Erle Gardner - Case of the Silent Partner

“He would,” Mildreth Faulkner said bitterly.

Mason said, “You know what he’s doing, don’t you, Tragg?”

“Trying to save his own bacon,” Tragg said.

“Not that.”

“What then?”

“Figure it out. His wife’s in a precarious position. Excitement is bad for her. Strain and worry are worse. Not quite as spectacular in their effects, but more deadly in the long run.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Who’s the sole beneficiary under her will? Bob. Who is the beneficiary of her life insurance? Bob. Who would inherit her property? Bob.”

Tragg pulled his brows together in a frown. “Mason, do you mean to say that he’d plan to kill his own wife?”

“Why not? Other men have killed their wives. It isn’t completely unheard of in the annals of crime, you know, and this is a perfect setup. All he has to do is egg you folks on, and when her ticker stops, you’ll be the ones who have to take the rap. He’ll be smugly smiling to himself with all of the benefits.”

“You don’t sketch him in a very flattering light.”

“Why should I?”

“What’s your basis for making any such insinuations?”

“They aren’t insinuations,” Mason said. “They’re charges. I’m telling you that’s his game.”

“The police wouldn’t hound her so that there’d be — well, fatal complications.”

“The hell you wouldn’t,” Mason said. “You’ve already come pretty close to doing it.”

“We haven’t hurt her any.”

“Don’t kid yourself. She was getting along pretty well, then...”

“I’m not responsible for the excitement incident to committing murder.”

“She didn’t commit murder. She had some excitement, all right. That put her back. But I had her examined yesterday morning by a competent physician. You don’t dare to let him examine her now and see what he has to say about what’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.”

Tragg said with some show of irritation, “We’re not responsible for everything of that sort which can happen.”

“You’re responsible for your share of it — and look at Loring Churchill. That smug, beetle-browed, bookish nincompoop will nag her to death. Let Bob give him a few fresh facts to work on, and he’ll keep trotting back and forth into Mrs. Lawley’s room in the hospital until he’s worn a groove in the floor.”

“What,” Mildreth Faulkner asked, “did Bob say besides that?”

Tragg said, “Not a great deal. What he did say was more damning by implication than by direct statement.”

Mason said, “Don’t be a sap, Tragg. Use your head. Why would Mrs. Lawley have killed him?”

“Over that stock.”

“Bunk! Bob might have killed him over the stock, but she wouldn’t. She’d have found out how much money he wanted for it, paid through the nose, given Bob a spanking, listened to him cry and whine, then smoothed his hair, fixed his necktie nice and pretty, and given him some more money to play on the ponies.”

Tragg stood silent for several seconds, his forehead creased in a portentous scowl. Suddenly he raised his eyes to Mason and said, “All right, Mason, you win.”

“What?”

“I’m going to play ball with you. Dammit, that Bob Lawley doesn’t ring true to me. I don’t fall for him for a minute. I think he’s a liar and a crook. I’d ten times rather figure he was guilty than his wife.

“He’s a clever liar, and he’s got Loring Churchill completely sold. I told Churchill I thought we should put some pressure on this guy, and Loring wouldn’t hear of it. He thinks Mrs. Lawley is the one he wants. Right now he’s so busy trying to build up a case against her he won’t listen to anything that doesn’t have a tendency to prove her guilty. I don’t like it.”

Mason said, “Want to take a ride?”

“Yes.”

“You?” Mason asked Mildreth Faulkner.

She nodded.

Mason said to Della Street, “You’d better come along, Della.”

“Where are you going?” Tragg asked.

Mason said, “I had a theory about this case that requires a little thought, and a few questions.”

“You’ve asked the questions?”

“Yes.”

“How were the answers?”

Mason said, “I’m pretty damn sure I’m right.”

“Why not tell me first?”

Mason shook his head.

“Why?”

“Because the case isn’t ripe. It isn’t ready to pick. We haven’t any evidence against the guilty person. All we have are certain things we can use to support a very logical theory.

“Now then, I know you. You hate to go off half cocked. You’ll listen to what I have to say, think it over, and say, ‘Gosh, Mason, that certainly sounds like something, but let’s not tip our hand until we have more than we’ve got now. Let’s go to work on it and build up a perfect case.’ ”

“Well,” Tragg said, “what’s wrong with that? You don’t want to flush the quarry too soon — not in this business.”

Mason said, “The thing that’s wrong with that way of playing it is that you’ll keep Mrs. Lawley in confinement. You’ll let her know that a charge is pending over her. You’ll let Loring Churchill trot back and forth in and out of her room until she’s worn to a shadow. She’ll take a deep breath, and her heart will pop. Nix on it. We’re going to get her out tonight. We’re going to get that load taken off her mind.”

“Suppose you upset the apple cart?”

“Then it’s upset. Do you want to come, or don’t you?”

“I don’t approve of it.”

“I knew you wouldn’t.”

Tragg said moodily, “Well, if you put it up to me that way, I’ll have to come.”

“Come on, then,” Mason said.

Tragg parked his car in front of the Molay Arms Apartments. “Ring her bell?” he asked Mason.

Mason opened the rear door and assisted Mildreth Faulkner and Della Street from the car. “Better to ring the manager.”

Tragg said, “Perhaps I can beat that. This passkey should do the work.”

He took a key ring from his pocket, selected a key, tried it tentatively, shook his head, tried another key, and the lock clicked back.

“Locks on those outer doors are mostly ornamental, anyway,” Tragg explained as they walked across the lobby. “Just what do you want with Esther Dilmeyer, Mason?”

“Ask her some questions.”

“Look here, if you’re getting anything hot, Loring Churchill should be here.”

Mason said, “This may be only lukewarm.”

“You’re leading up to something.”

“Uh huh.”

Tragg said, “Okay, I’ll ride along for a while, and see where you’re going.”

They walked down the thin carpet of the third corridor. There was a light coming from the transom over Esther Dilmeyer’s door.

Mason said, in a low tone to Mildreth Faulkner, “Tap on the door. She’ll ask who it is. Tell her.”

“Then what?”

“I think that’s all she’ll want to know. If she should ask what you want, tell her you want to talk with her for a minute about something that happened today.”

Tragg made one last attempt. “Listen, Mason, if you’d put your cards on the table, and tell us what you know, the department would...”

“Stall around until it got proof,” Mason said, “and, by that time, my client would be dead.”

Mildreth tapped gently on the door.

“Who is it?” Esther Dilmeyer called.

“Mildreth Faulkner.”

“Oh, it’s you...” Noises from the apartment, the sound of slippered feet on the floor, the noise made by a bolt turning, and Esther Dilmeyer, attired only in underthings, opened the door to say, “I wanted to see you. I hoped you’d understand...”