The Case of the Lazy Lover

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “We’d like to have some questions answered first.”

  Mason said, “We’re allergic to questions until we know what happened.”

  Inman said, “What the hell! I can take these women down and throw them in the hoosegow if I have to.”

  “Sure you can,” Mason said, “and I can get a writ of habeas corpus if I have to.”

  Tragg said, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. All right, if you want it the hard way, we’ll take it the hard way. When did you see Bob Fleetwood last, Mrs. Allred?”

  “I … I …”

  “Find out the reason for the question before you answer it, Mrs. Allred,” Mason said.

  Tragg flushed. “All right, I’ll give you the reason for the question. Mrs. Allred’s automobile was found down at the bottom of a canyon on a mountain road. Bob Fleetwood was in it, and he was quite dead. Now suppose you do some talking, Mrs. Allred.”

  “Bob Fleetwood dead!” she exclaimed.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Take it easy,” Mason cautioned.

  “Why,” she exclaimed, “he must have had too much to drink, then. He …”

  “What was he doing driving your car in the first place?”

  She said, “I don’t know. He simply took my car and drove away.”

  “Without your permission?”

  Mason stepped behind Tragg, frowned at her, and placed a finger to his lips.

  She said, “That must explain everything. He was trying to get away. I thought he was suffering from amnesia, but I knew it might be just a gag. I told him I was his sister and he seemed to believe that and seemed perfectly willing to wait for his mind to clear.”

  “This is a hell of a mixed up statement,” Inman said.

  Tragg motioned him to silence and glanced significantly at Perry Mason. “We’re lucky to get anything,” he said, in a low voice.

  Mrs. Allred said somewhat defiantly, “Mr. Mason, under the circumstances, I don’t see why we should run the risk of being misunderstood. I think that these people are entitled to a frank statement of what happened. Mr. Fleetwood was suffering from amnesia. I tried to bring him back to familiar surroundings by posing as his sister. I told him my husband was his brother-in-law. We thought that would keep him quiet and keep him from worrying, and would give his mind a chance to clear.

  “We were staying at a motor court, and I was waiting for my husband. I had a flask of whisky and Bob Fleetwood had several drinks. He kept loading them pretty heavy. I tried to get him to stop, but he stayed with it until he emptied the flask.”

  “You drink anything?” Lieutenant Tragg asked.

  “I drank just as much as I felt that I could. I knew that after he got started, Bob was going to empty the flask, and I didn’t want him to do that. I mean I didn’t want him to get tight. I knew that every drop that I drank would leave that much less for him. I …”

  “How many drinks did you have?”

  “I had two. He had three.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then he took my car and started back to town.”

  “Without your permission?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without your knowledge?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “That’s all I know, but if he had an accident—well, it was on account of the liquor he’d been drinking. You can check that in some way, can’t you? Can’t you analyze his blood and find out?”

  “Sure, we can,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “but we’d like to know a few things first.”

  “What?”

  “Well, in the first place,” Tragg said, “we came up here on sort of a blind lead. The officers who investigated the automobile accident found a key to these tourist cabins in the car. They went up to the tourist cabins and found they were empty. Then they got the manager out of bed and she told them about renting the cabin to Fleetwood and his sister and said you’d put through a couple of calls from the office just before the place closed up. The boys checked the numbers of those calls. One of them was to the Allred residence and the other one was here. They phoned us to investigate. There was no one at the Allred residence, so we came up here. We hardly expected to find you.”

  “Well, I can explain everything. That’s exactly the way it happened.”

  “Is it customary for the homicide squad to investigate automobile accidents?” Mason asked drily.

  “Shut up, wise guy,” Inman said.

  Tragg kept his eyes on Mrs. Allred, held her attention so that she failed to appreciate the significance of the lawyer’s remark.

  “And you think Bob Fleetwood drove your car off the road?”

  “I’m quite certain he did.”

  “You think he was drunk?”

  “He’d been drinking. I didn’t think he was drunk. No. But if he drove the car off the road, he must have been.”

  “Well,” Tragg said, “there are a couple more things you’d better explain. One of them was why the car was locked in low gear when it was driven off the road.”

  Mason said, “After all, Mrs. Allred, why don’t you wait until you know exactly what Tragg wants, before you …”

  “Don’t try to lock the stable door after the horse has been stolen,” Tragg said.

  Mason said, “I merely wanted to …”

  “And while you’re explaining that,” Tragg said, “you might also explain how it happens that there’s blood on the carpet of the luggage compartment in your automobile.”

  “Blood on the luggage compartment in my automobile?” she asked incredulously.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why, I … I haven’t the faintest idea how … you’re sure?” “Of course, I’m sure.”

  “I …”

  Knuckles tapped on the door of the apartment.

  Frank Inman opened it.

  A plain-clothes officer stepped inside and said to Tragg, “Lieutenant, may I talk with you a moment? There’s some additional information just came in over the police radio in the car.”

  Tragg stepped out in the corridor. Inman said to Mason. “As far as I’m concerned, we can get along without you.”

  Mason merely smiled.

  Lieutenant Tragg came back and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Allred. I made a mistake.”

