“That might account for the discrepancy between what Casselman offered me for Garvin’s stock and what she said she had been offered for hers.”
“Oh-oh!” Della Street exclaimed. “I never thought of it in that light, Chief. I guess I’m a little dumb this morning.”
“Nothing dumb about the way you stood down there on the sidewalk waiting to catch me as I left the parking lot. You did a smooth job. I didn’t pick you out. That’s an art, blending with a crowd.”
She laughed. “Actually I was in the shoeshine stand. I had the shine boy shine my shoes, and then had him give me another shine. I was on my third shine when you showed up. I felt that I’d be conspicuous if I stood around on the sidewalk, and I didn’t know whether Tragg had any men on the job or not.”
“Good girl!” Mason said.
They were silent until the driver drew up in front of the Lodestar Apartments.
“Better wait,” Mason told him. “We’ll be back within a few minutes and then we’re going other places.”
“Okay, I’ll hold it,” the driver said.
Mason and Della Street entered the apartment house. Mason nodded to the man at the desk and walked across to the elevators so casually that no one asked him where he was going.
They took the elevator to the third floor, walked down to Stephanie Falkner’s apartment.
Mason tapped gently on the door.
Stephanie Falkner called through the closed door. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Mason.”
“Are you alone?”
“Miss Street’s with me.”
The bolt clicked on the door. Stephanie Falkner, dressed in a house-coat and slippers, said, “Everything’s in a mess. I’m a slow starter in the mornings. I’ve just had breakfast and haven’t cleaned up. Can I fix you some coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Mason said. “We just wanted to get a little information.”
“I presume it’s rather important to bring you out at this time in the morning.”
“It could be,” Mason said.
“All right, what’s the information?”
“When we left here last night, Homer Garvin was here?”
She nodded.
“How long did he stay here?”
For a moment her face broke into an expression of anger. “None of your damn business!” she flared.
Mason said, “I’m sorry. We’re making it our business. For your information, George Casselman turned up very, very dead in his apartment this morning.”
Her gray eyes surveyed Mason’s face, then shifted to Della Street’s face. “Sit down,” she said.
The folding bed had not as yet been made, and she seated herself on the edge of the bed.
Mason looked at the rumpled pillows on the bed, suddenly jumped to his feet, walked to the bed, jerked one of the pillows aside, and disclosed a snub-nosed revolver.
“What’s this?”
“What do you think it is? A toothbrush?”
Mason stood looking down at the revolver.
“Unless I’m greatly mistaken,” he said, “this is very similar to the revolver which Homer Garvin had in his shoulder holster last night.”
She said nothing.
Mason leaned over and picked up the revolver.
“In case you want to know,” she said after a moment, “Homer was concerned about my personal safety. He was going to try to do something with the syndicate and... well, you know what the syndicate did once before.”
“So he left his gun here with you for your protection?”
“That’s right.”
Mason looked the weapon over, smelled the barrel, frowned, swung open the cylinder, and said, “You seem to have one empty cartridge in the gun, Miss Falkner.”
“I don’t have any empty cartridges in any gun,” she said. “It is not my gun. I tell you Mr. Garvin left it here last night for my protection. I didn’t want it and I don’t want it.”
“But you did put it under your pillow?”
“Where would you put it?” she asked sarcastically.
Mason abruptly arose from his chair, put the gun back under the pillow where he had found it.
“Now what?” she asked.
Mason said, “I am not representing you. I am not your attorney. I am not a police officer, and I have no right to question you, but I want to know if you went out last night after we left you.”
She said, “I haven’t been out of this apartment since the last time you saw me.”
Mason nodded to Della Street.
“All right,” Stephanie said, “George Casselman has been murdered. He’s the man who killed my father. What do you expect me to do? Break down and have hysterics?
“Look,” she went on, “you’re a lawyer. You’re clever. You know the ropes. You’re representing Homer Garvin. You aren’t representing me. You’d do anything in your power to save your client. You’d throw me to the wolves so Homer Garvin could get away.”
“That’s rather an inaccurate description of my attitude,” Mason said, “but we’ll let it go at that. Come on, Della.”
Mason walked out.
“Now where?” Della Street asked as the door of the apartment closed behind them.
“Now,” Mason said, “we go hunt up Homer Garvin and we hunt him up fast. We hope we get there before the police do.”
“Do they have any line on him?” Della Street asked.
“They will if Stephanie Falkner tells them about the gun.”
“And will she tell them about the gun?”
“That,” Mason said, “is something on which I don’t care to speculate.”
“Do you think she will?”
“She will if she’s smart. Think what it would mean if that should turn out to be the murder weapon.”
“Shouldn’t you have taken it?”
Mason held the elevator door open for Della Street. “Not on your life,” he said. “It’s too hot for me to handle.”
They went down in the elevator, crossed the lobby, entered the cab, and Mason gave the address of Homer Garvin’s office.
“Think he’ll be there?” Della Street asked.
“He’ll either be there or we’ll find out where we can locate him,” Mason said. “This time we won’t take any back talk from a blond secretary who’s trying to make a production out of everything she does.”
The cab deposited them at the building where Garvin had his office. “Keep on holding it,” Mason said. “We shouldn’t be long.”
He and Della Street were whisked up in an express elevator.
Mason walked down the corridor to the door which said: “Homer H. Garvin, Investments. Enter.”
The lawyer twisted the knob, pushed the door, and recoiled in surprise.
The door was locked.
Mason looked at his watch. “Hang it! Garvin should be here or one of his secretaries should be in. She...”
“Remember,” Della Street said, “he told us that he’d fired her last night. Perhaps there was a scene, and she has decided he’s not entitled to two weeks’ notice, or he’s decided he doesn’t want her hanging around.”
“Well, there should be someone here,” Mason said. He knocked on the door of the office then walked around the corridor to the door marked, HOMER H. GARVIN, INVESTMENTS, PRIVATE, and knocked on that door.
“Guess there’s no one home,” Mason said. “Let’s go down to the lobby and get busy on the telephone, Della.”
“I don’t know the phone number of his apartment, and it’s an unlisted telephone, Chief.”
“That’s all right. We’ll get it from Gertie.”
Mason and Della Street went down to the lobby of the building where there was a row of telephone booths. Della Street got Gertie on the phone, got the number of Garvin’s apartment, dialed, waited, and said, “No answer.”