“That’s all she told you?”
“Just about. I had to worm it out of her about her boy friend. I think that was the main reason she didn’t want the police to report her as having been in that bungalow at one-forty-five in the morning. Yet she was driving a borrowed car. I got the license number, of course.”
“The boy friend’s car?”
“No. Strangely enough it’s not. It belongs to a girl by the name of Ethel Prentice who is evidently a close friend of Opal’s — lets her take a jalopy in times of need.”
“Anything else?”
“Oh, she told a few things about her job over there. This man Hocksley was very much of a man of mystery, and so is Karr who lives in the flat above him. Somehow, that’s taxing credulity just a little bit too much. Two men of mystery drifting into an apartment house. They arrive within a week of each other, and, before that, the flats have been vacant for five months.”
“You think Karr and Hocksley have some connection?”
Mason shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s rather a coincidence. Have you seen Karr’s ad in the paper?”
“No. What is it?”
“Opal Sunley told me about it — and said she noticed it because she’d seen Wenston’s name on the door of the other flat. It’s been running two days.”
Mason took the morning paper from the desk, opened it to the classified ad section, turned to the personals, and said, “Listen to this. ‘Personal. Wanted information concerning the daughter of the man who was a partner in a gun-running expedition up the Yangtze River in nineteen-twenty-one. Detailed information is purposely withheld from this advertisement, but the right party will know who I am, who her father was, and will be able to give proof of our association in the expedition in the fall of 1920, and the first part of 1921. I do not wish to be pestered, and, therefore, give warning that any imposter will be prosecuted to the limit of the law. On the other hand, the young woman who is the genuine daughter will be given a considerable sum of partnership assets which I have held for her in trust because I did not know until recently, and by accident, that my partner left any heirs at law. Do not seek to obtain an interview until after first writing Rodney Wenston, 787 East Dorchester Boulevard or telephoning Graybar 8-9351.’ ”
Mason finished reading the ad, pushed the newspaper to one side. Della Street pursed her lips. “Whew! And Opal Sunley told you about the ad?”
Mason nodded.
“I’d say that was rather significant, wouldn’t you?”
“Uh huh. Karr mentioned he started the ball rolling to clean up his partnership, but he didn’t mention this ad.”
“How did Opal happen to tell you about it?”
“Just talking.”
“What did she tell you about Hocksley?”
“Nothing much I didn’t know already. She got all of her work from wax cylinders. Hocksley dictated at night, and spent most of the day in bed.”
“Sleeping all day?”
“No. He’d be in his room. He’d get up along in the afternoon and read the papers, have coffee and toast, and sometimes do a little dictation.”
“To the machine?”
“Yes. Mrs. Perlin, the housekeeper, was the only one to go in and out of Hocksley’s room. She’d wait on him as soon as he wakened, bringing him the work Opal Sunley had typed, bringing out cylinders for Opal to transcribe, taking him his meals — the newspapers — sometimes sitting in there and talking with him. Opal could hear the hum of low-pitched conversation.”
“Any heart throbs between Hocksley and the housekeeper?” Della Street asked.
“Opal says she doesn’t know.”
“She considers it’s a possibility then?” Della Street asked.
“Apparently a very definite possibility.”
Della Street thought that over for a few seconds, then shook her head and said, “That isn’t right, Chief.”
“What isn’t?”
“That story of hers. No girl on earth would go on working for a man under those conditions without making it a point to learn more about him. In the first place, there’d be legitimate questions she’d have to ask about the work. In the second place, all that attempt to be secretive would simply arouse her curiosity.”
“Then you think she was lying to me?” Mason asked.
“I know darn well she was lying.”
Mason smiled reminiscently. “She did it most convincingly,” he said.
Della’s eyes were twinkling. “The hussy!”
Mason said, “Well, there’s no percentage in sitting around waiting for something to break. Why wouldn’t this be a fine time to communicate with the murderer?”
“Fine — but how are you going about it?”
“You could go down to a hardware store, Della, and buy a sealing machine for cans. Also get a new tin. We’ll scratch a message on the lid, seal it up, make certain there are no fingerprints on it, and plant it on the shelf at the Gentrie residence.”
“Think the murderer would get it?”
“It would be interesting to find out.”
“What sort of a message?”
“Oh, something that would tend to keep things moving,” Mason said. “We don’t want the case to get static. It would give the police too much of a chance to catch up on us.”
Della Street picked up the dictionary from Mason’s desk. “Think up a nice message, and I’ll put it in code for you.”
Mason said, “Well now, let’s see, Della. We want something that will get some action. Suppose we left the murderer a message. Let’s see. It will have to be dictionary words. We can’t use participles or plurals. We want something that will get swift action. Suppose we did this: ‘Lawyer Mason has fingerprint photograph his wallet fatal unless recovered.’ No, let’s see. We couldn’t use recovered. That’s past tense. The word in the dictionary would be recover.”
Della Street, frowning down at her shorthand notebook, said, “We could use recovery, Chief. That would be a noun, and would be listed. We could use the words recovery made instead of recovered.”
“Okay, let’s try putting it in code.”
“I don’t like the idea.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too much risk.”
“It’ll bring me into contact with the murderer.”
“That’s just it. The murderer will choose the time and the place of making the contact. He may even shoot first, and look in your wallet afterwards.”
“There’s always the chance,” Mason admitted, “but he’d be more apt to make a stick-up of it. And I’ll be careful.”
She said, “Yes, I’ve got a picture of you being careful — and when the murderer finds your wallet without a fingerprint in it, what...”
Mason walked across the office to a bookcase. On the top of this bookcase was a choice example of Japanese pigeon-blood cloisonne. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, polished the vase, ran his right hand through his hair several times, then pressed three of his fingertips against the surface. He said to Della, “Take that down to Paul Drake’s office. Have him develop the latent fingerprints on it, and photograph them. Don’t tell him why we want them. I’ll carry a copy of that photograph in my wallet. Then in case anything slips, the murderer won’t get suspicious.”
“Chief, I wish you wouldn’t do it. There’s no need for you to take the risk personally. Why not say that you have them in your office safe?”
“No. We can’t guard the office without letting someone else in on it. I want to handle this myself.”
“Why?”
“Because it won’t look like a trap then. But if I try to decoy the murderer into some office and have that office guarded, it’s going to look very much like a trap. The person with whom we’re dealing is far too intelligent to walk into so obvious a trap.”