The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “If he’d been decent about it, I might have put up the money; as it is he can dig up his own share. I hope he has imagination enough to lie to Phoebe, but I just don’t give a damn.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “that seems to give me a pretty fair picture.”

  She whipped the car savagely around a corner to the right, drove three swift blocks, then braked the car to a stop in front of a somewhat old-fashioned, two and a half story, rambling structure.

  “This is it?” Mason asked.

  “This is it.”

  “You’ve lived here some time?”

  “I was born here,” she said. “Now the thing is a white elephant, but we love it. Hattie has charge of it. She keeps it running somehow. Now let me tell you something else, Mr. Perry Mason. If you’re going to sit there and look at me in that tone of voice, you and I aren’t going to get along worth a damn.

  “I don’t take kindly to having people adopt a holier-than-thou attitude and intimating that I should have stayed home and sacrificed myself for the family, when I have a pair of gams that men notice and get excited over.”

  “They do get excited?” Mason asked.

  She flashed him a defiant glance from her green eyes, then stretching her legs out in front of her, put her ankles together, whipped her skirt up as far as the tops of her stockings. “What do you think?” she asked, then added abruptly, “I’m afraid you’re bringing out all the hell cat in me, Mr. Perry Mason. Come on, let’s go in.”

  She opened the door and jumped to the sidewalk before Mason had the door on his side opened.

  Together they walked up to the big front porch with wooden lattice work ornamenting the eaves in the architectural taste of a bygone generation.

  Sylvia opened the front door, called out, “Yoo-hoo, company’s coming. Everybody decent? Come on in, Mr. Mason.”

  She paused for a moment, holding the doorway open, said over her shoulder, half-apologetically, half-defiantly, “I’m sorry. I’m not usually an exhibitionist, and I’m not usually so nasty. Here’s Hattie.

  “Hattie, this is Mr. Perry Mason. My sister, Mr. Mason.”

  Hattie Bain seemed tired. There was a droop to her shoulders, a droop at the corners of her mouth, a worried look about the large, dark eyes set under a high forehead, surmounted by raven-black hair that was swept back in a style of plain severity.

  She gave the lawyer her hand.

  “I’m so glad you’re working on this, Mr. Mason,” she said. “We can’t begin to tell you what a relief it is.”

  “How’s Dad?” Sylvia asked.

  “Not too good. He’s badly upset. The medicine doesn’t seem to be helping him much. Edison’s here.”

  Mason saw Sylvia Atwood’s face light up.

  A slender, well-knit young man stepped out into the hallway.

  “Hearing the sound of my name I thought I’d better flutter my wings,” he said, smiling.

  He came forward at once toward Mason, hand outstretched.

  “This is Edison Doyle, Mr. Mason.”

  “Mr. Mason,” Doyle said, shaking hands cordially, “it certainly is a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you and have followed many of your cases. I’m sorry that the thing which brings you here today is a potential misfortune for the family, but it’s an unexpected honor.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Mason said. “I understand you are an architect.”

  “Well, I have a license as an architect, and I have an office. I even have a little business.”

  Doyle’s grin was good-natured and infectious.

  Mason was conscious of the fact that both women were watching him. There was an indulgent something about Sylvia’s mouth as though she might be saying to herself, “He really is a darling.”

  Hattie Bain’s eyes left no misunderstanding as to her feelings in the matter, although back of the radiant devotion of her expression was something that could have been anxiety.

  “Well, come on,” Sylvia said to Mason. “Where’s Dad, Hattie?”

  “Up in his room.”

  “In bed?”

  “No. He gets nervous when he’s lying down. The doctor gave him medicine, but Dad’s upset and can’t seem to get himself under control. I’m terribly glad you could come, Mr. Mason. I think it will mean a lot.”

  Sylvia said, “Well, come on, let’s put this show on the road.”

  She led the way through a living room, down a corridor.

