The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

Chapter 4

Mason, in his office, looked at his watch for the second time within ten minutes. “Well, I guess it’s a stand-up,” he said.

Della Street nodded.

“We’ll give her another five minutes.”

“You really thought she’d come?” Della Street asked.

“I didn’t know. I was trying to keep an open mind.”

“How did Hines impress you?”

“Not too well.”

“But he’s in such a vulnerable position,” Della Street said. “I can’t understand why he’d promise you he’d do something like that and then not do it. Unless, of course, he’s just sparring for time.”

“He was sparring for time all right,” Mason said. “But it seems to me he could have resorted to something that would have been a little less spectacular when it failed. And he certainly could have shaded the time limit quite a bit. He could have said that he’d have her here at four o’clock and gained a cool three hours.”

“And if Helen Reedley does show up, and her thumbprint corresponds with the one on the driving license, will you be convinced that it’s all right?”

Mason laughed. “When and if she convinces me that she’s the one who has the lease to that apartment and that she owns the things that are in it. After all, there may be two or three Helen Reedleys in the country. I’m never going to be really satisfied until I knew exactly why Hines wanted to borrow a brunette to live in Helen Reedley’s apartment. — Okay, Della, here’s Hines’s number. Get him on the phone for me.”

Della Street relayed the call through Gertie and a few moments later nodded to Mason. “He’s on the line, Chief.”

“Hello. Hines?” Mason said.

“Yes. Mr. Mason?”

“Right. Your party hasn’t shown up yet.”

“Hasn’t shown up yet!” Hines exclaimed in a tone of utter incredulity.

“You heard me.”

“I can’t understand it. Why, I understood she’d be there in... Why, she should have been there at least twenty minutes ago.”

“That was my understanding.”

“I’m sure that if you’ll just be patient she’ll be there any minute now. She must have been detained by something unexpected.”

“Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this thing,” Mason said. “Did you talk with her?”

“Why, yes.”

“In person or over the phone?”

“Over the phone.”

“And you’re certain of the identity of the person with whom you talked?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Hines: I’ll give you exactly ten minutes more. At the end of that ten minutes, my clients go out of that apartment — and, as far as they’re concerned, the job’s over until I know what it’s all about.”

“Mr. Mason, please don’t do that. I simply can’t afford to have them leave that apartment now. It would be... it would be disastrous!”

“Then get the Reedley woman in here within ten minutes,” Mason said and hung up.

He noted the time. “Now,” he said to Della, “have Gertie get Adelle Winters on the line. Tell her to rush the call through because Hines will probably be calling them, putting up some sort of stall.”

Della Street gave the number to Gertie, telling her to rush it. Then, while she was waiting on the line, she asked, “Do you want Adelle Winters or Eva Martell?”

“Eva Martell. She’s the one I’m retained to protect.”

Della nodded, then suddenly turned to the telephone. “Hello. This is Mr. Mason’s office. Is this— Oh, yes, Mrs. Winters, is Miss Martell there? This is Mr. Mason’s office... Just a minute. Mr. Mason wants to talk with you, Miss Martell.”

She nodded to Perry Mason. “She’s on the line. Gertie has your line plugged in.”

“Miss Martell?” Mason asked, picking up his receiver.

“Yes.”

“Perry Mason talking. Hines has stood me up on that promise he made. Now, I want you to follow certain instructions to the letter.”

“Yes, Mr. Mason.”

“Get Mrs. Winters to accompany you. Take such clothes as you have there and have her get all the clothes she brought. Wrap them up in a package somehow, and get out.”

“She has quite a few clothes, Mr. Mason. There are some suitcases here. Could we borrow one, and then—”

“Definitely not,” Mason said. “I don’t want anyone to have it in his or her power to trap you. Do you understand?”

“Not exactly.”

“If you take so much as a penpoint out of that apartment, the real owner can claim that your original entry was felonious and that when you took her personal property from that apartment you were guilty of larceny following an unlawful entry. That’s burglary, and it’s a serious offense. Get what I mean?”