  He was watching her with narrowed eyes.

  “You mean there wasn’t an automobile accident? You mean my car didn’t go over the grade?”

  “No,” Tragg said. “I mean that there was an accident. I mean that your car did go over the grade. I mean that there’s a dead man locked in the car, and I mean the car was deliberately driven over the grade in low gear. The thing I made the mistake on was the identity of the body. When the police made the first identification, they got off wrong because they found a billfold containing a driving license, social security number and a few other things belonging to Robert Gregg Fleetwood; but after a while they also uncovered a billfold of someone else, and when they saw the descriptions they came to the conclusion that the dead man had been carrying Fleetwood’s billfold, but wasn’t Fleetwood at all.”

  “Then who was he?” Mrs. Allred asked.

  Tragg snapped the information at her as though he had been turning the words into bullets, “Your husband, Bertrand C. Allred,” he said. “Now tell us how he got in your car and was driven off the grade.”

  “Why, I … I …”

  “And how blood got over the carpet on the luggage compartment of your automobile.”

  She hesitated. Her eyes wide with tragic appeal, she looked at Mason.

  Frank Inman saw the glance. He stepped forward and took Mason’s arm. “And as far as you’re concerned,” he said to the lawyer, “this is where you came in and this is where you go out. Hold everything, Lieutenant.”

  Tragg said, “I’d like an answer to that question now.”

  Inman, taking Mason’s arm, pushed him out toward the corridor.

  Mason said, “You can’t keep me from advis
ing my client.”

  “The hell I can’t,” Inman said. “I can put you out of here, and if you get rough I’ll get a damn sight rougher.”

  Mason said over his shoulder, “Mrs. Allred, your rights are being curtailed. As your lawyer, I advise you to say absolutely nothing until the officers cease these highhanded methods. I want your silence not to be considered as any indication of guilt, or because you’re afraid anything you say might incriminate you, but simply as a protest against the highhanded and illegal methods of these police officers.”

  Lieutenant Tragg said irritably to Inman, “You’ve done it, now. You’ve given him a chance to make a speech and make a good excuse.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Inman said. “That woman’s either going to explain about her dead husband, or she’s going to be put under arrest.”

  Mason said, “You can always reach me at my office, Mrs. Allred, or through the Drake Detective Agency.”

  “Come on,” Tragg said, “we’re going to take a ride. Both of you women are going to headquarters.”

  Inman pushed Mason out into the corridor, pulled the door of the apartment shut.

  Mason walked down the corridor, took the elevator down to the lobby and said to the sleepy night clerk, “Where’s the phone booth?”

  The night clerk regarded him curiously. “You live here?” he asked.

  “No,” Mason said. “I’m” an investor. I’m thinking of buying this hotel merely as an investment. How much do you suppose I should raise wages in order to get courtesy from the employees?”

  The night clerk smiled dubiously, said, “The telephone booth is over there, in the corner.”

  Mason went over and phoned Paul Drake’s office.

  “Where’s Paul?” he asked the night operator.

  “He went home and went to bed, said not to disturb him for anything short of murder.”

  Mason grinned. “Okay, ring him up. Tell him that you’re following his instructions to the letter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mason said, “I mean that Bertrand C. Allred was murdered up on the mountain grade above Springfield. Then he was locked up in Mrs. Allred’s car, the car put in low gear and driven down over a steep grade. Drake has a man in Springfield. Tell him to get that man on the phone and have him start up there in a hurry. I want information, I want photographs and I want Fleetwood. You get that all down?”

  “Yes, Mr. Mason. Do you want to talk with Mr. Drake?”

  “Not now,” Mason said. “I’m working on another angle of the case and I don’t want to be tied up in a telephone booth when the time comes for action.”

  He hung up, left the telephone booth, strolled to the door of the lobby, and looked out.

  It was getting daylight. The sun was not up as yet, and the street outside showed cold and gray in the colorless light of dawn.

  A police car with red spotlight and siren was parked at the curb. The radio antenna was stretched to its full capacity. The plain-clothes officer who had taken the message to Lieutenant Tragg was seated behind the wheel. The motor was running, and little puffs of white smoke put-put-put-put-put-putted from the end of the exhaust.

  Mason stood there looking out of the door for a matter of some five minutes. The light strengthened. The objects on the street began to show color.

  Mason glanced at his wrist watch, stretched, yawned, and strolled over to glance at the indicator of the automatic elevator. It was still on the eighth floor.

  The lawyer pressed the button which brought the elevator back down to the ground floor. He opened the door just far enough to break the electrical contact and kept the door from closing by inserting a pencil between the door and the door jamb. He then took a seat in the lobby, near the elevator.

  Another ten minutes, and Mason heard a faint buzzing from the interior of the elevator, indicating that someone was trying to put it in service.

  He walked over, removed the pencil from the door, opened the door, got in the elevator and let the spring on the door pull the door shut. As soon as the door snapped into position, the mechanism of the elevator gave a sharp, metallic click, and the cage started rumbling upward.

  Mason stood over in the corner where he would be out of sight to anyone opening the door.