  “Dad had his study and bedroom upstairs,” she said over her shoulder, “but after his heart got bad the doctor didn’t want him to climb stairs, so we’ve put him back here on the ground floor.”

  She paused at a door and knocked.

  “Come in,” a man’s voice called.

  Sylvia opened the door, said, “Hello, Dad, how are you?”

  She managed to put a note of breezy cordiality into her voice, a cheering confidence that brought an instant response from the white-haired man who was seated in a big reclining chair, propped up with pillows.

  “Sylvia! I knew you’d be on the job.”

  “I’ve been on the job, Dad,” she said. “I want you to meet Perry Mason, the famous lawyer.”

  “Excuse me if I don’t get up,” Bain said.

  Mason strode across and shook hands. “Glad to know you, Mr. Bain.”

  Ned Bain’s voice showed the fatigue brought on by excitement. “This is a real pleasure. I’ve heard so much about you. I never thought you’d be here. That’s one thing about Sylvia, she gets the best—that’s what I’ve always claimed, that it pays to get the best when you want either a doctor or a lawyer.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said. “I’m not going to take up any of your time or bother you at all, Mr. Bain. We all feel that you should conserve your strength. I just wanted to tell you that I’m working on this situation and I think we’re going to be able to clarify it.”

  “J.J.’s a crook,” Bain said. “I used to like him a lot, but he fooled me.”

  “Don’t worry about him. We’ll take care of him.”

  Bain nodded. “I hope you do. I’m terribly worried about this thing. I want to leave my family well provided for. I know that I don’t have too long. But I’d much rather they had self-respect than money. If we compromise with that crook it would look as though I’d been a party to that deal. The disgrace would remain long after I was gone. That’s too great a price to pay for financial security, Mr. Mason.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Where’s Hattie?” Ned Bain asked Sylvia.

  “She was right behind us.”

  Bain said, “I suppose Edison knows all about it?”

  “Not through me,” Sylvia said.

  “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. After all, it is only fair, I suppose, to—”

  Hattie Bain bustled into the room, said, “Your office is trying to get you on the telephone, Mr. Mason. They say it’s terribly important.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Mason said, “I’ll—”

  “There’s a phone right here,” Bain said, indicating a little stand by the side of his chair. He pressed a button. A sliding shelf moved out, carrying a desk telephone. “This is an extension from the other room.”

  “Thanks. If it won’t bother you I’ll take it here,” Mason said. “Apparently it’s urgent.”

  He picked up the phone, glanced at Hattie Bain, and she said, “I’ll go hang up the other phone, Mr. Mason. Sometimes you don’t hear as well when both receivers are off.”

  Della Street’s voice, sharp with excitement, came over the line,“Chief, Paul Drake’s man telephoned. Can you find out what J. J. Fritch looks like? Give me a description quick? Paul Drake is waiting here.”

  Mason turned to Ned Bain. “I’m wondering,” he said, “if you can give us a description of J. J. Fritch.”

  “Certainly,” Bain said. “He’s a slender man with high cheekbones, a weather-beaten face, deep-set gray eyes, and has a characteristic stoop. He likes to wear broad-brimmed hats, Texas
style. He’s a little chap.”

  “How old?”

  “Only around fifty-five, but he’s stooped.”

  “What will he weigh?”

  “Not over a hundred and thirty.”

  Mason relayed the description into the telephone, heard Della Street pass it on to Paul Drake.

  “Hang on just a minute,” Della Street said.

  Mason stood holding the telephone.

  Mason heard Paul Drake say, “Pass that on, if you will, Della,” and then Drake’s voice was on the line, “Hello, Perry.”

  “Hello, Paul.”

  “I guess we have the answer, Perry.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your friend Brogan just left his apartment house. From your description, the man with him must be J. J. Fritch.”

  Mason said, “That means he must have gone to Brogan’s apartment and—wait a minute, Paul. It probably means that Fritch has an apartment in the same building, perhaps on the same floor, and—”

  “He does,” Drake interrupted. “We’ve cheeked him. He’s living in the apartment right across from Brogan.”