“Oh, yes, I see. Do you think someone might claim that?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to take any chances. Wrap your things up in a bundle. Never mind what it looks like. Never mind what anyone says to you. Get your things together and get out.”

“Mr. Mason?”

“Yes.”

“Does Mr. H. know we’re leaving?”

“I told him that you were going to.”

“Then he’ll probably come dashing over here?”

“Yes.”

“He may make some promises.”

“Never mind what he says,” Mason told her. “You folks get out, just as I told you.”

“And then what?”

“And then telephone me that you’re out. That will let me know I have a free hand. Now, be sure not to take anything from that apartment. Not so much as a paper match folder.”

“Where shall we go?”

“Any place. To your apartment, or to a movie — only get out, fast.”

“Very well. We’ll be out within thirty minutes.”

“Make it fifteen,” Mason said, and hung up to return to his dictating.

Some little time later the phone rang, and Della Street announced that Eva Martell was on the line.

“Hello, Eva. Where are you?”

“At a pay station in the Lorenzo Hotel.”

“No trouble about getting out?”

“Well, he rang up. He said he was going to come to the apartment, but he didn’t.”

“What did he want?”

“Wanted us to stay — made us all sorts of offers. Then asked us to stay at least until he could get up and talk with us. But, Mr. Mason, the reason we’re not home is that — well, we’re being followed!”

“By whom?”

“Two men that we’re sure of. There may be others — we don’t know.”

“I was afraid of that,” Mason told her. “Now, you’re absolutely positive that you haven’t taken a single thing from that apartment that didn’t belong to you?”

“Not so much as a cigarette.”

“And you’re sure these men are following you?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know that you know it?”

“I don’t think so. We wouldn’t have noticed them if it hadn’t been that we were.. well, you know, sort of watching, a little nervous.”

“Hines didn’t come up?”

“No. We got out at one-forty-five. I noticed the time, just in case it should be necessary to tell exactly when we left. Aunt Adelle was a little slow or we’d have been out before. She had some phoning to do, and I made her do it from the lobby. She tried to get you but your line was busy, and no one answered at the Hines number. It’s the first time that’s happened; he told us there’d always be someone at that number day and night. Once before when we called and he wasn’t there a woman answered. We’re wondering, since what he said to you, whether that woman might not have been the real Helen Reedley. That is, I suggested it to Aunt Adelle. You know what she thinks — she says Helen Reedley is dead, and—”

“What did Hines say over the phone?”

“He was awfully excited. Said you’re unreasonable; that we’re not doing anything wrong, and that, after all, the party that was to see you had another engagement. He said that if you’d only been patient for a short time she’d have been there and given you a complete release and everything would have been all right.”

“Talk is cheap,” Mason said. “I’ll ring up and tell him that whenever he can satisfy me you girls will go back, but that in the meantime you have walked out because he was asking you to do something that was illegal; that, as far as we’re concerned, you’re still entitled to compensation. We’ll expect him to come through.”

“He made us all sorts of promises,” Eva said. “One thing that he did do, Mr. Mason — he asked us particularly not to go home until after five o’clock. He said that if we’d go to some public place and wait, by five o’clock everything would be all right and we could come back; but that if we ever went to our own apartment, the whole thing was off.”

“Did he say why?”

“No, but he was very emphatic about it, and that was his phrase — that if we went to our apartment, then the whole thing was off as far as he was concerned.”

“And that’s why you went to the Lorenzo Hotel?”

“That, and because of the people who are following us.”

“I’m glad you’re out,” Mason told her. “I’m free to do my stuff now. Wait right there at the Lorenzo. Don’t leave until you telephone me and get a clearance that it’s all right. Be sure now, stay right there.”

Mason received her promise, then said to Della Street, “Della, run down the hall to the Drake Detective Agency. Tell Paul Drake these two women are at the Lorenzo Hotel and that they’re being shadowed. I want to find out who the shadows are and to whom they’re reporting. Tell Paul to send four or five men to handle the job. I want him, first, to spot the people that are doing the shadowing, and then to get on their trail and shadow them. You can describe the women to Paul so that his men can pick them up without any trouble. They’ll be there in the lobby of the Lorenzo. Tell him to spare no expense. A smart guy by the name of Hines is going to pay for it.”

