Erle Gardner - The Case Of The Stuttering Bishop

Drake nodded his head and said, "That's logical, but I can't prove anything."

"And then again someone who smells a rat might be trying to cut in, just on general principals," Mason pointed out.

"That's not so likely," Drake said. "It's a good set-up for a blackmailer, if the blackmailer knew what he was doing; but old Brownley wasn't a damned fool, and neither was Jaxon Eaves. They didn't make any splash in the newspapers when the girl moved in. She just slid quietly into the house and started living there, and Brownley casually announced she was his granddaughter, and after a while, the society editors started telling every time she went to Palm Springs and what she had on."

Mason nodded his head slowly. "Is she staying at the house now, Paul?" he asked.

"No, she left the place early this morning and went to the Santa Del Rios Hotel. You know a young kid like that didn't want to be around the house after the tragedy."

"That's what she says?" Mason asked.

"That's what she says," Paul Drake affirmed.

"Of course," Mason said, "she might have gone to the hotel so she could be more available for conferences with anyone who was interested in keeping her out of the murder mix-up."

Drake sneezed, wiped his nose and said, "I'm keeping her shadowed."

Mason started pacing the floor, his forehead puckered into a frown. Once or twice he shook his head dubiously, then paused in his pacing to stand with feet spread far apart and stare moodily at the detective. "That isn't going to get us anywhere, Paul," he said. "That's the sort of net which will catch all the small fish but let all the big ones get away."

"What do you mean?" Drake asked.

"If she's there in the hotel and some man is planning her campaign, that man will either be a detective or will be someone who was associated with Eaves when Eaves was alive. In other words, he'll know all about how detectives work and what to watch out for. He'll know darn well that we're having the girl shadowed, and he'll have some scheme figured out by which that shadowing won't do us any good, at least so far as he's concerned."

"Well," Drake said irritably, "what the hell can I do?"

Mason said slowly, "Nothing. We can't get in touch with the man we want by trying to follow his back trail." He turned to Della Street and said, "Della, could you get a henna pack that would make your hair look nice and red?"

"Yes. Why?"

Mason said moodily, "You could go into the Seaton girl's apartment just as though you owned the joint, finish packing up, take her trunk and suitcase and go to some new apartment."

"Wouldn't that put her in an awful spot?" Drake asked.

Mason, speaking in the moody monotone of one who is thinking out loud, said, "Breaking and entry, grand larceny and a few other things - if they could prove a criminal intent. If they couldn't prove criminal intent, there wouldn't be so much to it."

"But what would be the advantage?" Drake inquired.

"If the chaps who are watching that house," Mason said slowly, "are hired by someone who's interested in getting Eaves' cut out of the estate, they won't know anything about Janice Seaton except what they've been able to pick up from a description, and that'll mostly be a trim figure with red hair. When they see someone who answers that description checking out of the Seaton girl's apartment, they'll act on the assumption that two and two make four and won't ask her to go down to the bank to be identified."

Harry Coulter fidgeted uneasily in his chair and said, "You can't tell just what they're after, Mason. Looking at it one way..." He became silent in mid-sentence and shrugged his shoulders.

Della Street went to the closet, took out her hat and coat. "It'll take me about two hours to get that pack and get my hair dry, Chief," she said.

Mason nodded. The other two men stared at her in apprehensive silence.

CHAPTER 10

Mason waited in front of the hotel apartment house and frowningly consulted his wristwatch. He lit a cigarette and nervously paced up and down a strip of pavement. When the cigarette was half finished, a taxicab swung around the corner, with a small wardrobe trunk held in place by a strap. Mason gave one quick look at the cab, flipped his cigarette into the gutter, stepped back into the entrance of the apartment hotel and waited until he saw Della Street, her hair a bright auburn, step from the cab.

Mason turned, entered the lobby, nodded reassuringly to the clerk on duty at the desk and said, "I have my key, thanks." He rode up in the elevator to the tenth floor and opened the door of 1028. He closed the door, dragged up a chair, climbed on it and stood where he could look over the transom at 1027, which was directly across the corridor.

A few minutes later, he heard the sound of an elevator door, quick steps in the corridor, and then the rumble of wheels made by a hand truck. Della Street, preceded by one of the porters who carried a suitcase in one hand, a bag in the other, walked down the corridor. The porter paused in front of Room 1027 and said, "This is it - the one you reserved over the telephone. If it isn't right, we can change it."

"I'm quite sure it will be all right," Della Street said. "I'm familiar with the apartments. I had a friend who lived here once."

The porter opened the door, stood aside for Della to enter, then followed her with the suitcase. A second or two later, an assistant trundled the trunk into the apartment.

Mason leaned his arm against the sill of the transom and eased his weight against the wood. He saw the porter and the assistant come out to the corridor with broad smiles on their faces, slowing the door behind them.

There followed a long, tedious wait, while Mason shifted his position and smoked cigarettes, the stubs of which he ground out against the wood of the transom. He stiffened to attention as he heard the clang of the elevator door and then steps in the corridor. A tall man walked swiftly down the carpeted hallway. There was something furtive in his manner, despite the fact that he made no attempt to tread lightly. The man paused in front of Mason's door, raised his knuckles as though to knock, then squinted his eyes as he stared up at the number, turned sharply about, and knocked on the door of apartment 1027.

Della Street's voice called, "Who is it?"

"The engineer to inspect your light connections," the man said.

Della Street opened the door. The man entered the room without a word. The door shut with some violence.

Mason finished his cigarette and looked at his wristwatch. Seconds ticked into minutes. After five minutes, Mason started to smoke another cigarette, but extinguished it after taking no more than two puffs. From across the hall came the sound of a faint thud, a mere hint of muffled noise. Mason jumped down to the floor, sent the chair spinning half across the room with a quick twist of his wrist, jerked the door open, crossed the corridor in three swift strides, and twisted the knob of the door of 1027. The door was locked.

Mason, moving with cat-like agility, stepped back, lowered his shoulder, and went forward in a charge. He flung his full weight against the locked door, like a football player with only seconds to play in the final quarter bucking the line. Wood splintered as the lock gave way. The door slammed back on its hinges, struck against a door-stop, and came to a shivering pause. Mason saw a pair of wildly kicking legs, the broad shoulders of a man bending over a slender, struggling figure. Bedclothes had been dragged out from beneath the studio couch on which the pair were struggling, and the tall man was holding a thick quilt down on Della Street's face, muffling her cries, slowly suffocating her. He jumped to his feet and whirled to face Mason, his mouth distorted with the intensity of his effort, as a sprinter's face is twisted into a spasm when nearing the tape. The man's hand raced back to his hip pocket. "Hold it," he warned. Mason came forward in a charge.