The Case of the Baited Hook

Chapter 10

A telegram was lying on Mason’s desk when he entered the office Friday morning, and Della Street informed him that Mrs. Tump was impatiently awaiting his arrival in the outer office.

Mason opened the telegram. It was signed Adelle Hastings, and read:

Mason thrust the telegram in his pocket, and said to Della Street, “All right. Let’s see what Mrs. Tump wants, and get her out of the way.”

Della Street ushered Mrs. Tump into the inner office. The woman’s grayish-green eyes glittered as she came sailing across the office. Only her lips were smiling.

“Good morning, Mr. Mason,” she said.

“How are you this morning, Mrs. Tump?”

“Very well, thank you. What have you found out?”

“Not a great deal,” Mason admitted, “but I’m making progress.”

“What about that fifty-thousand-dollar stock sale, Mr. Mason?”

Mason said, “I’m going to set that aside.”

“Is the stock worth anything?”

Mason indicated a chair, gave Mrs. Tump a cigarette, took one himself, lit up, and said, “That stock which was delivered to Loftus & Cale represented the private holdings of the president of the company. That should answer your question. I’m going to set the transaction aside on the ground that Tidings was dead before the check was delivered for the stock.”

She studied him with her glittering, hard eyes. “You can do that?”

“Yes.”

“How are you going to prove it?”

“For one thing,” Mason said, “I can prove it by the testimony of the autopsy surgeon — I hope.”

Mrs. Tump said, “Mr. Mason, I want to talk with you frankly.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m not one to mince words.”

“Let’s have them unminced then,” Mason said with a smile.

She said, “Very well, Mr. Mason. When I wanted you to handle Byrl’s case, you began stalling for time.”

Mason raised his eyebrows in silent interrogation.

“Now, of course, Mr. Mason, when we first came to you, you had no way of knowing that Mr. Tidings was dead.”

“Correct,” Mason said.

“Now, as I understand it, if you can prove that Mr. Tidings died somewhere before eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning, it will enable Byrl to get fifty thousand dollars back into the trust fund.”

“Correct.”

“Who will pay that fifty thousand?”

“We’ll proceed against Loftus & Cale,” Mason said. “They’ll have to try and get the money back from Bolus. Because I warned them of what they could expect, they’re taking steps to impound the money.”

“That’s very clever of you, Mr. Mason.”

“Thank you.”

“Mr. Mason, are you representing Adelle Hastings?”

Mason said, cautiously, “In what connection, Mrs. Tump?”

“In any connection.”

“A lawyer has to keep the affairs of his client confidential.”

Mrs. Tump said, “You know what I mean. If she should be accused of murdering Tidings, would you be her lawyer?”

Mason studied his cigarette thoughtfully. “That would be hard to say.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Tump said. “I just want to say one thing, and then I’m through, Mr. Mason. Personally, I think Adelle Hastings is a snob, an arrogant, insulting little snob. She’s done a lot to make things disagreeable for Byrl. I hate her because of that. But I know she isn’t one who would commit murder. I’ll say that for her — although I still hate her.

“Now then, Mr. Mason, suppose she’s accused of that murder. She might depend upon an alibi, and she might want to prove that Tidings died after twelve o’clock Tuesday in order to make her alibi good. Now then, if you tried to help her do that, you’d be working directly against Byrl’s interests because we want to show that Tidings died before eleven o’clock… You understand me, Mr. Mason?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Tump got to her feet. “Very well, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I just wanted to know where you stood. I’m never one to mince words. I don’t care whom you represent, but there’s one thing on which there must be no misunderstanding: Albert Tidings met his death before that stock deal went through… Good morning, Mr. Mason.”

Mason glanced across at Della Street as the door closed behind Mrs. Tump. “That,” he said, “is that… Get your hat and coat, Della. Bring along a notebook. We’re going to call on the woman who holds the other part of that ten-thousand-dollar bill.”

“You know who she is?” Della Street asked in surprise.

“I do now,” Mason said grimly, “—just about three days too late.”

“How did you discover her?”

“By a little head work,” Mason said. “And I should have known a lot sooner. Come on. Let’s go.”

They drove in Mason’s car out through the city, swinging to the northward away from the through boulevard.

