The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

Chapter 10

Mason sat on one side of the heavy, coarse-meshed screen that ran the length of the visitors’ room in the jail. On the other side sat Adelle Winters.

“Mrs. Winters,” Mason said, “I’m going to put the cards on the table. I was trying to help Eva Martell, and I thought at the time it was an easy case — now I find out that it isn’t.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“Because of the things you have done. Police feel that you and Eva deliberately planned to murder Hines for the purpose of getting his money.”

“That’s absurd!”

“They can build up a pretty strong case.”

“Eva is absolutely innocent. But I’m in a mess — I know that.”

“You seem to have dragged Eva in with you.”

“But I wouldn’t have done that for worlds! I love that girl like a daughter. Are you going to be my lawyer, Mr. Mason?”

“I don’t think so. I got in here because I told the jailer that I had to talk with you as an attorney to find out whether I’d take your case. That still holds true. But what I want to know is where Eva stands in this.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what happened, Mr. Mason. When you spoke to me about the danger of carrying that gun, I pretended not to pay any attention. Actually I was very much impressed. I realized that someone might make it appear we had committed a technical crime. And as I understand it, there’s a law that if you have a gun in your possession when you’re committing a crime, you can’t get probation — you have to go to the penitentiary.”

“Generally that’s true.”

“Well, I decided to get rid of the gun. From your office I went back up to the apartment, and the first thing I did there was to take the gun out of my purse and put it in the sideboard drawer. Then — later, when we were planning to get out — I took it out of the drawer and put it on top of the sideboard. But in the excitement of gathering my things together and getting out, I forgot it. Down in the lobby I did some telephoning. I called Hines several times, and got no answer. I called you, and kept hearing the busy signal. Then I suddenly remembered about the gun. So I told Eva to wait — that I had forgotten something and had to go back upstairs.”

“What time was this?”

“Oh, perhaps two o’clock, perhaps a little after.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went up in the elevator, walked along the corridor, opened the door of the apartment. The gun was there on the sideboard. At the time, I didn’t notice anything strange about it; but afterwards I recalled that when I’d left it the muzzle had been pointing toward the wall, though when I picked it up the muzzle was pointing toward me. The door to the bedroom was closed. I didn’t open it — fortunately. The murderer must have been in there right then.

“So I picked up the gun, turned toward the door, and then noticed that wallet lying on the floor near the bedroom door. I swear to you, Mr. Mason, I didn’t any more than look at it, see that it was Mr. Hines’s wallet, and push it down inside my blouse. I intended to give it to him when I saw him, which I thought would be soon.

“I left the apartment and picked up Eva, and we took a cab to the Lorenzo Hotel; it took less than five minutes. At the hotel I went at once to the ladies’ room and opened my purse to get my compact. When I did that, I smelled a peculiar powder smell. It came from the gun, of course. So I looked at it, and one shell had been fired. I smelled of the barrel, and it smelled of fresh powder. I wanted to get rid of it, so I took it out to that garbage pail and dumped it in.

“And that’s the real, honest-to-goodness truth, Mr. Mason — every word of it!”

“I want to believe your story, Mrs. Winters,” Mason told her. “I’m anxious to believe you’re innocent. But the story you have just told doesn’t convince me, and I don’t see how you can possibly expect a jury to believe it.”

“Oh, I can improve on it, Mr. Mason, if I have time,” she assured him.

“You mean you’re going to change that story?”

“Sure — to make it better.”

“Regardless of the facts?”

She snorted. “Facts don’t mean a damn thing. Lots of times, the truth isn’t very convincing. But I’m pretty good at fixing up stories, Mr. Mason, and I can improve this one considerably. As it is, I’ve told you the real truth — I wouldn’t tell that to anyone else.”

“You want me to believe that after you first left the apartment, and went down to the lobby, and then came back up in the elevator, both Hines and the murderer walked in without your seeing them; that they walked into the bedroom; that the murderer killed Hines with your gun that he had picked up from the sideboard; that he replaced the gun, took Hines’s wallet and threw it on the floor, and then was trapped in the bedroom by your return?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s the way it happened?”

“That’s the way it must have happened.”

Mason looked at her. “That is,” he went on, “just to make the thing more convincing, the murderer took that wallet containing something over three thousand dollars and tossed it on the floor, so that you could find it and walk off with it?”

“You don’t believe me, do you, Mr. Mason?”

“No.”

“That’s exactly the way it happened. Cross my heart and hope to die, Mr. Mason, I’m telling you the truth.”

“How do you suppose Hines got into the apartment house without your seeing him?”

“I don’t know.” There was a moment of silence. Then she said, “He had to get there, Mr. Mason. If he was killed with my gun, he had to be there before I left — no matter who killed him. His body was there in the bedroom.”

“It was for a fact,” the lawyer conceded. Then he asked abruptly, “How about that number Hines gave you so that you could call him? Did he tell you where the phone was located?”

“No.”

“And while you were telephoning, you didn’t see him come into the apartment house? Neither you nor Eva saw him enter?”

“No — nobody came in during the few minutes we were there before I started upstairs.”

Mason said, “There’s one way of putting the facts together so your story isn’t quite so implausible. I’ll investigate that theory.”

“What’s that?”

”That Hines lived in another apartment in the same building, and that was the apartment where the telephone was located.”

“Yes. That’s so. That must be it. That would make my story sound better, wouldn’t it?”

Mason studied her.

“Now you’re sure this story you’ve told is the truth.”

“It’s the truth, Mr. Mason,” she said, and after a moment added, “but I haven’t a damn bit of confidence in it.”