Della rushed out of the door.

Mason jiggled the receiver hook with his finger and, when his operator came in on the line, said, “Gertie, get me that apartment. You have the number out there.”

“Okay.”

“If they don’t answer, try the Hines number, Drexberry 5236.”

“Yes, Mr. Mason.”

“Rush it.”

“Yes, sir. You want me to call you when I—”

“No, I’ll wait on the line, Gertie. Rush it as fast as you can. Get me Mr. Hines on the line.”

Mason heard the whir of the telephone mechanism as her fingers dialed the number. Then he sat listening to the sound of the ringing telephone.

“There seems to be no answer, Mr. Mason, at the Reedley apartment. I’ll try the Drexberry number.”

Once more she dialed, and once more Mason heard the sound of the ringing telephone. Then, once again, there was a pause.

“They’re just not answering,” Gertie said.

Mason said, “Try them again in five minutes. And, Gertie, if Hines should ring in, I’m very anxious to talk with him. No matter what’s going on be sure to put the call directly through to my office.”

“Mr. Hines?”

“That’s right — Robert Dover Hines.”

“Okay. I’ll put the calls right through.”

As Mason dropped the receiver back into place he heard Della Street’s quick steps in the corridor, and a moment later she was fitting her key into the exit door of his private office.

“That’s fast work,” Mason said.

“I was lucky enough to catch Paul Drake in the corridor just as lie was leaving for the elevator. I outlined the situation to him and he’s getting busy on it right away.”

“I tried to get Hines, but couldn’t get him,” Mason said. “No one answered at the apartment. I told Gertie if he called in to rush the call right through.”

“You think he’ll call?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping he will. I’ve got my clients out of that apartment and I’m in a bargaining position now. This is going to give him a jolt.”

“Why are you better off now that they are out, Chief?”

“Because we don’t know a darn thing about him,” replied Mason. “He could have stepped out of the picture and left the women holding the sack when the police arrived and found Eva Martell going under the name of Helen Reedley, living in Helen Reedley’s apartment, wearing Helen Reedley’s clothes, and... well, you know the answer. We’d have had a lot of explaining to do.”

“Do you suppose it’s Hines who is having those girls shadowed?”

“It could be. Hines was very anxious that they should merely go to some public place and wait. He emphasized particularly that if they went to their own apartment, everything would be off — and may be having them shadowed now to see that they don’t go there.”

“But why?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Do you think the real Helen Reedley is dead?”

“I don’t know. She could be. As yet we haven’t enough information even to speculate. But there’s one fact that is very significant.”

“What?”

“The instructions given to Adelle Winters. Whenever any friend of Helen Reedley called the apartment, Mrs. Winters was to stall the party, promise that Helen Reedley would call back in fifteen or twenty minutes, report to Hines — and then forget it.”

“Well, wouldn’t that indicate that the Reedley woman might be— Oh, I see! If she didn’t call back, the friend would get suspicious.”

“Exactly, Della. If Hines merely wanted to stall Helen’s friends along, he would have had a better one than that — such as that Miss Reedley was out shopping, or visiting in the country, or something like that. But to say that she’d call back in fifteen or twenty minutes meant that he’d have to make good.”

“How do you suppose he did that?”

“By having Helen Reedley call back, just as he’d had Adelle Winters say she would.”

“But how?”

“Simple enough. Helen Reedley is afraid of something. She ducks out and stays in hiding. She can’t be dead, because evidently she’s able to call her friends back. They, of course, have no way of knowing she isn’t calling from her own apartment, and—” He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

“This is probably Hines now,” he said, as he picked up the telephone.

But it was Gertie’s voice that came over the wire. “A Helen Reedley is out here. Says she had an appointment with you for earlier in the afternoon. She was unable to keep it and—”

“Send her in,” Mason said. “Get her in here right away.”

He hung up and, nodding to Della Street, said, “Helen Reedley. This is going to be good.”