“Mrs. Tidings?” Della Street asked, as they started climbing up a twisting road.

Mason nodded.

“But she was in Reno. She left Monday. She couldn’t have been at your office Monday night.”

Mason said patiently, “She’s the only one who’s tried to make her alibi stretch back of Monday night. All the others presented alibis for Tuesday afternoon.”

“Well?” Della Street asked.

“Well,” Mason said. “The answer is obvious. She’s the only one who knew that he was killed Monday night. She couldn’t look ahead into the future, and know that Mattern would try to protect his ten thousand dollars by having Tidings alive on Tuesday morning.”

“That’s all the evidence you have to go on, Chief?” Della Street asked.

“It’s enough,” Mason said grimly. “The minute she told me about leaving for Reno on Monday noon and driving all night, I should have known.”

“And she’s the masked woman?”

“Yes.”

“Do you suppose she’ll deny it?”

“Not now,” Mason said. “I’m only hoping that I can get there before Holcomb figures it out.”

“You think he’ll figure it out?”

“Yes.”

They drove in silence up the winding road. The house in which the body of Albert Tidings had been found glistened white and clean in the sunlight, giving no evidence of the sinister background of gruesome murder which had attached itself to the cozy bungalow.

“Well,” Mason said, “here we go.” He opened the car door, slid out to the pavement, and he and Della Street walked up the short space of cement which stretched from the porch to the street.

Mason pressed his thumb against the bell button.

Almost instantly the door was opened by Mrs. Tidings who was dressed for the street. “Why, good morning, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I thought I recognized you when you got out of the car.”

“Miss Street, Mrs. Tidings,” Mason introduced perfunctorily.

“How do you do?” Mrs. Tidings said to Della Street. “Won’t you come in?”

They entered the house, and Mrs. Tidings indicated chairs. “Cigarette?” she asked of Della Street, opening a humidor.

“Thank you,” Della said, taking one.

“I have one of my own,” Mason said, taking his cigarette case from his pocket.

Mrs. Tidings said, “Things are at sixes and sevens with me. I think you understand how it is. They’re having the funeral this afternoon. It was delayed while the experts were trying to uncover some clue which would point to the murderer… You don’t know what progress they’ve made, do you, Mr. Mason?”

“If they’re releasing the body this afternoon,” Mason said, “it’s certain that they’ve completed their tests.”

“Yes. I surmised as much, but I don’t know what they’ve found.”

“They haven’t told you?”

“Not a word.

“Of course,” Mrs. Tidings repeated, “I’m upset. We’d separated, but it was a shock to me… I hated him.”

Mason said, “I appreciate your position, Mrs. Tidings. By the way, I came to get the other half of that ten-thousand-dollar bill.”

“Why, Mr. Mason, what do you mean?”

Mason looked at his wrist watch. “Minutes may mean the difference between a good defense and a verdict of first-degree murder. If you want to waste time arguing about it, go ahead. It’s your funeral… And I don’t mean the remark figuratively.”

“You seem rather certain of your ground, Mr. Mason.”

“I am. When you and Peltham came to my office, I noticed two things. The first was that Peltham had laid careful plans to get in touch with me at any hour of the day or night, just in case he ever wanted a lawyer. The second was that a lot of things in connection with your visit showed extreme haste and lack of preparation: the fact, for instance, that Peltham gave me a fictitious name which wasn’t listed in the telephone directory. Also there was your mask.”

She kept her eyes veiled. “What about the mask?”

“It was a black mask with a silver tinsel trimming,” Mason said. “It had been part of a masquerade costume, something which had been stored away as a souvenir.”

“I don’t see what that proves,” she said.

“Simply this,” Mason said. “Peltham had made careful preparations to see me in case something happened. When that something did happen, he had to act fast. He decided to protect you by keeping your identity a secret even from me. That meant a mask. Now people don’t just carry masks around with them, and you don’t find them hanging on lamp posts late at night. But you had one, probably tucked away in some bureau drawer, at home. That means that whatever happened that made it imperative for the woman Peltham was protecting to see me, happened right in her home or reasonably close. I should have known the answer the minute I discovered Tidings’ body here.”

