Erle Gardner - The Case of the Baited Hook

Mason said, “All right. Go open the door.”

Mrs. Tidings crossed over and opened the door.

Sergeant Holcomb came pushing his way into the room. He looked at Perry Mason and Della Street.

“You two!” he said, in a voice that showed his anger. “What are you doing here?”

“Talking with my client,” Mason said.

Sergeant Holcomb said, “You knew I was coming. How did you know it?”

Mason shook his head.

“You’re retained by Mrs. Tidings?”

“Yes.”

“For what did she retain you?”

“To handle her business.”

“What’s the nature of that business?”

Mason smiled. “Really, Sergeant, an attorney doesn’t discuss the affairs of his client.”

Sergeant Holcomb whirled to Mrs. Tidings, “All right, Mrs. Tidings,” he said. “We’re going to have some answers to some questions here and now. The records show that you didn’t drive your car to Reno. During the time that you were in Reno, your car was parked in a garage on East Central Avenue. They know you there as Mrs. Robert Hushman. They have seen your purported husband, Mr. Hushman. The garage men have identified photographs of Robert Peltham as being photographs of Robert Hushman. They’ve identified photographs of you… Now then, what have you to say to that?”

Mason said, “I can answer that question.”

“I don’t want you to,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I want an answer from her.”

She said, “I have nothing to say.”

Mason nodded. “I have instructed her not to answer any questions.”

“If she doesn’t answer that question,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “she’s going to headquarters. She’s going to have a chat with the D.A. If she doesn’t give an explanation of certain facts at that time, she’s going to be charged with first-degree murder.”

Mason carefully ground out the end of his cigarette. “Put your hat on, Mrs. Tidings,” he said.

Back in the automobile, driving toward Mason’s office, Della Street said, “Why didn’t you tell Mrs. Tidings about the news?”

“You mean about Peltham’s coat being found in his automobile?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “I’ll let Holcomb do that.”

“That will be an awful shock to her, Chief… Shouldn’t you have tipped her off that you had reason to believe it was a plant, and not to get all excited about it?”

“No,” Mason said.

“Why, Chief?”

Mason said, “I originally intended that little plant to trap Adelle Hastings. I wanted to smoke Peltham out into the open, and I figured that someone would do some talking if it appeared that Peltham was dead.”

“That’s just the danger,” Della Street pointed out. “If Mrs. Tidings thinks Peltham is dead, she might say something.”

“Let her say it,” Mason said. “If Peltham’s hiding behind her skirts, it’s time he was pushed out into the open.”

“Do you think he is?”

Mason said, “I don’t know. Get this, Della. Lots of lawyers go into court with a case founded on false testimony. Sometimes they make it stick. Sometimes they don’t. Personally, I’ve never dared to take the risk. Truth is the most powerful weapon a man can use, and if you practice law the way we do, it’s the only weapon powerful enough to use.

“A lawyer doing the things that I have done and relying on anything less powerful than truth would be disbarred in a month. This case bothers me… It baffles me. I can’t figure exactly what happened, yet I have to know what happened.

“I think I know now what happened, but I haven’t enough truth to forge a sufficiently powerful weapon with which to fight… However, let’s quit worrying about it right now. I think things are going to work out. Let’s go see Adelle Hastings.”

They found Adelle Hastings at her apartment. Beyond a certain hardness of facial expression, there was no sign of emotion.

Mason, studying her with shrewd, appraising eyes, noticed that hard, frozen mask behind which she concealed her feelings.

Mason said, “Miss Street, my secretary, Miss Hastings.”

Adelle Hastings acknowledged the introduction with a polite cordiality which gave everything that formality demanded, but went not a step beyond.

“Won’t you come in?” she asked.

Mason said, “I hardly expected to find you here. I understood you were working.”

“I’m not working today,” she said, and offered no other explanation. “Won’t you sit down?”

When they were seated, she suddenly turned to Perry Mason. For a moment the mask dropped from her face. Her eyes were glittering. “Why,” she asked, “did you send that telegram?”

“Because I wanted the information,” Mason said.

She indicated the morning paper. “One might almost have suspected that it was a trap,” she said.

“A trap?” Mason asked, as though he failed to follow her reasoning.

She clamped her lips tightly shut.

“Of course,” Mason went on, “now that you mention it, it is rather strange that you were able to get the message from a man who had been seriously if not fatally wounded and transmit that message to me.”

She blinked her eyes rapidly, fighting back tears.

“Can you,” Mason asked, “tell me exactly what time you communicated with Mr. Peltham last night?”

“No.”

“The police,” Mason pointed out, “will be very much interested. I’m afraid that now, Miss Hastings, you’ll have to take us into your confidence.”

“Have… have the police found him? The body?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “The police don’t always feel particularly friendly toward me. I have to depend on the newspapers for information, just as you do.”

The fingers of her left hand sought those of her right, twisted nervously. There was no other evidence of emotion.

Mason said, “Obviously, in the interests of all concerned, it’s vital that the body should be found.”

She remained motionless and silent.

“The police,” Mason went on, “have ways of being very insistent and at times very disagreeable. I take it you understand that.”

“Are you,” she asked, “threatening me?”

Mason met her eyes. “Yes,” he said.

“I don’t frighten easily,” she said.

Mason took a cigarette case from his pocket. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked.

She bit her lip then, a swift flicker of facial motion which betrayed for a moment her nerve tension, but she smiled graciously and said, “Pardon me for not offering cigarettes, Mr. Mason. I have some here…”

“No, thank you. I prefer my own. Would you care to have one of mine?”

She took a cigarette from his case. Della Street also took one, and Mason held matches to their cigarettes, then settled back comfortably in the chair. “I’m waiting,” he said.

“For what?”

“Your complete statement.”

“I’m not going to give it to you.”

“That,” Mason said, “will be most unfortunate.”

She opened her mouth, hesitated, and then suddenly burst into a torrent of words. “Must you always dominate everyone with whom you come in contact? Can’t you leave anyone a shred of self-respect or self-volition? My first experience with you was so humiliating that I could cry about it, but now… Well, I’m not going to have that first experience repeated.”

Mason said, calmly, “Let’s face the facts, Miss Hastings. Your dealings with men have been confined to social affairs where women are extended polite courtesy. I deal with problems of life and death. I have neither the time nor the patience for polite courtesies.”

“And so?” she asked.

“And so,” Mason said, “I am going to learn what contacts you had with Robert Peltham, what your arrangements were, how you received messages from him, and to what extent you were given carte blanche.”