“Don’t be silly,” Mason interrupted. “I had no idea this man was dead. I wanted you to hear him confess.”
Tragg said grimly, “I am inclined to believe you. And I am the only one in the department who will.” He walked over to the bed, circled it, studying the position of the figure. “Don’t you guys touch anything,” he said irritably. “Better get out there in the corridor and wait.”
Neither Mason nor Drake made any move, but Drake’s operative stepped back into the corridor.
The man lay face down on the bed. His shoes were on. The double-breasted coat seemed to be buttoned. The counterpane had not been drawn back but still covered the bed and one of the pillows. The other pillow lay on the floor. The man was stretched diagonally across the bed, his right arm dangling over the edge. On the fourth finger of the hand was a diamond ring. There was a dark patch at the base of his skull, and a sinister dark trickle which had seeped down his neck across the collar of his coat to stain the bed. There had, however, been but little bleeding.
Tragg stooped to examine the hole. “Small caliber bullet,” he said, as though thinking aloud. “Gun held close. Powder burns. The tattooed type. Used that pillow on the floor to muffle the sound of the shot. Powder stains on it, too.”
“Going to turn him over?” Mason asked.
Tragg said irritably, “I am not going to touch a damn thing until the coroner gets here. You two get out of here. Go on down to the lobby and wait. And be damned sure you don’t leave. There is going to be a stink over this.”
“I tell you I had no idea this man was dead,” Mason said. “In fact, I thought...”
“The newspaper boys aren’t going to think so,” Tragg interrupted, “and the Chief isn’t going to think so. It looks as though you had made the department a cat’s-paw so you wouldn’t discover any more bodies.”
“What is the use?” Mason said to Drake. “Let us go.”
“While you are down in the lobby,” Tragg said, “telephone headquarters, tell them I am here, tell them to send out the Homicide car. And don’t go away, Mason. I want to ask you some questions.”
Mason and Drake picked up Drake’s operative in the corridor. Mason said significantly, “Paul, wouldn’t it be a good idea for your man to see if he couldn’t get chummy with the telephone operator and find out if Lossten had any calls last night?”
Drake said, “Shucks, Perry, you know he didn’t have any calls. He got that room, went immediately to...”
Mason nudged him with his elbow, and, as the detective ceased talking. Mason went on smoothly, “Well, you know, Paul, he might have done some telephoning, and those telephone calls would be on his bill. After Tragg gets the Homicide Squad here, he will sew everything up, and we won’t be able to get any information at all.”
“I get you,” Drake said, and then to the operative, “You understand what is required?”
“Uh-huh. It is not going to be so easy, because the telephone operator who is on now won’t be the one who was on last night.”
“Well, see what you can do,” Mason said, “and you should better go on down in the elevator a few minutes before we do. We will give you a chance for a head start before we show up. And telephone Tragg’s message to headquarters. Don’t give out any information to anyone except the police.”
“I won’t.”
When the elevator door had closed on Drake’s operative. Mason said in a low voice, “Thought we would better get rid of him while we talk. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Drake said, “Shucks, Perry, we are in the clear on this.”
“That shows all you know about it.”
“What is wrong with it?”
“In the first place, the baggage. Did you notice the baggage over in the corner of the room?”
“No.”
“A suitcase and a hatbox,” Mason said. “Mrs. Warfield’s. Tragg, of course, thought it was the dead man’s baggage. The coroner will open it, and then...”
“Oh-oh!”
“We have got to tell Tragg what we were doing here. We have been altogether too prominent around the place, what with Mrs. Warfield’s disappearance and all that.”
“I suppose so,” Drake admitted gloomily, “but he can’t...”
“Well, there was Mrs. Warfield’s baggage over in the corner of the room.”
“Why the devil didn’t she get it away from there?” Drake asked irritably.
“Take it easy,” Mason said. “We have got to reason this thing out. That Warfield woman certainly played us for a couple of suckers.”
“What do you think happened?”
“This man followed us to the hotel, went down to her room, told her he had a message from her husband, or else told her that he was Spinney. He told her she was sticking her neck out, playing with the wrong crowd, that you were a private detective, and I was a lawyer, and that her husband would have a fit if he found out what she was doing. He told her to grab her baggage and come down to his room.”
“So far so good,” Drake said, “but I can’t figure the play after that.”
Mason said, “There is only one thing that could have happened.”
“What’s that?”
“She found out Spinney was double-crossing her, that her husband was double-crossing her. And the only way she could have found that out was by having seen Homan’s picture with the Photoplay stamp on it. Don’t you get it? She knew then that he was in pictures. Get the sketch?”
Drake pursed his lips, “Damn it, yes.”
“Now, then,” Mason went on in a low voice, “look at it from Tragg’s viewpoint. He will think I am protecting Mrs. Warfield, that I advised her to beat it, and that the story we handed the hotel manager about her disappearance was merely a runaround.”
Drake’s face twisted. “Damn” he said.
“So watch your step,” Mason warned. “And now let us go to the lobby.”
They went down in the elevator. Drake’s operative came bustling toward them. “That Mrs. Warfield you wanted. She was in the hotel all the time.”
“What?”
“The clerk was just telling me,” the man said, “that she walked out not over ten minutes after Mr. Mason had paid the bill. The clerk spotted her in the lobby, and asked her to wait a minute. He said the manager wanted to see her, that he had a message for her from her brother-in-law.”
“And what happened?”
“The natural and obvious thing. The clerk stepped back to call the manager. Mrs. Warfield stuck her chin up in the air, told them she wasn’t Mrs. Warfield, that she had no brother-in-law, and if they tried to detain her, she would sue the hotel for damages, and with that she swept out of the lobby.”
Mason and Drake exchanged glances.
“You know how it was,” Drake’s man went on. “The manager wasn’t going to run out and grab her. Her bill was paid. He just let her walk out.”
“Well,” Mason said, “if you think we aren’t in a sweet spot now, you just don’t know Lieutenant Tragg.”
Drake said with feeling, “I shall never fall for one of those tired-eyed, droop-shouldered women again. Remember that handbag she was carrying, Perry, how it bulged, and seemed to be heavy? Well, she was carrying a gun in that.”
Mason said, “I don’t give a damn who killed him, Paul. That’s Tragg’s headache. My job is to prove that this man was driving the car. When I’ve done that, I’m finished.”
“Well, can’t you have Miss Claire come over and identify him?”
Mason’s laugh was scornful. “Sure, she can identify him, but how are we going to get any corroboration? He can’t betray himself by some inadvertent slip of the tongue. He can’t confess. Not now. He is dead. Stephane Claire’s word won’t be any good. If a woman could get out of a negligent homicide charge by simply pointing to a corpse and saying — ‘There’s the man who was really driving the car.’ — well, a good lawyer could always find a likely looking corpse somewhere.”