Erle Gardner - The Case of the Baited Hook

“I can’t do that,” Mason said.

“Why not?”

“Because it would betray the confidences of a client.”

“Do you deny that Robert Peltham called on you sometime between midnight and one o’clock on Tuesday morning?”

Mason said, “I’m not going to give you any information whatever concerning the activities of any client.”

“Under the circumstances,” Berger said, “I consider the interview closed. I have evidence which proves conclusively that Peltham was in love with Tidings’ wife, that Tidings refused to grant a divorce, and that while the affair had been kept successfully from his knowledge for some little time, he had finally learned about it and sought to trap the participants. It was while he was so engaged that he met his death.”

“When?”

“At eleven-fifteen Monday night.”

Mason spent several seconds staring at the smoke which eddied upward from the tip of his half-smoked cigarette. “At eleven-fifteen,” he said musingly.

“That’s right.”

“Someone hear the shot?” Mason asked.

For a moment it seemed as though Berger was about to reply to the question, then he picked up the telephone on his desk and inquired, “Is Miss Adelle Hastings in the office?… Very well. I want to see her next… And Paul Drake… Very well, have him wait. I’ll see Miss Hastings next.”

Mason said musingly, “Eleven-fifteen… That isn’t the way I understand it. That time of death doesn’t coincide with the facts as I’ve worked them out.”

“What time,” Berger asked, “do you consider that death took place?”

“About nine-thirty,” Mason said without hesitation.

“On Monday night?”

“That’s right.”

Berger said, “I am not committing myself finally on that point as yet, Mr. Mason. There’s one more witness whom I must interview personally before I make a definite commitment.”

“That witness heard the shot?” Mason asked.

“That witness,” Berger said with cold finality, “saw the deed committed. He recognized Robert Peltham as the murderer. He actually saw the murder. I’ve talked with him over the telephone. I haven’t his signed statement as yet.”

Mason stretched forth his long legs, crossed the ankles, and stared down at the toes of his shoes. “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing I can add.”

“You might tell me how you fix the time of death as being around nine-thirty.”

Mason shook his head.

“Very well,” Berger announced in the voice of one terminating an interview, “I shall instruct my men to issue a complaint on which a warrant for arrest will be issued, Mason. I’m sorry, but I’ve repeatedly warned you that your methods were going to get you into trouble.”

“I’ll be eligible for bail?” Mason asked.

“I shall charge you with being an accessory after the fact on first-degree murder.”

Mason said, “You haven’t that complaint ready now?”

“It will be ready within the next hour.”

“Until that time I’m not under arrest?”

Berger said, “I don’t intend to arrest you without a warrant.”

Mason arose from the chair, tossed his cigarette into the ash tray, and said, “Thank you very much for your consideration in giving me an opportunity to present my side of the case.”

“I’m sorry that you couldn’t make a more satisfactory explanation.”

“So am I,” Mason said.

Mrs. Tump said bitterly, “Well, I don’t know where that leaves us. You certainly can’t hold Byrl to any such bargain as that. She doesn’t want that stock.”

“I’m afraid that will have to be thrashed out in a civil court, Mrs. Tump,” Berger said.

Mrs. Tump glared at Mason. “To think that I accepted you as an honest lawyer,” she said scornfully.

Mason bowed. “My regrets, Mrs. Tump.”

Byrl Gailord said sobbingly, “It seems as though everyone were conspiring against me. Now my money is put into a worthless stock — as much of it as hasn’t been embezzled.”

“Are you certain the stock is worthless?” Mason asked.

“Of course it is,” she said.

Mason said, “Well, I have matters to wind up.”

Without so much as a backward glance, he walked to the door and out into the corridor.

Carl Mattern watched him go, his eyes steady, his face expressionless.

From a drugstore on the corner, Mason telephoned his office.

“Hello, Gertie,” he said. “Guess who this is?”

“Uh huh,” she said.

“The office being covered?”

“Uh huh.”

“No one listening on the line?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “Pretend I’m your boy friend, and you’re making a date.”

“I can’t tonight,” she said. “I think I’m going to have to work. There’s been a bunch of stuff at the office I can’t understand. The boss is in some sort of a jam, and the place is lousy with detectives. They get in my hair… What’s that?… Well, I’m just talking to a boy friend. Haven’t I got a right to tell him why I can’t make a date?… Baloney, Mister. You mind your business, and I’ll mind mine… Hello, Stew, I guess I’m not supposed to talk. Anyhow, I can’t make it tonight.”

Mason said, “Della Street had a body to bury. Heard anything from her?”

“Uh huh.”

“An address?”

“Uh huh.”

Mason said, “Go down the hall to the rest-room, and then duck out to a telephone where you won’t be heard. Ring her and tell her to grab a portable typewriter and meet me at the St. Germaine Hotel just as soon as a taxicab can get her there. Got that straight?”

Gertie said, “Well, I’ll do it just this once, but don’t think you can pull that line on me all the time. You’re always having cousins come in from the country that need to be entertained. What did you try to date me up for if you knew she was coming?… It’s getting so that every time I check back on you, you’re chasing around to night spots with some dizzy blonde, and she always turns out to be a cousin or a sister-in-law. If you ask me, you’ve got too much of a family — all blondes.”

Mason chuckled and said into the telephone, “Well, you have to admit, Gertie, that it’s always a new one. You shouldn’t get peeved as long as I’m playing the field.”

Mason heard a man’s voice at the other end of the line saying something to Gertie and then her voice in the transmitter saying, “Now you listen to me, Stew. Maybe this is on the level, and maybe it ain’t. I’m broadminded, but I’m getting fed up with this. Now you just give me a ring about five minutes to five, and if I don’t have to work tonight, I’m going to go right along and crab your party. If that gal ain’t your cousin, I’m going to get a nice double handful of blonde hair… And don’t think you can kid me.”

“All right, sweetheart,” Mason said, “good-by,” and distinctly heard a masculine voice say at the other end of the line, “You just let me talk with that boy friend of yours, sister. I want to get his address.”

Mason slipped the receiver back onto the hook, stepped out to the curb, waited for a taxi, and gave the address of the St. Germaine Hotel.

He had to wait ten minutes before Della Street put in an appearance.

“Made it as fast as I could, Chief,” she said. “How serious is it?”

“Plenty,” he said. “They’ve framed me.”

“Who?”

“Mattern.”

“That shrimp!”

“He’s worked up a good story,” Mason said.

“By himself?”

“No. Some lawyer concocted it, and Bolus is back of it. They’ve lost ten grand, but they still have forty thousand to fight for, and Bolus doesn’t intend to let that go without a struggle.”