The door from the outer office opened and Gertie ushered in a trim young brunette. The newcomer looked at Della Street first, appraising her coolly from head to feet. Then she turned to Perry Mason. “How do you do, Mr. Mason? I’m Helen Reedley. Good of you to see me so promptly. I’m sorry I was late.”

“Won’t you sit down?” Mason said. “There are some questions I wanted to ask you.”

“So I was given to understand.”

She crossed the office with a smooth sweep of slim-waisted grace, a young woman who was quite aware that her figure would not go unnoticed. In externals she seemed an exact duplicate of Eva Martell, even to a noticeable resemblance in feature. What differentiated her from Eva was the supercharged effect that she radiated. Not only were her motions smooth, with the grace that comes from perfect health, but their timing was slow, calculated, tantalizing. Her large dark eyes, with their long, sweeping lashes, moved provocatively under delicately arched brows as she glanced up at Mason, completely ignoring Della.

“What was it that you wanted to know, Mr. Mason?” she asked.

“What,” Mason countered as he sized her up, “do you want to tell me?”

For a moment a shade of annoyance flashed across her features. “Mr. Hines told me you had some questions,” she returned. Her voice, like her motions, had just that trick of timing which made a definite impression on the listener. And Mason noticed that at the end of every speech she raised her eyebrows slightly and at the same time tilted her face upward and to one side.

“I have only one question,” he said, “and I have already asked it: What do you want to tell me?”

She frowned. “About what?”

“About anything.”

“I understand you are interested in my apartment.”

“It is your apartment?”

“Naturally.”

“You have proof of that?”

“Mr. Hines told me you might be difficult... Now — may I draw my chair up a little closer? And if you’ll pull out that leaf in your desk... Here are the documents that prove my identity.”

Opening her purse she took out a folding leather wallet and from it produced a driving license. “Made out to Helen Reedley,” she said. “You’ll notice that the address is the same as that of the apartment in question. There’s a thumbprint on the license. Now, if you’ll notice my thumb, Mr. Mason... Perhaps you have an inked pad there for rubber stamps? — Thank you. Observe, I press my thumb on the pad — and if you have a piece of paper? There you are: my thumbprint. Please notice that it corresponds exactly with the thumbprint on the license.”

Helen Reedley took some cleansing tissue from her purse, wiped her thumb free of ink, dropped the tissue in Mason’s wastebasket, settled back in the chair, and waited for him to compare the thumbprint with the print on the driving license.

“It’s all right to smoke?” she asked.

“Quite,” Mason said without looking up from the thumbprint. Once more she showed a faint flicker of annoyance. But she took a cigarette case from her purse, extracted a cigarette from it and a lighter, lit the cigarette, and studied Mason with a sidelong glance.

“The prints appear to be identical,” Mason said.

“They are identical.”

“I notice that the address here is the address of the apartment we’re talking about. But perhaps you have still other proof?”

“Certainly,” she replied calmly. “I understood that you would want plenty. I have here a series of rent receipts signed by the manager of the premises. You will notice that they are for consecutive months for the past six months.”

“You have a Social Security number?” Mason asked.

“No.” There was contempt in the monosyllable.

“You have other means of identification than the driving license?”

“Certainly. I have credit cards, golf-club membership cards, and various other things, but I see no reason to produce them. Certainly this driver’s license vouches for my identity — it’s dated six months ago.”

“Better let me see some of those other cards,” Mason said.

This time she was, for a moment, definitely angry. But she wordlessly produced some half-dozen cards and passed them across for inspection.

Mason pulled pencil and paper toward him and started making a list of the cards with dates and numbers.

“Really, Mr. Mason, is that necessary?”

“I think it is.”

“Very well,” she said in tight-lipped anger.

When Mason had finished with them, he handed them back to her.

She had waited for that moment when his hand was extended toward hers. Now she brushed his hand with the tips of her fingers as she took the cards, suddenly favoring him with a dazzling smile. “And now that we’ve completed the nasty part, Mr. Mason, can’t we be friends?”

Mason grinned. “But we haven’t completed the nasty part, yet. You own the apartment — that is, you rent it. So what?”

“My friend, Mr. Hines, is in complete charge of my affairs so far as they concern that apartment.”

