“He was a friend.”
“Did he pay the rent?”
“No.”
“I know,” Mason said. “The reason you’re moving out is just that you want a change of scene every so often.”
She said nothing.
“Now let’s get the sketch,” Mason said. “Hines would take those telephone calls down here. Then what would he do?”
There was a bewildered expression in her eyes. “I never knew very much about Bob’s business,” Carlotta said.
“But you knew he’d get telephone calls at this number and then call someone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know who it was?”
“Not then.”
“And he’d tell her to call a certain number right away?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose you tell me about what happened yesterday. What do you know about the shooting?”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Mason.”
“Bob was a very dear friend,” she said. “He and I were going to be married. I thought a great deal of him. Then I found out he was keeping that woman.”
“What woman?”
“Why, that Helen Reedley.”
Mason flashed Drake a quick glance. “You mean that Robert Hines was keeping Helen Reedley?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen the papers this morning?”
“No. I was going to go out and get one—I don’t have any delivered. I usually get my news over the radio.”
“I see. Now how did you find out he was keeping Helen Reedley?”
“Well, he was acting strange for one thing, and then I found out about what was going on.”
“How?”
“I found he had another apartment key—the key to another apartment right here in this house.”
“Did you know the number of the apartment?”
“Yes, the number was stamped on it—Apartment 326.”
“And you knew who lived there?”
“I found out by looking on the apartment directory downstairs.”
“And learned that 326 was in the name of Helen Reedley?”
“Yes.”
“And she was this mysterious person that Hines had been telephoning to?”
“Well, I thought there was some connection—yes.”
“What happened when Hines went out? Were you supposed to transmit telephone messages to Helen?”
“No, he always left me a telephone number where I could get in touch with him at any time, and if I couldn’t reach him he’d call me back every half-hour. He was very particular about that.”
“And you didn’t know any of the details of his business?”
“No.”
“When did you find out about this key?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“And what did you do?”
“Looked up the apartment and found it was in the name of Helen Reedley.”
“And then asked him about it?”
“No. What good does it do to ask a man about the woman he’s two-timing you with? Don’t be silly!”
“What did you do?”
“Followed him when he went out yesterday afternoon. I listened to see if he rang for the elevator. He didn’t. He went down the stairs to the third floor.”
“And you trailed him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“Went into that woman’s apartment.”
“Did he knock?”
“Yes, he knocked and waited for a while. That gave me a chance to catch up with him. I could peek down the hall through the crack when I’d opened the stairway door an inch or two.”
“He got no answer?”
“No—but he went in. He took that key from his pocket, opened the door, and went in.”
“What did you do then?”
She looked at him, her expression suddenly hostile. “Say,” she demanded, “what business is all this of yours, anyway?”
Mason came back at her promptly. “You want to get tough, do you?”
“No—I just wondered . . .” Just as suddenly, she seemed deflated.
“Well, what did you do? Please answer my question!”
“Oh—I waited a while, and then I went along and knocked on the apartment door.”
“And then what?”
“There was no answer.”
“Did you say anything?”
“No. I just knocked three or four times. Then when no one came to the door, I knew the answer: he was in there with that woman.”
“What did you do?”
“I came back up to this apartment and started to pack. I wish now I’d made a scene, instead—I might have saved his life!”
“What time was it that he went to that apartment?”
“Just a little before two o’clock—perhaps five minutes of two.”
“And then what did you do?”
“There was no reason for me to stay here. I have a friend in Denver who is very fond of me, and he has been asking me to come to Denver. I suppose we would have gotten married. I like him a lot—but I liked Bob too.”
“And when did you hear of the murder?”
“Not until late last night. I heard some people talking about it in the lobby downstairs.”
“And you didn’t buy a paper?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t in the evening papers.”
“You haven’t been out to get one this morning?”
“No.”
“You’ve had breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“About an hour.”
“But didn’t go out to buy a paper?”
“No.”
“Your friend,” Mason said, “was murdered in this very apartment house, yet you didn’t even go out and get a paper so as to find out any details? You didn’t try to learn who murdered him?”
“Helen Reedley killed him! The police know that.”
“Have you ever seen Helen Reedley?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I met them the other day in the elevator, rode down with them. I got on here at the fourth floor, and those people, Helen Reedley and the older woman—her aunt or something—got on at the third.”
“And by that time you knew that Helen Reedley had beaten your time with Bob Hines?”
“Well . . . yes.”
“You didn’t say anything to her?”
“No.”
“Looked her over pretty carefully?”
“Naturally I would.”
Mason sat thoughtfully silent for a moment, studying the woman’s face. Then he said quietly, “Helen Reedley didn’t mean a thing to Bob Hines except in a financial way.”
“What are you saying? He had the key to her apartment. He—”
“Sure he did, but it wasn’t Helen Reedley who was in the apartment. She hired Bob Hines to get her a ringer.”
