The Case of the Baited Hook

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “I have several attorneys,” Tidings said, evasively.

  “Can you tell me which lawyer will be handling this particular case?”

  “None of them,” Tidings said. “It’s all bosh. I tell you there’s nothing to it, but one thing I will tell you, Mason. If that woman doesn’t quit her whispering campaign of poison propaganda, I’m going after her. Byrl’s a swell girl. We get along fine, but that old buzzard is poison and she’s laying up trouble for herself. She’s a chiseler and is just trying to make Byrl dissatisfied so as to feather her own nest. I’m going after her if she doesn’t quit. You can tell her that straight from me.”

  “Tell her straight from yourself,” Mason said. “I only called up to cancel an appointment.”

  Tidings laughed. “All right. All right. I didn’t mean it that way, Mason, but I’m getting irritated. . . . All right. Call up whenever you want to see me. Your secretary and mine can doubtless get together. Good-by.”

  Mason dropped the telephone receiver into place, pushed back his chair, got to his feet, and started slowly pacing the office.

  3.

  PERRY MASON was lying in bed reading when the telephone rang. He had been about to turn off the light, and there was a frown on his face as he picked up the receiver.

  Della Street’s voice greeted him. “Hello, Chief. How about the evening paper?”

  “What about it?”

  “Did you read it?”

  “I glanced through it. Why?”

  “I notice,” she said, “that auditors have been called in to examine the books of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital. Charges of mismanagement of funds have been made by a member of the Hastings family. A firm of certified public accountants were called on to make a preliminary audit of the books. The endowment funds are held in a trust administered by a board of three trustees. The members of that board of trustees are Albert Tidings, Robert Peltham, and a Parker C. Stell.”

  For several thoughtful seconds Mason was silent, then he said, “I guess that’s what Peltham meant when he said I’d learn about him in the papers.”

  “Get this,” Della Street went on, speaking hurriedly. “I didn’t intend to disturb you over that newspaper business. I clipped the item out of the paper and figured it would keep until morning, but I was getting ready for bed and turned the radio on to get the evening broadcast. A news item came through that early this evening police investigated a parked automobile which had been found in a vacant lot, discovered that there were bloodstains on the seat cushion. A man’s bloodstained topcoat was found pushed down on the floor boards near the gearshift lever. There was a bullet hole in the left side of the coat. The car was registered in the name of Albert Tidings, and a handkerchief in the right-hand pocket of the raincoat had Albert Tidings’ laundry mark and some lipstick on it. A check-up shows that Tidings hasn’t been seen since shortly before noon, when his secretary said he went out without saying where he was going.”

  Mason digested the information and said, “Now that’s something. Any other clues?”

  “Apparently that’s all that found its way to the last minute news flashes. . . . Want me to call up Paul Drake and start him working on it?”

  Mason said, “I’d better call him myself, Della.”

  “Look like the plot’s thickening?” she asked.

  “Positively curdled,” he agreed, cheerfully. “It’s like Thousand Island dressing. . . . Almost as bad as the cream gravy I tried to make on that hunting trip last fall.”

  “Can I do anything to help, Chief?”

  “I don’t think so, Della. I don’t think I’ll do very much. After all, we’ll be hearing from Mrs. Tump on this, and in one way this will simplify matters.”

  “Sounds more complicated to me,” she said.

  “No. It’ll work the other way. With the charges made in connection with the trust fund of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital, a court would want a pretty thorough accounting from Tidings on the Gailord trust. Tidings won’t dare to let us drag him into court on that now. He’ll make all sorts of concessions—that is, if he wasn’t inside of that coat when the bullet went through. If he was, and should pass out of the picture, we’ll then be in a position to have another trustee appointed and get an accounting from Tidings’ administrator. . . . What worries me is the lipstick on the handkerchief in his coat pocket.”

  “Getting narrow-minded, Chief?” she asked banteringly.

