The Case of the Borrowed Brunette
Page 7
“That’s right.”
“When the police get that, they can check the gun from which it was fired.”
“Right.”
“That’ll simplify matters somewhat.”
“Or complicate them,” Drake said dryly, “depending on whether the gun was owned by your client or somebody else’s client! . . . Well, the Interstate boys kept going down to the phone and feeding details into the office just as fast as they could get them. Then Interstate sent a relief man out and called in one of the men who was on the job. I figured that meant the client was coming to the office and wanted a personal report. So we had everything in readiness. Sure enough, a rather prosperous-looking chap of forty-two or forty-three, around five feet ten, weight about a hundred and ninety pounds, wavy red hair, pearl-gray hat, and double-breasted gray suit with a small check-plaid pattern came bustling into the office. He was in there half an hour. When he left, our men picked him up and followed him down to his car—a big, high-powered outfit. We looked up the license number later. Our men tagged him out to one of the swank apartment houses and got his name from the janitor, and by that time we’d checked up on the car license and had the same name for that.”
“What’s the name, Paul?”
“Orville L. Reedley,” Drake said.
Mason whistled. “Any relation to Helen Reedley?”
“As soon as we got the name,” Drake went on, “I had a man look up a contact in the library of one of the newspapers. After pawing through the records he found that Orville L. Reedley married Helen Honcutt in March 1942. She gave her age as twenty-one, he gave his as thirty-eight. As nearly as we can tell from the information in these statistics, it’s the same Helen Reedley who has the apartment up there.”
“This chap, Reedley,” Mason asked, “what does he do?”
“He seems to be a broker.”
Mason drummed on the edge of his desk with his finger tips. “Where is he now?”
“Still holed up in his apartment with two of my men watching the place.”
Mason pushed back his chair. “Let’s go, Paul,” he said.
“Your car or mine?” Drake asked.
“Where’s yours?”
“Right outside.”
“We’ll take it.”
“Where do you want me?” Della Street asked.
“Right here in the office, I guess, Della. We’ll get in touch with you. It may be we’ll want you to take down a statement after a while. You don’t mind sticking around?”
“Not a bit.”
“Let’s go, Paul,” and the two men left.
Mason lit a cigarette as Drake started the car. “Now we’re beginning to see a pattern,” he said, as Drake pulled up at the first traffic signal that was against them.
“You mean the husband angle?”
“Uh-huh, and the private-detective angle.”
“It has possibilities,” Drake admitted.
“Of course, we’re in the position of taking two and two and making four out of it, and then trying to find something to add that will give us the total of ten. But we can make a reasonable guess at the figure we want.”
“How reasonable is the guess, and what’s the figure?” Drake asked, grinning.
“A wife comes to a city and starts living by herself. A husband wants to get a divorce. She’d like to have a property settlement, but her husband doesn’t want to be that generous. She says, ‘Okay, then we’ll get along without a divorce.’ He waits a while, finds that the shoe is pinching, and decides to employ some detectives to get something on her. She’s running around with a boy friend, but she’s smart enough to know when the dicks are going to be put on the job. No—wait a minute, Paul! There has to be a leak somewhere. She has to know that her husband is going to employ detectives before he actually employs them.”
“How do you figure that out?”
“Because as soon as he employed them, he’d give them her address and they’d pick her up and start following her. But, knowing that he’s going to employ detectives, she makes arrangements to give them all a run-around. She turns the apartment over to a brunette who looks like her, and she’s just as anxious as the substitute is to make sure there’ll be a chaperone on hand at all times. Then everything is done with the utmost propriety. The husband’s detectives are probably shown a photograph that’s a fuzzy snapshot, given a description, and told to go to that address, pick up Helen Reedley, and shadow her day and night. They get on the job, the address is right, the apartment is in the name of Helen Reedley. A brunette who answers the description of the woman they want is living there. They start shadowing her. There’s a chaperone living there with her, and the two are inseparable. The husband gets a steady string of reports showing the greatest decorum all around. He gets discouraged and tells his lawyers to make the best settlement possible in the circumstances.”
“And in the meantime the real Helen Reedley is out playing around?” Drake asked.
“Well,” Mason said, “she’s probably being a little discreet about things, but my guess is that she isn’t spending the long evenings by the fireside with her crocheting and knitting.”
“Then this man Hines must be the boy friend.”
“Somehow I don’t think so,” Mason said. “I think she’d be too smart to let the boy friend be around the apartment, because the husband’s detectives might start tailing him. No, I have an idea this fellow Hines is a stooge of some sort.”
“Was,” suggested Drake.
“Was is right,” Mason amended.
“Well, what do you propose to do with this husband when we get there?”
“I’m going to ask questions.”
“Suppose he doesn’t answer them?”
“Then I’ll have to guess at the answers from his manner and the way he handles himself.”
“And that may be hard,” Drake pointed out.