“What’s a ringer?”
“A double—someone who could take her place in the apartment and pretend to be Helen Reedley. Bob put an ad in a trade journal that’s read by actresses—an ad asking for a brunette of a certain type.”
Her eyes were wide and round now. “Are you . . . Is that the truth?”
Taking his wallet out, Mason showed her the advertisement.
She read it, and handed it back. Her lips twitched; she blinked back tears for a moment; then she suddenly pillowed her head on her arms and gave herself over to hysterical sobbing.
Mason waited until she had cried for a minute or two. Then he said gently, “So you see, Carlotta, your suspicions were entirely unfounded. When you killed him in a jealous rage you had no reason, no cause. Now suppose you tell us what actually happened.”
“I’ve told you,” she said, raising a tear-stained face.
“No, you haven’t. You went to that apartment and knocked. He wouldn’t open the door, so you called out that you knew he was in there. He opened the door
. You dashed in. He went into the bedroom, backing away from your anger, trying to explain. You saw the gun lying there on the sideboard. You were hysterical with anger. You grabbed it up and shot him!”
“Say, what are you trying to do? Frame a murder on me?”
“I want you to tell the truth. If that isn’t what happened, what did happen?”
“Say, why should I tell you everything? Why the hell should I tell you anything? Who are you anyway? Are you the police?”
“Just a minute. Let’s get some of this straight, anyway. After you found he was in that apartment, you didn’t do anything about it?”
“I came up and packed.”
“Who’s this friend of yours in Denver?”
“I’d rather not mention his name.”
“But I want to know who he is. I must know whether you communicated with him.”
“Well . . . I . . . I talked with him by long-distance last night.”
“From this apartment?”
“No, I went out and called him from a pay station.”
“What’s his name?”
“You can’t make me tell you.”
“But you did talk with him?”
“Yes.”
“And asked him if it was all right for you to come?”
“Yes.”
“What time was this?”
“I’m not going to tell you that.”
“As a matter of fact, didn’t you call him in the afternoon rather than the evening?”
“No.”
“What booth did you call him from?”
“I’m not going to answer any more questions. I don’t think you . . . Say, are you the police?”
Mason said quickly, “Look here, Carlotta, we’re investigating this crime. We want to find out everything we can about it. You want the murderer of Bob Hines to be brought to justice, don’t you?”
“Are you the police?”
“No. I’m a lawyer, and these two men are detectives.”
“Police detectives?”
“What difference does that make?” Mason asked. “Are you trying to conceal information?”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to tell everything I know to anybody who just walks in here and asks me. I thought you were the police.”
His eye on Della Street’s pencil flying over the shorthand notebook, Mason said, “I don’t know what gave you that impression. We didn’t say a word about being the police. I simply dropped in to ask you some questions. I told you my name was Mason. I’m Perry Mason, a lawyer.”
“Oh, so you’re Perry Mason!”
“Yes.”
“And what’s your interest in this?”
“I tell you I’m trying to find out who murdered Robert Hines.”
“Go to the police, then,” she said sullenly.
“I think I will. Your story is very interesting.”
“I was a fool to spill it to you. You—you scared me.”
“What were you afraid of?”
“None of your business.”
“You thought we were the police, and you were afraid of the police.”
She said nothing.
“Come, come,” Mason said. “You’ve told us enough, Carlotta, so that there’s nothing to be gained by trying to clam up now.”
“I wish you’d get out of here,” she said. “I want to finish packing. And I haven’t anything to say to you.”
“Carlotta, what was the first thing you saw when you went into Helen Reedley’s apartment yesterday afternoon?”
“I didn’t go in. I tell you I followed Bob, and . . . and I’m not going to say anything else. You can talk to me until you’re black in the face—I won’t give you any more information.”
“But you did see him go into that apartment?”
She sat rigidly silent.
“And you knew there was a gun on the dresser?”
Again there was no answer. Carlotta Tipton sat with her lips pressed in a firm, angry line.
Mason caught Della Street’s eye and said, “Well, I guess that’s all of it. Come on, folks.”
Silently they filed out of the apartment, leaving Carlotta Tipton regarding them sullenly from tear-swollen eyes.
Out in the corridor Drake said, “Well, Perry, what do you make of it?”
Mason grinned. “I don’t make anything of it, because I don’t have to make anything of it. That’s up to the police.”
“You think she killed him?”
“Sure she did. Get the sequence of events, Paul. Remember that Bob Hines had given Adelle Winters the number of Carlotta’s apartment where he was to be called. You can see the whole scheme now. If someone phoned Helen Reedley, Adelle Winters would answer, would say Helen was in the tub or something and would call back. Then she’d relay the message to Bob Hines. He had Helen Reedley staked out some place near a telephone, and he’d relay the message to her. She’d call her friend back, and there was no way for the friend to know where Helen was calling from.
