Fulda glanced at Paul Drake. Drake’s countenance was completely wooden.
“Well—” Fulda said reluctantly, and walked over to the telephone.
He called Police Headquarters, asked for Lieutenant Tragg, learned that Tragg was not in and left his name and telephone number. “Tell Lieutenant Tragg to call me as soon as he comes in,” he said. “He— Well, I prefer to talk with Lieutenant Tragg. It’s about some sound equipment and... That’s right, that’s the place. The Keymont Hotel... That’s right, I’ll be right here. Tell him to call me. I’ll be waiting right by the phone.”
He hung up, and said to Mason, “I hope that was the right thing to do.”
Mason, who had been standing at the front window, turned and said over his shoulder, “I’ve just saved your license for you, you damn fool. Lieutenant Tragg is just parking his police car at the curb. That call will save your life.”
“Lieutenant Tragg!” Fulda exclaimed. “How in the world did he get here this soon?”
“He probably located you the way I told you he would,” Mason said.
Steps pounded on the porch. The chimes sounded on the door. Mason turned the knob and pulled the door open. “Walk right in, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’re just in time for coffee.”
Tragg’s face darkened. “What the hell are you doing here, Mason?”
“Asking questions.”
“All right,” Tragg said, “you’ve asked the questions. I’ll get the answers... Your name Fulda?” he asked the man back of Mason.
“That’s right,” Fulda said.
“You wired 721 and 725 in the Keymont Hotel?”
Fulda nodded. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, Lieutenant. I called Homicide Squad and left a message.”
Tragg’s mouth was grim. “Let’s hope,” he said, “for your sake, that you did, because it’s going to mean all the difference in the world in the way you get treated.”
“You can ring up and find out that I did,” Fulda said.
“In that case, that’s the one only really smart move you’ve made so far,” Tragg said.
Mrs. Fulda appeared from the kitchen, smiling somewhat nervously. “Good morning, Lieutenant. I’m Mrs. Fulda. I’m just making some coffee for the gentlemen, and perhaps if you’d...”
“I’ll drink all of it,” Tragg said. “The gentlemen are leaving. They can get their coffee at a restaurant.”
She smiled rather vaguely as though at a joke.
“I mean it,” Tragg said. “What were they doing out here, Fulda?”
“Why, just asking me a few questions.”
“That’s fine,” Tragg said. “Now I’ll get the answers, and I’ll also ask you a couple of questions that they didn’t know about, and, believe me, those are the questions that are going to count.”
Chapter 13
The morning mail brought the letter from Morris Alburg. A check for $1,000 was enclosed.
The letter, however, as a rather harassed, nervous Mason pointed out to his secretary, was something less than a masterpiece of clarity. It said simply:
Dear Mr. Mason: You will remember the fur coat matter. I want you to represent me and the girl in that thing. I am enclosing a thousand dollars as a retainer, and there’s more where that came from if you need it.
Hastily,
Mason angrily tapped the letter with his forefinger. “Represent him in ‘that thing.’... That’s broad enough to include every crime in the Penal Code.”
“And probably does,” Della Street said.
At three-thirty that afternoon, Paul Drake, looking worn and haggard, tapped his code knock on the door of Mason’s private office.
Della Street admitted him. Drake dropped into the big overstuffed chair, stretched, yawned, shook his head, and said, “I can’t take it any more, Perry.”
Mason grinned. “You’re just out of practice, Paul. You haven’t been working for me enough lately. What you need is a few more sleepless nights to keep in training.”
Drake said, “For a fact, Perry, I used to be able to keep going all night and through the next day and keep alert. Now I have spells of being groggy.”
Mason merely grinned.
“How about the Chief?” Della Street asked. “He had a million problems confronting him this morning and...”
“Oh, him,” Drake said. “You never need to worry about him. He’s the old human dynamo. He manufactures energy faster than any human being can use it up. If we only had some way of soldering wires on him we could get rich selling surplus energy to run-down millionaires.”
“What’s on your mind beside all that stuff?” Mason asked.
“That girl,” Drake said. “Minerva Hamlin.”
“What about her?”
“I rang her house fifteen minutes ago and told her mother I wanted to speak with Minerva as soon as she wakened. I wanted her to call me.”
“Well?”
“She wasn’t home.”
“Go ahead.”
“She was down at Police Headquarters. The mother — now get this, Perry — the mother said she had been called down about half an hour ago to make an identification.”
Mason whistled.
“Does that mean they have Dixie Dayton?” Della Street asked.
“It could mean a lot of things,” Mason said, pushing back his desk chair and getting to his feet. “Hang it, I don’t like that, Paul.”
Mason started pacing the office.
“I don’t like it either.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, wouldn’t she have called and reported to you, at least told you what they said they wanted her for?”
“That depends on what you mean by ‘ordinary circumstances,’ Perry. She’s one of these self-sufficient women who wants it definitely understood she isn’t going to stand for any foolishness. She’s been so satisfied with herself that she had me feeling the same way.”
“I doubt if she’s really efficient,” Mason said. “She’s simply cultivated an efficient manner. She’s acting a part, the part of extreme competence, probably aping a secretary she saw in a show some place, and that was merely an actress portraying a part the way she thought it should be portrayed.”
Drake said, “I’ve been checking up on her a little bit, Perry—”
“Go ahead,” Mason said, as Drake hesitated.
“Well, I always felt she was thoroughly competent, but I find that the other help doesn’t think very much of her. She always seems to have the situation well in hand, but, damn it, she does make mistakes. I found that out. The girl who comes on in the morning and takes over the switchboard after she leaves has been covering up a few of her boners.”
“What were they?”
“Minor matters. A couple of the operatives who have been in on night stuff have tried to kid her along a little bit and she’s frozen them in her tracks.”
“Making passes?” Mason asked.
“Hell, no,” Drake said, “just the ordinary stuff that happens around an office — or should happen around an office where people are supposed to be working together with some degree of co-operation.
“You know how it is, Perry, in a business like mine where things are more or less informal, you get a sort of family relationship. Of course, the girl who comes on during the night shift always is a more or less queer fish. She starts in at midnight and quits work at eight in the morning. For the most part the switchboard and office end doesn’t amount to anything, so in order to keep her busy we usually have her do the typing work on most of the cases. She files letters that have been written during the day, and types out the operatives’ reports.