Case of the Silent Partner

Chapter 12

As they walked out of Mildreth Faulkner’s flower shop, Della Street said to Mason, “Do you suppose he knew all the time it was I who tried to cash that check?”

Mason said, “He evidently had considered that possibility. He trumped my ace — damn him!”

They got in Mason’s car. Mason started the motor and savagely slammed the gear shift back.

“But how did he know?”

“He put two and two together. He knew I was trying to cover Mrs. Lawley until the situation clarified itself. He knew that I was trying to drag Bob Lawley into it.”

“Suppose Lawley will talk if Tragg finds him?”

“Him?” Mason asked, contempt in his voice. “Of course, he’ll talk. I know the type. He’ll make a grandstand about what he’s going to do and what he’s not going to do. He’ll tell them they can beat him up, or drag him with wild horses, but that he won’t say a word. Then he’ll cave in, spill everything he knows, and try to pin the crime on his wife.”

“Why did Mrs. Lawley leave the hotel?”

Mason said, “You’re full of questions, aren’t you?...” He slid the car to a stop at a street intersection and motioned to a newsboy who was selling the late afternoon papers. “Here’s where we answer this one.”

“You mean she advertised?”

“No,” Mason said. “He did, the heel!”

“I thought you kept all papers away from her.”

“I told her not to read any. But giving instructions to a woman is something like putting money on roulette.”

The signal changed. Mason handed the boy a quarter, grabbed the newspaper, passed it over to Della, and said, “Look in the ad section under TOO LATE TO CLASSIFY.”

Mason drove slowly through traffic while Della Street looked through the newspaper. “Here it is,” she said.

“What does it say?”

“Carla, I am worried sick with anxiety for you, dearest. Telephone Grayview 6-9841, and tell me you are all right. That’s all I want to know. I can face the music if only you are all right.”

“How’s it signed?” Mason asked.

“Honeybunch.”

“The Goddamn rat!”

Mason saw a chance to put his car in a parking place at the curb. He slid in just beyond a fire plug, and said to Della, “There’s a drugstore on the corner. Ring up the Drake Detective Agency. Tell them we want to know who has the telephone listed in Grayview 6-9841.”

“Couldn’t I handle it by calling the number of perhaps...”

“No,” he interrupted. “Drake specializes in that sort of stuff, and knows how to go about it.”

“How long will it take him?”

“Not over a few minutes probably.”

“Then do we go to the office?”

“We do not. We’ll pay Mr. Sindler Coll a visit.”

Della jumped out of the car, walked rapidly into the drugstore, and was back in a few minutes. “He’s on the job,” she reported. “And there’s a report ready on the other stuff you wanted. I took it down in shorthand.”

“All right, read it to me as we’re driving along.”

He started the car. Della opened her notebook, translated the various pothooks and slanting lines. “Peavis, a tough, two-fisted go-getter. Got into the flower business in nineteen-twenty-eight. Before that had been in the liquor-running business. In the liquor business he had some trouble with a man named Frank Lecklen who tried to hijack some of his stuff. Lecklen went to the hospital with two bullets in him, and wouldn’t talk. He told police he shot himself. Peavis called to see him, hired a special nurse and doctor. Lecklen is now going under the name of Sindler Coll.

“Esther Dilmeyer, twenty-three, a come-on girl at a nightclub and gambling joint. She’s had a spotted history. Was discharged from the Rockaway Candy Company for insubordination and violation of rules — seems she ate more candy than her wages amounted to. Worked for the Ease-Adjust Shirt Company. The boss’ wife got jealous. Then Irma Radine, who works at the Golden Horn, met her. Irma had worked at the Rockaway Candy Company with Esther. Irma introduced her to Lynk. Lynk fell for her, and Esther went to work on a percentage basis. Coll started getting friendly about three months ago. She fell hard. Lately Coll has been cooling off. He’s supposed to have another flame, but he’s being very secretive about it. No one seems to know just who she is.

“Paul Drake said that was all he had to date, but he was keeping on the job. Does any of that help, Chief? That is — much?”

