“No.”
“Looked her over pretty carefully?”
“Naturally I would.”
Mason sat thoughtfully silent for a moment, studying the woman’s face. Then he said quietly, “Helen Reedley didn’t mean a thing to Bob Hines except in a financial way.”
“What are you saying? He had the key to her apartment. He—”
“Sure he did, but it wasn’t Helen Reedley who was in the apartment. She hired Bob Hines to get her a ringer.”
“What’s a ringer?”
“A double — someone who could take her place in the apartment and pretend to be Helen Reedley. Bob put an ad in a trade journal that’s read by actresses — an ad asking for a brunette of a certain type.”
Her eyes were wide and round now. “Are you... Is that the truth?”
Taking his wallet out, Mason showed her the advertisement.
She read it, and handed it back. Her lips twitched; she blinked back tears for a moment; then she suddenly pillowed her head on her arms and gave herself over to hysterical sobbing.
Mason waited until she had cried for a minute or two. Then he said gently, “So you see, Carlotta, your suspicions were entirely unfounded. When you killed him in a jealous rage you had no reason, no cause. Now suppose you tell us what actually happened.”
“I’ve told you,” she said, raising a tear-stained face.
“No, you haven’t. You went to that apartment and knocked. He wouldn’t open the door, so you called out that you knew he was in there. He opened the door. You dashed in. He went into the bedroom, backing away from your anger, trying to explain. You saw the gun lying there on the sideboard. You were hysterical with anger. You grabbed it up and shot him!”
“Say, what are you trying to do? Frame a murder on me?”
“I want you to tell the truth. If that isn’t what happened, what did happen?”
“Say, why should I tell you everything? Why the hell should I tell you anything? Who are you anyway? Are you the police?”
“Just a minute. Let’s get some of this straight, anyway. After you found he was in that apartment, you didn’t do anything about it?”
“I came down and packed.”
“Who’s this friend of yours in Denver?”
“I’d rather not mention his name.”
“But I want to know who he is. I must know whether you communicated with him.”
“Well... I... I talked with him by long-distance last night.”
“From this apartment?”
“No, I went out and called him from a pay station.”
“What’s his name?”
“You can’t make me tell you.”
“But you did talk with him?”
“Yes.”
“And asked him if it was all right for you to come?”
“Yes.”
“What time was this?”
“I’m not going to tell you that.”
“As a matter of fact, didn’t you call him in the afternoon rather than the evening?”
“No.”
“What booth did you call him from?”
“I’m not going to answer any more questions. I don’t think you... Say, are you the police?”
Mason said quickly, “Look here, Carlotta, we’re investigating this crime. We want to find out everything we can about it. You want the murderer of Bob Hines to be brought to justice, don’t you?”
“Are you the police?”
“No. I’m a lawyer, and these two men are detectives.”
“Police detectives?”
“What difference does that make?” Mason asked. “Are you trying to conceal information?”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to tell everything I know to anybody who just walks in here and asks me. I thought you were the police.”
His eye on Della Street’s pencil flying over the shorthand notebook, Mason said, “I don’t know what gave you that impression. We didn’t say a word about being the police. I simply dropped in to ask you some questions. I told you my name was Mason. I’m Perry Mason, a lawyer.”
“Oh, so you’re Perry Mason!”
“Yes.”
“And what’s your interest in this?”
“I tell you I’m trying to find out who murdered Robert Hines.”
“Go to the police, then,” she said sullenly.
“I think I will. Your story is very interesting.”
“I was a fool to spill it to you. You — you scared me.”
“What were you afraid of?”
“None of your business.”
“You thought we were the police, and you were afraid of the police.”
She said nothing.
“Come, come,” Mason said. “You’ve told us enough, Carlotta, so that there’s nothing to be gained by trying to clam up now.”
“I wish you’d get out of here,” she said. “I want to finish packing. And I haven’t anything to say to you.”
“Carlotta, what was the first thing you saw when you went into Helen Reedley’s apartment yesterday afternoon?”
“I didn’t go in. I tell you I followed Bob, and... and I’m not going to say anything else. You can talk to me until you’re black in the face — I won’t give you any more information.”
“But you did see him go into that apartment?”
She sat rigidly silent.
“And you knew there was a gun on the dresser?”
Again there was no answer. Carlotta Tipton sat with her lips pressed in a firm, angry line.
Mason caught Della Street’s eye and said, “Well, I guess that’s all of it. Come on, folks.”
Silently they filed out of the apartment, leaving Carlotta Tipton regarding them sullenly from tear-swollen eyes.
Out in the corridor Drake said, “Well, Perry, what do you make of it?”
Mason grinned. “I don’t make anything of it, because I don’t have to make anything of it. That’s up to the police.”
“You think she killed him?”
“Sure she did. Get the sequence of events, Paul. Remember that Bob Hines had given Adelle Winters the number of Carlotta’s apartment where he was to be called. You can see the whole scheme now. If someone phoned Helen Reedley, Adelle Winters would answer, would say Helen was in the tub or something and would call back. Then she’d relay the message to Bob Hines. He had Helen Reedley staked out some place near a telephone, and he’d relay the message to her. She’d call her friend back, and there was no way for the friend to know where Helen was calling from.
“Now, here’s what must have happened yesterday afternoon. Following my instructions, Adelle Winters and Eva Martell left the Reedley apartment. When they got downstairs, Adelle Winters thought she ought to notify Hines that they were leaving. I hadn’t told her to, but she thought it would be a good thing. She called me first to see if she could get my permission. My line was busy. She waited a while and tried again, but kept getting the busy signal. So then she called the number Hines had given her, and got no answer at all. Now, get the significance of all that. Carlotta didn’t answer the telephone — the Hines number — which means that at the very period when Adelle Winters was waiting in the lobby, a period of five or ten minutes, there was no one in Carlotta Tipton’s apartment; Carlotta having started to follow Robert Hines up to the Reedley apartment. She had been doing a little detective work on her own and had found out that the man she loved had a key to another apartment in the building — an apartment listed in the name of Helen Reedley.”
“On the evidence you’ve got so far,” Drake said dubiously, “you’d have a hell of a time proving she murdered him.”
Mason grinned. “The district attorney will have a hell of a time proving she didn’t murder him. He has to establish his case against Adelle Winters beyond all reasonable doubt. I may not be able to prove that it was Carlotta Tipton who pulled the trigger on that gun, but I certainly can use her to throw a reasonable doubt on any case against Adelle Winters and Eva Martell.”