She looked at him for a moment in silence, studying the granite-hard lines of his face. Then, without a word, she opened her purse, took out a small envelope, tore it open, and from that envelope extracted the other portion of the ten-thousand-dollar bill which she handed to Mr. Mason.

There was some surprise on Della Street’s face, but Mason didn’t so much as flicker an eyelash.

“When did you know he was dead?”

“Why, when I returned from Reno of course.”

Mason said nothing, but once more looked at his wrist watch, an eloquent reminder of the passing of time.

She said, “Honestly, Mr. Mason, I’m telling the truth.”

Mason said, “You were in love with Peltham. He wanted to protect you. You came to my office shortly after midnight. You did everything possible to keep me from learning your real identity as well as the nature of the case on which I was to be employed. You subsequently claimed that you had left for Reno late Monday afternoon. Apparently, you were actually in Reno Tuesday morning.

“Considering all of those various circumstances in their proper light, it means that the body of Albert Tidings was lying right here, in that bedroom, at the very moment you were calling on me at my office… Now then, did you kill him or did Peltham?”

“Neither.”

“But you knew he was dead?”

She hesitated for several seconds, then said, almost inaudibly, “Yes.”

“And you were the ones who put him into that room and on that bed?”

“Yes.”

“Who killed him?”

“Honestly, Mr. Mason, I don’t know.”

“Better tell me what you do know,” Mason said.

She said, “I’m going to be frank with you, Mr. Mason.”

“Do,” Mason said, and then added significantly, “for a change.”

She said, “I wanted a divorce. I am very much in love with Bob. Bob had reason to believe that Albert was dipping into the Hastings Memorial Trust Fund. He was working with Adelle Hastings, trying to straighten things out. He wanted her to demand an audit of the books. Under the circumstances, if my attachment for Robert had been discovered, it would have made very serious complications all around. You can understand that, Mr. Mason.”

Mason said tonelessly, “I can understand that.”

Della Street slipped a shorthand notebook from her purse. Mason said, “Don’t do it, Della. I don’t want any of this recorded anywhere… Go ahead, Mrs. Tidings.”

She said, “Albert had been trying to effect a reconciliation. I told him that it was impossible. Bob and I had been to a show. We were driving home. We found Albert’s car parked down near the circle at the end of the road. It was raining hard. Albert was in the car, slumped down in the seat to one side of the steering wheel. He had been shot and was unconscious. We stopped our car. Bob and I got out in the rain and tried to see how seriously Albert was injured. There was still a faint pulse. He had been shot in the chest. We realized that we couldn’t do anything in the space there was inside the car. I told Bob he’d have to help me get Albert into the house, and then I’d telephone for a doctor and the police.

“Together, we got him out of the car and half carried, half dragged him into the house. We put him on the bed. I ran to the telephone, and was just on the point of putting through the call when Bob called to me. He said, ‘It’s too late now, Nadine. He’s dead.’

“I ran back to the bed. There was no question about it. I suppose that in moving him, we’d started the hemorrhage — making it more severe. Anyway, he was dead. There wasn’t the faintest pulse.”

“What did you do?” Mason asked.

“Bob told me that I couldn’t be dragged into it, that he would skip out and keep in hiding, that this would tend to direct suspicion to him, that it would be better for me to put my car in a garage somewhere and take a plane to Reno where I had friends. I could claim that I’d driven up there. By leaving the house door open and unlocked, it would make it appear he’d broken in in my absence.

“We talked things over and decided that here in the house it might be quite a while before the body was discovered, that I might be able to build up an alibi that would hold water. It would help my alibi to have the time of death appear to be as late as possible. There was mud on his shoes, mud stains on the counterpane of the bed. We realized that these might help fix the time of murder. So we took off his shoes and topcoat, pulled the mud-stained counterpane out from under him, and wrapped them up in a bundle.”

“What became of them?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. Bob took them. He said he’d take care of them.”

“Then what did you do?”

“Then I drove Bob’s car, and Bob drove Albert’s car. He wanted the car discovered as far away from the house as possible. We parked the car and then telephoned you. Bob said you could protect me if anyone could, but he pointed out that if my alibi in Reno held up, I wouldn’t have any need for an attorney, that if they didn’t discover Albert’s body for four or five days, no one could tell exactly when he’d died, and that if I could get a lucky break, I might be able to keep absolutely out of it.