  “I was just wondering if the girl who owned that lipstick didn’t perhaps have part of a ten-thousand-dollar bill in her purse. . . . I’m getting a complex about that bill, Della. I’m afraid to go to sleep for fear I’ll dream of chasing a witch who turns herself into a beautiful young woman poking a part of a ten-thousand-dollar bill under my nose.”

  Della Street said, “More apt to be a beautiful young woman who turns into a witch. . . . Let me know if you want anything, Chief.”

  “I will. Thanks for calling, Della. ’Night.”

  “ ’Night, Chief.”

  Mason rang up the Drake Detective Agency. “Paul Drake—is he where you can reach him?” he asked of the night operator at Drake’s switchboard.

  “I think so, yes.”

  “This is Perry Mason calling. I’m at my apartment. Tell him to give me a ring soon as he can. It’s important.”

  “Okay, Mr. Mason. I should have him within fifteen minutes.”

  Mason slipped out of bed, put on bathrobe and slippers, lit a cigarette, and stood in frowning concentration, his feet spread apart, his eyes staring intently down at the carpet. From time to time he raised the cigarette to his lips, inhaling slow deliberate drags.

  The ringing of the telephone aroused him from his concentration. He picked up the instrument, and Paul Drake’s drawling voice said, “Hello, Perry. I was wondering whether to call you tonight or wait until tomorrow morning. I’ve got some information on Tidings.”

  “What is it?” Mason asked.

  “Oh, a bit of this and that,” Drake said. “A bit of background, some gossip, and a little deduction.”

  “Let’s have the high lights.”

  Drake said, “He’s married. Been married twice. The first time to a Marjorie Gailord, a widow with a daughter. They lived together four or five years, then Marjorie died. A while later, Tidings married Nadine Holmes, an actress, twenty-eight, brunette, and class. They lived together about six months. She left him. He more or less publicly accused her of infidelity. She filed suit for divorce on grounds of cruelty, and then suddenly dismissed the action. Rumor is that after his lawyers told her lawyers what they had on her, she decided to be a good girl; but she won’t go back and live with him, and he won’t give her a divorce. He’s either crazy about her or just plain mean.

  “He’s in the brokerage business, also director in a bank, reputed to be pretty well fixed. He’s one of the trustees of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital, and Adelle Hastings doesn’t like him. They’ve had some differences, which culminated when Miss Hastings demanded an audit of the books of the trustees. She seems to have something rather definite to work on.”

  “Who is she?” Mason asked.

  “Granddaughter of the original Hastings,” Drake said. “The money in the family ran out along in the depression. She could sure use some of that money which the old grandfather scattered around to charity. She’s poor but proud, thinks a lot of the family name, and points with pride to the hospital.”

  “Does she have anything at all?” Mason asked.

  “Nothing except looks and social standing. She’s working as a secretary somewhere, but the bluebloods all recognize her as being one of the social elite. She works during the week and goes out on millionaires’ yachts and to swell country estates over week-ends. Some of her friends have tried to give her good-paying jobs, but she figures they’re just making things easy for her. She prefers to stand on her own.”

  Mason said, “Okay, Paul. Now I’ve got something for you. Beat it down to police headquarters. They found
Tidings’ car parked in a vacant lot somewhere with blood on it and a topcoat with a bullet hole through it. Apparently, the coat belonged to Tidings, and he may have had it on when the bullet went through.”

  Drake said, “That’s something! How did you get it, Perry?”

  “Last minute flash on the news broadcast. Della phoned me a few minutes ago.”

  Drake said, “I’ll get on the job. Want me to do any investigating on that car business?”

  “Just tag along behind the police,” Mason said. “Don’t bother to do anything on your own hook as yet. Just gather facts and keep me posted.”

  “Call you later on?” Drake asked.

  “No,” Mason said. “I’m going to sleep. They dragged me up in the wee small hours this morning.”

