Erle Gardner - The Case of the Baited Hook

“What’s all this about?” Della Street asked.

“Your boss,” Drake said, “has become a purse-snatcher.”

Mason said, “Come in here and close that damn door. I don’t want all the tenants in the office listening in on my conferences.”

“If Paul’s through admiring my figure, I’ll be going,” Della observed.

Drake clicked the door shut behind him.

“What the devil was that last crack about?” Mason asked.

Drake grinned. “Don’t you ever notice your secretary’s legs?”

Mason said, “For God’s sake, snap out of it! There’s work to be done.”

“What sort of work?”

By way of answer, Mason picked up his desk telephone, plugged it in on the office line, and said, “Gertie, I want you to get Dr. Finley C. Willmont on the line. You’ll find him at his office. His nurse will tell you he’s seeing patients and can’t come to the telephone. Tell her it’s Perry Mason calling, and it’s important. I want to talk with Dr. Willmont personally.”

“Right away,” Gertie promised. “Do you want to wait?”

“No, ring me when you have him on the line.”

Mason hung up and said to Paul Drake, “That little devil’s holding out on me.”

“Della?” Drake asked in surprise.

“Come down to earth,” Mason said. “Adelle Hastings.”

“I thought you had her eating out of your hand.”

“No,” Mason said. “I bought her a drink. She drank it out of a glass.”

“You act as though someone had put a burr under your saddle blanket,” Drake said.

“Someone has.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, can’t you take the burr out?”

Mason said, “I don’t want to. I prefer to start bucking.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You have the name and address of that bookkeeper for The Hidden Home Society?”

“Yes.”

“Who is he, where does he live, and what does he look like?”

“Arthmont A. Freel, Montway Rooms, around sixty, and mousy, a little wisp of a fellow with stooped shoulders, faded eyes, faded hair, faded clothes, and a faded personality, shabby in a genteel sort of way. Put him in a group of three, and you’d lose him in the crowd. He doesn’t stand out any more than cigar ashes on a gray rug on a misty morning.”

Mason said, “Feeling pretty good, aren’t you, Paul?”

“Uh huh.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just the way I feel. I got an awful bang out of seeing you turn the tables on that girl when she tried to call the cop. You sure put that one over, Perry. The cop was nodding to himself when you walked away, as though he’d discharged his duties to the taxpayers in noble shape and was entitled to a merit badge.”

The phone on Mason’s desk rang. He picked it up and heard Gertie say, “Dr. Willmont’s coming on,” and then a moment later, Dr. Willmont’s crisply professional voice saying, “Yes, Perry. What is it?”

Mason said, “I want a blood donor, Doctor — about a pint.”

“What type?” Dr. Willmont asked.

“The type that will keep its mouth shut,” Mason said.

“I know, but what type blood?”

“Human blood,” Mason said. “That’s all I require.”

Dr. Willmont hesitated. “This is rather unusual. You can’t have a transfer, Perry, without getting types of both the donor and the patient. You…”

“There isn’t any patient,” Mason said. “There isn’t going to be any transfusion. I simply want a donor.”

“But what do you want done with the blood?”

“Put it in a bottle,” Mason said, “and forget about it.”

“How would you want it handled?”

“That’s up to you. I’ll pick up the blood while it’s still fresh. I’ll keep in touch with your office and let them know just when and where I’ll want it. You get the donor lined up.”

Dr. Willmont hesitated. “I suppose I could explain it was for laboratory purposes,” he said. “Could you keep me out of it, Perry?”

“Uh huh.”

“What do you want it for?”

“Purposes of a laboratory experiment in criminology,” Mason said glibly.

“Okay, that’s fine. I’ll try and arrange it.”

“I’ll call you later,” Mason said. “You make the arrangements and have the donor on hand.”

He hung up, and turned to Paul Drake. “Okay, Paul, let’s go.”

“Where?” Drake asked.

“The Montway Rooms,” Mason said.

“Your car or mine?”

“Yours.”

“Now?”

“Right now. Let’s get going.”

Drake’s loquacious good humor evaporated under the influence of the lawyer’s savage grimness. He essayed a quip or two, then lapsed into a silence which persisted until he parked the car in front of the rooming house. “This is the joint,” he said. “Are you going to get rough with him, Perry?”

“I’m going to get rough with everyone,” the lawyer said, “until I smoke someone into the open. Come on, let’s go.”

In silence they opened the car doors, slammed them shut, and entered the rooming house. There was no one at the desk, and Drake said, “It’s on the second floor near the back. I have the number of the room.”

They climbed creaking stairs, pounded their way down a thin ribbon of worn, faded carpet which stretched between the rows of doors down the length of the upper corridor. Drake silently motioned to a door.

Mason knocked.

A man’s reedy voice on the other side of the door said, “Who is it?”

“The name’s Mason,” the lawyer said.

The voice sounded now closer to the door. “What is it?”

“News.”

A key clicked in the lock. The door opened, and a man, whose face hardly came to Mason’s shoulders, looked up over the top of steel-rimmed reading spectacles. “What sort of news?” he asked.

“Bad,” Mason said, and walked in.

Drake followed the lawyer into the room. Mason flashed him a swift glance of inquiry, and the detective nodded almost imperceptibly. Drake moved over to a chair by the window and sat down. The chair was still warm from human occupancy. Freel, still holding a newspaper he’d been reading between thumb and forefinger, glanced from one to the other. “I don’t think I know you,” he said.

“You will,” Mason said. “Sit down.”

Freel sat on the bed. Mason possessed the only other chair in the room, a rickety, cane-bottomed affair which creaked as he sat down.

It was a small, cheerless bedroom with an iron bedstead, a thin mattress, and a mirror which gave back distorted reflections. Dripping water had left a pathway of reddish incrustations spreading fan-shaped from beneath each faucet in the washstand. There were only the two chairs, a rug worn thin from much use, a wardrobe closet, the bed, and some faded lithographs as furnishings of the room.

Beneath the bed appeared the ends of a suitcase and a handbag. A worn, tweed overcoat was folded across the white enameled foot of the iron bed. The grayish white counterpane had been patched in two places and was worn almost through in another place.

Freel nervously pushed his newspaper to one side. In the silence of the room, the rattle of the paper sounded unusually loud. “What is it?” he asked.

“You know what it is,” Mason said, watching him narrowly.

“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea what brought you here, or what you’re talking about.”

“Your name’s Freel?”

“Yes.”

“You were a bookkeeper and accountant for The Hidden Home Welfare Society years ago?”

The man’s nervousness increased perceptibly. “Yes,” he said.

“What,” Mason asked, “are you doing here?”

“Looking for work.”

Mason’s snort was contemptuous. “Try again,” he said. “This time try telling the truth for a change.”