Mason said, “I’m damned if I know, Della. It’ll all fit in... That Irma Radine knows her pretty well... That’s why she acted so queerly when Tragg was questioning her at the Golden Horn. Think she’s pretty strong for Coll, too. He seems to be a riot with the ladies... We’ll see what we’ll see.” And Mason devoted his attention to the traffic.

At Sindler Coll’s apartment house, Mason said, “You’d better wait here, Della,” and rang the bell opposite Coll’s name.

There was no answer.

After a few minutes, Mason rang the bell marked MANAGER. The buzzer signaled the door was open. Mason entered, crossed the lobby, turned to the left, and rang the bell on the door of the manager’s apartment. Mrs. Farmer opened the door and, as she recognized him, smiled effusively. She had evidently spent some time at a beauty parlor, and her tightly girdled, snappily dressed figure was entirely different from the loose-muscled body which had been wrapped in a kimono the night before.

Mason let her see his surprise. “You look — wonderful!”

Her smile barely missed being a simper. “You’re so nice,” she said coyly.

Mason traded on the prestige of his former association with Tragg.

“Do you know where Coll is?”

“I don’t think he’s in.”

“Neither do I. He doesn’t answer.”

“I don’t think he’s been in all day. He went out around nine o’clock this morning.”

“Alone?”

“No. Some man was with him.”

“You don’t know where he went?”

“No.”

Mason said, “I’d like to take a look in his apartment. You have your passkey?” He made the request sound quite casual, and she didn’t even hesitate.

Coll’s apartment was a typical example of the moderate-priced, furnished, single apartment. The room had nothing about it to reflect the personality of its tenant, nor was there anything in the apartment which would give a clue as to where Coll might have gone.

“Maid service?” Mason asked.

“Yes. He has a daily maid service.”

“And evidently hasn’t been in since the maid cleaned the place up.”

The manager looked at the cleanly polished empty ash trays and nodded.

“Smokes cigarettes?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Mason noticed a telephone on a stand near the door, and casually noted the number. It was Southbrook 2-4304.

Once in the apartment, the manager seemed to realize that the situation might prove embarrassing should Coll return, and that she had carried her co-operation rather far. “Of course,” she said hurriedly, “I presume you just wanted to look in. I wouldn’t want to have you touch anything.”

“Oh, no,” Mason assured her. “Certainly not. I thought perhaps he might have — well, that something might have happened to him.”

“I understand.”

She made it a point to hold the door open for him, and coughed significantly when she thought he had remained long enough in the apartment.

Mason took the hint, walked out into the corridor. She pulled the door shut. “I suppose,” she said, “it won’t be necessary to mention anything about this to Mr. Coll. He wouldn’t like it.”

“You don’t need to mention it to anyone,” Mason said, “because I won’t.”

In the lobby, he thanked her again, said, “I have a call to make,” and went into the booth. He dialed the number of the Drake Detective Agency. Paul Drake had been called out, but his secretary was on the job, and said, “We have that number for you, Mr. Mason.”

“What is it?”

“The phone’s listed in the name of Esther Dilmeyer in the Molay Arms Apartments.”

Mason gave a low whistle, then said, “Okay. Thanks.” He hung up and called Dr. Willmont at his office. “Where’s that patient, Doctor?” he asked.

“Which one, the heart case? I haven’t seen her since this morning. I didn’t know you wanted...”

“Not that one. The poisoned-candy case, Esther Dilmeyer.”

“Still in the hospital.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“She wouldn’t have left the hospital without your knowing it?”

“Absolutely not.”

Mason said, “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be letting someone slip something over on you, would you?”

“Not in that hospital,” Dr. Willmont said positively. “It’s run like clockwork. As far as I know, Miss Dilmeyer is still sleeping. I left word that I was to be notified if there was any change in her condition.”

“Perhaps you’d better call up and verify the fact that she’s there.”

Dr. Willmont said testily, “I don’t need to. She’s right there. I’ll take the responsibility for that.”

“She couldn’t have sneaked out and...”

“Not a chance in the world... I’m going out there just as soon as I finish with my office patients. You can call me then if you want.”

“How soon will that be?”

