There was a phone booth in the lobby. Mason dropped in a coin, dialed police headquarters, and reported that he had found a corpse in apartment 702 under circumstances indicating probable homicide. He had, he said, touched nothing but had backed right out and called the police.
While Mason was in the phone booth, the four people emerged from the elevator. There was a distinct aroma of alcohol as they pushed their way toward the door. The woman, catching sight of Della Street standing beside the phone booth, favored her with a feminine appraisal which swept from head to foot and missed no smallest detail.
Mason called Louise Marlow in apartment 604. “I think you’d better have the doctor take his patients to a sanitarium where they can have complete quiet,” he said.
“He seems to think they’re doing all right here.”
“I distrust doctors who seem to think,” Mason said. “I would suggest a sanitarium immediately, and complete quiet.”
Louise Marlow was silent for a full three seconds.
“Are you there?” Mason asked.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m just trying to get the sketch.”
“I think the patients should have complete quiet,” Mason said.
“Damn it,” Louise Marlow sputtered. “When you said it the first time I missed it. The second time I got it. You don’t have to let your needle get stuck on the record! I was just trying to figure it out.”
Mason heard her slam up the phone at the other end of the line.
Mason grinned and hung up the phone. Then he took the key to 702 from his pocket, dropped it in an envelope, addressed the envelope to his office, stamped it, and dropped it in the mailbox by the elevator.
Outside, the four people in the car were having something of an argument. Apparently there was some sharp difference of opinion as to what action was to be taken next, but as a siren sounded they reached a sudden unanimity of decision. They were starting the car when the police car pulled in to the curb. The red beam of the police spotlight pilloried them. The siren blasted a peremptory summons.
The driver of the car looked behind him, then stepped on the gas.
The police car shot away in angry pursuit, and three minutes later a chastened quartet swung their car back to a stop in front of the apartment house, the police car following them until the machine was safely parked at the curb. One of the radio officers walked over to the other car, took possession of the ignition keys, and ushered the four people up to the door of the apartment house.
Mason hurried across the lobby to open the locked door.
The officer said, “I’m looking for a man who reported a body.”
“That’s right. I did. My name’s Mason. The body’s in seven-oh-two.”
“A body!” the woman screamed.
“Shut up,” the radio officer said.
“But we know the... why he told you we’d been visiting in seven-oh-two... we...”
“Yeah, you said you’d been visiting a friend in seven-oh-two, name of Carver Clements. How was he when you left him?”
There was an awkward silence, then the woman said, “We really didn’t get in. We just went to the door. The woman across the way said he had company, so we left.”
“Said he had company?”
“That’s right. But I think the company had left. It was these two here.”
“We’ll go take a look,” the officer said. “Come on.”
Chapter four
Lieutenant Tragg, head of the Homicide Squad, finished his examination of the apartment and said wearily to Mason, “I presume by this time you’ve thought up a good story to explain how it all happened.”
Mason said, “As a matter of fact, I don’t know this man from Adam. I had never seen him alive.”
“I know,” Tragg said sarcastically, “you wanted him as a witness to an automobile accident or something, and just happened to drop around in the wee small hours of the morning.”
Mason said nothing.
“But,” Tragg went on, “strange as it may seem, Mason, I’m interested to know how you got in. The woman who has the apartment across the corridor says you stood there and rang the buzzer for as much as two minutes. Then she heard the sound of a clicking bolt just as she opened her door to give you a piece of her mind, thinking you were some drunken bum trying to buzz a girl friend who had cooled off on him.”
Mason nodded gravely.
Tragg said, “Either someone opened that door or the door was open. If it was ajar, I don’t think you’d have buzzed for two minutes without pushing it open. If someone was in there, I want to know who it was. Now who let you in?”
“I had a key.”
“A key! The hell you did!”
Mason nodded.
“Let’s take a look at it.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have it now.”
“Well, now,” Tragg said, “isn’t that interesting! And where did you get the key, Mason?”
“Unfortunately,” Mason said, “that’s something I can’t tell you.”
“Don’t be silly. This is a murder case.”
Mason said, “The key came into my possession in a peculiar manner. I found it.”
“Phooey! A client gave it to you.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It’s a reasonable conjecture.”
Mason smiled. “Come, come, Lieutenant, if you’re going to engage in pure flights of fancy, why not consider the possibility that this client might have taken a sublease on the apartment and wanted me to see that the gentleman lying there on the floor, who was unlawfully withholding possession, was ejected without trouble?”
“So you came to eject him at this time in the morning!”
“Perhaps the sublease didn’t become effective until midnight.”
Tragg’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a nice try, Mason, but you’re not getting anywhere. That key you have is the dead man’s key. When we searched the body we found that stuff on the table there. There’s no key to this apartment on him.”
Mason sparred for time, said, “And did you notice that despite the fact there’s a thermos jar of ice cubes on the table, a bottle of Scotch, and a siphon of soda, the fatal drink didn’t have any ice in it?”
“How do you know?” Tragg asked, interested.
“Because when this glass fell from his hand and the contents spilled over the floor, it left a single small spot of moisture. If there had been ice cubes in the glass, they’d have rolled out for some appreciable distance and then melted, leaving spots of moisture.”
“I see,” Tragg said sarcastically. “And then, having decided to commit suicide, the guy kissed himself on the forehead and...”
He broke off as one of the detectives, walking rapidly down the hallway, said, “We’ve traced that cleaning mark, Lieutenant.”
Tragg glanced significantly toward Mason and said, “I’ll talk with you in a minute when...”
The man handed Tragg a folded slip of paper.
Tragg unfolded the paper. “Well I’ll be damned!” he said.
Mason met Tragg’s searching eyes with calm steadiness.
“And I suppose,” Tragg said, “you’re going to be surprised at this one. Miss Fay Allison, apartment six-oh-four, in this same building, is the person who sent the coat that was in the closet to the dry cleaner. Her mark is on it. I think. Mr. Mason, we’ll have a little talk with Fay Allison, and just to see that you don’t make any false moves until we get there, we’ll take you right along with us. Perhaps you already know the way.”
As Tragg started toward the elevator, a smartly dressed woman in her late thirties or early forties stepped out of the elevator and walked down the corridor, looking at the numbers over the doors.