Erle Gardner - Case of the Beautiful Beggar

Della Street called out from the bathroom, “Will you hand me in the clothes that are on the chair by the bed?”

Mason crossed over to the chair, picked up the clothes which had been piled helter-skelter on the chair, knocked on the bathroom door.

Della Street opened it a crack, and Mason passed the clothes in.

Tragg said, “Perry, I’m going to take this girl down to Headquarters. If I have to, I’ll arrest her on suspicion of murder. I have enough evidence to justify what I’m doing.”

“Go right ahead,” Mason said, “but I’ll instruct her to answer no questions unless I’m present. This girl has been up all night. Why don’t you let her have a night’s sleep and interrogate her tomorrow?”

“We will,” Tragg promised, “but she’s going to have that night’s sleep where we can be pretty darned sure she doesn’t gobble another dose of sleeping pills.”

“Have it your own way,” Mason said.

Tragg looked at him thoughtfully and said, “There’s something going on in that brain of yours, Perry. What is it?”

Mason said, “Simply the feeling that you’re making trouble for yourself, taking irrevocable steps before you’re sure of what you’re doing.”

“You worry about your problems and I’ll worry about mine,” Tragg said.

After a few minutes, Della Street and Daphne emerged from the bathroom.

“I’m sorry, Daphne,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “but you’re going to have to go up to Headquarters. I’m going to keep you tonight where I can be sure I can put my finger on you in the morning. I’ve promised Perry Mason that I’m going to let you get a night’s sleep and I will, but I’m also going to see to it that you don’t take any more sleeping pills.”

“Now, how many did you take?”

“Don’t answer any questions,” Mason said.

Tragg sighed. “All right,” he said, “bring your things. I’m not going to try to search your purse here, but I warn you that when we get to the detention ward all of your possessions will be searched. Then you’ll be given prison clothes and no sleeping pills.”

Daphne, her head erect, her eyes flashing, marched toward the door, turned to Perry Mason and said, “Mr. Smarty Pants! You with your cold water!”

Mason warned, “Be your age, Daphne. I’m trying to help you. Your own efforts are amateurish.”

“Well, yours are thoroughly professional and disgusting,” she snapped.

Lieutenant Tragg listened curiously. “All right, Daphne,” he said, at length, “let’s go.”

They left the room.

Perry Mason said in a low voice, “Keep your key, Della.”

They all rode down in the elevator. Tragg hustled Daphne across the lobby and into a police car.

Mason said hurriedly, “Let’s go back up to Daphne’s room. Hurry!”

“Why?” Drake asked.

“Why do you think Daphne took those sleeping pills?” Mason asked.

“To arouse sympathy to make it appear someone else was passing out the drugs?”

Mason shook his head. “We trapped her when we knocked on the door. She didn’t dare come to the door until she’d jumped out of her clothes into a nightie, gulped down some sleeping pills and decided to put on the act.”

“Why?” Della Street asked.

“To keep us from speculating on what she’d been doing while we were knocking on the door and waiting.”

“What had she been doing?”

“Unless I miss my guess very much indeed,” Mason said, “she had been visiting with her Uncle Horace Shelby in the adjoining room.

“She had to get out of that room, lock the connecting door, get her clothes off, get on a nightie, get into bed, gulp down a few sleeping pills and then come staggering to the door and put on the act of being drugged so no one would suspect the real reason she didn’t answer the door when we first knocked.”

“That’s a wild hunch,” Della Street said.

Mason grinned. “Perhaps it is, but we’re going back to Daphne’s room, knock on the connecting door leading to the next room and see what happens. And while I’m knocking on that door, Paul, you’re going to be standing in the corridor so in case Uncle Horace tries to slip out, you’ll be in a position to nab him... Come on, let’s go.”

Mason went at once to the door at the side of Daphne Shelby’s room, a door which apparently communicated with the adjoining room.

The lawyer tried the door. It was bolted.

He twisted the knurled knob so the bolt came open and quietly opened the door. Then he gently pressed against the door leading to the other room.

The door silently opened. The room was empty.

Mason hurriedly looked in the bathroom and the closet, and then ran to the hallway door and jerked it open.

Paul Drake was standing in the corridor.

“No one came out,” Drake said.

“Quick!” Mason said. “He’s smart. He checked out while we were in there with Daphne. She put on an act, not only to protect herself, but also to give him time for a getaway. Come on, let’s go.”

The lawyer raced down the corridor to the elevator, jabbed frantically on the button, and when the cage stopped, handed the operator a five-dollar bill, “All the way to the lobby, quick!” he said.

The cage doors clanged shut. The grinning operator dropped the cage to the lobby. Mason hurried to the cashier’s desk.

“You had a check-out in 720?” he asked.

“Why, yes, just a few moments ago.”

“What did the man look like?”

“Rather elderly, slender, distinguished-looking, but nervous — There he goes now!”

“Where?”

“Just through the revolving door to the street.”

Mason raced across the lobby, out of the door, said to the doorman, “Get us a cab, quick!”

Again a five-dollar bill worked magic.

Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake jumped in the cab.

“Where to?” the cabby asked.

“Follow that man who’s walking down the street,” Mason said, “and don’t let him know you’re following. This is entirely legal but it’s a ticklish matter. Here’s twenty dollars to ease your conscience.”

“Hell,” the taxi driver said, “for twenty dollars I don’t have any conscience to ease.”

He pocketed the bill with a grin.

“That’s in addition to the meter,” Mason told him.

“Don’t we want to stop him?” Drake asked.

“Hell, no,” Mason said. “Let’s see where he’s going.”

The man went to the hotel garage.

“He’ll come out driving a car,” Mason said to the cabdriver, “and we’ve got to follow him... Paul, there’s a telephone booth there. Get your office on the line, tell a couple of operatives to stick around... How many cars do you have with telephones?”

“Two.”

“Get them both in action,” Mason said. “Start one east, one south.”

Drake put through the calls.

It was a matter of nearly ten minutes before the man they were following emerged, driving a car with Massachusetts license plates.

Mason took one gleeful look at the license plates then grabbed Drake by the arm. “That’s Ralph Exeter’s car.”

Mason turned to the cabdriver. “You’re going to have to follow him. It’ll be difficult once he gets out of town, but do the best you can.”

The cabdriver said, “I can beat him all-to pieces in traffic, but if he gets out on the freeway and puts it into speed I’m going to have a hard time keeping up. These cabs are geared down for city traffic, fast stops and starts, but not any great speed on the freeway.”

“I know,” Mason said, “do the best you can.”

The elderly man drove the car cautiously, taking no chances, keeping well under the speed limits. The cab had no difficulty keeping up. The car ahead turned on the Santa Ana Freeway, began to gather speed.