“And its contents?” Mason asked.

“Its contents, too.”

“All of them?”

“Everything.”

Mason turned to Della Street. “Take this down, will you, Della?

“Put a blank for a signature on that, Della, and then bring your notarial seal. You can put an acknowledgment on it.”

“I say,” Helen Reedley protested, “isn’t that going rather strong?”

Mason met her eyes, smiled, and said, “Yes.”

As Della Street withdrew to type the document, Mason lit a cigarette and settled back in the chair. “Now the ‘nasty part’ is over, and we can be friends.”

Her eyes were blazing with anger. “But now I don’t want to be friends!”

Mason smiled. “You know, of course, what Hines is doing?”

“Certainly.”

“And what,” Mason asked, “is the reason for all this?”

“That’s purely personal.”

“I’ll have to know.”

“That document I’m going to sign protects you.”

“It affords us adequate protection provided I know the reason for what is going on.”

“I see no reason to tell you.”

“In the event you don’t,” Mason said, “it’s going to be necessary to strengthen that document.”

“If you can find any way of strengthening that, I’ll eat it!”

Mason pushed the button on his desk. When Della Street appeared from the adjoining office he said, “Get your book, Della. I’m going to put some additional stuff in that release.”

Helen Reedley sat in tight-lipped angry silence.

Della Street returned with her notebook, settled herself in the secretarial chair by Mason’s desk, and held her pencil poised. Mason began to dictate...

There was a sudden crash as Helen Reedley jumped indignantly to her feet; her purse slipped from her lap and fell to the floor, spilling some of its contents over the office carpet. “Do you think I’ll sign any such thing as that?” she blazed. “That’s absolutely beyond all reason. It’s impertinent, it’s... it’s... suicidal!”

Suavely Mason broke in on her sputtering indignation. “I suggested to you, Miss Reedley, that it might be much better to confide in me fully and tell me the purpose back of all this. I told you that if you didn’t I’d strengthen that document.”

“But that’s absurd — absolutely ridiculous! Why, under that document the girl could go to my bank and sign my name to a check for five thousand dollars and calmly walk off thumbing her nose at me.”

“She certainly could,” Mason said, “provided, of course, that your agent, Mr. Hines, told her she could do so.”

“Well, Hines isn’t my agent to that extent.”

“Then you’d better tell me a little more about Mr. Hines and the extent to which he is your agent.”

“I’ve told you everything I intend to.”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said. “Either I get that information, or I get a signature to that document. Go ahead and type it up, Della.

“You’d better pick up your things there on the floor, Miss Reedley. And incidentally, if you’re carrying a gun in that purse, you should have a permit.”

“How do you know I haven’t one?” she flared.

“I don’t,” Mason said. “But if you do have, by all means let me see it because that in itself will be a means of identification.”

She bent angrily over her purse, pushed the things back into it, snapped the purse shut, and got to her feet. “God, how I hate men like you!” she exclaimed.

“The men you like are the ones you can twist around your thumb. I’m not exactly immune, Miss Reedley, but I’ve always made it a rule never to let an attractive woman influence me in my protection of my clients’ interests.”

“I’ll say you haven’t!” she blazed.

“Now then,” Mason said, “do you tell me what it’s all about, or do you sign that agreement?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you can—” She stopped abruptly in mid-sentence.

“Well?” Mason asked.

She took a deep breath, then seemed to relax. “I’ll be only too glad to sign it. Have your secretary type it up at once, will you please, because I’m in a hurry.”

Mason said, “One thing about you: when you yield, you yield with good grace!”

Her quiet smile was enigmatical.

“And now,” Mason said, “we can start being friends.”

“Now,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind.”

And she sat in frigid silence until Della Street brought in the document together with a fountain pen, an acknowledgment blank, and her notarial seal.

Mason checked the document and passed it over to Helen Reedley for her signature. Helen Reedley all but snatched the pen that Della Street was holding, glanced through the document hastily, and affixed a scrawled signature.

Mason extended the inked pad. “And if you don’t mind,” he said, “the thumbprint.”

