Mason approached the desk. “Will you ring Miss Trenton, please,” he inquired of a bored clerk, “and tell her that a Mr. Drake is very anxious to see her at once upon an important business matter?”
The clerk plugged in a line, and, after a moment, said, “Two gentlemen in the lobby to see you, Miss Trenton. One of them is named Drake... What?... A business matter... Just a moment.” He turned from the mouthpiece to ask Mason, “Exactly what sort of business did you want to see her about?”
“About some jewelry,” Mason said.
The clerk was supercilious. “You’ll have to be more definite,” he said.
Mason, raising his voice, so that it would be audible to the party at the other end of the line, said, “Tell her we want to see her about some jewelry; that it’s private and a personal matter. that if she wants to have it spread all over the apartment house, that’s her business. I’m giving her a chance to keep her private affairs to herself.”
The effect was instantaneous. The receiver made squawking noises, and the clerk said, “Very well, Miss Trenton,” jerked the plug out and said, “Go on up, apartment 14B, on the fifth floor.”
Mason and Drake crossed to the elevator. Mason said to the colored boy at the controls, “Five. Make it snappy.” The cage shot upward. Mason led the way down the corridor and pounded with peremptory knuckles on the door of 14B. The door promptly opened a crack, to disclose two appraising blue eyes, a head of blonde hair, a full-lipped, rosebud mouth, and a slender, white hand which clutched the negligee about the throat of the ‘wearer. “I don’t know you,” Marjory Trenton said in a tone which implied the barrier was not insurmountable.
Mason nodded. “That’s right, you don’t.”
“Well, what is it you want?”
“Want us to talk it over in the corridor?” Mason asked.
“I’m certain I don’t intend to ask you in,” she said acidly. “I’m dressing, and I haven’t the faintest idea who you are nor what you want.”
Mason raised his voice and said, “All right, we’ll talk it over right here. This is Mr. Paul Drake. His wife had a platinum wrist watch. That watch was stolen. You have that watch in your possession. We want to talk it over. Do you want to get tough or do you want to avoid publicity?”
Her eyes grew apprehensive. “Why,” she said, “I... I... come in, please.”
She held the door open. Mason pushed his way into the room, followed by Paul Drake.
“Are you detectives?” she asked, closing the door.
Mason said, “Never mind who we are. Let’s take a look at the wrist watch.”
Sudden suspicion flared in her eyes. “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” she said. “Don’t think for a minute you’re going to come in here with some trumped-up story, and talk me out of a wrist watch. Say, what kind of a racket is this, anyway?”
Mason motioned to the telephone and said, “It’s okay with me. Call police headquarters. I thought we could handle it just among ourselves, but if you want to have it done formally, we can do it formally.”
“You can’t touch me, even if it is the same wrist watch,” she said.
“That’s what you say,” Mason told her. “Let’s concede that someone gave you the wrist watch and you didn’t know it was stolen. You know it’s stolen now. What are you going to do about it?”
“You can’t prove it’s the same wrist watch,” she said.
Mason said, “A platinum oval wrist watch, rimmed with diamonds, with four emeralds on the top, bottom, and each side.”
“There’s some mistake...” she said. “I... I have such a wrist watch, but that doesn’t mean anything. How do I know it belongs to you?”
Drake said, “I think she’s right, Perry. You can’t expect her to give up the wrist watch just on our say-so.”
Mason said, without sympathy, “Okay, let’s call headquarters and get them to send a man from the burglary detail out here. They can take the girl down to headquarters, your wife can make the identification and back it up with an identification from the jewelry company. I thought your wife didn’t want her picture in the papers.”
“She doesn’t,” Drake said. “We’d much prefer...”
“Wait a minute,” Marjory Trenton said as Mason strode toward the telephone. “I certainly don’t want my picture in the papers.”
Mason hesitated, one hand on the telephone.
“The watch I have was given to me,” Marjory Trenton said, her eyes puckered in thought. “Wait a minute and let me make a telephone call. I think perhaps we can straighten this all out.”
“Whom are you going to call?” Mason asked.
“The man who gave me the wrist watch,” she said.
Mason pushed the telephone away from her and said, “Oh, no, you’re not.”
“Why not? That’s the way to settle this.”
Mason said, “He may be the chap who lifted the wrist watch. Now, you look like a lady. We’re willing to give you all the breaks, but you’re not going to tip off the bird who gave you the wrist watch and give him a chance to skip out. Come on, sister, we’ll go down to headquarters and they can handle it from there.”
“But I’m absolutely, positively certain,” she said, “that a mistake has been made. If this is a stolen wrist watch, the thief sold it to some reputable jewelry store, which sold it to the man who gave it to me. That man has plenty of money. He’s an executive in a big company and would no more steal a wrist watch than...”
“Tell you what we’ll do,” Mason interrupted. “You can ring him up and tell him to come over here right away on a matter of the greatest importance, but don’t tell him what it is, and don’t tell him anyone else is here. Now, is that understood?”
She nodded.
“All right,” Mason said, moving away from the telephone, “go ahead. But remember, no funny stuff or I’ll have the burglary detail on the job within ten seconds after you make the first phoney move.”
She dialed a number, said, “Let me speak to Mr. Rooney, please,” and then, after a moment, “Hello, Custer, this is Margie. Listen, Big Boy, I want you to come over here right away... It’s something I have to see you about... I can’t tell you what it is over the phone... No... no, it’s not that... I can’t tell you, but it’s important. Please come... How soon?... All right, just as fast as you can... Of course I do, sweetheart, you know that... All right, precious.”
She hung up the telephone and said, “It’ll be just a few minutes.”
Mason dropped into a chair, crossed his long legs in front of him. Drake, perched on the edge of a table. Marjory Trenton crossed to a chair, pulled her negligee together above her crossed knees, and said, “Well, it looks as though we have to wait.”
“Do you want to dress?” Mason asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not going to leave you men alone in this room, and I’m not going to have you standing in the bedroom while I dress. So we’ll wait just the way we are.”
Drake said, “How about a drink?”
“I think you men are detectives,” the girl charged.
“That’s no reason why you shouldn’t buy a drink, is it?” Mason asked.
“Okay,” she said, “come on in the kitchenette, and help get out the ice cubes.”
Mason laughed. “Come on, Paul, it’s a two-man job. She won’t leave you alone here in the room.”
“Do you blame me?” she asked.
Mason said, “You’re a smart kid.”
“You’d be smart, too, if you’d been through what I have,” she told him, as Mason opened the ice box, took out a tray of cubes and held them under the tap in the sink.
“That bad?” Mason asked.