Erle Gardner - The Case of the Empty Tin

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Getting formal and waiting for me?” he asked.

“I am not. This is my second. He just brought it. Here’s to crime.”

“Here’s to crime,” Mason said. They clicked glasses.

Paul Drake, seated at his office desk, a cup of black coffee in front of him, an electric percolator plugged into a socket and bubbling away, said, “How do you two do it? I’ve got my eyes propped open with toothpicks.”

Mason said, “Excessive sleep is a habit, Paul. You must learn to control it. It will grow on you until you’ll find you’ll need two and three hours’ sleep a night if you aren’t careful.”

“Well,” Paul said, “I haven’t got to that point yet. An hour or an hour and a half would seem like a swell break. Two hours would leave me doped. I suppose you two have been skylarking around in night clubs and just couldn’t get here sooner because the orchestra didn’t quit.”

“That’s right,” Della Street said, holding out her arms straight from the shoulders and moving around the office in a waltz as she hummed a tune. “It was perfectly divine, Paul!”

Drake grinned and said, “Nuts to you. You’re not kidding me any. You’ve been out committing a murder somewhere. Whose body have you turned up now?”

Della Street ceased waltzing, said scornfully, “That’s the trouble with you, you have no romance. You’ve let life get you into a business rut, and just when I was beginning to tingle you start bringing up murders! Now the boss will talk shop — and we were having such a good time!”

Drake said, “I’ve been having a great time stalling Mrs. Gentrie for you folks. Tragg arrested her boy tonight. She’s frantic. She called me around midnight I told her you’d be in here around half past two or three o’clock. She said she’d wait up for you. I said I didn’t think you’d see her tonight, but she said she’d wait up anyway.”

Mason said, “I might see her, at that.”

“She doesn’t know anything new, Perry. She’s just a frantic mother, trying to save her boy.”

Mason slid over on the edge of Drake’s desk. “Got any more coffee cups, Paul?”

Drake opened a drawer, pulled out some agateware mugs and said, “I can give you a couple of these. It’s all I ever use.”

Della Street said, “Don’t talk so much. Just pour.”

Drake turned the spigot on the percolator, drew out two big cups of golden brown coffee. “If you want cream or sugar,” he said, “you get neither. This is a business office.” He grinned.

Mason said, “What about Rodney Wenston, Paul?”

“I was trying to get you to tell you that he went to San Francisco right after Lieutenant Tragg’s visit. This time they must have known my man was watching, because Karr’s feet never touched the ground. They lifted him out of a car and into the plane as though he’d been a baby.”

“What was Wenston doing before that?”

“He’s been around off and on all day.”

“Could he possibly have gone to San Francisco and back before he made that trip in the evening?” Mason asked.

Drake consulted his memo and said, “Not unless he went real early in the morning. Of course, we weren’t keeping him shadowed. We’ve made a general check-up. He started for town about noon. That is, the caretaker at his place said that’s when he left, and the man at the service station at the fork of the road, where he usually buys his gas, said he went past about one o’clock; but didn’t stop to buy any gas.”

“Driving his car?”

“Uh huh. Then he was in your office around three o’clock, I guess, wasn’t it?”

Mason nodded. “Somewhere around there.”

“Two-fifty-five he came in,” Della Street said.

Drake looked at her. “You keep a memo of the time everyone comes in?”

“And when they leave. How do you suppose I can see that Perry charges for his time?”

Drake said, “It’s a good idea. I guess I’ll have my switchboard operator start doing the same thing. I should get double wages for overtime, shouldn’t I, Perry?”

“You should,” Mason said, “but I don’t think you can make it stick. What about Delman Steele?”

“I don’t get that bird,” Drake said. “He’s supposed to have a job in an architect’s office, but when I checked up on him, it didn’t pan out.”

Mason gave Della a swift glance. “How do you mean?” he asked Paul.

“Well, he hangs around the office all right, but the architect says that Steele doesn’t actually have any connection with the business. He rents desk room and comes and goes as he pleases.”

“When was he in the office yesterday?” Mason asked.

“Came in about nine in the morning as usual, left about ten, and came back about two. He was in until around three o’clock, and then left for the evening. Funny thing, Perry. He has that room at Gentrie’s house. It has an outside entrance so he can come and go as he pleases, but he’s made himself one of the family and spends quite a bit of time there. Mrs. Gentrie thinks he’s lonely and...”

“I know all that,” Mason said. “What time did he get in last night?”

“I don’t know,” Drake said. “I got your call too late to ring him up on some excuse. In fact, she rather pointedly mentioned to one of my men that he didn’t have the privilege of using their telephone. I found out about the arrangement in the architect’s office more or less by chance. We didn’t want to seem to be investigating him because you said to handle it in such a way no one would get the least bit suspicious. So we’d always taken it for granted that he was an architect. His name’s on the door of the architect’s office down in the lower righthand corner, and he certainly gave the Gentries to understand he was an architect. But around cocktail time this afternoon one of my men got acquainted with the architect and started asking casual questions. That’s when he found out about Steele. Mrs. Gentrie may know something, in case you do go out there.”

Mason said, “Well, I guess there’s nothing to do tonight except sleep on it.”

“Tonight!” Drake said, looking at his watch. “It’s dam near daylight.”

“It’s always night until it’s daylight,” Mason said. “Go ahead. Finish your coffee, Della. Let’s go.”

Della Street tilted up her coffee cup. “Going to see Mrs. Gentrie?” she asked.

Mason nodded.

“How you folks do work,” Drake said. “Personally, I’m going to get some shuteye.”

Mason started for the door, then abruptly turned, stood with his hands pushed down in his pocket looking at Paul Drake with troubled eyes. “Paul,” he said, “you’ve got to do something.”

“Not until I get some sleep,” Drake protested.

Mason simply kept looking at him.

“What is it?” Drake asked, at length.

“You’ve got to get a confession from Karr.”

“A confession!” Drake exclaimed.

Mason nodded.

“I don’t get you.”

Mason said, “I’ll give you the high spots. Hocksley wasn’t killed. He was only wounded. I want to find out who shot him and why.”

“How do you know he was only wounded?”

“Because I’ve seen him.”

“You’ve seen him!” Drake echoed, startled.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the Parker Memorial Hospital in San Francisco.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. He had evidently been given a hypo. He’s going to live, but the doctor’s trying to keep him out of circulation.”

“How did he get to San Francisco?”

“Wenston flew him up.”

“Wenston! Then he’s double-crossing Karr...”

Mason interrupted Drake to say, “No, he isn’t. Karr and Hocksley are one and the same person.”