Erle Gardner - The Case of the Baited Hook

“Tuesday, shortly before noon, the sale of a big block of stock went through. The stock was transferred on the books of the corporation to Albert Tidings, trustee. Doesn’t say trustee for whom or for what… I don’t know what broker handled the deal, and I don’t know what the consideration was. It shouldn’t have been over three or four thousand dollars. The company has a bunch of prospects all of which look good, but there’s a big difference between a prospect and a mine. Anything else you want?”

“Yes,” Mason said. “Where did the stock come from that was sold to Tidings?”

“They’re trying to be secretive about that,” the broker told him, “but my best guess is the president of the company unloaded his personal holdings.”

“Who’s the president?”

“Man by the name of Bolus — Emery B. Bolus.”

“Western Prospecting Company have offices here?”

“Uh huh… Think they keep them simply to sell stock. Pretty good suite of offices under a lease which hasn’t expired yet. No business activity. One stenographer, a vice-president, a superintendent of operations, a president, and a bookkeeper… You know the type… If you get rough, don’t let anyone know where you got the information.”

“Thanks,” Mason said. “I’m going to get rough — and I won’t let anyone know where I got the info.”

He said to Della Street, “Get me Loftus or Cale on the line… Brokerage firm of Loftus & Cale. I want either one.”

She nodded and put through the call. While Mason was waiting for the connection, he pushed his hands down deep in his pockets and paced the floor of the office thoughtfully.

“On the line,” Della Street called. “Mr. Loftus, senior partner.”

Mason took the line, said, “Hello, Mr. Loftus. This is Perry Mason, the lawyer. I find that I’m interested through one of my clients in a transaction which was concluded through your office on Tuesday morning.”

“Yes?” Loftus asked, his tone reserved and cautious.

“A sale of Western Prospecting Company stock to Tidings as trustee.”

“Oh, yes.”

“What can you tell me about it?” Mason asked.

The answer was prompt. “Nothing.”

“I’m representing Byrl Gailord, the beneficiary of the trust which Tidings was administering,” Mason explained.

“Are you, indeed?” Loftus inquired.

Mason’s face darkened. “Can you come over to my office?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you,” Mason asked, “have an attorney who handles your business?”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind telling me who he is?”

“I see no occasion for doing so.”

“All right,” Mason said, raising his voice, “if you won’t come to my office, I’ll come to yours. You can have your attorney there if you want. If you take my advice, you’ll have him there. You’ll also have Emery B. Bolus, the president of the Western Prospecting Company there… I was willing to give you guys a break. Now, I’m going to stick you for exactly fifty thousand bucks. And so you’ll have something to worry about, I’m going to tell you in advance exactly how I’m going to do it… I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, and I won’t wait.”

He slammed the telephone receiver back on its hook, then suddenly started to laugh. “Dammit,” he said to Della Street. “One of those frosty, reserved, human adding-machines gets under my skin worse than a dozen shysters who try browbeating tactics.”

He walked over to the closet and put on his hat.

“Going over to beard the lion in his den?” she asked.

“I’m going over to throw a scare into that old buzzard he’ll never forget,” Mason said, “and I’m going to skate on damn thin ice doing it. I hope he has his lawyer there, and I hope his lawyer tries to argue with me… Wish me luck, sweetheart, because I’ll need it.”

It was exactly fifteen minutes later that Perry Mason entered the imposing offices of Loftus & Cale. An attractive young woman looked up from a desk on which a brass plaque stamped “Information” had been fastened to a prismatic-shaped bit of wood.

“Mr. Loftus,” Mason said.

“Your name?”

“Mason.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Mr. Loftus is expecting you.”

“That’s nice,” Mason said.

“Will you wait a few minutes?”

Mason said, “No.”

She appeared ill at ease. “Just a moment,” she said, and, turning in the swivel chair, plugged in a telephone line. “Mr. Mason is here, Mr. Loftus. He says he won’t wait.”

There was evidently an argument at the other end of the line. The young woman listened attentively, then said simply, “But he won’t wait, Mr. Loftus.”

There followed another moment of silence, then she turned to smile at Perry Mason. “You may go right on in,” she said, indicating a gate which led to a hallway. “It’s the second door on the left.”

Mason pushed through the gate, marched down the corridor, and opened a door marked “Mr. Loftus, Private.”

The man who sat behind the massive mahogany desk was somewhere in the sixties, with florid complexion, a face which was inclined to jowls, a cold lackluster eye, and thin white hair.

Mason smiled coldly. “I told you over the phone I wouldn’t wait,” he said.

Loftus said, in a rasping, authoritative voice, which was evidently more accustomed to giving orders than asking favors, “Sit down. My attorney is on his way over here.”

“If you’d told me that earlier,” Mason said, “I’d have made an appointment which would have suited his convenience.”

Loftus clenched his right fist, extended it in front of him, and gently lowered it to the desk. There was something more impressive in the gesture than would have been the case had he banged the top of the desk with explosive violence. “I don’t like criminal lawyers,” he said.

“Neither do I,” Mason admitted, seating himself in what appeared to be the most comfortable chair in the office.

“But you’re a criminal lawyer.”

“It depends upon what you mean,” Mason observed. “I’m a lawyer. I’m not a criminal.”

“You defend criminals.”

“What is your definition of a criminal?” Mason asked.

“A man who has committed a crime.”

“And who decides that he has committed a crime?”

“Why, a jury, I suppose.”

“Exactly,” Mason said, with a smile. “So far, I have been very fortunate in having juries agree with me that the persons I represented were not criminals.”

Loftus said, “That isn’t conclusive.”

“Judges think it is,” Mason said, still smiling.

“What interest can a man of your ilk possibly have in our business?”

“I don’t like that word ilk,” Mason observed. “It may be I won’t like your business. In any event, I told you why I was calling on you. If you’d given me the information I asked over the telephone, you might have spared yourself a disagreeable interview.”

“It’ll be disagreeable to you,” Loftus said, “not to me. I hate to go to the expense of consulting my legal department every time some pettifogging attorney wants to pry into my business… But now I’ve started, I’m going to see it through.”

“Very commendable,” Mason observed, carefully selecting a cigarette from his cigarette case, and lighting it.

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me what you want?”

“Not until your lawyer gets here,” Mason said.

“But you said you wouldn’t wait.”

“I don’t like to wait in outer offices,” Mason observed, “unless it’s necessary, and I don’t like to discuss legal points of business with a man I’m going to trim unless his attorney is present… Suppose we talk about baseball or politics.”