Mason bowed. “My regrets, Mrs. Tump.”
Byrl Gailord said sobbingly, “It seems as though everyone were conspiring against me. Now my money is put into a worthless stock — as much of it as hasn’t been embezzled.”
“Are you certain the stock is worthless?” Mason asked.
“Of course it is,” she said.
Mason said, “Well, I have matters to wind up.”
Without so much as a backward glance, he walked to the door and out into the corridor.
Carl Mattern watched him go, his eyes steady, his face expressionless.
Chapter 14
From a drugstore on the corner, Mason telephoned his office.
“Hello, Gertie,” he said. “Guess who this is?”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“The office being covered?”
“Uh huh.”
“No one listening on the line?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Pretend I’m your boy friend, and you’re making a date.”
“I can’t tonight,” she said. “I think I’m going to have to work. There’s been a bunch of stuff at the office I can’t understand. The boss is in some sort of a jam, and the place is lousy with detectives. They get in my hair… What’s that?… Well, I’m just talking to a boy friend. Haven’t I got a right to tell him why I can’t make a date?… Baloney, Mister. You mind your business, and I’ll mind mine… Hello, Stew, I guess I’m not supposed to talk. Anyhow, I can’t make it tonight.”
Mason said, “Della Street had a body to bury. Heard anything from her?”
“Uh huh.”
“An address?”
“Uh huh.”
Mason said, “Go down the hall to the rest-room, and then duck out to a telephone where you won’t be heard. Ring her and tell her to grab a portable typewriter and meet me at the St. Germaine Hotel just as soon as a taxicab can get her there. Got that straight?”
Gertie said, “Well, I’ll do it just this once, but don’t think you can pull that line on me all the time. You’re always having cousins come in from the country that need to be entertained. What did you try to date me up for if you knew she was coming?… It’s getting so that every time I check back on you, you’re chasing around to night spots with some dizzy blonde, and she always turns out to be a cousin or a sister-in-law. If you ask me, you’ve got too much of a family — all blondes.”
Mason chuckled and said into the telephone, “Well, you have to admit, Gertie, that it’s always a new one. You shouldn’t get peeved as long as I’m playing the field.”
Mason heard a man’s voice at the other end of the line saying something to Gertie and then her voice in the transmitter saying, “Now you listen to me, Stew. Maybe this is on the level, and maybe it ain’t. I’m broadminded, but I’m getting fed up with this. Now you just give me a ring about five minutes to five, and if I don’t have to work tonight, I’m going to go right along and crab your party. If that gal ain’t your cousin, I’m going to get a nice double handful of blonde hair… And don’t think you can kid me.”
“All right, sweetheart,” Mason said, “good-by,” and distinctly heard a masculine voice say at the other end of the line, “You just let me talk with that boy friend of yours, sister. I want to get his address.”
Mason slipped the receiver back onto the hook, stepped out to the curb, waited for a taxi, and gave the address of the St. Germaine Hotel.
He had to wait ten minutes before Della Street put in an appearance.
“Made it as fast as I could, Chief,” she said. “How serious is it?”
“Plenty,” he said. “They’ve framed me.”
“Who?”
“Mattern.”
“That shrimp!”
“He’s worked up a good story,” Mason said.
“By himself?”
“No. Some lawyer concocted it, and Bolus is back of it. They’ve lost ten grand, but they still have forty thousand to fight for, and Bolus doesn’t intend to let that go without a struggle.”
“Where do you come in on that?”
“I’m the sheep,” he said, “that’s being led to the slaughter.”
“What do we do here?”
Mason said, “We pay our respects to a man by the name of Herkimer Smith, who’s registered as being from Shreveport, Louisiana, and we don’t let him know we’re coming.”
“Okay. You want to find out his room?”
“Yes.”
Della Street extended her hand. “Gimme.”
Mason gave her a dime, and she walked over to the telephone booth. Mason stood by the open door while she dialed the number of the hotel switchboard and said to the operator, “This is the Credit Department of the Ville de Paris. We have a C.O.D. to send to your hotel to a Mr. Herkimer Smith of Shreveport, Louisiana. It’s a C.O.D. so all we’re interested in is checking on the registration… If you will, please.”
After a moment, she said, “Thank you,” hung up the receiver, and said, “Okay, Chief. He’s in 409.”
Mason touched Della Street’s arm, signaling for her to leave the telephone booth. He pulled another coin from his pocket and dialed the number of the Drake Detective Agency. “Mason talking,” he said. “I want an operative who looks tough and is tough. I want him in a hurry. Send him to the St. Germaine Hotel. Have him go up to Room 409 and walk in without knocking. I’ll be there. Have him hold up two fingers so I’ll know he’s your man. He isn’t to say anything until I give him the lead. Got that?”
He received an okay from Drake’s secretary, hung up the telephone, and said to Della Street, “Let’s go.”
They walked silently to the elevator, went to the fourth floor, and Mason stood for a moment getting the run of the numbers on the doors before piloting Della Street down the corridor to the right. They paused in front of Room 409, and Mason knocked.
The thin, reedy voice of Arthmont A. Freel, from the other side of the door, asked in high-pitched nervousness, “Who is it?”
Della Street said sweetly, “Chambermaid with towels.”
The door was unlocked from the inside. Mason placed his shoulder against it. As Freel turned the knob, Mason pushed the door back. He and Della Street entered the room, to confront the frightened eyes of Freel.
Mason said, “Hello, sucker. How does it feel to be elected to the gas chamber? See if there’s anyone in the bathroom, Della. Go over by that table and sit down when you’ve looked.”
Mason walked over to the closet, jerked the door open and looked inside. He carefully closed the door of the hotel bedroom, walked over to a comfortable chair, and sat down. Della Street completed her inspection of the bathroom, and drew up a chair to the wicker table near the window. She calmly set up her portable typewriter and fed two sheets of plain paper, sandwiched with a sheet of carbon paper, into the machine. Having done that, she sat back with her hands folded in her lap.
Freel stared at her uneasily for a moment, then shifted his eyes to the lawyer.
“Well,” Mason said, “I’m sorry they made you the goat. Personally, I don’t think you’re guilty, but you always were a sucker. You were half-smart, and you stuck your neck out just far enough so they could hang the murder rap on it.”
“What are you talking about?” Freel demanded.
Mason selected a cigarette, tapped it gently on the edge of the cigarette case, snapped a match into flame, lit up, and sucked in a deep, appreciative drag on the cigarette.
“It really is too bad, Freel. You never were one to understand the fine points of the game.” Mason paused to inhale another deep drag of smoke, shook his head mournfully, and added, “Too bad.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Freel said.