“It may be impossible,” Mason conceded, “but in any event we’ll have made a try. . . . Any idea what time the guy was murdered, Paul?”
“Apparently early in the afternoon. But you know how the police are, Perry. They aren’t putting out too much along that line right now. They’ll have the autopsy surgeons making examinations, but they won’t stick their necks out with the answer until after they’ve found a suspect who fits into that particular schedule pretty accurately. You know how it is. The same way the police give out that someone has made a ‘tentative identification’ of a suspect—which means that they haven’t a case, but aren’t burning any bridges in case they can’t find a better bet.”
Mason nodded.
Drake piloted the car around a corner and found a parking place. “Looks like the only parking place in the block,” he said. “The apartment we want is that swanky one down there about half a block.”
He locked the car and put the keys in his pocket, and he and Mason walked down the sidewalk, past expensive residences, and turned in at the rather ornate front of a high-class apartment house.
The lobby had that subdued, deep-carpeted hush so frequently associated with the outward semblance of ultrare-spectability. A quiet-voiced clerk on duty at the desk inquired the name of the tenant they wished to see.
“Orville Reedley,” Mason replied.
“Is he expecting you?”
“Probably not. The name is Mason.”
“Yes, sir—and the other gentleman’s name?”
“Drake,” Mason said. “Tell him I’m a lawyer.”
“Oh, you’re Perry Mason!”
“That’s right.”
“Yes, Mr. Mason, just a moment.”
The clerk scribbled a note, pushed it through the wicket to the telephone operator, waited a few seconds, then turned and nodded to Mason. “Mr. Reedley will see you,” he said. “The boy in the elevator will direct you to his apartment.”
Mason and Drake entered the elevator. The boy took them to the fifth floor. “It’s Apartment 5-B,” he said, “the third door down on the left.”
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p; Here again in the corridor was an atmosphere of quiet seclusion. Drake turned to Mason with a grin. “It stinks of dough,” he said.
Mason nodded as he pressed the mother-of-pearl button at Apartment 5-B.
The man who opened the door answered the description that had been given to Drake’s operative. But, dominating the physical characteristics of age, height, weight, and complexion which would have appealed to a professional detective, was the surging, dynamic power emanating from the man even as he stood there on the threshold.
Hot, smoldering eyes regarded his two visitors. “Which one of you is Mason?”
“I am,” Mason said stepping forward and extending his hand.
Reedley hesitated a moment, took the hand, but turned almost at once to Drake. “Who’s the other one?”
“Paul Drake.”
“What does he do?”
“He assists me in some of my cases.”
“Lawyer?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Detective.”
Reedley thought that over, his eyes moving from one to the other. Abruptly he stepped back in the doorway and said, “Come in.”
Mason and Paul Drake crossed the threshold. Reedley’s powerful shoulders swung in a smooth pivot, pushing the door shut.
“Sit down.”
Mason and Drake found comfortable chairs in a living room whose Venetian blinds, Oriental rugs, and comfortable, well-chosen chairs bespoke taste and wealth.
“Well,” Reedley said, “what’s it all about?”
“Your wife’s living here in town?” Mason asked.
“What business is it of yours?”
“Frankly,” Mason said, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It may be important in a case I am handling.”
“You’re a lawyer?”
“That’s right.”
“You have clients?”
“Exactly.”
“They pay you?”
“Yes.”
“You represent their interests?”
“Right.”
“And only their interests?”
“Naturally.”
“I am not your client. Somebody else is. Therefore you’re representing somebody else. Those interests may be adverse to mine. If they are, you’re my enemy. Why the hell should I answer your questions?”
“Any reason why you shouldn’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could any circumstances exist that would give you any possible reason for not telling me about where your wife is living now?”
“I don’t even know that. Why should I tell you about it?”
Mason said, “I’ll put it this way. Certain circumstances have caused me to take an interest in a Helen Reedley who is living at the Siglet Manor Apartments on Eighth Street. I’m wondering whether she is your wife?”
“Why?”
“I’m trying to find out something about her background.”
“What about her background?”
“Oh, who her friends are, for instance.”
“Found out anything?”
“Not yet.”
“But you will?”
“I may.”
“I might be interested in that.”
“Then she is your wife?”
“Yes.”
“You’re separated?”
“Obviously.”
“How long have you been separated?”
“Six months.”
“You haven’t filed suit for divorce?”
“No.”
“She hasn’t?”
“No.”
“Do you intend to?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Does she intend to?”
“Ask her.”
“Any chance of a reconciliation?”
“That also is none of your business.”
“You’re not being very coöperative.”
“Because I don’t propose to show my hand without finding out what kind of game you want to play. What’s the object of this visit? What are you after?”
“You’ve been in communication with her recently?”
“No.”
“May I ask when was the last time you talked with her personally?”
“It was about three months ago. I’m telling you certain things that you can find out from other sources, Mason, but I certainly don’t intend to let you pump me for information, get up and say ‘Thank you,’ and walk out.”
