Erle Gardner - Case of the Silent Partner

“No answer?”

“No answer.”

“Well, we’ve got a lead on a man by the name of Coll, but we can’t locate him. I left word that Magard, Lynk’s partner, was to call as soon as he came in.”

“I’ll keep one of the trunk lines free for incoming calls, and use the other one for my own calls.”

Mason said, “If you get an address, call police headquarters direct.”

“Tell her to ask for Sergeant Mahoney,” Tragg said.

“Ask for Sergeant Mahoney,” Mason went on. “Tell him to rush some radio officers out to her apartment, and break in the door if they have to.”

Mason hung up. “Suppose there’s any use calling the Golden Horn?” he asked. “After all, Magard might not have telephoned.”

“Better let me do it,” Tragg said.

He waited for Mason to emerge from the booth, then Tragg entered and dialed the Golden Horn. Mason, standing outside the telephone booth, looked down and saw something white under the bench on which the telephone rested. He stooped down and picked it up.

“What you got there?” Tragg asked.

“Handkerchief,” Mason said. “Woman’s handkerchief. I’ll give it to the manager. There’s an initial on it... The letter ‘D’...”

Lieutenant Tragg’s arm emerged from the telephone booth, beckoning Mason frantically. The lawyer hurried over. Tragg, with his hand over the mouthpiece, said, “Magard came in just now — according to what the girl says. He may have been there some time, and decided not to bother with a call. I’m having her put him on... Hello, Magard. This is Lieutenant Tragg of headquarters. I left word for you to call headquarters. Why didn’t you do it?... Well, it’s funny you got in just as I was telephoning.”

There was an interval during which the receiver made noises while Lieutenant Tragg winked at Mason.

“Well,” the officer interrupted abruptly, “never mind all the explanations, I want to know where Esther Dilmeyer lives. She has an apartment somewhere, and I want to get there right away.... What’s that?... Well, get the safe open and look it up.”

Tragg again pushed his hand over the mouthpiece. “I know he’s covering up something now,” he said. “He was pouring explanations and apologies into the telephone. That’s a sure sign. I think we’re on the right track...” He jerked his hand away, said, “Yes. Hello. Isn’t she working for you?... Well, where can you find out?... You’re sure about that?... Now, listen, this is important, and I don’t want any run-around... All right, all right, you haven’t any idea... Now, wait a minute. Does she have a social security number?... I see... Now listen, I may want to get you again. Don’t leave the place without leaving a telephone number where you can be called.”

He hung up the telephone, turned to Mason, and said, “That’s damned strange.”

“He doesn’t know where she lives?”

“No. He says she claims a girl can be a hostess in a nightclub, and keep her self-respect only as long as no one knows her home address. Sounds goofy to me.”

“Me too,” Mason said.

“Anyway, that’s his story. He says she’d never give it to them, that she works on a commission basis, so he doesn’t consider her an employee.”

The door from the manager’s apartment opened. The manager, wearing a house dress, came toward them. Her face, which had been given a generous application of rouge somewhat unevenly applied, was decorated in the unchanging smile of one who has made a practice of ingratiating herself with strangers. She said, “I...” and turned toward the door. The men followed her gaze. Through the plate glass they saw a slim-waisted young man run up the porch stairs, and jab a key into the lock of the door.

The manager had time to say, “This is Coll now,” before the door opened. Tragg waited until the man was well on his way toward the elevator, noticing the half-running pace, the excited tension which seemed to grip him.

“Puttin’ out a fire?” Tragg asked.

The man apparently saw them for the first time, jerked to a standing stop, and stared.

The manager said, ingratiatingly, “Mr. Coll, this is...”

“Let me handle it,” Tragg interrupted, stepping forward and jerking back the lapel of his coat so that Coll could see his star.

Coll’s reaction was instantaneous. He half turned back toward the big plate-glass door, as though about to run. By an effort, he caught himself and turned a white face to Tragg.

Tragg was ominously silent, watching Coll’s countenance begin to twitch.

Coll took a deep breath. Mason could see the hands clenched into fists. “Well, what is it?” he asked.

Tragg took his time about answering. Both men studied Coll: A small-footed, slim-hipped individual whose coat was heavily padded at the shoulders. The even tan of his face indicated that he habitually went without a hat and was much in the open. His hair, black and glossy, waved back from his forehead with a rippling regularity that suggested the touch of a professional hairdresser. Despite his five feet ten inches, the man weighed not much more than a hundred and thirty pounds.

Tragg’s voice had the rasping belligerence of a police officer dealing with a law violator. “What’s the hurry?” he asked.

“I wanted to get to bed.”

“You certainly were steamed up about it.”

“I...” The lips clamped into a thin line of silence.

Tragg said, “We want some information.”

“What do you want?”

“You know an Esther Dilmeyer?”

“What about her?”

“We’re trying to locate her. We got a lead to you.”

“That’s... that’s all you want?”

“Right now,” Tragg said.

The look of relief on Coll’s face was almost comic. He said, “Dilmeyer... Esther Dilmeyer... Hostess at a nightclub, isn’t she?”

“That’s right.”

Coll took a notebook from his pocket, started to thumb the pages, but, seemingly realizing Tragg’s interest in the shaking hand which held the notebook, he abruptly closed it, put it back in his pocket, and said, “I remember now. The Molay Arms Apartments.”

“What’s the apartment number?”

Coll frowned as though concentrating. “Three-twenty-eight.”

“When did you see her last?”

“Why... why, I don’t know offhand.”

“A week ago, an hour ago?”

“Oh, probably yesterday sometime. She’s at the Golden Horn. I drop in there once in a while.”

“Okay,” Tragg said, “go on to bed,” and to the manager, “We shan’t need you any more. Thanks for your co-operation... The Molay Arms is on Jefferson Street, isn’t it, Coll?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Tragg nodded to Mason. “Come on, let’s go.”

The Molay Arms Apartments was a little walk-up. Here again they encountered a locked door, a series of mailboxes and call bells. When there was no answer at Esther Dilmeyer’s bell, Tragg again summoned the manager, ordered her to follow them up to the apartment with a passkey. They climbed two flights of stairs and walked down a narrow, thinly carpeted corridor, redolent with stale smells, and the dank emanations which fill a poorly ventilated place where people are sleeping.

Three-twenty-eight was on the southeast corner. A light showed over the transom. Tragg knocked, received no answer, and said to the manager, “Okay, open it up.”

She hesitated a moment, then inserted a passkey. The door clicked back.

The figure of a blond woman, dressed in a tweed skirt and jacket, light woolen stockings and rubber-soled golf shoes, lay sprawled near the door. The telephone had been knocked from a small spindly-legged stand to the floor. A box of chocolate creams was open on the table, and some wrapping paper in which the box had evidently been tied folded itself loosely around the edges of the box. The cover lay slightly to one side. On the cover was a chocolate-smudged card, saying, “These will make you feel better,” and signed with the initials, “M.F.” The chocolates were cradled in little paper cups. A blank space in the upper tray furnished the sole clue as to the number which had been eaten. Mason, making a swift survey, estimated that eight or ten were missing from the top layer of the box. The lower layer seemed untouched.