The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

by The Case of the Borrowed Brunette (retail) (epub)

  Her eyes twinkled at him. “And you remember I wasn’t a darn bit worried about not having a permit for it. That’s because I didn’t really have any gun—so naturally I wasn’t worried at all.”

  Eva interrupted. “But I always thought you carried a gun. You told me you did, several times, Aunt Adelle.”

  Mrs. Winters chuckled delightedly. “Well, it made you feel safer because I told you that, didn’t it? I’ll run a bluff, but when something like this comes up, there’s no percentage in sticking your neck out.”

  Mason was watching her with a puzzled frown on his forehead. “Now, let’s be frank about this,” he said. “If you did have a gun, the police are pretty likely to find out you had it. Then if you deny it . . .”

  “Good heavens, Mr. Mason, what a fuss you make over what was just a plain bluff! I never carried a gun in my life.”

  “That’s your final answer?”

  “Of course it is. It’s the truth.”

  “How long had Hines been dead when you found him?”

  “Well, I couldn’t say. The body was still warm, but . . . well, sort of lukewarm. It’s pretty hard to tell about the temperature of a body without putting your hand inside the clothes somewhere. I just touched his wrist. His coat was hung on the chair.”

  “Felt for his pulse?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Touch anything else?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t go through the clothes at all?”

  “Good heavens, why should I go through his clothes?”

  “Were you with her all the time?” Mason asked, turning to Eva Martell.

  “What’s the idea of asking questions like that?” Adelle Winters exclaimed irritably. “That’s the same sort of stuff the police have been asking.”

  “I was just trying to find out.”

  “Yes, I was with her all the time,” Eva Martell said.

  “How about when you were telephoning to me?”

  “Well, that was just a second or two.”

  “And you’ve been together all day?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Every minute of the time?”

  “Every single solitary minute.”

  “Well, that’s going to help.”

  “That’s the way the police looked at it,” Adelle Winters said.

  “Did the officers ask you how you happened to be living in that apartment?”

  “Of course they did.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Told them the complete truth.”

  “You told them all about Hines and how he had hired you?”

  “Yes.”

  “To impersonate Helen Reedley?”

  “We weren’t impersonating anyone,” Adelle Winters said. “We took a job and he asked us to take a certain name for the job.”

  “But you told them about me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “About how I got in touch with Helen Reedley?”

  “Well, no,” Adelle Winters said. “We didn’t tell them too much.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “We told them that we had this job and that you told us you didn’t want us to go ahead with it until you were positive it was all right, so that we wouldn’t be guilty of any crime. So we said you investigated and reported that it was all right; so then we went shopping, had dinner, and returned to the apartment. And when we returned, we found the body.”

  “You didn’t tell them about being shadowed?”

  “No.”

  “And did you tell them anything else?”

  “What else is there to tell? We just were hired and went to work, and that’s all there was to it. We didn’t know what the job was, but we certainly weren’t impersonating anyone. And we didn’t defraud anyone.”

  “Did the police seem to think there was some scheme back of it?”

  “No, to tell you the truth, Mr. Mason, the police didn’t seem so interested in that part. They seemed to know Hines—he had a police record for racetrack gambling. They didn’t even ask us for the phone number where we’d been calling him, and so we didn’t give it to them. I think they’d talked with some of the men who had been shadowing us. I don’t know for certain, but I think so. I saw one of them waiting there in the apartment house and thought he was waiting to be questioned.”

  Mason said, “I guess they probably already had a statement from him. As a matter of fact, those were two detectives who had been hired to keep an eye on you. They’d been following you everywhere you went ever since you’d been on the job.”

  “Well now, isn’t that something!” Adelle Winters exclaimed. “Great goings-on when a couple of respectable women are trying to make an honest living and detectives start traipsing around after them.”

  “Did the police tell you to keep in touch with them?”

  “No. I told them I’d be at my apartment, and Eva Martell told them she’d be back with Cora Felton. The police took the addresses and said they’d get in touch with us if there was anything else they wanted. But they seem to think it was a gambling murder.”

  “Oh,” said Mason. “Well, I guess that’s about all, then.”

  Adelle Winters got to her feet and nodded to Eva Martell. “We thought we’d drop in and tell you, Mr. Mason—you’ve been so nice to us.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “I guess . . . Well, Cora Felton hired you to see that everything was all right with us, and I guess now . . . Well, I guess there’s nothing more to do. We don’t want to run up too much of a bill, you know.”

  Mason laughed. “You won’t.”

  “But we don’t want you to be loser either, Mr. Mason. There isn’t anything more to do now, is there?”

  “It’s hard to say just what the situation is.”

  “Well, I think it would be better if you just—you know—let the whole thing drop and tell us how much we owe you, and that’ll be that. We’ll pay up. And how about this extra money we got from Hines? The amount that was over what we had coming to us?”

  “Did you tell the police about that?”

  “Well, no, I didn’t. I told them he’d paid us up to date, and they didn’t ask me how much, so I didn’t tell them.”

