The Case of the Baited Hook

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “That’s thoughtful of you,” she said. “Was it suicide?”

  “I don’t know,” Mason said. “I haven’t made any investigation.”

  “How about this detective?”

  “He’s a private detective employed by me.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “We thought Mr. Tidings might have come out here after he left his office Tuesday. Had you seen him lately?”

  “No. We—didn’t get along at all.”

  “Now then,” Mason asked, “would you mind telling me where you went on Monday afternoon?”

  “I drove nearly all night,” she said. “I was upset.”

  “And where did you drive?”

  “To a friend’s house. I spent a couple of days with her.”

  “You didn’t take much baggage,” Mason pointed out.

  “No. I decided to go on the spur of the moment. I’ve had—well, troubles of my own.”

  “Where does this friend live?”

  “In Reno.”

  “And you drove to Reno Monday?”

  “Yes. I got in about daylight Tuesday morning. I felt a lot better after the drive.”

  “And you’ve been there ever since?”

  “Until late last night. I left about ten o’clock.”

  “Where did you stay last night?”

  She laughed nervously, and shook her head. “I don’t drive that way. When I want to go some place, I start driving. When I get sleepy, I pull off to the side of the road and get a few minutes’ sleep, then I start driving again. I much prefer to drive at night. I don’t like the glare of the sun on paved roads.”

  “You slept some last night?”

  “Yes, a few cat-naps here and there along the side of the road.”

  Mason said, “The officers will probably want to check your time pretty carefully. If you can give them all the data they need it will make it a lot easier for you. I’m just telling you as a friend. Here they come now.”

  A siren screamed up the hill. A police radio car finished the ascent, raced along the level stretch of roadway, and swerved sharply to park up against the curb. An officer jumped out of the car and came striding toward the house.

  Drake opened the door.

  The radio officer looked at Drake, pushed a foot through the door. “Which one of you telephoned Homicide?” he asked.

  “I did,” Drake said. “I’m a private detective.”

  “Your name Drake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Got a card on you?”

  Drake handed him a card.

  “How about the woman and this other guy?” the officer asked.

  “This is Mrs. Tidings. She came in right after I telephoned headquarters.”

  The officer stared at her suspiciously.

  “I just this minute returned from Reno,” she explained. “I drove.”

  “When did you leave there?”

  “Last night.”

  “She lives here,” Mason explained. “This is her house. She’s been visiting a friend in Reno for a couple of days.”

  “I see. And who are you? Oh, I place you now. You’re Perry Mason, the lawyer. What are you doing here?”

  “We came out to see Mr. Tidings.”

  “Find him?”

  “I think he’s the dead man in the next room.”

  “I thought you said this woman came here after you did.”

  “She did.”

  “Then how’d you get in?”

  “The door was unlocked and slightly ajar,” Mason said.

  “Well, Homicide will be here in a minute or two. The radio dispatcher rushed us out to hold things until Homicide could get here. You haven’t touched anything, have you?”

  “No, nothing important.”

  “Doorknobs and things like that?”

  “Perhaps.”

  The officer frowned. “Okay,” he said. “Get out. It’s a pleasant day. You can wait outside as well as in. Let’s not get any more fingerprints around. . . . You didn’t touch the body, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Go through the clothes?”

  “No.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In that bedroom.”

  “Okay,” the officer said. “Go on out. . . . What’s this—blood on the floor?”

  “That’s what led us to the corpse,” Mason said. “We noticed the bloodstains on the floor. You notice they go from the outer threshold into the door of the bedroom.”

  “Okay,” the officer said. “Go on out. I’ll take a peek in that bedroom.” He opened the door, looked in, then stepped back and pulled the door shut.

  Mason said, “There’s some reason to believe the body is that of Albert Tidings, this woman’s husband. Wouldn’t it be well to have her make an identification?”

  “She can do that when Homicide gets here,” the radio officer said. “I’m just keeping the evidence lined up. Go on. Out with you. I’ll call you if I want anything.”

  Mason led the way out into the fresh air and warm sunlight. The radio officer followed them to the door and called to his partner, who sat behind the wheel of the radio car. “Keep an eye on this outfit, Jack. There’s a stiff in here. It’s a job for Homicide right enough.”

  He stepped back inside the house and slammed the door.

  Mason offered Mrs. Tidings a cigarette, which she accepted gratefully. Drake shook his head in refusal. Mason placed one between his own lips, and snapped a match into flame. As he held the light to Mrs. Tidings’ cigarette, the grind of a motor running fast in second gear could be heard from the grade.

  “That’ll be Homicide,” Mason said.

  The Homicide car flashed swiftly around the turn, hit the more level stretch of roadway along the ridge, and swept down upon them. Men jumped out. The radio officer got out from his car and reported in a low voice. The other radio officer appeared at the door of the house. “In here, boys,” he said.

  Sergeant Holcomb strode across to Mason. “Hello, Mason.”

  “Good morning, Sergeant.”

  “How’s it happen you’re here?”

  “I had some business with Albert Tidings,” Mason said. “I had a tip I could find him here.”

