I should have known Marilyn Marlow would have cracked the minute they started putting the pressure on her. She isn’t built right to withstand a lot of rough stuff.”

Della Street said, “We have her word for what happened prior to the time we arrived there at Rose Keeling’s flat — her word and that’s all!”

Mason nodded and said, “Get Drake on the line.”

Della Street put through the call, and a moment later had the detective on the line.

“This is Della, Paul. The Chief’s here now. Want to come down?... Okay, I’ll have the door open for you.”

Della Street hung up the telephone, crossed over and opened the door. A moment later they heard the sound of Drake’s steps in the corridor and then the tall detective droop-shouldered his way through the door and flopped in limp fatigue into the big easy chair.

Della Street closed the door.

Drake spun around so that he adopted his favorite position of sitting crossways in the chair.

“What do you know, Paul?”

“A lot of stuff,” Drake said. “I’ve checked Ralph Endicott’s alibi. You wanted me to. Police were checking it right along at the same time, so it was a cinch. It’s absolutely okay, completely watertight.”

“No question?”

“None whatever. Aside from ten or fifteen minutes between the time he left the dentist’s office and the time he got to the bank, every second of his time’s accounted for. And he didn’t leave the chess games until three hours after the murder had been committed.”

Perry Mason started pacing the floor of the office, his coat unbuttoned, his thumbs pushed in the armholes of his vest, his head thrust forward in thought.

Abruptly he said, “I telephoned you about this other witness, Ethel Furlong. Did you get in touch with her?”

Drake nodded.

“What about her?”

The detective thumbed through the pages of a notebook, said, “The police had her, giving her a shakedown. They let her go. My man interviewed her. The police were interested in finding out about the will and about what had happened. She tells a straightforward story. No one had ever offered her any money, either one way or the other. She was a witness to the will. Eleanore Marlow, Marilyn’s mother, called two nurses from the floor, Ethel Furlong and Rose Keeling. She told them that Mr. Endicott wanted to execute a will and wanted them to be witnesses. She says that Rose Keeling was called out on an emergency call at about the time the will was being read to Mr. Endicott, but that she returned before the will was signed and that when Endicott signed it, both of the nurses as well as Eleanore Marlow were in the room with him; and that he had to sign with his left hand, but that he seemed to be perfectly aware of what was going on; and he specifically stated to them that this was his will and he had signed it and that he wanted them to sign as witnesses."