  “Well, that’s right. You are paid up to date. In any event, the police won’t have anything to do with that phase of it. That will be up to the executor of Hines’s estate.”

  “You mean that we don’t need to tell anyone just how much we received?”

  “Not until the executor asks you. And then you can tell him that what you got was as a payment for services performed and in the nature of a guarantee that the contract would be carried out—so that if anything interfered you’d be assured of your money.”

  “I see. Thank you, Mr. Mason. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Mason said.

  Eva Martell, turning impulsively, gave Mason her hand and a flash of gratitude from dark eyes. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “You’ve been so kind. Will we see you again?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I thought perhaps you’d drop in and have a drink with us, and there might be some questions you’d want to ask some time in the future.”

  “There won’t be a thing,” Adelle Winters said positively. “The case is all closed as far as Mr. Mason is concerned. Come on, Eva.”

  A few minutes after they had left, Mason’s private phone rang. Since only Della Street and Paul Drake knew that number, Mason scooped up the receiver and said, “Yes, hello, Paul. What is it?”

  “Something red-hot, Perry. And I mean it is red-hot.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Well, the police got those Interstate men on the carpet and gave them a pretty thorough grilling. They made the boys kick through with everything they had.”

  “Naturally the police would do that,” Mason said. “What happened?”

  “Well, the boys turned in their notes, giving a complete picture of what had been done with shad
owing operations on the two women, telling exactly where they went, the license numbers of the cabs they took—all that kind of thing.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Mason asked.

  “Well, it seems that at two-twenty this afternoon, very shortly after the two women got to that hotel where they went and waited, Adelle Winters went exploring. In a passageway she found a lot of garbage cans from the kitchen waiting to be picked up by the garbage man. She lifted the cover of one of the garbage cans and looked in. The man who was shadowing her made a note of what she had done, but didn’t pay much attention to it.”

  “Okay, Paul, go ahead. What happened?”

  “Well,” Drake said, “the police did pay some attention to it, as a matter of routine check-up; they thought she might have been ditching something. They rushed a couple of the boys down to the hotel. By that time the cans were pretty well filled with garbage, but the Interstate man was able to point out the one that Mrs. Winters had looked into. So the police spread out a canvas and dumped out the contents—and what do you think they found?”

  “Well—what?”

  “A .32-caliber revolver with one chamber fired,” Drake said.

  Mason whistled.

  “And,” Drake went on, “the bullets were of a certain old-fashioned obsolete type. Exactly the same as the bullet the autopsy surgeon has taken from the head of Robert Hines. Of course, they haven’t made tests in the Ballistics Department yet to make certain that the bullet was fired from that particular gun. But nine hundred and ninety-nine chances out of a thousand it was. That mean anything to you, Perry?”

  “It means a hell of a lot to me. Della!” Mason shouted, turning from the phone, “sprint down the corridor. Try and get those women before they get to the elevator and bring them back. Wait a minute—Paul, you’re closer to the elevator—dash out and stop them. They’ve just left the office.”

  “Right away,” Drake said, and slammed up the receiver.

  Ten minutes later Drake was back in Mason’s office. “Missed them at the elevator, Perry. There’s only one cage running at this hour of night. By the time I managed to get it up to this floor they’d had time enough to make a getaway. I got out of the car and took a look around the block, but couldn’t see anyone answering the description of the pair you wanted. According to the elevator man, they must have had a head start of a minute and a half or two minutes, which is a lot of time in a situation of this sort.”

  “Well, I know where they live,” Mason said, “and I can get them. But I’ve got to see them before the police do.”

  Drake grinned. “And the police would like to see them before you do. Is she your client, Perry—the Winters woman?”

  “I don’t think she is. I was retained to look out for Eva.”

  “Of course,” Drake pointed out, “the girl could have a clean nose. The Winters woman could have been a lone wolf. By the way, Perry, Eva Martell told the police Hines’d had a wallet pretty well stacked with dough. It wasn’t there when the police searched.”

  “He had a wallet all right. You say there was no money on the body?”

  “Less than ten bucks.”

  “Did Eva say she was with Adelle Winters all the time?”

  “Every minute. That’s why the police let ’em go. Their story seemed okay, and each of ’em gave an alibi for the other.”

  Mason said, “But Eva Martell wasn’t with her all the time—I know that much. She was talking with me on the telephone for a while, and . . . Gosh, Paul, I’d like to get hold of her and get her to change her statement and tell the truth. I suppose the old gal has a lot of influence over her—though even at that, you can’t see Eva standing by while her friend pumped the .32 bullet between Hines’s eyebrows. It must have been that when they left the apartment Mrs. Winters stayed on for a few minutes and then joined Eva Martell on the sidewalk; or perhaps after they had left the apartment Mrs. Winters thought of something she had forgotten and went back to get it. Then, later on, after they’d ‘found’ the corpse, Mrs. Winters could have told Eva it would simplify matters for her if Eva would swear they’d been together all the time. And Eva, thinking that of course there was no possible chance her friend had committed a murder, gave the police that story.”