  The cage lumbered up to the eighth floor, came to a stop.

  The doors were opened. Inman pushed Mrs. Allred and Patricia into the elevator, followed them in. Tragg entered the elevator and closed the door. Inman said, “And if your lawyer is waiting in the lobby, don’t try to talk with him. You get me?”

  They turned to face the door, and Mrs. Allred gasped as she saw Mason.

  Inman jerked his head at the sound of the gasp. His hand started streaking for his gun. Then he stopped the motion midway to his holster.

  “Ground floor?” Mason asked, and promptly pressed the button.

  The cage started rumbling down to the ground floor.

  Tragg said drily to Inman, “I told you he was smart.”

  “What have you told them?” Mason asked Mrs. Allred.

  “Shut up,” Inman said.

  “Nothing at all,” Mrs. Allred said. “I followed instructions.”

  “Keep on following them,” Mason said. “They’ll try everything in their power to make you talk. Simply tell them that your silence is a protest against their highhanded methods and that you want to have an interview with your attorney before you say anything. Remember that you were making a full and frank statement of everything that had happened until they became arbitrary and started pushing me around.”

  Inman said, “It’s a big temptation to really start pushing you around!”

  “Don’t lose your temper,” Mason told him. “It runs up your blood pressure and makes your face look like hell.”

  Tragg said wearily, “Don’t be a damn fool, Inman! He’s trying to get you to start something. It’ll sound like hell in front of a jury.”

  Inman lapsed into sullen silence.

  The cage lurched to a stop at the ground floor.

  Mason opened the door, said, “Ground floor, ladies and gentlemen. Department of frame-ups just ahead of you—separate cells, phony confessions, telling the daughter her mother’s confessed, telling the mother the daughter’s confessed, throwing in stool pigeons and detectives as cell mates, and all the usual police traps, right this way!”

  Inman pushed the women out into the lobby, turned back toward Mason, suddenly cocked his fist.

  Lieutenant Tragg grabbed his arm.

  The officers marched the women across the lobby to the police car, and drove away.

  Mason sighed wearily, walked across the street to where he had left his own car parked, climbed in and started the motor.

  Chapter 11

  Mason unlocked the door of his private office, entered, nodded to Della, scaled his hat toward the shelf of the hat closet, walked over to his desk and sat down.

  “Didn’t you sleep at all?” Della Street asked.

  Mason shook his head. “Anything from Drake?”

  “Yes. He’s had a man up at the wreck and has some photographs. This man knew the highway police who were in charge, and he picked up about all the information there was.”

  “How did they happen to find the car?”

  “At the point where the car was driven off the road, there was a guard rail.”

  “A hell of a place to pick to send a car off the road,” Mason said. “Car pretty badly smashed?”

  “Smashed to kindling,” Della said.

  Mason said, “Get Paul Drake in here.”

  Della Street said, “Dixon Keith is waiting out there. He’s been waiting for a while. He was in the corridor when we opened the office.”

  “Dixon Keith?” Mason asked.

  “The one who has the fraud suit against Allred.”

  “Okay,” Mason said, “get Drake first. Then go out and soothe Dixon Keith so he’ll wait. Tell him I’ve phoned and expected to be in in just a few minutes. I don’t
want him to leave.”

  Mason settled back in the chair, stroked his forehead with his fingertips. Della Street put through a call to Paul Drake, said, “He’ll be right in, Chief. Did you have breakfast?”

  “Breakfast and a shave,” Mason said. “A hot bath and clean clothes. Did the police find a gun on Allred’s body by any chance?”

  “I don’t know,” Della Street said. “I … here’s Paul Drake!”

  Drake’s code knock sounded on the door of the office.

  Mason nodded to Della Street. She opened the door, and Drake, gaunt and haggard, with stubble rough on his jaw, entered the room and surveyed Mason bleakly.

  Mason grinned. “You look as though you’ve been busy.”

  “I have.”

  “I thought you told me that you kept an electric razor in your office so you could shave in between phone calls.”

  “I do,” Drake said. “I have. But, what the hell? I haven’t had any time between phone calls. I’ve been busy!”

  “Give.”

  Drake said, “The place where the car went off the road was within five miles of the Snug-Rest Auto Court. It’s the worst place anywhere along the road, and the road is bad enough, at that. There’s a guard rail. The car had plowed right through the guard rail. No wonder! It had been locked in low gear and the hand throttle pulled all the way out. The police were able to determine that much from what was left of the car.”

  “The body was first identified as that of Fleetwood?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Allred had Fleetwood’s billfold?”

  “He had Fleetwood’s billfold, cigarette case, fountain pen. Quite a bit of stuff.”

  “Any explanation?”

  “No explanation.”

  “And there was a key to the Snug-Rest Auto Court?”

  “That’s right. A key to Fleetwood’s cabin.”

  “How did Allred get that?”

  “No explanation so far, Perry. The key was loose in the car.”

  “There was blood on the carpet of the luggage compartment?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did Allred have a gun?”

  “No.”

  Mason said, “Paul, I want to find Fleetwood!”

  Drake’s laugh was sarcastic. “Who doesn’t?”