  “Right across the hall?” Mason asked.

  “That’s right. Right across the hall.”

  “Under what name?”

  “Under the name of Frank Reedy.”

  “That means it’s regular, orthodox blackmail,” Mason said.

  “That’s all it ever was, just a regular shakedown racket. Brogan is putting up the front and pretending to be highly ethical. He’s keeping Fritch in the background.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “that’s something. Have you got a tail on them?”

  “That’s right. I split it up. One of my operatives is trailing Fritch and the other one is following Brogan. Both had an idea as soon as the men walked out that we’d want to know something about the one who was with Brogan because of the Texas hat and the general setup. I had told them there was a Texas angle to the case and to report if anyone looking like a Texan around fifty-five or sixty came to visit Brogan.”

  “That’s good work, Paul. If you need more men put them on the job. We want to find out what’s going on.”

  “Okay, I’m keeping it covered.”

  “How did they seem, Paul? Could your men tell anything about the expressions?”

  “They were both of them grinning, seemed to be enjoying some sort of a joke,”

  “They probably are,” Mason said. “Perhaps the joke will turn out to be on them.”

  Mason hung up the telephone, grinned reassuringly at Bain’s anxious upturned face. “It’s all right, Mr. Bain. It’s coming along in good shape.”

  “Can you tell me why you wanted Fritch’s description?”

  “We’ve got him located.”

  A little twitch of excitement stirred Bain’s form. “Where?” he said eagerly. “Where is the two-timing crook?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Mason said, “he has an apartment right across from the apartment of George Brogan. Fritch is registered under the name of Frank Reedy, and I don’t think there’s any question but what he has a lot of sound equipment in there so he can dub and duplicate sound recordings.

  “What I think happened, Mr. Bain, is that Fritch engaged you in a long conversation dealing with cattle, talking about old times, and things of that sort.”

  Bain nodded. “I remember the occasion very clearly. We talked for about two hours,” he said.

  “And,” Mason went on, “Fritch and Brogan fixed up a master recording from that conversation. They had that conversation transcribed so that they had everything before them in writing. Then they picked out certain of your answers that they wanted to use. Then Fritch went to a sound studio and asked questions that would fit in with his purpose and to which your answers would seem to be responsive. They had a tape recording of those questions, then with the aid of a crooked sound technician, they started splicing tape, leaving a good part of the conversation just the way it was, but interpolating a question asked by Fritch, tying it in with your answer to some perfectly innocuous question Fritch had asked at the time of the conversation. But, of course, Fritch’s original question was cut out of the spool and the sinister question by him was inserted.

  “After they’d fixed up this purely synthetic interview, they went ahead and dubbed it on to a tape. Naturally that tape showed no splices and apparently was a genuine recording.”

  Bain sighed. “I’m not supposed to get angry,” he said. “If I do, it may kill me. I can pop out just like that, Mr. Mason.”

  Bain snapped bony fingers.

  “I know,” Mason said. “You must take it easy.”

  “The trouble is it isn’t going to do any good for me to take it easy. Now what are they going to do with that recording?”

  Mason said, “Frankly I don’t think they’ll do anything except try to blackmail you. If they can’t do that they might try to make a deal with the bank.

  “That’s where Brogan enters into the picture. He can go to the bank as a private detective who has been digging around trying to unearth information that would be of value to the bank. He’ll suggest to them that if they want to retain him at a fancy price he’ll try and get evidence that will enable them to bring a suit against you.”

  “Of course,” Bain said, “you understand, Mr. Mason, that I simply can’t afford to have that happen, no matter what the price may be.”

  “Why not?” Mason asked. “It might be a good plan to air the whole thing in court.”

  Bain shook his head. “Just filing that suit,” he said, “would completely ruin me. It would be picked up by the papers and reported all over the country. Everyone would feel that I had been Fritch’s partner in that bank robbery. I simply can’t afford to have anything like that happen. That would blacken the name of my family even more than paying those blackmailers something to get rid of them.”