  “Did you?”

  “I think it’s his body,” Mason said. “On a guess, I’d say it had been here at least since yesterday afternoon. The gas heat’s turned on, and the windows and doors are tightly closed. That’s a condition you’ll have to take into consideration in determining the time of death.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “About half an hour ago.”

  “You didn’t have any reason to think you’d find a body?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve seen him before?”

  “No.”

  “Talked with him over the telephone?”

  “I called his office yesterday, yes.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know. I would say it was shortly before eleven o’clock.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I had a tentative appointment with him,” Mason said. “I wanted to cancel it, and make one at a later date.”

  “Have any argument?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What was your business with him?”

  Mason smiled and shook his head.

  “Come on,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “Kick through. If we’re going to solve a murder, we’ve got to have motives. If we knew something about that business you wanted to discuss with him, we might have a swell motive.”

  “And again,” Mason said, “you might not.”

  Sergeant Holcomb clamped his lips shut. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t leave here until I tell you you can. . . . That your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s the other one belong to?”

  “Mrs. Tidings . . . Mrs. Tidings, may I present Sergeant Holcomb?”

  Sergeant Holcomb didn’t remove his hat. “What are you to him?” he asked.

/>   “His wife.”

  “Living with him?”

  “No. We’ve separated.”

  “Divorced?”

  “No, not yet. . . . That is, no. I haven’t divorced him.”

  “Why not?”

  She flushed. “I prefer not to discuss that.”

  “You’ll have to, sooner or later,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I don’t want to pry into your private affairs, just to be doing it, but you can’t hold out on the police. You stick right around here. I’m going in.”

  The others had already gone on into the house, and Sergeant Holcomb joined them. Mason dropped his cigarette to the cement, ground it out with the sole of his shoe.

  “Just as a matter of curiosity, Mrs. Tidings,” he said, “had your husband been here before?”

  “Once.”

  “On a friendly visit?”

  “A business visit.”

  “Was there some question of alimony between you?”

  “No. Well, it wasn’t serious. Alimony was a detail. I didn’t care about that.”

  “You wanted your freedom?”

  “Why do you ask these questions?”

  “Because it might help my client if I knew some of the answers, and the police are going to make you answer them anyway.”

  “Who,” she asked, “is your client?”

  Mason said, “I’m not ready to make any statements yet.”

  “Is it that Gailord girl?”

  “Why?” Mason asked. “What makes you think it’s she?”

  She watched him with narrowed eyes. “That,” she said, “isn’t answering my question.”

  Mason said, “And you aren’t answering mine.”

  He strode out to the curb to stand gazing thoughtfully. The radio officer watched him narrowly. Paul Drake stood close by, his manner seemingly detached.

  Suddenly Mason turned to Mrs. Tidings. He said, “You look like a nice girl.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You wouldn’t by any chance be trying to kid anyone, would you?” Mason asked.

  “Why, what do you mean, Mr. Mason?”

  Sergeant Holcomb opened the door of the house, motioned to Mrs. Tidings. “Come in here,” he said.

  Mason took his cigarette case from his pocket and carefully selected another cigarette. “Watch your step,” he said in a low voice, his eyes turned toward the distant horizon with its gleam of snow-capped mountains. “And if you have anything to say to me, you’d better say it now.”

  Mrs. Tidings shook her head in a swiftly decisive gesture of negation and walked firmly toward the house.

  5.

  DELLA STREET was waiting in the doorway of Mason’s private office as he came down the corridor. She beckoned to him to come in without going through the reception room of his office.

  “Someone laying for me, Della?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Tump and Byrl Gailord.”

  Mason said, “Her appointment wasn’t until two o’clock.”

  “I know it, but they’re all worked up about something. They say that they have to see you right away.”

  Mason said, “I thought I’d pick you up for a bite of lunch.”

  “I’ve tried to stall them off,” she said. “They won’t stall. . . . They’re biting fingernails and whispering.”

  “What’s the girl look like?”

  “Not what you’d call beautiful, but she has a swell figure, and she can turn on plenty of personality. Her features aren’t much, but she could get by in a bathing-girl parade anywhere. Her hair is darkish, her eyes black. She goes in for vivid coloring in clothes, throws lots of hand motions in with her talk, and seems full of life.”

  Mason said, “I’ll see them now and get it over with. . . . We ran into something out there, Della.”

  “What was it?”

  “Albert Tidings,” he said, “nicely drilled with a revolver shot, probably a thirty-eight caliber, not suicide because there were no powder burns on the clothes or skin; and the officers can’t find the fatal gun. There was a thirty-two caliber revolver in the right hip pocket. It hadn’t been fired, and it wasn’t the murder gun. What’s more, the officers can’t find Tidings’ shoes. There’s lipstick on his mouth.”

  “When was the body discovered?”

  “When we got there.”

  “You mean—you were the one who discovered it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Think Paul Drake had a hunch what you’d find?” she asked.

  “No, not Paul. He’d have had a fit. The police think we find too many corpses. Paul’s jittery about it.”