“Just a minute,” Dr. Willmont said. “I’ll see how many more patients are in the office... Oh, nurse. How many have you?... Two... Hello, Mason. It shouldn’t be over fifteen or twenty minutes.”

Mason said, “All right, I may meet you there.” He hung up and rejoined Della Street in the car. “Got the address on that number, Della.”

“Where?”

“Esther Dilmeyer, Molay Arms Apartments.”

“Why, I thought Miss Dilmeyer was still unconscious...”

“She is,” Mason said. “She’s sleeping it off. Dr. Willmont says so.”

“Then what does it mean?”

“It means,” Mason said, “that I’ve been asleep at the switch.”

“I don’t understand.”

Mason said, “It stuck out like a sore thumb. We knew that Bob Lawley was playing around. We knew that he’d been mixed up in an automobile accident, and that Esther Dilmeyer had been with him. She’s a come-on blonde at a nightclub. She was working with Lynk and Sindler Coll, and they, in turn, were working for Peavis. There was big money involved. Get the sketch? Naturally, she wouldn’t have been standoffish with Bob Lawley.”

“You mean he had a key to her apartment?”

“Sure, he did,” Mason said, “and when he realized he was in a jam last night, he naturally went to her apartment. It was the logical thing for him to do. I should have known that’s where he’d have been. He’s just the type who would want some woman to stroke his forehead and comfort him and tell him that it was all right, that she’d sacrifice herself for him and a lot of that hooey.”

“Yes,” Della Street said thoughtfully, “everything he’s done seems to fit in with that type.”

Mason said, “Well, he went to the apartment. Esther wasn’t there. So he made himself at home. He telephoned the ad into the newspaper, charged it to Esther’s telephone, and sat back and waited. Carlotta violated my instructions, got a newspaper, read it, and looked in the classified ads. She and her husband may have had some understanding like that. In case of any emergency, they’d communicate with each other that way. Some people do. Or she may just have looked. Anyway, she got the telephone number. She called Bob.”

“And what did he do?”

“Went out and got her.”

“And then what?”

Mason stroked the angle of his chin. “There’s the rub. Let’s go out there and see what we can find, Della.”

They drove out to the Molay Arms. Mason tried the bell of Esther Dilmeyer’s apartment, got no answer, and called the manager. He said, “You’ll remember me. I was out here last night on that poisoning matter...”

“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling.

“I want to get some things out of Miss Dilmeyer’s apartment, and take them to her at the hospital. Would you give me the passkey please?”

“I can hardly do that,” she said, and hesitated, “but I’ll go up with you while you get what you want.”

Mason said, without letting her hear any change in his voice, “That’s fine.”

They walked up the stairs. Mason managed to slide in close to the wall, so that when she started to open the door, he was the first into the room.

There was no one in the apartment.

“What was it you wanted?” the manager asked.

Mason said, “Her nightgown, bedroom slippers, and some of her toilet articles. I’m rather helpless about those things, but I guess I can find them.”

“Oh, I’ll be glad to help! I think there’s a suitcase in the closet. Yes, here it is. You can just sit down if you wish, and I’ll get the things together. How is she?”

“You’re very kind. She’s doing nicely.”

Mason looked around the apartment. Police had dusted articles — the telephone, the table, some of the doorknobs — for the purpose of bringing out latent fingerprints. The ashtrays were well filled with cigarette stubs. Mason had no means of knowing whether the police had remained in the apartment for some time collecting evidence, and had left those cigarette ends, or whether they were indicative of a more recent occupancy.

While the manager was neatly folding garments into the suitcase, Mason made a detailed study of the cigarette ends. There were three of the better-known brands. One brand invariably had lipstick on the stubs. The other two did not. There were only four stubs which Mason found with lipstick on them. There were fifteen of the second brand, and twenty-two of the third. Those had evidently been consumed by nervous smokers. Seldom had more than half of the cigarette been smoked before it was ground into the ashtray.

“Was there anything else?” the manager asked.

“No, thank you. That’s all. You don’t know whether anyone’s been in here today?”

“Today? No, I don’t suppose so. No one said anything to me.”