“We’d managed things very circumspectly. No one in the world had any idea that Bob and I were… were… that we cared for each other.”

Mason said, “You overlooked one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“On the California line near Topaz Lake there’s a state quarantine checking station. They check the cars that go through, particularly the cars that come into the state. They keep a record of license numbers… You went to Reno by plane?”

“Yes.”

“And stored your car?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In a small garage where I sometimes keep it.”

“Do they know you?”

She smiled and said, “Not as Mrs. Tidings.”

“Under another name?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Peltham?”

“No, not Mrs. Peltham. Mrs. Hushman.”

“Who’s Mr. Hushman?” Mason asked.

She lowered her eyes, then after a moment said, “Mr. Peltham.”

There was the sound of a car being driven rapidly past the house. The tires screamed a protest as the machine was whisked around the turntable. Della Street, getting up from the chair in which she was sitting, crossed over to the window to look out.

“A police car,” she said to Mason.

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Tidings,” he said, “I want you to promise me one thing. Make absolutely no statements. Refuse to answer any questions.”

“But surely, Mr. Mason, you don’t think…”

From the window, Della Street said, “Sergeant Holcomb and an officer are getting out. They’re coming toward the house.”

“Will you promise me?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“Remember, your life depends on keeping that promise.”

“But, Mr. Mason, they can’t touch me, regardless of how I went to Reno. I certainly was there by five o’clock Tuesday morning, and the testimony of Albert’s secretary shows that he was alive and well until noon on Tuesday.”

“Did you,” Mason asked, as steps sounded on the porch, “know that Mattern was going to do that?”

“No, of course not. It was just a lucky break for us.”

Mason said, “Well, there’s one thing wrong with that. It isn’t the truth. Any time you go to court relying on something that isn’t the truth, your whole defense may collapse under you. I don’t handle my cases that way. I find out the truth, and build up my defense on a solid foundation… Now then, if you killed him, I want you to tell me.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

The doorbell rang steadily and insistently.

“If you’re lying to me,” Mason said, “heaven help you.”

“Mr. Mason, I’m telling you the absolute, honest truth. I’ve lied to you before. Now I’m telling you the truth.”

The doorbell continued ringing, and was supplemented by the pounding of imperative knuckles on the panels of the door.

“If you didn’t kill him,” Mason asked, “who did?”

“Honestly, Mr. Mason, I haven’t the faintest idea. It must have been someone over that trust fund. Sometimes I’ve suspected…”

The door groaned against pressure as the officers pushed their shoulders against it.

Mason said, “All right. Go open the door.”

Mrs. Tidings crossed over and opened the door.

Sergeant Holcomb came pushing his way into the room. He looked at Perry Mason and Della Street.

“You two!” he said, in a voice that showed his anger. “What are you doing here?”

“Talking with my client,” Mason said.

Sergeant Holcomb said, “You knew I was coming. How did you know it?”

Mason shook his head.

“You’re retained by Mrs. Tidings?”

“Yes.”

“For what did she retain you?”

“To handle her business.”

“What’s the nature of that business?”

Mason smiled. “Really, Sergeant, an attorney doesn’t discuss the affairs of his client.”

Sergeant Holcomb whirled to Mrs. Tidings, “All right, Mrs. Tidings,” he said. “We’re going to have some answers to some questions here and now. The records show that you didn’t drive your car to Reno. During the time that you were in Reno, your car was parked in a garage on East Central Avenue. They know you there as Mrs. Robert Hushman. They have seen your purported husband, Mr. Hushman. The garage men have identified photographs of Robert Peltham as being photographs of Robert Hushman. They’ve identified photographs of you… Now then, what have you to say to that?”

Mason said, “I can answer that question.”

“I don’t want you to,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I want an answer from her.”

She said, “I have nothing to say.”

Mason nodded. “I have instructed her not to answer any questions.”

“If she doesn’t answer that question,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “she’s going to headquarters. She’s going to have a chat with the D.A. If she doesn’t give an explanation of certain facts at that time, she’s going to be charged with first-degree murder.”

Mason carefully ground out the end of his cigarette. “Put your hat on, Mrs. Tidings,” he said.