  “Well, you do get around, Chief,” she said.

  “I have to,” he told her, grinning. “I met Mrs. Tidings out there. She’d been visiting friends in Reno and walked in on us.”

  “What sort?” Della Street asked.

  “Class,” Mason said. “Took it like a little soldier. Stood up and told the officers frankly that she didn’t love him, that he’d been doing everything he could to make things difficult for her, that she wanted a divorce and he wouldn’t give her one. She was a little indefinite about his methods, but he evidently had something on her.”

  “Doesn’t that make her look like a logical suspect, Chief?” Della Street asked.

  “That’s what the officers seem to think. They’re going to check her alibi. Holcomb put through a long distance call to Reno while I was there. Apparently, there’s no question but what she was with friends just as she said. . . . However, I got my usual complex.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mason grinned. “Made a stab in the dark,” he said, “figuring that she might hold the other part of that ten-thousand-dollar bill.”

  “Any results?”

  “No. She couldn’t have been the one, anyway. She left town Monday afternoon. Her friends say she arrived in Reno before daylight. The Reno police are checking up, but it sounded pretty good over the telephone. Even Holcomb accepted it. . . . Well, let’s get Mrs. Tump and the Gailord girl in here and see how they react to the news.”

  “There won’t be any need for you to represent them if Tidings is dead, will there, Chief?”

  “Probably not,” he said. “I can keep an eye on things; but there’s nothing much to be done. The court will appoint another trustee.”

  “Mrs. Tump?” Della Street asked.

  Mason said, “Probably not. It’s more apt to be some trust company. The accounts will take a lot of going over.”

  “Want them in now?” Della Street asked.

  “Uh huh,” Mason said, and crossed over to the washstand. He ran water into the bowl and was drying his hands on the towel when Della Street ushered in Mrs. Tump and an attractive, willowy girl whose eyes flashed about the room in a swift glance, and then registered approval as they appraised Perry Mason.

  “This is Mr. Mason, Byrl,” Mrs. Tump said, and to Mason, “Byrl Gailord.”

  Mason caught a glimpse of red lips parted to disclose flashing teeth, of intense black eyes, and then Byrl Gailord’s hand was in his as she smiled up in his face. “I’m afraid I’m a nuisance, Mr. Mason,” she said, “but when I told Mrs. Tump about what you’d said over the telephone—you know, about investigating a hot tip—well, we just couldn’t wait.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Mason said. “The tip panned out. Won’t you sit down?”

  “What was it?” Mrs. Tump asked. “What have you found out?”

  Mason waited until they were seated. “Albert Tidings is dead,” he said. “We found his body stretched out on a bed in a bungalow owned by his wife. We notified the police. He’d been shot in the left side. Police can’t find the gun. There was one in his pocket, but it hadn’t been fired, and it’s the wrong caliber anyway. There was a faint smudge of lipstick on his lips.”

  Byrl Gailord stifled a faint exclamation. Mrs. Tump stared at Mason with startled eyes. “You’re sure it was he?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Mason said. “Mrs. Tidings identified him.” />
  “The body was found in her house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was she?”

  “She’d been in Reno,” Mason said. “She happened to return at about the time we discovered the body.”

  Byrl Gailord said, simply, “I’m glad it wasn’t suicide. I’d always have felt that we—well, hounded him into it.”

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Tump said.

  “I couldn’t have helped feeling that way,” Byrl Gailord insisted. “I liked him a lot, although I distrusted him in some ways. I think he was the kind who would have taken a lot of financial liberties, figuring that things were going to turn out all right.”

  “He was a crook,” Mrs. Tump said. “His whole record shows it.”

  “He was very kind to me personally,” Byrl observed, biting her lip and fighting back tears.

  “Of course he was kind to you,” Mrs. Tump said. “He was embezzling your money. Why shouldn’t he have kidded you along? You were Santa Claus.”

  Byrl said, “The accounts may be out of balance, but his intentions were the best. If he’d made some poor investments, he’d have tried to plunge in order to get them back. I don’t think he’d deliberately embezzle any of my money, but I did resent his attitude towards you.”

  Mrs. Tump said nothing.

  “When . . . when did it happen?” Byrl Gailord asked, at length.

  “Sometime after noon on Tuesday,” Mason said. “The coroner rushed the body to an autopsy to have an examination made that would give him an exact time.”

  “And where does that leave Byrl?” Mrs. Tump asked.

  “The court will appoint another trustee,” Mason said. “There’ll be a complete check-up on the accounts.”

  Mrs. Tump met his eyes steadily. “Very well, Mr. Mason. Let’s be businesslike. . . . Does this mean that we don’t need your services?”

  Mason said, “Yes.”

  “I don’t see why,” Byrl Gailord said.

  “Because there’s nothing he can do now,” Mrs. Tump said. “There’s no need to pay Mr. Mason a fee if there’s nothing he can do.”

  “That’s right,” Mason agreed.

  “Isn’t there anything you can do?” Byrl Gailord asked. “No way in which you can—well, sort of look after my interests?”