Erle Gardner - The Case of the Rolling Bones

Della Street said, “Gosh, I’m too excited to eat.”

“Let’s us go to the Home Kitchen Café,” Mason said. “We can get a good square meal there.”

“Expense account?” Drake asked.

“Expense account,” Mason said.

At the Home Kitchen Café, they were waited on by the same waitress who had waited on Mason at lunch the day he had interviewed Serle. “Heard anything from Hazel?” the lawyer asked.

“Not a word,” she said. “No one’s heard anything.”

“Come on,” Drake said. “Let’s order.”

Della picked up her menu. The waitress said, “If you like the daily special, I’d recommend it — unless you want a short order.”

“Let’s see,” Della said, studying the menu. “What’s today?”

“Friday,” Drake snorted. “What a gal!”

“Friday,” Della said. “Well, I’ll take the fish special.”

Mason looked at the menu. “The roast lamb, for me,” he said to the waitress.

“Same here,” Drake told her.

“Do you,” Mason asked of Paul Drake, “have a correspondent in Yuma?”

Drake nodded. “There’s an agency there that will take over.”

Mason took a pencil from his pocket, turned the menu over, and wrote on the back of it, “Mrs. J. B. Beems, Border City Hotel, Yuma, Arizona.” He slid it across to the detective, and said, “Don’t repeat this out loud, Paul. Just remember the name and address. I want a damn clever operative put on that party.”

Drake read the name on the menu. “I can,” he said, “get someone on the job down there by telephone, and then can send down a clever woman operative to take over in the morning. She’s sixty-five, white haired, motherly, and could talk blood out of a turnip. — Well, what I mean is, listen blood out of a turnip. You know the type, Perry.”

Mason said, “That would be swell.”

The waitress appeared with large bowls of steaming soup, and Mason, folding the menu so she couldn’t see the name on the back, shoved it down into his pocket.

They ate hurriedly and for the most part in silence.

When they had finished, Drake said, “Gosh, Perry, I don’t know why any man would want to get married when restaurants serve meals like this.”

“ You wouldn’t,” Della Street said.

“Ouch!” Drake observed, laughing.

Mason called the waitress, handed her a bill, and said, “Bring the gentleman over there half a dozen packages of gum.”

“What flavor?” she asked.

“Spearmint,” Drake said.

“What brand?”

“I don’t care, just so it’s gum.”

When she had gone, Mason said, “You have to admit, Paul, Leeds makes a good host.”

Drake said, “Well, a two-bit cigar would have been equally acceptable.”

The lawyer shook his head. “You’re going calling on a lady,” he said. “A cigar on top of this dinner would make you feel at peace with the world, generous, kindhearted, and impulsive. I want you to be your own sweet self, nervous, gum-chewy, and deceptive.”

Drake said, “Well, come on then. Let’s go and get it over with.”

“How,” Della Street asked, as they drew up in front of the apartment house, “will you find out what apartment she’s in, Chief?”

Mason said, “Oh, that’s routine to Paul. Just let him worry about it.”

Drake said, “Let’s go,” and led the way up to the entrance of the apartment house.

Mason pressed the button marked “Manager” and, a moment later, an electric buzz announced that the latch was released. The three pushed their way into an ornate little lobby, across from which a mahogany door bore the legend, “Manager.” Drake crossed and rang the bell. A few moments later, a tall, thin woman who had once had fire and charm in her wide brown eyes inquired, “Did you wish an apartment?”

“No,” Drake said. “We’re collecting a bill.”

The cordiality left her face.

“One of your most recent tenants,” Drake went on, “is a girl who’s been here before and ran up a bunch of bills. She’s about twenty-five, good figure, recently used henna on her hair, big, limpid eyes...”

“She hasn’t been here before,” the manager said. “She’s new.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Two years.”

Drake frowned and said, “We’re from the Credit Bureau. My memo is that she was here about eighteen months ago under the name of Doraline Sprague.”

“Well, that’s not the one.”

“What name’s she going under now?”

“Her own.”

Drake said impatiently, “Well, let’s have it, if we’re on the wrong track, we want to know it.”

“Helen Reid.”

“What’s her number?”

“Twelve B.”

“What floor?”

“Second floor.”

Mason said, after the manner of one pouring oil on troubled waters, “Why don’t you go and have a frank talk with her, Paul? After all, the bill isn’t large. You don’t want to make a mistake. A lawyer will cost you money, and cause her a lot of trouble. You might make her lose her job.”

Drake hesitated.

“Go ahead. Talk with her, Paul,” Della Street pleaded. “I’m satisfied that’s the only way.”

“What’s the use of talking with her?” Drake said. “She’d lie out of it. We’ve got all the stuff we need. Let her prove she isn’t the one. I think she is.”

“I’m not so certain, Paul. Come on, let’s talk with her.”

Drake heaved a sigh. “Okay,” he surrendered reluctantly.

Mason flashed a reassuring smile at the manager. “Personally,” he said, “I think it’s a mistake.”

They took the stairs, starting to climb leisurely, running up them two at a time as they got out of sight of the manager. Mason said, “Hurry, Paul. She may telephone, and let her know we’re on the trail.”

They trooped down the corridor.

Drake said to Della Street: “Tap on the door, Della. If she comes, all right. If she doesn’t, and wants to know who’s there, remember you’re the girl from across the hall, and you’re out of matches.”

They paused in front of the door. Della Street tapped gently on the panel. After a moment of silence, a woman’s voice said, “Who is it please?”

Della said gushingly, “Oh, I’m from across the hall, and I’ve run out of matches. My boy friend’s been working late, and I’m making a pot of coffee and some scrambled eggs. I’ll only need just a couple.”

The door opened.

The young woman who stood on the threshold was striking in appearance. The henna hair did not particularly become her, but the limpid, dark eyes, the very red, full lips, the smooth lines of her neck stretching down into perfectly formed curves visible beneath the sheer silk of the lounging pajamas, gave her a somewhat voluptuous appearance; while the dead white of her skin, drawn tight across the forehead and wide cheekbones, made her seem peculiarly exotic.

Drake and Mason took charge without giving her an opportunity to collect her thoughts or take any independent action.

“Okay, Inez,” Drake said, pushing his way into the room and taking care not to remove his hat. “The jig’s up.”

Perry Mason tilted his own hat a little farther back on his head and nodded.

Della Street glanced about her in swift appraisal, taking in little details which only a feminine eye would observe.

Drake dropped into a chair, crossed his long legs, lit a cigarette, and said, “So you thought you could get away with it, eh?”

Mason said, “Now wait a minute, Paul. Let’s give her a break. Let’s hear her side of the story before we do anything rash.”

“Hear her side of the story!” Drake exclaimed scornfully. “She walks out of her apartment, tries to disguise her appearance, takes an assumed name. I suppose all that was just because her delicate nerves couldn’t stand the idea of living in an apartment house where a man had been murdered.”