“Now, here’s what must have happened yesterday afternoon. Following my instructions, Adelle Winters and Eva Martell left the Reedley apartment. When they got downstairs, Adelle Winters thought she ought to notify Hines that they were leaving. I hadn’t told her to, but she thought it would be a good thing. She called me first to see if she could get my permission. My line was busy. She waited a while and tried again, but kept getting the busy signal. So then she called the number Hines had given her, and got no answer at all. Now, get the significance of all that. Carlotta didn’t answer the telephone—the Hines number—which means that at the very period when Adelle Winters was waiting in the lobby, a period of five or ten minutes, there was no one in Carlotta Tipton’s apartment; Carlotta having started to follow Robert Hines down to the Reedley apartment. She had been doing a little detective work on her own and had found out that the man she loved had a key to another apartment in the building—an apartment listed in the name of Helen Reedley.”
“On the evidence you’ve got so far,” Drake said dubiously, “you’d have a hell of a time proving she murdered him.”
Mason grinned. “The district attorney will have a hell of a time proving she didn’t murder him. He has to establish his case against Adelle Winters beyond all reasonable doubt. I may not be able to prove that it was Carlotta Tipton who pulled the trigger on that gun, but I certainly can use her to throw a reasonable doubt on any case against Adelle Winters and Eva Martell.”
“You can for a fact,” Drake agreed.
“And now, Paul, we’ve got to find Helen Reedley.”
“The police have probably been looking for her,” Drake said. “They seem content with the case they’ve got, but they’ll want to get the Reedley woman just to round it out.”
Frank Holt, chewing on his unlighted cigar, said matter-of-factly, “I was taking a gander around the joint while you fellows were giving the dame the works. The telephone had a clip with a memorandum pad attached to it. I swiped that pad—here it is. One of those numbers may mean something to you.”
Mason looked down the list of numbers gleefully. “Paul,” he said, “it’s almost certain that one of these numbers is that of the hide-out where Helen Reedley was staying and receiving reports from Robert Hines. Get to work on those numbers just as fast as you can. How long will it take?”
“How many numbers are there?”
“About a dozen,” Holt said.
“It’s going to be a job, Perry, but I think I can get the information in—say—well, if I’m lucky, half an hour.”
“I’ll be at my office,” Mason said. “Get the information to me there and keep shadows on Carlotta. I don’t want to lose her.”
13
BACK IN his office Mason had no more than settled himself at his desk when his phone rang.
Drake’s voice had lost its characteristic drawl. “We’ve checked on three of those numbers, Perry.”
“What did you find?”
“One of them’s an apartment hotel�
��permanent and transient. Helen Reedley’s staying there under an assumed name.”
“Where are you now, Paul?”
“I’m calling from a drugstore down at Tenth and Washington.”
“How far is that from the hotel where Helen Reedley is?”
“Eight or ten blocks.”
“Wait there,” Mason said. “I’ll be right down.” He hung up the telephone and grabbed his hat.
“You wanted me to call Harry Gulling?” Della Street asked.
“Not now,” Mason called over his shoulder. “I’ll call him when I get back.”
Joining Paul Drake, Mason drove with him to the Yucca Arms Hotel.
“How’s she registered?” Mason asked.
“As Genevieve Jordan.”
“You’re sure it’s the same one?”
“Seems to be—she answers the description. We have her number, no use bothering with the desk. Just act important and go on up. We can get by.”
They rode up to Apartment 50-B and Mason knocked.
“Who is it?” a woman’s voice called.
“Mr. Mason.”
“I . . . I think you have the wrong apartment.”
“I don’t.”
“Who is it?”
“Perry Mason.”
“I . . . What? I don’t know you.”
“We can talk back and forth through the door, or I can come in. Which would you prefer?”
“Do whatever you please,” she said. “I don’t know you and I’m going to call the police if you don’t go away.”
Raising his voice, Mason called, “When your husband put detectives on your trail, and you decided to—”
There was the sound of a bolt being hastily thrown back. The door was flung open and indignant eyes blazed at Mason. She said bitterly, “I think you have the most obnoxious personality I have ever—” She broke off as she caught side of Paul Drake.
“Walk right in, Paul,” Mason said.
“Yes, please do,” she said sarcastically. “Any friend of Mr. Mason is always welcome, any time of the day or night! Come right in, do! Won’t you stay for dinner?”
Mason and Drake entered the apartment. As Mason closed the door behind him he said, “If you’d quit playing ring-around-the-rosy with us, Mrs. Reedley, I think we’d all be better off.”
“Do you indeed?”
Mason went on affably, “There’s no reason why we can’t be friends. You have quite a temper, and when it flares up you’re savage. But I’ve noticed that when you realize you’re licked, you dish up a smile and try some other angle. You’d have made a good lawyer.”
The Case of the Borrowed Brunette Page 12
