Stephane said savagely, “Jacks, if you wouldn’t be so damned self-effacing, I would like you a lot better. Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“Do you really mean it? May I?”
She turned her head away with a jerk. “No!”
Mason tiptoed out of the room, let the door swing shut behind him, and walked rapidly down the hospital corridor. A cold wind had started to blow, and he buttoned up his coat, made certain that he wasn’t followed, and dropped into a drugstore at the corner. He called Drake’s office. Drake had just come in.
Mason said, “Paul, I have been thinking we may have overlooked a bet.”
“On what?”
“On Mrs. Warfield.”
“What about her?”
“We didn’t put a tail on her.”
“Well, I can do it if you want.”
“I think we should better. Put two good men right in the hotel. They can rent a room and take turns watching and sleeping.”
“I shall have them there within half an hour.”
“Call me back at my apartment,” Mason said, “and before they start work, have them find out if Mrs. Warfield is in her room.”
“Right.”
Mason hung up, drove to his apartment, slipped out of his coat, vest, shirt, and trousers, put on a pair of slacks and a smoking jacket, and was lighting his pipe when the phone rang.
“Drake talking,” the detective said. “Everything’s okay at the Gateview.”
“She is in her room?”
“Uh-huh. The light is still on.”
“And your men are on the job?”
“That’s right. But I have found out something that doesn’t look so good.”
“What?”
“She went up to her room, then after a few minutes came back down to the lobby. The girl at the newsstand was just closing up. Mrs. Warfield tried to get some back copies of Photoplay.”
Mason whistled. “Did the girl have any?”
“No.”
Mason frowned at the telephone. “That picture of Homan,” he asked, “was that published in Photoplay?”
“I think it was.”
“You don’t know when?”
“Some time last summer.”
“She didn’t ask for any particular number?”
“No, just asked for back copies of Photoplay.”
“We will have to raise our sights a couple of notches on Mrs. Lois Warfield.”
“You may be right at that,” Drake admitted. “It makes my cheeks burn. She didn’t act smart. She seemed like a woman who is accustomed to pick up her hand after the deal and find she holds all the low cards.”
Mason said, “Scrimping out of her salary to send those monthly remittances to Spinney certainly sounds on the level.”
“I am not so certain, Perry, but what that is just a dodge. If she was sending eighteen dollars a month, it would be two hundred and sixteen dollars a year. That’s pretty cheap for a phony build-up.”
“Not for a person who is working in a cafeteria in New Orleans,” Mason said. “Keep your eye peeled, Paul. I feel that we are walking in the dark, and there are banana peels on the sidewalk.”
“Well, I have got two men on the job who aren’t exactly simpletons.”
“Keep them there,” Mason said, and hung up.
Chapter 10
Mason was up at seven-thirty. He closed the windows, turned on the steam heat, glanced through the headlines of the paper, and took a lukewarm shower.
When he had dressed, he went to the bookshelves and selected a large white-backed volume which he spread open on the table in front of the window.
The volume gave much biographical information concerning the prominent men identified with the film industry, and, using it as a reference, Mason checked back against the information which Drake had given him concerning Jules Carne Homan. The producer was thirty-four years old, had had high school education and two years of college. There was a long list of screen originals he had written and plays which had been produced under him. While the volume didn’t say so in so many words, it was apparent that Homan’s Hollywood activities had occupied a period of but little over two years. He had started as a writer, and, from the meteoric advance. Mason felt certain that there was a story behind the scenes. But there was no inkling as to what that story might be.
Mason zipped open his brief case and stood staring at the photograph of Jules Carne Homan. He turned it over and looked on the back. The words, “Photoplay Magazine,” had been stamped on the back. Mason pulled the shades, turned on a desk lamp, and tried holding the photograph at different angles. The words on the back didn’t show through the photograph, except when it was held directly in front of a bright light.
Mason was still frowning thoughtfully an hour and fifteen minutes later when he entered the office.
Della Street brought in the morning mail. “How did your interview turn out?” she asked.
“Nothing doing,” Mason said.
“She wouldn’t talk?”
“Apparently she knew nothing to talk about. But there is an angle I can’t get.”
“What, for instance?”
Mason handed Della Street the photograph of Homan. “Look at it,” he said. “Don’t turn it over. Just look at it. How would you know that was taken by a photographer of Photoplay Magazine?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Well, it was, and she did.”
“You are certain?”
“I am not certain of anything in this case. You follow a blazed trail that looks broad as a boulevard, and all of a sudden it evaporates into thin air and leaves you in the middle of a swamp somewhere. The...”
“Wait a minute,” Della Street said, staring at the photograph. She held it up to the light.
“No, I have tried that. The paper is too heavy. The light doesn’t shine through. Then again, there wasn’t any light on the table. She didn’t even turn it around, just held it in her right hand, looked at it and then passed it back.”
Della Street said, “It’s funny she didn’t hold it in both hands.”
“She was doing some little feminine stunt or other at the time, digging in her bag or something.”
Della Street’s eyes twinkled. “Not powdering her nose?”
“Yes,” Mason said, “I believe she was. Why?”
“Goosey!”
“What’s the idea?”
She opened her bag, took out a compact, snapped it open, said, “Hold out the photograph.”
Mason held the photograph out in front of her. Della Street tilted her compact.
“Get it?” she asked.
“Get what?... Oh, my gosh!” Mason exclaimed.
“You should have had me along,” Della Street told him reproachfully. “This takes a woman’s touch.”
Mason said to Della, “I am just a lawyer, but Paul Drake is supposed to be a detective. Wait until he hears...”
A knock sounded on the door. “That’s Paul now,” she said.
Mason grinned. “Open up for him, Della. This is going to be good.”
Drake came swinging into the office, said, “Hello, gang,” and sprawled out in the big leather chair.
Mason grinned at him. “How is the great detective this morning?”
Drake cocked a baleful eye in Mason’s direction. “This,” he said, “has all the earmarks of being the preliminary for a sock right between the eyes.”
Mason said, “The trouble with us, Paul, is that we need a guardian. It serves us right for not taking Della along last night.”
“What now?”
“Do you remember what Mrs. Warfield was doing when we showed her that photograph last night?”
“Sitting at the table,” Drake said.