  “But,” Mason said, “you wouldn’t ever get rid of them. You can see what’s happened. They’ve got that master recording. They can keep making dubs from it. Brogan assured us that there was only one tape and that was the one we were listening to, but I’ve now definitely established that the one I was listening to was a copy.”

  Sylvia said, “Quit worrying about it, Dad. Leave these crooks to Mr. Mason. He’ll find a way to fix them. Now you just leave things to him.”

  “That’s what I’m going to do,” Bain said. “However, I’d sure like to hear that recording and see if it’s my voice.”

  “It’s your voice, Dad,” Sylvia Atwood said.

  “I think it is,” Mason told him. “But I don’t think you need to be at all concerned about that. I feel certain we are going to spike their guns. They’ve secured your voice and then faked questions. I can tell you one thing, Mr. Bain. There isn’t anything on that recording that is, in my opinion, at all incriminating. All of the incriminating statements are contained in the questions by J. J. Fritch. Your answers simply are to the effect that you’re agreeing with him. I meet Brogan at his apartment at nine tomorrow to hear it again.”

  Bain’s eyelids fluttered. He nodded, then his head drooped forward, his eyes remained closed. His breathing was slow and regular.

  Hattie Bain, who had returned to the room, placed her finger to her lips in a gesture for silence.

  Slowly they tiptoed out of the room and closed the door behind them, leaving Ned Bain sleeping in the chair, propped up by pillows.

  “The doctor gave him some heart medicine,” Hattie said. “Something that’s supposed to make it easier on his heart. It relaxes the capillaries. He also gave him some sort of a sedative to keep him quiet because he said Dad was terribly nervous, and the nervousness was having just as bad an effect as an overdose of excitement.

  “The trouble was Dad was so worked up he simply couldn’t get to sleep. Talking with you has done a lot for him, Mr. Mason. I could see him quieting right while he was talking with you. Couldn’t you, Sylvia?”

  “Yes, indeed,” she said.

 
“Well,” Mason said, “I’ll be getting on back to my office. Do you want to join me at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, Mrs. Atwood?”

  “Yes, indeed. That’s pretty early, however. Suppose I meet you—well, now wait a minute. It’s going to be rather difficult for me to drive all the way uptown and then back to Brogan’s apartment. Suppose I come directly to Mr. Brogan’s apartment? How will that be?”

  “That’s fine,” Mason said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  “At nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’ll drive you back, Mr. Mason.”

  “Hey,” Edison Doyle said, “you don’t need to do that, Sylvia. I’m headed back uptown anyway and I’d certainly like to drive Mr. Mason up to his office. I’d deem it a pleasure.”

  Sylvia hesitated. “Well, perhaps I should stay here with Dad and see what I can do if he wakes up. You won’t mind, Mr. Mason?”

  “Certainly not,” Mason said. “I hope we’ve been able to reassure your father.”

  “Oh, I’m satisfied you have,” Hattie interposed. “Dad was, of course, terribly worried. There’s something there in the background that we don’t know, something that he knows about J.J., something that causes him to fear J.J. I think Fritch must be a very desperate man and Dad must know it.”

  “Can you imagine him doing anything so utterly reprehensible as ringing up Mr. Bain?” Doyle asked.

  Mason said, “That shows that his back is against the wall.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Hattie said, genuinely perplexed.

  “Don’t you see,” Sylvia explained, “as soon as Mr. Mason entered the picture they felt certain they were going to be defeated, so then J.J. telephoned Dad, trying to frighten him, not caring a thing about the consequences.”

  “He should be given a damn good thrashing,” Edison Doyle said. “I understand you’ve proven now that he and this private detective are in cahoots.”

  “They must be,” Mason said. “Fritch has an apartment directly across the hall from Brogan. He’s going under the name of Frank Reedy. I imagine they’re getting hot under the collar.”