  “I heard about that,” Drake said. “By the way, Perry, that man the boys were covering for you was also on the board of trustees of the hospital with Tidings. . . . I presume you knew that.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Mean anything?” Drake asked.

  “I think so,” Mason said, “but I don’t know what—not yet.”

  “Want me to do any work on that angle?”

  “I don’t think so, Paul. I don’t know just where I stand yet. Pick up what information you can without going to too much expense. Don’t bother with it personally. Just put a good leg man on it, and we’ll check over the dope in the morning.”

  “Okay,” Drake said.

  “Here’s something I am interested in, Paul,” Mason went on.

  “Shoot.”

  “This has to be handled with kid gloves. I want the dope on it, and I want it just as fast as you can get it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Robert Peltham,” Mason said. “He must never know that I’m making the investigation, but I want to find out whom he’s sweet on. I tried to telephone him this afternoon. He wasn’t in, and his secretary said she didn’t know when he’d be in. She was delightfully vague.”

  “Isn’t he married?” Drake asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mason said. “If he is, my best hunch is that his wife isn’t the center of attraction.”

  “If he’s married, he’ll keep his love affairs pretty well covered up,” Drake warned. “I may not be able to get you anything on it for a day or two.”

  “I’d like very much to have it before two o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” Mason said. “See what you can do, Paul.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  Mason hung up the telephone, stretched out on the bed, picked up a book, and tried to resume his reading. He couldn’t get interested in the book, nor on the other hand did he feel like sleeping. He tossed the book to the floor, sat up in a chair by the window, smoked three cigarettes, then turned off the lights, raised the windows, and got into bed. It was an hour before he dropped off to sleep.

  By ten o’clock in the morning when he reached the office, events were gathering mass and momentum like a huge snowball rolling down a steep slope.

  The preliminary investigations of the auditors had uncovered what amounted to a serious shortage in the trust funds of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital. They were baffled, however, by the fact that all check stubs, all cancelled checks, and the check ledgers had disappeared. From the remaining books and available data, however, it was evident that some two hundred thousand dollars had been checked out of trust funds, and apparently this sum was not reflected in current assets or legitimate operating expenses. In view of the fact that the trustees had the discretionary right to sell stocks and bonds or other holdings and re-invest the proceeds, the auditors pointed out that it would be necessary to follow the trail of tangible assets through a complicated series of transactions in order to get an accurate picture.

  Because withdrawals from the trust fund could be made only by checks signed by Albert Tidings and one other trustee, it appeared that there were what the newspaper cautiously referred to as “grave and far-reaching implications.” The newspaper account mentioned that Robert Peltham was reported to be out of town on business. His office would give no information as to where the architect could be reached. Albert Tidings had mysteriously disappeared. Police, frantically working on clues in connection with the finding of Tidings’ automobile with the telltale stains on the front seat and the bullet-pierced topcoat, were making a determined effort to learn more of where Tidings had gone after leaving his office. They had run up against a blank wall.

  Parker C. Stell, the other member of the board of trustees, had consulted the firm of certified public accountants as soon as he knew that the investigation was under way. He had placed his own bookkeeping facilities at the disposal of the accountants. He announced he was deeply shocked and anxious to render every assistance possible. He said that he had been called on from time to time at the request of Tidings to sign some checks, that he thought Peltham had been the one who signed most of the checks with Tidings. He admitted that within what he termed “reasonable limitations” matters were left very much in Tidings’ hands, and signing many of the smaller checks was considered a matter of routine formality once Tidings’ name appeared on them. Larger checks, however, he said, were scrutinized carefully—at least those which he had signed with Tidings. These had represented monies paid out for securities in which the funds of the trust had been re-invested. The books of the trust fund had, he believed, been kept exclusively by Tidings who submitted detailed reports from time to time as to the state of the trust fund.

  Adelle Hastings had not minced words in her characterization of the members of the board who administered the trust funds. Albert Tidings she accused of criminal mismanagement, Parker Stell of credulous inefficiency, and as for Robert Peltham, she insisted that he was honest, upright, and conscientious, and that Albert Tidings would never have dared submit any checks to him for signature which were not actual bona fide trust fund withdrawals.