“The police?”

“No. They finished last night — early this morning.”

“Maid service here?”

“Once a week is all. She takes care of her own apartment save for the regular weekly cleaning.”

“When’s that due?”

“Not until Saturday.”

“Thank you very much,” Mason said. “I’ll tell Miss Dilmeyer how helpful you were.”

He walked out of the apartment house carrying the suitcase, tossed it into his car, and said to Della Street, “Well, I guess I go to the hospital.”

It was twenty minutes past five when he reached the hospital. Dr. Willmont was already there.

“Patient still here?” Mason asked.

“The patient,” Dr. Willmont said, “is still here. She wakened about forty minutes ago, and while she’s a little groggy, her mind is clearing up very nicely.”

“Do the police know?”

“Not yet.”

“I thought they left instructions they were to be notified as soon as...”

“They did. I left instructions that I was to be notified of the patient’s condition, that no information was to be given to anyone else, and that no visitors were to be received until I personally had checked up on the patient’s condition. In a hospital, the doctor is boss.”

“That,” Mason said, “makes it nice. How much trouble would it cause if I sneaked in and had an interview before the police arrived?”

“It would cause a lot of trouble,” Dr. Willmont snapped. “You know that as well as I do. It would put me on a spot, and would make trouble for the hospital. Within certain limitations I can countermand police instructions when I personally assume the responsibility and the orders are for the good of my patient.”

Mason smiled. “I appreciate your position and your professional ethics, Doctor. Now, you know the mechanics of the hospital, and I don’t. How can I get to see Esther Dilmeyer in advance of the police without making trouble for you?”

“You’d have to do it without my knowledge,” Dr. Willmont said promptly.

“And without the knowledge of the nurse in charge?”

“That’s right.”

“And, I take it, your instructions have been very definite that nothing like that is to happen?”

“That’s quite correct.”

Mason lit a cigarette.

Dr. Willmont said, “I’m going to call the special nurse into the office for the purpose of checking over the patient’s chart. The patient is in room three-nineteen. Then I’m going to send the nurse down to the dispensary to get a prescription filled. It will be a prescription that will take a little time to fill. Sorry I can’t let you interview the patient, but it’s absolutely impossible. Step this way, please.”

He took Mason’s arm, escorted him over to the desk, and said to the woman in charge, “There are to be absolutely no visitors for Miss Dilmeyer until after the police have talked with her, and the police aren’t to talk with her until I give permission.”

“That’s my understanding,” the woman said.

Dr. Willmont turned to Mason. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mason, but you see how it is.”

Mason said, “Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your position. Will you tell me when I can see her?”

Willmont shook his head in crisp negation. “I have nothing whatever to say about that, sir. I am acting merely as physician. As soon as it becomes advisable for her to see anyone, I will notify the police. From that point on, unless her health becomes affected, I will have absolutely nothing to say about who sees her. That will be entirely in the hands of the authorities. Good evening, Mr. Mason.”

“Good evening, Doctor,” Mason said, and turned away.

Dr. Willmont marched with quick, springy strides toward the elevator. Mason started toward the door, detoured into a telephone booth, waited until the attendant at the desk had her back turned, took the elevator to the third floor, and located Esther Dilmeyer’s room. He walked on past and waited in the corridor until he saw the nurse go out carrying a card fastened to a clip. Then Mason walked down the hallway and pushed open the swinging door.

Esther Dilmeyer was sitting up in bed, sipping hot coffee. She looked up at him and said, “Hello.”

“How are you feeling?” Mason asked, walking over and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t exactly know yet. Who are you?”

“I’m Mason.”

“Perry Mason?”

“Yes.”

“I guess I owe you one. You saved my life, I understand.”

“I did the best I could,” Mason said.

“Did you have a hard time locating me?”

“I’ll say.”

“Gosh, that hot coffee tastes good. I guess I’m caught up on my sleep for quite some spell now.”

“Any idea who sent you the candy?” Mason asked.

She hesitated.

“Go on,” Mason prompted.

“Well, I thought it — you know, I’m not accusing anybody, but...”

