Erle Gardner - Case of the Beautiful Beggar

Lieutenant Tragg was puzzled. “Who’s Ralph Exeter?” he asked.

Daphne’s numb lips made two futile attempts before words came. “A friend of Uncle Borden.”

“And who’s Uncle Borden?”

“A half brother of Horace Shelby.”

“Then how did Exeter get in this unit of the motel and where is Horace Shelby now?”

Mason said, “Those are two questions. Lieutenant, which you are going to have to answer all by yourself.”

The woman who had identified Daphne Shelby came over to the officers. “Want to take a look?” Lieutenant Tragg asked her.

She nodded.

Tragg drew back the blanket.

“I don’t think that’s the man who’s supposed to be in Unit 21!” she said. “It looks like the man who rented Unit 20 about three hours ago.”

“How did he come here?” Tragg asked.

“He had his own car. It had a Massachusetts license. There may have been someone with him — a woman. I can get the registration card.”

“ We’ll get it,” Tragg said.

He accompanied her to the office, came back holding the registration card.

“That’s right,” he said. “He registered under his own name. He gave the license number of his car — a Massachusetts license number.

“Now then, where’s his car? What became of it? It isn’t here.”

There was an interval of silence, then Tragg said, “Let’s take a look in Unit 20 and see what we find in there.”

He turned to Mason. “Since you aren’t of any help in this phase of the investigation, you and your client can go, but I want both of you to be available where I can reach you on short notice.”

Mason said, “Excuse me a minute. Daphne. It will only take a moment.”

The lawyer moved over to Paul Drake, lowered his voice, said, “Paul, Horace Shelby was in that cabin. He isn’t there now. He left under his own power or he was taken away.

“If he was taken away, we’re in trouble. If he left under his own power, I’d like to make sure that he’s on his own and see if we can take steps to keep him on his own.”

Drake nodded.

“Start your men covering the taxicab companies right away,” Mason said.

Again Drake nodded.

“Now then,” Mason went on, “it would be fatal if the police managed to implant in the proprietress’ mind the idea that Ralph Exeter was the man Daphne brought to the motel.

“She’s seen Daphne. She identified the license number of the car Daphne was driving, and she’s identified Daphne.

“Get to work on her in advance of the police. Get her to state that she can’t identify the woman who was with Exeter in the car in which Exeter arrived at the motel. And be darned sure to tie her up so that she can’t testify later on that the more she thinks of it, the more she believes Daphne was the one who was in Exeter’s car.

“You know and I know that personal identification evidence is just about the worst, the most unreliable type of evidence we have — not when a person identifies someone he knows but when he gets a glimpse of an individual and then later on makes an identification — either from a photograph or from personal contact.”

“Sure, we all know that,” Drake said. “I’ll do what I can. Anything else?”

“That’s all,” Mason said. “Get your men working. Use that telephone in your car. Put your men out and get busy on that woman while Lieutenant Tragg is searching Unit 20 for clues.”

“On my way,” Drake said. “Which comes first?”

“The talk with the proprietress of the motel,” Mason told him. “We don’t know how long Lieutenant Tragg is going to be in Unit 20. You can telephone the taxicab companies shortly after that.”

Mason put an arm around Daphne Shelby, drew her over to his car, felt her trembling like a leaf beneath her coat.

“Take it easy, Daphne! Take it easy!” the lawyer warned. “We’re running up against something that may be pretty complicated. This man was found in Unit 21. Now, that’s the unit you rented for your uncle?”

She nodded.

The lawyer escorted her into the back seat of his car, had Della Street move in on the other side, said to Daphne, “You went to the Chinese restaurant and got Chinese food to take out?”

“Yes.”

“Who waited on you?”

“Heavens, I don’t know. It was some girl.”

“Not Chinese?”

“No. The cook was Chinese.”

“How did you happen to go to that restaurant?”

She pointed and said, “You can see the sign there — right over there.”

Mason followed the direction of her finger and saw the big illuminated sign in green letters reading CHINESE COOKING.

Mason said, “When Lieutenant Tragg asked you for the sleeping pills you had, you started to open your purse.”

She nodded.

“You have sleeping pills in there?”

“No, it was because he extended his hand and acted the way he did. I forgot for the moment that I had given the sleeping pills to Uncle Horace.”

“Keep on forgetting it for the time being,” Mason said. “Don’t answer any questions about the sleeping pills.

“Now then, Exeter checked into this motel sometime this afternoon. That means that they knew where you had placed Uncle Horace and were just biding their time.”

“Then why didn’t they get officers and take him back to the sanitarium?” she asked. “That’s what both Uncle Horace and I were afraid of.”

“Probably because they were afraid that the Court-appointed doctor would then examine him, and they wanted to work him over a little bit before they let Dr. Alma get in touch with him.”

“Then you think they have Uncle Horace with them?”

“It’s a very distinct possibility,” Mason said.

“What will happen now?” she asked.

Mason said, “They’ll get him all doped up. They’ll terrify him. They will then return him to the sanitarium and notify Dr. Alma.”

“Is there any way of counteracting that?” she asked. “Is there anything we can do? Any way we can find Uncle Horace?”

“I really don’t know,” Mason said, “but we have two alternatives to consider.”

“What are those?”

“One,” Mason said, “is that your Uncle Horace left here with Borden Finchley. But somehow I don’t subscribe to that theory.”

“What’s the other alternative?”

“That he left here under his own power and of his own volition.”

“But why would he leave here?” she asked.

Mason looked her straight in the eyes. “Because he had killed Ralph Exeter.”

“Why, Uncle Horace wouldn’t...” Her voice trailed off into silence.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “You don’t know all the details about how your Uncle Horace has been treated. You don’t know his mental condition. You gave him sleeping pills. Suppose Exeter had the adjoining room then, after you had left the motel, Exeter walked into Horace Shelby’s room and started making demands on him.

“Remember that Exeter wasn’t really Borden Finchley’s friend. He was only interested in getting money, and the money had to come from Horace Shelby.

“So suppose Exeter demanded a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars from Horace Shelby as the price of his cooperation. Suppose Exeter said he hadn’t had anything to eat and started to help himself to the rest of the food in the containers.

“Horace wanted to get rid of the man. He simply dumped the sleeping medicine into the Chinese food. He could have mashed the pills up into a powder while Exeter was talking.

“Perhaps his original intention was to drug Exeter into insensibility and then escape. But after he saw Exeter lying there helpless, he may have decided to make a permanent job of it.”