She slammed her thumb down on the inked pad and banged it on the paper, groped for a cleansing tissue, failed to find one, brought out an expensive handkerchief, and smeared the ink from her thumb all over the handkerchief.

“Do you,” Della Street asked, “solemnly acknowledge that you are Helen Reedley, that you have signed this document, and that it is your free and voluntary act?”

“Yes! And now let me get the hell out of here before I smash something.”

Mason said calmly, “Miss Street, will you please show Miss Reedley the way out?”

Della Street very deliberately stamped her notarial acknowledgment on the certificate over her signature, moved over to the exit door and held it open. Helen Reedley, her head high, swept through.

“Good afternoon, Miss Reedley,” Della said.

There was no answer.

Della waited until the automatic door-check had clicked the door shut. Then she came back to Mason’s desk.

“Gosh, Chief, did you see the way she looked me over?”

“I did,” Mason said. “And it was just because of that look that I may have been a little harsher with her than I would otherwise have been.”

“Forget it!” laughed Della. “It’s just the way one woman looks over another. I don’t think your brunette friend would take kindly to any competition. Was that a gun she was carrying in her purse?”

“Darned if I know. There was something heavy and solid in there. When the purse hit the carpet, it hit with quite a thud. Some of the lighter stuff spilled out, but the heavy thing, whatever it was, stayed inside. I tried to draw her out to see if she would admit it was a gun, but she wouldn’t.”

“I’d hate to have that woman looking for me with a gun,” said Della.

“I’m not certain but that—”

The telephone interrupted him, and he nodded to Della.

She picked up the instrument.

“Yes... hello... Yes, Gertie, I’ll tell him.” She turned to Mason. “Eva Martell on the line wanting to know if there have been any new developments.”

“I’ll talk with her,” Mason said. — “Hello, Eva. Helen Reedley has been here. She’s just left the office. I think there’s no doubt that she is the Helen Reedley who owns that apartment and presumably is the owner of the things in it. At any rate, the document she signed will put you folks in the clear provided you follow Hines’s instructions. I’ve been trying to get him on the phone but haven’t been able to locate him. Are you to go right back?”

“Yes,” Eva Martell said. “‘He told us that just as soon as we got an okay from you we were to go right back to the Reedley apartment and pick up where we’d left off. Gosh, though, we’d like to do some shopping.”

“Go ahead and do your shopping if you want to. But remember you’re being shadowed. Remember, too, that Hines has said you mayn’t go to your own apartment.”

“Yes, I know. But there are some things in the window of a department store near here that have been very hard to get. Suppose— Well, could you pretend to Mr. Hines that you had trouble reaching us? That there was some delay? We’d like to—”

Mason laughed. “Go right ahead. I think Hines is so anxious to keep you that he’ll put up with almost anything. Otherwise, Helen Reedley would never have consented to all those terms I laid down.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason. I suppose you have her authorization in writing?”

“In writing,” Mason said, “acknowledged before a notary and stamped with her thumbprint.”

Eva Martell laughed. “Well, I guess that should do the job.”

“I hope so. Are the men still on your trail?”

“Yes. And some other men just came in. They are looking us over, and—”

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Mason said. “Go about your business just as though you had no idea you were being followed. Then get a taxi, go back to the Reedley apartment, and resume housekeeping. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Gosh, Mr. Mason, you’ve taken a load off my mind. What did Helen Reedley look like? Anything like me?”

“Very much like you, so far as physical characteristic are concerned.”

“How about temperament?”

“It’s not temperament, it’s temperature!”

“Well, I hope I’m not ice cold.”

Mason laughed. “I saw Helen Reedley under circumstances that encouraged a rise in temperature.”

“Is she prettier than I am?”

“She’s definitely not in the same class with you,” Mason said.

“Well... thanks. I was wondering... I’ve noticed Mr. Hines looking me over — and, well, you know... Thank you, Mr. Mason.”

“You mean you’re falling for Hines?”

“No, no, nothing like that. Definitely not. Only one can’t help wondering, in the circumstances. But I mustn’t keep you. Good-by, Mr. Mason — and thank you again.”