Mason nodded.
“Do you suppose it was because his dad had suspected he was doing wrong by Stephanie Falkner?”
“It’s hard to tell what caused the trouble,” Mason said, “but evidently there’s a bit of feeling. It will be interesting to see what Eva Elliott has to say about the marriage.”
“There’s just a possibility,” Della Street said, “that Eva Elliott doesn’t feel very cordial toward you.”
“I would say that was a masterly understatement,” Mason said.
“And,” Della Street went on, “it’s only etiquette to call and ask if it’s all right to come up. A young woman quite frequently doesn’t look her best in the morning.”
“And if she says she doesn’t want to see us, then what do we do?”
Della Street thought that over. “Well,” she said, “that could prove embarrassing.”
“Exactly,” Mason told her. “So we’ll get up to the apartment as best we can, and then see what happens.”
The Monadnock Apartments proved to be one which had an outer door and a push button system, with communication from the apartments.
Mason found a key on his ring which fitted the outer door, and he and Della Street went to Apartment 317.
Mason knocked on the door of the apartment, one sharp knock, a pause, four short knocks, a pause, then two, short knocks.
Almost instantly the door was thrown open. Eva Elliott, dressed for the street, said, “Well, you have a crust to—” She stopped short as she saw Mason and Della Street on the threshold.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought it was someone else.”
“I want to talk with you a minute,” Mason said. “May we come in? This is Miss Street, my secretary.”
“I don’t have much time this morning. I’m going out. I have an appointment and...”
“It will only take a few minutes.”
She yielded the point with poor grace. “Well, come on in.” Mason and Della Street entered the apartment.
“You’re not with Mr. Garvin any more?” Mason asked.
“Thanks to you,” she said, but without bitterness, “I am not.”
Mason raised his eyebrows. “Thanks to me?”
“Mr. Garvin said that I should have told you where he was.”
“You knew?” Mason asked.
“I knew, but he told me not to tell anyone. In my vocabulary, Mr. Mason, anyone means anyone.”
“I see.”
“What would it mean to you?”
“Well,” Mason said smiling, “almost anyone. Do I gather that there are some hard feelings?”
She said, “If you ask me, I think the whole Garvin family stinks. I did think that only the son was a rotter, but I guess it’s a question of ‘like father like son,’ and vice versa.”
Mason said, “I dislike to see you lose your job on account of some misunderstanding, particularly one that had something to do with my calling on you.”
“Don’t give it a thought,” she said. “I’m a lot better off than I would be sitting in that stuffy, old office wasting my time. I’ve got places to go and things to do, and it’s about time I started.”
“Would you mind telling me about it?” Mason asked.
She said, “Mr. Garvin got back from Las Vegas. He had a chip on his shoulder and I knew it the minute he walked into the office. He had telephoned and asked me to wait until he arrived. He said I could have dinner and put it on the expense account. Not a word about overtime. Just a dinner on the expense account. And I have to watch my figure. I ate pine-apple and cottage cheese salad when I’d like to have had a big steak and everything that goes with it but you can’t have poise and avoirdupois at the same time. The plan I’ve laid out for my life calls for grace, a certain amount of poise and not too much avoirdupois.”
“Go on,” Mason said.
“Well, as you’re probably aware, Mr. Garvin has that private office of his fitted up so it’s almost an apartment. There’s a nice tile shower and dressing room. He has a little closet that is fixed up with an electric plate so he can warm up coffee and fix himself a snack whenever he doesn’t want to go out. He has a bar with an electric icebox. In fact, he sometimes uses the place as an apartment. I’ve known times, when he’s been expecting an important long distance call, that he’d stay right there in his office for twenty-four hours at a time.
“Well, he came back from Las Vegas and I could see that he was terribly worked up about something. I hoped he’d get it off his chest and leave me at least part of the evening free, but not him. He is just as selfish as his son. He told me he was all dirty and sticky from the trip, and he was going to take a shower. So he popped into his dressing room and took a shower, and left me cooling my heels out there in the outer office until he came out all nicely fixed up with a clean suit out of his closet, and then he proceeded to jump on me.”
“And you?” Mason asked.
She said, “I told him I didn’t have to take that from anybody. I told him that when he gave me instructions I followed them, and that, as far as I was concerned, he could take his job and give it to somebody else.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said that suited him all right, and I went out of the office.”
“What time was this?” Mason asked.
“He got in early enough, about eight-forty-five I guess, and he kept me waiting while he was getting all cool and comfortable so he could pick on me... I just kept getting madder and madder.”
“Now, wait a minute. What time did this interview take place?”
“I guess it was a little after nine.”
“And he told you he’d just got in from Las Vegas?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Did he drive in from Las Vegas or fly?”
“I don’t know. He had his car with him but that doesn’t mean anything because he keeps four or five cars, and then whenever he wants he’ll pick up other cars from his son’s used car lot.”
“How long had he been in Las Vegas?”
“Two days.”
“May I ask what you intend to do now?”
“What I intend to do now,” she said, “is do what I should have done a long time ago: devote myself to my stage career.”
“I didn’t know you’d been on the stage.”
“Well, I... I didn’t say I’d been on the stage, but I’ve had training for the stage. I’m being interviewed this morning for a bit part and I’m going to have to go right now, Mr. Mason. I’m sorry. I don’t have any hard feelings against you but I think I’ve received a raw deal.”
“You’re finished at the office?” Mason asked.
“Am I finished? I hope to tell the world I’m finished... Now I don’t like to have to throw you out but out you go. You’ve taken up too much of my time already.
“Why don’t you ask Mr. Garvin what happened? He’ll tell you.”
“I wanted to get your side of it.”
“If I gave you my side,” she said, “you’d be here all morning. His low-down son rushed me off my feet, and then when he began to get tired of me he wished me off on his dad as a secretary. Then the first thing I knew Junior was making a whirlwind campaign for Stephanie Falkner. Then he goes to Chicago and marries some babe he’s hardly had a chance to know. She’s some cutie from Las Vegas who came drifting into his used car lot — just by chance. He sold her a used car and she certainly sold him a bill of goods!
“Believe me, he won’t have her six months before he’s trading her in on another model. That man doesn’t know what he wants... Now come on. I’m awfully sorry but you’re going to have to leave. Be a sport and get out of here.”