Erle Gardner - The Case of the Rolling Bones

“Yep, all through that country.”

“They had some wild dance halls in Dawson, didn’t they?”

“Depends on what you call wild. A man could get lots of action. I’ve seen wilder places.”

“Know any of the dance hall girls?” Mason inquired.

“Some.”

“Ever know Emily Milicant before she showed up here?” Mason asked.

Barkler didn’t answer the question for several seconds. He puffed at his pipe, his keen, frosty eyes regarding Mason through the white smoke.

“I’m checking out,” he said.

“Why?” Mason asked. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’m just checking out. I don’t like cops — a bunch of damn busybodies, if you ask me, messing around and wanting to take a guy’s fingerprints.”

“Did they want yours?”

“Yep.”

“Get them?”

“Nope.”

“Where,” Mason asked, “is Alden Leeds now?”

“Out attending to some business.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“He’ll show up when he gets ready.”

Mason said, “I’m very anxious to see him. It’s important.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you see him or if you can get a message to him, will you let me know?”

“Nope.”

“You won’t?”

“Nope. Alden can get in touch with you if he wants to. He wanted me to come in and give you a message.”

“What,” Mason asked, “was the message?”

“He wanted me to tell you that he was all right, and not to worry about him, but to keep right on working just the way you’re doing now.”

Mason said, “He seems to keep pretty well posted.”

Again Barkler chuckled. “He does,” he said. “Alden’s nobody’s fool. Well, let’s see now... Oh, yes, he said to tell you to stall around and get as much time as you could, and to tell Phyllis not to worry.”

“He isn’t going back to his house?” Mason asked.

“Not right away, I don’t think,” Barkler said.

“Why?”

“You’ll have to ask Alden about that.”

“If I don’t know where he is, I can’t ask him,” Mason said, with a smile.

“That’s right,” Barkler agreed seriously. “You can’t.”

He got to his feet, crossed over to the cuspidor, tapped ashes out of his pipe, and said, “Well, I’ll be getting on. Tell Miss Phyllis I’m checking out for a while.”

“You mean you won’t be back for several days?”

Barkler said, “Uh-huh,” and walked across to the exit door.

Mason said, “Just a minute, Barkler, before you leave. If I’m not going to see Alden Leeds, there are some papers which he’ll have to sign. They’re in the outer office. Wait here a minute, and I’ll get them for you.”

Mason strode quickly to the door leading to the outer office. Barkler said, “Don’t be long,” walked back to the leather chair, and sat down.

Gertrude Lade looked up from the telephone desk as Mason approached. “Where’s Della?” he asked.

“Went out with some papers to a handwriting expert.”

Mason said, “Beat it down to Paul Drake’s office. Tell him Ned Barkler is in my office, that he’s leaving right away; to put a tail on him. Hurry.”

Gertrude Lade paused only to ask one question. “Does Mr. Drake know him, or do I describe him?”

“Drake knows him,” Mason said.

She jerked off the headset and started for the door on the run.

Mason paused only long enough to take the Leeds file from the filing case, then walked back to his private office. As he opened the door, he said, “I want you to tell me if...” and broke off into surprised silence as he realized the office was empty.

He jerked open the exit door and sprinted down the corridor to the elevator.

The corridor was deserted.

It was after midnight when Perry Mason and Della Street, flushed and laughing, entered Paul Drake’s office. The man who was on duty at the switchboard knew Perry Mason.

“The boss in?” Mason asked.

“Yes. Just go in. I’ll tell him you’re coming.”

They walked along the reception hallway, pushed open a swinging door at the end, entered a filing room, and beyond that, pushed open the door to an eight-by-ten office where Drake had contrived to place a small desk, a swivel chair, three telephones, a filing case, and a steel safe.

Mason said, “I know now why you like to sprawl all over our office, Paul. There isn’t room for you to relax here. You have to sit straight as a ramrod to keep your feet from slipping out of the office during the middle of a conference.”

Drake, violently chewing gum, consulted the three memo pads, one in front of each telephone, and said, “Give Della the chair over there, Perry. You can sit on the corner of the desk. What sort of a run-around were you giving me with this Barkler guy?”

Mason laughed. “Guess I was a little crude there, Paul. I tipped my hand.”

One of the telephones rang. Drake, chewing his gum violently, scooped the receiver to his ear, said, “Hello. Yes — okay, give it to me,” and started making notes. In the midst of the note-taking, the other telephone rang. Drake picked it up, said into the transmitter, “Hold the line for just a minute,” finished making notes, said, “Okay, Frank. Hang on for a minute. Something’s coming in over the other telephone.” He said, “All right,” into the second transmitter and translated the metallic sounds which came through the receiver into notes on the pad in front of him, said, “Report again in an hour,” and hung up. He said into the first telephone, “Okay, keep the place sewed up. Don’t let him get away. Make a report as soon as he does anything.”

“I take it,” Mason said, “you’ve struck pay dirt.”

Drake spat his chew of gum into a wastebasket, opened a drawer, took out two fresh sticks, fed them rapidly into his mouth.

“He gets this way when things get hot,” Mason explained to Della Street.

Della, watching the detective’s jaw with fascination said, “If there were only some way of harnessing that motion to a dynamo, we could run the elevator in the building.”

Drake grinned at her, and said, “Go ahead, folks, have your fun. I can see you’ve been painting the town red while I’ve been holding my nose to a grindstone.”

“My God!” Mason exclaimed. “Don’t tell me there’s a grindstone in here, too!”

Drake pulled the nearest memo pad over toward him. “Want the report?” he asked.

“I suppose we’ve got to have it,” Mason said.

Drake said, “I have an idea we let the biggest game slip through our fingers, Perry. It couldn’t have been helped, but I’m kicking myself just the same.”

“How so?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “Emily Milicant left your office, but didn’t go to her apartment. She kept calling a number from public phones and getting no answer. The fourth time she tried, one of my men got close enough to watch the number she was dialing. It was Westhaven one-two-eight-nine. I looked it up, and found that it was an unlisted number, in the name of L. C. Conway at apartment 625 in an apartment house at 513 Haldemore Avenue.

“I immediately sent a man down to cover that apartment, and we continued camping on Emily Milicant’s trail.”

“Good work, Paul,” the lawyer said.

Drake paused long enough to shift his gum from one side to the other and work it into place with half a dozen nervously rapid chews.

“Okay,” he said, “here’s what happens. Around six o‘clock Emily Milicant goes down to that apartment house. She went up in the elevator around six o’clock and was out about six-five. She’d led us to Conway, so we dropped her, and I put operatives in the lobby to check everyone who took the elevators to the sixth floor. There’s a floor register over the elevator.