Erle Gardner - The Case of the Rolling Bones

“I expected to go back and clear the thing up.”

“How did you expect to square it?” Mason asked.

“I thought I could tell the truth. I thought Emily could back me up.”

Mason said, “Don’t be foolish. Emily can’t back you up. Her story would furnish motivation — that’s all. After all this time, the facts are obscured. John had the evidence against you. He gave it to Marcia Whittaker to keep. She gave it to me. I told her you’d stand back of her as long as she kept her mouth shut.”

“You have that evidence?” Leeds asked eagerly.

“How about Marcia Whittaker?” Mason asked, avoiding the subject. “Did I do right?”

“Good Heavens, yes! I’d do anything in the world to get that evidence.”

Mason turned to Emily Milicant.

“How about you?” he asked. “Would you do anything in the world to get Alden out of that old charge?”

She nodded.

Mason frowned thoughtfully. “All right,” he said. “Do exactly as I told you, no more and no less. If the police should catch you, refuse to make any statement, refuse to identify the body as that of your brother, refuse to admit you ever had a brother, and refuse to talk about anything until you’ve seen me. Can you do that?”

“How,” she asked, “would that help matters any?”

Mason said, “I haven’t time to make explanations. Will you do what I say?”

“Yes.”

“If you do exactly that,” Mason said, “both of you, I can help you. If you don’t follow my instructions, one or both of you is quite apt to get a first degree murder rap pinned on you.”

“Your instructions,” Leeds said dubiously, “are simple enough, but I don’t see how they can help matters. Even if you have all of those papers, there’s going to be an investigation. The police will want to know what Conway had on me, why I paid the twenty thousand.”

“Don’t tell them,” Mason said.

“And if I don’t tell them, they’ll claim I murdered him in order to free myself of a blackmailer.”

“Not if I say that he telephoned me after you left,” Emily Milicant said.

Leeds stared steadily at her. “You know damn well he didn’t telephone you,” he said.

Mason said, “Shut up. Now listen to me. Emily, have you any other relatives?”

“No, just the two of us.”

Mason said, “John’s life must have been a closed book back of a certain date. It must have been, for him to have covered up that felony conviction.”

“It was,” she said.

Mason said, “Get down to the room where you’re Mrs. Manchester. Don’t waste any time. After I leave, don’t sit here and talk. Don’t get sentimental. Don’t get excited. Do exactly as I have told you. Remember that the man who killed two birds with one stone had only to throw the rock. We have one bird, and we have to account for two stones.”

He strode out of the room, took the elevator to the lobby. The drizzle had become a cold, steady rain. As Mason stood in the doorway, waiting for a taxicab, a police car rounded a corner and skidded into the curb. Four officers in uniform jumped out. Two plain-clothes men, who had been standing near the door, converged on the group of officers.

Mason’s taxicab took him to the telegraph office where he sent Della Street a message, saying simply:

“WIRE RECEIVED MAKE NO COMPLAINT ABOUT MATTER MENTIONED DO NOT BE SURPRISED AT ANY CONVERSATIONS I HAVE WITH YOU OVER TELEPHONE.”

He signed the wire, paid for it, returned to his taxi, and said, “Take me to a newspaper office. I want to put an ad in the personal column.”

At the newspaper office, Mason, with moisture glistening on his suit and dripping from the brim of his hat, wrote an ad for the personals.

“Wanted: Information concerning the past life of William Hogarty, age fifty-four years, walks with slight limp because four toes of right features, partially bald, black eyes, black hair. In 1906, Height, five feet ten. Weight, a hundred and eighty. Heavy features, partially bald, black eyes, black hair. In 1906, Hogarty went to Tanana district to Klondike. Returned Seattle sometime in 1907. Has gone under name of L. C. Conway. Any accurate information as to past life, heirs and former associates of this man will receive liberal reward. Particularly anxious to find doctor who performed operation on frostbitten foot and learn what, if any, statements were made by Hogarty at that time. Communicate Perry M. care this paper.”

Mason shoved the ad across the counter. “Here,” he said, “is a fifty-dollar bill. Keep this ad running until the money’s used up or until I tell you to stop. Run it in display type, or double-space it, or whatever is necessary to attract attention.”

“Yes, sir,” the girl said, looking at his wet clothes. “It must be raining outside.”

Mason shivered, passed one of his cards across the counter. “Any replies you receive,” he said, “are to be sent at once by airmail to this address. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good night,” Mason said, and strode out into the cold rain. “If I can’t buy an overcoat,” he told the cab driver, “perhaps I can find an airplane that will carry me far enough south to get into a different climate.”

The cab driver looked at him in amazement.

“In other words,” Mason said, “the airport, and make it snappy.”

At the airport, Mason found that the next regular passenger plane left Seattle at ten-thirty-five the next morning. The taxicab took him to one of the city’s better hotels where he again registered and explained to the clerk that he had no baggage.

In his room, Mason enjoyed the luxury of a hot bath and a night’s sleep. In the morning, he called Della Street on the long distance telephone.

“Get my message?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Mason said, “Listen, Della. Here are the developments. I located Alden Leeds up here. I’ve found out quite a bit of family history. John Milicant was Leeds’ former partner. He went by the name of Bill Hogarty. He and Leeds went into the Klondike in 1906. They struck it rich. Hogarty and Leeds had a falling out over a dance hall girl. The dance hall girl was Emily Milicant. Hogarty married Emily Milicant in Seattle in 1907.”

“Then he wasn’t Emily Milicant’s brother?”

“Not a bit of it,” Mason said

“But why did she say he was?”

“It’s a long story,” Mason said. “I think we can identify the body absolutely as that of Hogarty because of his frostbitten foot. But we want to keep the district attorney from finding out what we’re doing.”

Della Street said, “Is there anything you want me to do at this end, Chief?”

Mason said, “Yes. Explain to Phyllis Leeds that everything is okay, and that I’ll be back in the office Monday morning. Tell her I’ve seen her uncle; that he’s all right and wants to be remembered to her.”

“Where,” Della Street asked, “is her uncle now?”

Mason said, “The last I saw of him he was at his hotel.”

“Are you in the same hotel?”

“No. I registered again in a second hotel because I didn’t want Leeds to be interrupting me with a lot of questions. I was tired and wanted to sleep. See you tomorrow, Della. ‘By.”

Mason hung up, went down to the lobby, paid his bill, and caught the plane south. It was still raining.

In San Francisco, Mason bought a newspaper. He found what he wanted on the second page. While he was flying to Los Angeles, he read the newspaper account with twinkling eyes:

Seattle, Washington. Did Alden Leeds murder Bill Hogarty in the Klondike in 1906? Did Bill Hogarty murder Alden Leeds in the Klondike in 1906? Or did Alden Leeds murder William Hogarty in California last Friday night?