Erle Gardner - The Case of the Baited Hook

Mason got up from his chair, walked over to the narrow window with its dingy lace curtain over the lower portion of it. He raised a tattered, green shade, and stood with his elbows resting on the molding which divided the upper from the lower part of the window, and stared meditatively down into a dingy alley and at the blank wall of a brick building opposite.

Freel turned to Drake. “You believe me, don’t you?” he asked.

“Sure,” Drake said carelessly.

“Know Coleman Reeger?” Mason asked, still staring out of the window.

“No,” Freel said. “Who’s he?”

“You don’t know anything about him?”

“No.”

“Ever heard the name?”

“No, I’m quite certain I haven’t. I have a good memory for names.”

“You take a lot of prompting,” Mason said. “It took quite a while to get you to remember Tidings.”

“I was lying about Tidings,” Freel confessed. “I thought it would be better not to let anyone know… Well, you know how it is.”

“He came to you?”

“Yes. He wanted to bribe me.”

“What did Mrs. Tump say when you told her that?”

There was sudden panic in Freel’s voice. “I didn’t tell her,” he said. “You mustn’t tell her. She must never know about that.”

Mason continued standing at the window. The tips of his fingers drummed thoughtfully on the narrow projection against which his elbows were propped. Suddenly, he whirled to face Freel. “You’re lying,” he charged.

“I am not, Mr. Mason. I swear to you that I’m telling the God’s truth.”

Mason said, “I see the whole business now. How much are you getting out of it?”

“Nothing, I’m simply giving my testimony in an attempt to right a wrong in which I feel I have unwittingly participated… Of course, I knew what was going on there at the Home, but then, I was just an accountant. I had charge of the books, and that was all.”

“Where are those books?”

“I don’t know. I was discharged.”

“But you remember a lot of details?”

“Yes.”

Mason, watching him with level-lidded intensity, said, “Your testimony wouldn’t be worth a damn, Freel. It’s too long ago. No jury would trust your memory.”

“I made notes,” Freel said. “I made a complete set of notes of certain cases that impressed me as being… well, being apt to come up again.”

“Why?”

“Because if I were ever called on to testify, I wanted to be certain that I could give the true facts.”

Mason said, “You mean you wanted something for blackmail.”

Freel’s shoulders seemed to slump. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his eyes avoiding those of Mason.

Mason said, “Look up at me, Freel.”

For a moment Freel continued to avoid his eyes, then, with an obvious effort, looked up at the lawyer.

“What’s back of all this business about Byrl Gailord?” Mason asked.

“Just what I told you,” Freel said, and his eyes slithered away from those of the lawyer.

“Look up at me, Freel.”

Mason waited until the man had slowly raised his eyes.

“Now,” Mason said, “I’ll tell you the whole business. Byrl Gailord is no more the daughter of a grand duke than I am. Byrl Gailord is the illegitimate daughter of Mrs. Tump’s daughter. That grand duke business was invented within the last few months by Mrs. Tump to give the child a background of respectability. Gailord’s will referred to her as an adopted child. She inherited a lot of money under that will, but that will also disclosed the fact that she had been taken from a welfare home somewhere, and had never been formally adopted, that she was the illegitimate offspring of an illicit affair… No, don’t shift your eyes, Freel. Look up at me. Keep looking at me… Mrs. Tump wanted to get the girl into society. Byrl Gailord attracted the interest and attention of Coleman Reeger. Reeger’s family are high society with a capital H.S. They’d never have consented to a marriage with a young woman of Byrl Gailord’s real antecedents, so Mrs. Tump took it on herself to furnish a fictitious background. She knew she couldn’t do it by herself, so she hunted you up and planted you as a witness.”

Freel fidgeted. The bedsprings squeaked uneasy accompaniment.

“How much?” Mason asked.

“Fifteen thousand dollars,” Freel said in a thin, reedy voice.

“How much of it have you actually received?”

“One thousand. The other comes when… when…”

“When she marries Reeger?” Mason asked.

“Yes,” Freel said, his eyes still avoiding those of the lawyer.

“Go ahead and tell me about it.”

“That’s all there was to it. I was out of work, and desperate. Mrs. Tump had detectives hunt me up. She made me this proposition. That thousand dollars looked big to me. I’d have agreed to anything.”

“And that’s all bunk about this Russian blood in the girl’s veins?”

“Not entirely. The father is a Russian, the son of a headwaiter who was a refugee from Russia.”

Mason abruptly turned away from the little man and started pacing the floor. His hands were thrust deeply down in his trousers pockets. His eyes from time to time swung to study Freel’s face.

Drake, manifestly uncomfortable in the conventional, straight-backed, rickety chair, watched Mason in silent interest.

After several minutes of thoughtful floor-pacing, Mason said, with slow deliberation, “I can’t understand what interest Tidings had in bribing you to change your testimony… Exactly what did he want?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Mason,” Freel said hastily. “It never got that far. He tried to bribe me, and I let it be known right at the start that I wasn’t interested — that I wasn’t that sort of a man.”

Mason said, “But you were that sort of a man. You’d let Mrs. Tump bribe you to testify to a lot of lies.”

“But that was different, Mr. Mason. This man wanted me to sell Mrs. Tump out.”

“Why?”

“I tell you, I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Exactly what did he want?”

“He wanted me to change my testimony.”

“In what way? Did he want you to tell the truth?”

“No. He didn’t know the truth.”

“Well, what did he want?”

“I tell you, I don’t know.”

“How did he get in touch with you?”

“I don’t know that. He found me the same way you did. I was here in my room when he came to me.”

“More than once?”

“No, just once.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know. Around a week ago.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he could make it worth my while if I’d cooperate with him.”

“Co-operate how?”

“Well, something about changing my story.”

“But what earthly advantage would that give him?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. I tell you, I don’t know anything at all about it.”

“How much money did Mrs. Tump give you?”

“A thousand dollars.”

“When?”

“That was two months ago.”

“And you took a little while fixing up your story — perhaps forging a few records?”

“Well, naturally, I wanted to make my story stand up.”

Mason said suddenly, “Freel, you went to Tidings. He didn’t come to you. Your first contact was with Tidings. You wanted to sell him information about Byrl Gailord. Because he was the trustee of her funds, you thought there’d be a chance for a shakedown. And then you found out about Mrs. Tump, or she found out about you, and you cashed in on that. But you were still doing business with Tidings. There was something he wanted… Now what did Tidings want?”

Freel put his hands on his knees. His head was lowered until his voice sounded muffled as he said, “You’ve got me wrong, Mr. Mason. It wasn’t anything like that at all.”