They rode for a while in silence. Then Drake asked, “What was your hunch on the redhead in Prescott’s office, Perry?”
“I just thought she’d bear investigation, that’s all. Why, did you find out anything?”
“She’s leading a double life,” Drake said, grinning. “I know that much.”
“What’s the double life?”
“Daytimes she’s Rosa Hendrix. She works at the office under that name, goes home to a thirty-four-dollar-a-month apartment at 1025 Alvord Avenue. She stays there for half an hour or so, then calls a taxi and goes to apartment 5-C in the Bellefontaine, one of the swankiest apartment houses in the city.”
“And what does she do there?”
“Spends the night, apparently, then goes to the Alvord Avenue address and then to work.”
“But what’s the idea?” Mason asked.
“Darned if I know,” Drake told him. “I haven’t been on the job long enough to know.”
“Some man paying for the apartment in the Bellefontaine?”
“Apparently not. She keeps it under the name of Diana Morgan, has a few boy-friends who drop in to see her,but no more than could be expected with a respectable young woman. Everything’s handled very discreetly and aboveboard. But occasionally she announces she’s going to take a trip down to Mexico, up to San Francisco, or over to Reno. She sends a transfer man up, has her trunks taken down to the depot, and doesn’t show up for a week or so. Then she comes back with her procession of trunks, and settles down to routine life.”
“What does she do while she’s gone?” Mason asked.
“Apparently just keeps on working at Prescott & Wray’s office for a salary of a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. Incidentally, the apartment in the Bellefontaine costs her three hundred and ninety-five.”
Mason puckered his forehead into thought.
“Does that add up and make sense?” Drake asked. “You know, she could be a phony, but still not have anything to do with this case.”
Mason nodded thoughtfully. “She could,” he said, “but all the way through this case there’s been something screwy, something which just didn’t make sense. So, under the circumstances, we’re going to dig into everything that looks the least big irregular. I hate to pry into Rosa Hendrix’s private love-life, Paul, but I want a complete report on everything she does.”
“I’m watching her like a hawk,” Drake told him. “It happens that the manager of the Bellefontaine is a client of mine. I did some work for him once, and he’s let me put one of my men on the elevator.”
The car gained the open road and roared into high speed. Mason sat frowning thoughtfully until he had finished his cigarette. Then he pinched out the stub, dropped it in the ashtray, shook his head and said. “Somewhere along the line, Paul, I’ve overlooked the big bet in this case. It’s just running around in circles.”
“An inside tip from headquarters,” Drake said, “is that they have enough on Rita Swaine to hang her. I don’t want to discourage you on your case, Perry, but I thought you’d like to know.”
Mason said, without taking his eyes from the road, his profile grim and granite-hard, “Don’t ever kid yourself, Paul, circumstantial evidence is sometimes a liar. I think this is one of the times.”
“You don’t think she did it?”
“No.”
“Who did, then?”
“I’m damned if I know. I’m hoping there’ll be something on the body of Jason Braun which will give us a clue as to whom he’d been talking with, where he’s been hiding during the last day or two. He saw something in one of the windows. He must have told someone what he saw.”
“Well, we’ll know in a few minutes. We’re eating up the miles now.”
Again Mason sat back and was silent. Not until the car slued off to the side of the road where a light roadster was parked, with a man standing beside it frantically waving his arms, did the lawyer appear to be conscious of his surroundings. “That your man, Paul?” he asked then.
The detective nodded. “He’ll lead the way,” he said.
Mason sat forward on the edge of the seat, watching every curve in the road as it snaked its way up a precipitous canyon.
“What the devil was Jason Braun doing up here?” the lawyer asked.
“I can’t figure it myself,” Drake said, “unless he came up here to meet someone. Remember, he was an investigator working on a case, and—”
“And if he’d wanted complete privacy, he could have secured it just as well about twenty-five miles nearer the city,” Mason interrupted.
Drake said, “We’ll see.”
The pilot car labored up the heavy grade, rounded a turn, and the stop light flashed an angry red of warning. Ahead of the car, a motorcycle officer, attired in whipcord, puttees and a leather coat, flagged the car to a stop. A tow car was parked crossways a hundred feet beyond him, a taut wire rope stretched down into the depths of the canyon. The motor of the car was turning slowly and the wire rope gradually reeling in over the revolving drums.
Mason and Drake jumped to the ground. Drake showed his card to the traffic officer. “I’m making an investigation of this,” he said.
“What’s the idea?” the officer wanted to know.
“I’m representing an insurance company,” Drake said. “The big-shot thinks the man’s a policy holder.”
“What makes him think that?” the traffic officer wanted to know.
Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, “Probably just a poor hunch, but one of his policy holders has been missing for two or three days, and he’s just playing it safe. Anyway, there’s ten dollars a day and expenses in it for me, eight and expenses for the photographer, and this guy, here, so I should worry.”
The traffic officer nodded. “I’d like prints of any pictures you take,” he said.
“Sure,” Drake told him.
“And don’t mess up anything. The coroner hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Think he’ll come?”
“He’ll probably tell us to bring the body in, but we’re awaiting definite instructions to make sure.”
“Where’s the body?” Mason asked.
“Over there under that tree, covered with a canvas. But you can’t tell anything by that.”
“Why not?”
“Take a look at the head and you’ll see why. Lying out in the sun for a couple of days hasn’t improved things any, either.”
Drake said, “Okay, thanks, we’ll take a look. Come on, boys, let’s go.”
They walked up the road to where the tow car, with its back wheels blocked, was straining at the weight on the other end of the steel line.
The sun beat down from a cloudless sky. The air in the canyon was dry, hot and still. A growth of scrub oak covered the slope which stretched down for a hundred feet below the roadbed to terminate abruptly in a fifty-foot drop. The tow car had raised the wreck above this drop and was now inching it up the slope. From time to time, branches of the scrub oak cracked explosively. Little spurts of powdery dust puffed upward from the trees.
Mason said to the man in charge of operations, “We’re investigators,” and moved over to the white canvas which had been spread beneath the shade of a big oak tree.
Picking up a corner of the canvas, he moved it back. Flies buzzed in angry circles. Mason dropped the canvas back into place and said, “Not much help there.”
Drake dropped to his knees, brought out a small inked pad from his pocket and said, “I can get something from the finger-tips, Perry.”