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.
Chapter 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.”