“Go on.”

“Well, I met a young woman who seemed very much on the up-and-up — a squareshooter, you know.”

“That was Miss Faulkner?”

“Yes, that was Miss Faulkner. She runs the Faulkner Flower Shops.”

“I know.”

“Well, she told me I should have some orchids to go with my dress and sent them over.”

“Then what?”

“I got fed up with the whole business and decided to walk out on the joint. I was working over at the Golden Horn. They call me a hostess, but, you know, I was supposed to give the boys the spending urge, and let the management cash in.”

Mason nodded.

“Well, I went on home, and when I had been there about ten minutes, a messenger brought a box of candy. I opened the candy, and it had exactly the same sort of card in it that had been with the orchids.”

“The same handwriting?” Mason asked.

“I didn’t make a detailed comparison, but it certainly looked like it, and the initials and everything were the same.”

“So what did you do?”

She smiled and said, “Chocolate creams are one of the fondest things I am of. I was feeling low, and I went to town.”

“Then what?”

“I began to feel funny. I thought at first it was just drowsiness, but I had a one o’clock appointment at your office so I knew I couldn’t go to sleep. If it hadn’t been for that, I’d probably have drifted off without knowing anything about it, but, as it was, I kept fighting myself trying to keep awake. And then suddenly I realized it wasn’t just being sleepy. I’d been doped. I had an awful time keeping myself awake long enough to talk with you over the telephone. I can just remember hearing your voice. I kept trying to talk, and I’d go to sleep in between words, wake up with an awful effort, and then I’d go off to sleep again. It seemed as though I’d been talking with you for ages and ages.”

Mason said, “Now this is highly important. It may make a lot of difference. When you were talking with me, I heard a crash. It sounded as though you’d fallen out of the chair to the floor.”

“I can’t help you on that, Mr. Mason. I can’t remember.”

“I understand that, but when we arrived at your apartment, the telephone was lying on the floor, and the receiver had been put back into place. Now I can’t figure that you’d have put the receiver back.”

“I don’t think I could have.”

“Then someone must have been in your apartment, after you became unconscious and before I arrived.”

“And found me lying on the floor and gone off and left me without trying to help?”

“Yes.”

“That would be strange,” she said. Her eyes glinted with sudden anger.

“It would. Who else has a key?”

She took a deep breath. “Now get me straight, Mr. Mason. I’m no tin angel, but I strut my stuff at the nightclub. When I go to my apartment — well, I’m all finished. That’s the only way a girl can play my racket and have any self-respect left. No one at the nightclub even knows where my apartment is. Irma Radine’s one of my best friends there. Even she doesn’t know. The men who run the place don’t know.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely, positively, definitely certain.”

“Robert Lawley for instance?”

“Robert Lawley,” she said, with a grimace of distaste, “a weak-chinned, spineless wise guy. He’s what the boys call ‘half smart.’ He thinks he’s so la-de-da he’s a pain in the neck.”

“How did you meet him? Did Peavis ask you to get in touch with him or...”

“Sindler Coll,” she said.

“You’ve known Sindler?”

“Not so very long.”

“Well?”

“I was strong for Sindler,” she said. “I liked him. He got tired of me, and tried to run another jane in on the business when it looked as though there was going to be some gravy. I didn’t like that.”

“I don’t blame you.”

She said, “You’re certainly asking a lot of personal questions,” finished the coffee, and Mason took the empty cup and set it with the saucer on the table.

“What has Sindler said about me?” she asked, after a moment.

“Nothing.”

She studied her fingernails. “You’re certain of that?”

“Why, yes, of course. What is there to say?”

“Oh, you know, a man can shoot off his face sometimes. I thought perhaps he’d make some crack about the poison.”

“No. He seemed very solicitous.”

“He’s a good egg, at that.”

Mason took the handkerchief he had found in the telephone booth from his pocket. “Is this yours?”

She looked at it. “Why, yes. Don’t tell me I’ve been leaving handkerchiefs around in men’s apartments.”

“That handkerchief was found in the telephone booth at Sindler Coll’s apartment house.”