  Mason looked up from reading the newspaper to say to Della Street, “Well, I guess this is what he had reference to. . . . Strange, however, that it broke twenty-four hours later than he had anticipated.”

  She nodded, then after a moment said, “Chief, do you notice something peculiar about that?”

  “What?”

  “The way Adelle Hastings sticks up for Robert Peltham. After all, you know, Tidings has disappeared. That bloodstained coat could well be a blind to throw police off the track. Peltham has skipped out. Parker Stell is available and doing everything he can. Yet she accuses him of credulity and inefficiency.”

  “Keep it up,” Mason encouraged. “You’re doing fine, Della. If you can think this thing out, I won’t have to work up a headache wrestling with a lot of confusing facts.”

  She said, “Miss Hastings apparently had some pretty definite information as to what was going on, something on which she could base definite accusations.”

  Mason nodded.

  “She went to the bat and blew the lid off,” Della Street said. “Now according to all outward indications, Peltham is just as deep in the mud as Tidings is in the mire, but Adelle Hastings sticks up for him. Parker Stell, judging from newspaper accounts, is the only one who is doing the logical, reasonable, manly thing. Yet Miss Hastings doesn’t hesitate to accuse him of inefficiency.”

  “You mean,” Mason asked, “that you think Adelle Hastings got her inside information as to what was going on from Robert Peltham?”

  She said, “Goosy, wake up. I mean that Adelle Hastings holds the other half of the ten-thousand-dollar bill which we have in the safe.”

  Mason sat bolt upright in his chair. “Now,” he said, “you have got something.”

  “Well,” she went on, “it’s just guesswork, but I can’t figure Miss Hastings on any other basis. As one woman judging another woman, I’d say she was in love with Peltham. . . . At any rate, she has a faith in him which doesn’t seem entirely justified by the circumstances, and she’s taking pains to make that faith public.

  “The rest of it all fits in. You can see wha
t would happen if it should appear that Peltham, as one of the trustees, had been carrying on a surreptitious intimacy with Adelle Hastings.”

  “But why should it be surreptitious?” Mason asked. “Why couldn’t he have courted the girl or gone out and married her? . . . assuming, of course, he wasn’t already married.”

  Della Street said, “Probably because of things we’ll find out later on. I’m just offering to bet that that Hastings girl holds the other half of your ten-thousand-dollar bill.”

  Mason was reaching for a cigarette when Paul Drake’s knock sounded on the door which opened from Mason’s private office to the corridor.

  “That’ll be Paul, Della,” he said. “Let him in. . . . By George, the more I think of it, the more I believe you’re right. That, of course, would mean that there’d be no objection on Peltham’s part to our taking that Gailord case. . . . But I have ideas about Mrs. Tump.”

  “What sort of ideas?” she asked, opening the door to Paul Drake.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Mason said. “Hello, Paul.”

  Paul Drake was tall and languid. He spoke with a drawl, walked with a long, slow-paced stride. He was thinner than Mason, seldom stood fully erect, but had a habit of slouching against a desk, a filing cabinet, or slumping to a languid seat on the arm of a chair. He gave the impression of having but little energy to waste and wishing to conserve that which he had.

  “Hi, Perry. Hi, Della,” Drake said, and walked over to the big leather chair. He dropped down with a contented sigh into the deep cushions, then after a moment raised his feet and twisted around so that his back was propped against one arm of the chair while his knees dangled over the other. “Well, Perry,” he said, “I’ve got to hand it to you.”

  “What is it this time?” Mason asked.

  “You sure can pick goofy cases. Did you know all this business about Tidings was going to break?”

  Mason glanced at Della Street, then shook his head.

  Drake said, “How’d you like to get some dope on Tidings’ love-life, Perry?”

  “On the trail of something?” Mason asked.