The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

Chapter 10

Drake and Mason sat in the lobby, impatiently watching the hands of the clock. Daylight had started to filter through the big plate-glass windows of the lobby. A few early trucks rumbled past. A milk wagon went

“What the devil are they looking for?” Drake asked Mason.

Mason shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose they gave you the works, Paul.”

“They gave me the works,” Drake said, and then added fervently, “And how!”

“What did you tell them?”

“I followed your instructions. I didn’t hold out on them.”

“It’s a cinch,” Mason said, “that that room was wired for sound. As nearly as I can figure it out, Morris Alburg expected to get some witness in there. He wanted me to interrogate that witness and he wanted to have a record of what was said. I’m willing to bet money that the adjoining room, or some room nearby, had a complete recording outfit.”

“I gathered that was what you had in mind,” Drake said.

“Their questions were too apropos to be just groping in the dark,” Mason told him. “Having a shorthand reporter there and asking us those specific questions, particularly bearing down on you the way they did, meant that they were loaded for bear and were trying to get your license. That’s why I told you to tell them the whole thing.”

“Well, they sure knew everything that went on in that room,” Drake said. “I’m satisfied you’re right, Perry. I wasn’t too certain at first, but after they asked me questions about the messages written in lipstick I knew that you were on the right track.”

“The question is,” Mason said, “how far back those records go, how much they know.”

“I think there’s a gap of some sort,” Drake said. “They sure want to know what happened when you entered the room, just what was said. They kept trying to find out from me what I knew about that.”

“What did you tell them?”

“All I knew, which wasn’t much.”

Mason said, “Look, Paul, there aren’t too many authorized private detective agencies here in the city. Now, then, suppose you had a job and you wanted to have a tape or disc recording made, just whom would you get?”

Drake said, “We all of us have sound equipment, Perry. We have to be a little careful about how we use it, but we have tape recorders, microphones, and the best of the agencies have all the latest gadgets.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“These machines that you can leave on a plant,” Drake said, “without necessarily having to monitor them. The feed is automatic. There’s a relay of acetate discs so that a fresh one comes on as soon as one has been filled up. There’s a clockwork mechanism by which the machine automatically shuts itself off if there’s silence in the room for a period of around ten seconds. Then as soon as any sound comes over the wires, the machine cuts in again... Or, of course, you can set them for continuous recording. Often when we want to know what’s going on in a room over a twenty-four-hour period we put the machine on its automatic adjustment. In that way the disc revolves only when people are talking.”

“They work pretty well?”

“Pretty well,” Drake said. “Of course, those are the latest gadgets, and conversations of that sort aren’t much good as evidence because there’s no way of telling how much time elapses between conversations, and there’s no one to testify to the fact that the conversation took place in the room where the microphone was placed. Theoretically it would be possible for someone to get into the room where the recording mechanism was housed and fake the thing.”

“I know,” Mason said, “but it’s a good way to check on... Oh-oh, here’s Tragg. He looks tickled to death.”

Lieutenant Tragg left the elevator, walked over toward Mason and Drake, said, “I’m sorry we had to inconvenience you fellows, but you know how it is. This is a murder case... Everything’s okay. You can go now.”

“Thanks,” Drake said and started for the door.

Mason held back. “Your friend Sergeant Jaffrey seems to be of the old school.”

“If you had to contend with the things he has to fight, you’d be hard-boiled, too,” Tragg said.

“Got the case all solved, Lieutenant?”

Tragg hesitated a moment, then said, “I’ll tell you one thing, Mason — you’ll read it in the papers anyway, so you may as well know it.”

“Shoot.”

“That number that was penciled in lipstick on the back of the mirror was the license number of George Fayette’s automobile. It was registered under the name of Herbert Sidney Granton. That was his latest alias. And when we found that automobile, which we finally did, we found a nice bullet hole through the right front door. A bullet that had been fired from the inside. Seems safe to assume that was the car that was used in the attempted kidnaping and murder of Dixie Dayton.”

“But Fayette wasn’t driving it,” Mason said.

“Fayette wasn’t driving it,” Tragg said. “We’re having the car processed for fingerprints and before too very long we may know who was driving it.”

Mason frowned thoughtfully.

“And personally I wouldn’t blame Morris Alburg for beating George Fayette to the punch,” Tragg said. “Actually it would have been self-defense. Fayette was dynamite. But Alburg is a red-hot target not because of Fayette, but because he’s teamed up with Dixie Dayton, and until Dixie Dayton produces Tom Sedgwick we’re going to raise merry hell with your clients, Mason. I thought you might as well know it.”

“You didn’t think that was any secret, did you?” Mason said, and headed toward the exit.