She said, “I wasn’t going to tell you about that.”

“About what?”

“I went around to Sindler’s apartment before I went home — that is, I tried to, but — well, he came out in the hallway to meet me. He told me he was having a business conference and couldn’t see me, to come back later on.”

“That was right after you left the Golden Horn?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do?”

She said bitterly, “A business conference! His hair was mussed, his tie was pulled over to one side, and there were lipstick smears on his mouth.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went right back downstairs. I tried to telephone Miss Faulkner. I was willing right then to go out to Bob Lawley’s place and spill everything. I wanted to tell her I’d go to your office and tell you the whole business — everything, or do anything else she wanted.”

“Did you get her?”

“No. There was no answer at her house, or at the shops.”

“Then what?”

“So then I gave up telephoning and went to my apartment, and the messenger came with the candy, and you know the rest.”

Mason said, “It’ll help a lot if you don’t remember having seen me. You’re not supposed to have visitors. The police are narrow-minded about such things.”

“Oh, the bulls,” she remarked contemptuously. “Well, don’t worry about them.”

“You’ll tell your story to them just as you told it to me?”

She laughed. “Don’t be silly. I’ll tell the cops nothing. I don’t beef to the cops. I handle my own grief.”

Mason said, “Get any ideas about Miss Faulkner out of your head. She wanted you as a witness. If you’d been poisoned and died, she’d have been in a fix. Your candy was sent by some other person.”

“Okay, Mr. Mason. If you say so, it’s so.”

Mason said, “Good girl. Here’s luck for a speedy recovery.”

“Recovery, hell!” she cried. “I’m so recovered right now, I’m going to wreck this joint if they don’t let me out.”

Mason laughed. “You can talk with Dr. Willmont about that.”

“Who’s he?”

“The doctor I got for you.”

Her eyes suddenly became suspicious. She looked at him and looked around the hospital. “Say,” she said, “I can’t afford to hang around in any private rooms in a hospital. I should be in a ward.”

Mason said, “The room and the doctor are on me.”

“Say, you’re a white guy! Maybe there’s something I can do for you some day.”

“Who knows,” Mason said, and tiptoed out of the room.

Seated in his car, Mason opened the afternoon newspaper, and read through the classification of “HOUSES FOR RENT-FURNISHED.” He listed five which were not too far from the Molay Arms Apartments. From a telephone booth, he started calling the numbers given in the ads, stating in each instance that he was interested in a furnished house, asking briefly about the rent, and so on. When he called the third number, a woman’s voice advised him rather shortly that the house had been rented that afternoon, and the phone connection was unceremoniously severed.

Mason stopped at the office to pick up Della Street. “Want to take a ride?” he asked.

“Yes. Where?”

“Out to a furnished house.”

“To see whom?”

“Carlotta Lawley perhaps.”

“Why the perhaps?”

“Because,” he said, “Lieutenant Tragg has had all the police facilities working for him. My only chance was to play a hunch. I couldn’t compete with his organization when it came to following a cold trail. I had to jump at conclusions and take a short cut.”

“And you think he’s beaten you to it?”

“If he hasn’t, it’s his own fault.”

Della sat beside him in the automobile without so much as asking a question until Mason arrived at the address of the furnished bungalow which had been for rent.

An ambulance was just pulling away from the door. Ahead of the ambulance, in a police sedan, Lieutenant Tragg was shifting his car into speed. Two men sat in the rear seat. Their close-huddled stiffness indicated that one was handcuffed to the other.

Mason didn’t even bother to stop at the bungalow. He kept right on going.

“Now where?” Della Street asked. “Police headquarters?”

“No,” he said, “dinner.”

“Aren’t you going to try to get her out?”

Mason shook his head. “The more I stir things up now, the more damage I do. If I’m tugging one way and Lieutenant Tragg is pulling the other, with Mrs. Lawley in between...”

“But, Chief, couldn’t you keep her from talking?”

“What about?”

“Oh, her connection with — well, perhaps what she said to you, or...”

“Evidently,” Mason said dryly, “you didn’t notice the expression on Lieutenant Tragg’s face as he went by us.”