“Of course,” Mason said, “you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“An obvious fact,” Reedley said dryly. “What’s the occasion of your interest in my wife?”
“Not so much in your wife as in her apartment.”
“What about her apartment?”
“A man was murdered there this afternoon.”
“Who?”
“A man by the name of Robert Hines.”
“You defend people who are accused of murder?”
“Sometimes.”
“I take it you’re defending someone in this case?”
“No one has been accused, so far as I know.”
“Someone who might be accused, then?”
Mason smiled. “Any person might be accused of murder. Records show that many innocent persons have been so accused.”
“You’re swapping words with me.”
“You’ve been swapping words with me,” Mason said. “When you get the best of the trade you seem to think that’s perfectly fair. When you break even, you crab about it.”
Reedley frowned.
“The murder,” Mason went on, “doesn’t seem to be a surprise to you.”
“It’s not always easy to tell when I’m surprised and when I’m not.”
“I said it didn’t seem to be a surprise to you.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Frankly, I wanted some information about your wife.”
“Why?”
“I think you can give it to me better than she can.”
“What sort of information?”
“You’ve had detectives shadowing her for the last few days. What have they found out?”
Reedley sat perfectly motionless, his eyes fixed steadily on Mason’s face. “Is that a bluff?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know—that’s why I’m asking.”
“Asking me if I’m bluffing on the theory that if I am I’ll be frank and tell you?” Mason asked.
Again Reedley frowned. “I think you’ve asked a question I’m not going to answer.”
“What I am particularly interested in finding out,” Mason said, “is what your wife was doing this afternoon.”
“What made you think I’d hired detectives to watch her?”
“Haven’t you?”
“I would certainly say that was none of your damn business.”
“There are other ways of finding out.”
“What?”
“I might tip off some of my friends on the Homicide Squad, or in the D.A.’s office, that if they’d subpoena the head of the Interstate Investigators they could get some interesting information.”
Orville Reedley thought that over. Then he asked abruptly, “What good would that do you?”
“Put me in solid with the police, and then they’d let me know if they found out you’d put men on the job of shadowing your wife.”
“How did you get your lead?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You can’t tell me the things I want to know, but you want me to tell you the things you want to know.”
“Exactly.”
“That strikes me as being unfair.”
“Perhaps it is. You don’t have to tell me these things. I can go about finding out the hard way.”
“Meaning through the police?”
“That’s one way.”
“Wait a minute,” Reedley said, “let me thi
nk this over. Don’t talk to me for a minute.”
He heaved himself out of the chair, paced nervously back and forth across the rug for a few moments, then went over to stand at a window. He adjusted the Venetian blinds so that he could see out, stood moodily staring out of the window for a few seconds, then walked back to the other side of the room, lit a cigarette, took two or three puffs at it, and threw it away.
The telephone rang. “Excuse me a moment,” Reedley said. He strode to the telephone and jerked the receiver off the hook. “Well—what is it?”
He was silent for a moment. The words that came over the receiver were faintly audible in the apartment as a steady metallic rattle. When they stopped, he said hesitantly, “I don’t know. . . .”
Again there was sound from the receiver, followed by a one-word reply from Reedley: “Information.”
Another interval of sound, and Reedley said, “Yes. . . . That’s right. . . . Not entirely. . . . Getting close to it, I think. Okay, thanks. Keep an eye on things. Okay, good-by.”
He hung up and walked back to stand by the table, frowning down at Mason. Then abruptly he turned to Paul Drake. “What are you here for?”
“I just came along.”
“You’re a detective?”
“Yes.”
“You’re hiring Mason?”
“Other way around—Mr. Mason hires me.”
“For what?”
“For the thing a person usually wants out of a detective agency: information.”
“You gave him the lead to me?”
“Ask him.”
“How did you get it?”
“Ask him.”
Mason broke in. “What’s the use?” he demanded. “We’ll never get anywhere beating around the bush. I learned that detectives had been employed to shadow Helen Reedley. I got Paul Drake to put his men to work shadowing the detectives. The trail led to the Interstate Investigators, and through them to you. They telephoned you when the police discovered the murder of Hines, and you rushed over there and were given information right up to the minute. Then you drove back here.”
“Don’t you know it’s a crime to tap a telephone wire?”
Mason looked him full in the eyes. “No,” he said; “is it?”
For a moment there was the suggestion of a twinkle in Reedley’s eyes. Then he said, “All right. You’ve put some cards on the table. I’ll match them. I heard that my wife was interested in someone else. I wanted to find out. I put shadows on her. They’ve been on her for two or three days. This man Hines apparently has been in and out. He’s taken her and her chaperone out to dinner, but my wife has never seen him alone. I couldn’t figure the deal. However, one of the detectives picked up some information from the police which interests me. When they made a search of the body, they found that Hines had a key to my wife’s apartment. It’s important to the police and it’s important to me to find out how long he’d had it, and how he got it—and why.”