  “Well,” Drake said, “I’m sure sorry I couldn’t catch up with them. I cruised around the block. They must have had a cab.”

  “It’s all right,” Mason said. “I’d like to have caught up with them, but I think I can reach them. What was that number Cora Felton left us, Della? That’s where Eva will be going. Put through a call and . . . I’ll tell you what you do: get Cora Felton on the line.”

  Della Street nodded, consulted the file cards that listed clients’ telephone numbers, and put through the call.

  They waited an anxious ten seconds. Then Della shook her head. “No answer.”

  Mason said, “Do we have the number of Adelle Winters’s place?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “There’s not one chance in a hundred that the police won’t be on the job there. They’ll nail her the minute she shows up. But see what you can do, Della.”

  Della Street tried that number without success.

  “All right. Try Cora Felton again.”

  Again there was no answer.

  “I guess there’s only one thing to do, Paul,” said Mason. “You and I will go down and wait at Cora Felton’s apartment. Della will stay here.

  “Della, in case Eva Martell telephones, which she may do, get her out of circulation and notify me. In the meantime, I’ll have my car and be waiting at the girls’ apartment. If I can get her before the police do, I’ll see what can be done. Come on, Paul.”

  8

  WITH PAUL Drake sitting in silence beside him, Mason drove out to Cora Felton’s apartment house. He cruised slowly around the block, cautiously sizing up the situation. There were two cars parked within half a block of each other, and two men occupied each of the cars. One car was up the street from the apartment house entrance; the other was down the street. Both cars were so parked, however, that the men inside could watch the entrance. They were husky, well-fed, broad-shouldered. Mason, sizing them up, dared not circle the block more than once.

  “What do you make of it, Paul?” he asked.

  “Nothing to it,” Drake said. “The cops have the place sewed up.”

  “Of course they don’t know Cora Felton.”

  “Don’t be too sure. They’ve probably talked with the manager of the apartment house. They knew all about where your client was living, and with whom she’s living. They’ve got a description of Cora Felton and they’ll nail her just on general principles. They don’t want anyone left in the apartment and answering the telephone.”

  “I suppose so,” Mason said. “Hang it, I hate to give up—it seems like throwing the kid to the wolves. Say, Paul, there’s a chance that those two mightn’t squander money on a taxicab. Where’s the nearest streetcar line? You know the city.”

  “Three blocks down the street.”

  “Which way?”

  “Straight ahead,” Drake said.

  Mason drove rapidly until he reached a line of car tracks, then swung in to the curb, parked the car, shut off the motor, and switched off the headlights. “This is the only chance we have, Paul. Any sign of cops?”

  “None that I can see. They’ve set their trap back at the apartment.”

  Mason was drawing on a cigarette. “At this hour of the night,” he said thoughtfully, “the streetcars run only every fifteen or twenty minutes. If those two caught a streetcar in front of our office building, they should be getting here about now.”

  “Say, wait a minute—what’ll you do if they do show up?”

  “Talk with them,” Mason said laconically.

  “And then turn them over to the police, of course? After you’ve heard their story?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Drake said. “You know what the police found out ab
out Adelle Winters.”

  “Well?”

  “You know what that means. She killed him. It may have been in self-defense, or it may not. But she did kill him, and she tried to lie out of it. And Eva Martell is mixed in it right along with Adelle.”

  “Well?”

  “You keep them out of circulation, knowing the police are looking for them on a murder rap, and that makes you an accessory. I don’t think I want to get mixed up in that sort of deal. . . .”

  “Make up your mind, Paul. Here comes a streetcar.”

  “My mind’s made up. If you’re going to keep them from the police, I’m going to bail out.”

  The streetcar was plainly visible now. “You can probably get a taxi without much trouble,” Mason said.

  “It doesn’t make any difference how much trouble it is, I’m taking a powder. That car’s stopping—and there are two women getting ready to get out. Good night, Perry.”

  “ ’Night, Paul,” Mason said, adding in an undertone, “Don’t let the police catch you hanging around the neighborhood.”

  Drake paused. “Perry, have a heart! Don’t stick your neck out on this thing. Talk with them, and then notify the police. The police will get them anyway.”

  “I’ll probably do that.”

  “Promise?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I may change my mind after I hear what they tell me. Here they are, Paul.”

  “On my way,” Drake said. “And I think I’ll stay on this streetcar until I get clean out of the neighborhood!”

  He gave a shrill whistle and sprinted for the car. Mason switched on his headlights, turned his car around and, when the two women were abreast of him, opened the door. “Hello, Eva,” he said. “Is that Mrs. Winters with you?”

  It was Cora Felton who answered. “Well, I like that!”

  Mason laughed. “In this light, all I could make out was just two figures. How about a lift?”

  “The apartment’s only two or three blocks away, but that’ll be fine.”

  “I want to talk with you a minute before you go to the apartment. You have company there.”

  “Who?” Eva Martell asked.

  “The police.”

  “But we’ve already talked with them. At least I have.”