Erle Gardner - Case of the Silent Partner

“I know it,” she muttered... “Told him you had a client but would be free in two or three minutes.”

Mason opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out the papers from his brief case, dropped them into the drawer, closed it, and kicked the brief case back into the foot-well under the desk.

Della swept the last of the bobby pins from her lips, looked at herself appraisingly.

“Let’s go,” Mason said.

Wordlessly, she vanished into the outer office, returning with Lieutenant Tragg in tow.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” Mason said casually.

Tragg wasted no time in preliminaries. “Mason,” he said, “I hand it to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“You caught me napping. The thing impressed me at the time. I guess it stuck in my subconscious, but I was too preoccupied to notice it. You drew a red herring across the trail, and I went barking off on a false scent.”

Mason said, “Sit down, Lieutenant. Have a cigarette. My secretary, Miss Street.”

“How do you do, Miss Street.” Tragg took a cigarette, sat down in the big armchair, accepted Mason’s match, and seemed somewhat embarrassed.

“I don’t get you,” Mason said.

“Last night while I was all hot and bothered about that gun Mildreth Faulkner had, and about the way she’d managed to pull the trigger so that a paraffin test wouldn’t give me any results which couldn’t be explained, you went out to your car. You’re a damn good driver, Mason, but when you turned around, you clashed gears, raced the motor, backed and twisted.”

“I must have been excited.”

“Yes. Crazy like a fox. Any time Perry Mason gets so excited he fumbles the ball, it’s a long, cold day. You know why the chief took Holcomb off Homicide and put me on?”

“No. Why?”

“He got tired of having you walk into court and pull rabbits out of the hat. It was up to me to make a better showing than Holcomb.”

“That shouldn’t be exceptionally difficult.”

“Not if I’m going to let my attention get distracted while you set the stage for your little sleight of hand tricks,” Tragg said ruefully.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tragg didn’t even bother to look up from his cigarette. “Carlotta Lawley,” he said.

“What about her?”

“She drove up to her sister’s house. You heard the car and knew who it was. I was too occupied trying to get some damaging admissions out of Mildreth Faulkner. You walked out and stole the whole bag of tricks right from under my nose.”

“What,” Mason asked, “are you intimating I did?”

“Told Carlotta Lawley that I was in there, that things didn’t look so good for her, that you had managed to coach Mildreth Faulkner so she’d draw our fire for a while. That idea of having the ‘accidental’ discharge of the gun was a masterpiece.”

“Was it the murder gun?” Mason asked.

“It was the murder gun.”

“Do you know where she got it or how she got it?”

“Of course. She got it from Carlotta.”

“Is that what Miss Faulkner says?”

“Naturally not. Miss Faulkner acts more guilty than she would if she were guilty. She’s doing her job too well. She’s overacting. She’s helping her sister by playing red herring.”

Mason said, “You seem to have rather a high opinion of her intelligence.”

Tragg met his eyes. “Damned high. She has what it takes, that woman.”

“But you don’t think she’s guilty?”

“No. Not now.”

“What’s brought about the sudden change?”

“Sindler Coll.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Mason warned. “He sent for Magard last night. He said that if Magard would give him an alibi, he’d give Magard one. Suggested that they...”

“I know,” Tragg interrupted. “Magard wouldn’t play ball because he already had an alibi. Coll is frightened stiff. He has an idea the police might frame him for the murder if we can’t turn up a good suspect. I’m acting as though I was toying with that idea. That makes him wild. He’s frantically trying to find out who really did it to save his own neck.”

“I wouldn’t trust him,” Mason said. “I’d figure anything he’d bring in would be a phony.”

“He found Mrs. Rockaway,” Tragg said.

“Who’s she?”

“She and her husband run the service station and grocery store down near the mouth of Lilac Canyon.”

“What does she know?”

“Right around midnight a woman drove up to the place. She seemed very nervous, and her lips were a little blue. She asked several questions about streets, where different streets turned off, and did they know where a Mr. Horlick lived and wasn’t there a Mr. Smith who had a place that was for sale, right near a cabin owned by Mr. Lynk?”

Tragg stopped talking to study Mason’s face.

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“Well, Mrs. Rockaway walked right into the trap all right. She said there was a Smith living up near the top of the hill, but he didn’t live anywhere near Mr. Lynk’s place, that she didn’t know any Mr. Horlick, and she hadn’t heard about Smith’s property being for sale, that there were some other places around there for sale, but she hadn’t heard about the Smith piece being for sale.”

“I suppose,” Mason said, “by the time she gets to court, she’ll swear this woman was Carlotta Lawley.”

Tragg’s smile was triumphant. “Don’t worry, Mason,” he said. “The Rockaways were having a birthday party. There were a dozen guests there. They all got a good look at the woman. It was Carlotta Lawley all right.”

“A woman going out to commit a murder would naturally drop in on a birthday party and ask directions so they could remember her afterwards,” Mason said.

The smile faded from Tragg’s face. “Now then,” he admitted, “there’s the rub. That bothers me. But notice that she didn’t walk right in and ask where Lynk lived. She beat around the bush and got the information so skillfully that if Coll hadn’t given me the tip, they probably never would have reported. Of course, they might have recognized Mrs. Lawley’s picture in the paper, but, without that tip, Mrs. Lawley’s picture might never have been in the paper.”

“How did Coll find out about it?”

“Just leg work.”

“I don’t think much of it,” Mason said. “You wouldn’t be letting Coll be such a mother’s helper on your murder case that you overlooked him as a possible suspect on the candy. That might be Coll’s game, you know.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t have any more confidence in Coll than you have. He’s in the clear on the candy business. That was sent by someone in the Golden Horn.”

“How do you figure?”

“The wrapping on the box was paper they use at the Golden Horn. The address was typed on a sheet of paper of exactly the same kind they use as stationery. Then the portion which contained the typewriting was cut off and pasted on the wrapper with glue such as they use at the nightclub. Now, here’s a significant clue. The glue was very hard. It had completely set. The chemist in our crime laboratory says it’s over forty-eight hours old. See what that means? Whoever sent that candy had been planning the thing some time in advance, then waited for a propitious moment.”

“What determined that moment?”

“When Mildreth Faulkner sent those orchids. The card dropped to the floor when the Dilmeyer girl took the orchids out of the box. The poisoner picked up the card, put it in the candy, and called a messenger.”

Mason thought that over. “Sounds goofy. Have you located the messenger?”

“Oh, yes. That was easy. A woman walked up to the counter of a messenger service in the theatrical district during the rush hour, slid the box over on the counter, and walked out. The box had a note pinned on it, ‘PLEASE SEND,’ and a two-dollar bill attached. Evidently the poisoner watched through the window from the sidewalk to see that the box was taken by the sending clerk.”