The Case of the Borrowed Brunette

Chapter 5

It was around six-thirty when Mason, who had been working late at the office, heard the persistent buzzing of the switchboard in the outer office and said to Della Street, “Perhaps you’d better answer it, Della. It may be Eva Martell. We have a dinner date with Paul Drake at seven o’clock, so we won’t have time to see anyone.”

Della Street nodded and went out to the switchboard. She came hurrying back. “It’s Eva Martell, Chief. She says she has to talk with you right away. I’ve plugged her in on your line if you want to talk with her.”

Mason picked up the phone. “Hello, Eva. Where are you now, at the apartment?”

The voice that came over the line was almost hysterical with excitement. “Mr. Mason, you’ll have to tell us what to do. We’re back at the apartment. Something has happened! We’d like to have you over here right away.”

“I’m just getting ready to leave here,” Mason said, “but I have a dinner date in twenty minutes. What seems to be the trouble?”

“I don’t want to tell you over the phone. I’d like to have you come over right away if you could.”

“Something serious?” Mason asked.

“Something quite serious, I’m afraid.”

Mason glanced at his watch and frowned. “I’m terribly busy,” he said. “Why not tell me now? That telephone at the Reedley apartment doesn’t go through any downstairs switchboard, and the document that has just been signed protects you on just about anything that can happen. Tell me what’s worrying you.”

“It’s Robert Hines,” Eva replied, her tone charged with excitement. “He’s sitting in a chair here in the apartment, and there’s what looks like a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. He’s dead — I’m sure of it!”

“What the devil! How long has he been there?”

“I don’t know.”

“When was he shot?”

“I don’t know that either — I don’t know a thing about it.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No — just you.”

“How long have you been there at the apartment?”

“We just got here. After you told us we could go shopping... well, it took longer than we had planned. After all—”

“Notify the police — right now,” Mason told her. “And don’t try to cover up anything. I’ll be doing things here.” He slammed down the receiver, dashed out through the door, and ran down the corridor to the offices of the Drake Detective Agency, jerked open the door and called out to the girl at the desk, “Paul Drake in?”

She nodded, pointing toward Drake’s private office, and at the same time pressed a button releasing the electric lock on the gateway that separated the offices from the reception room.

Mason rushed down the passage and burst in on Drake in his private office.

Drake looked up from some reports he was checking. “Hello, Perry. What’s the rush? Twenty minutes yet before—”

“That job I gave you out at the Lorenzo Hotel — you got some good men on it?”

“Three of them. The best in the business.”

“Okay. Paul, get this — it’s important. A man by the name of Hines was bumped off at the Siglet Manor Apartments. That’s out on Eighth Street. Apartment three twenty-six.”

“Who discovered the murder?”

“My clients — the ones who are being tailed by the men I wanted your operatives to spot. The call is going in to the police right now. They’ll get in touch with a radio car. We probably have approximately three minutes.”

“Oh-oh,” Drake said.

“Now then,” Mason went on, “I realize as well as you do that these men we’re shadowing are probably private detectives. We’ll have no difficulty trailing them to the office of some detective agency. But the trail will stop right there. Barring some lucky break, we won’t be able to find who employed the detectives. Reports will be sent to the client by mail, and we’ll be left butting our heads against a brick wall.”

“I’m glad you understand that, Perry, because if these men are private detectives, that’s exactly what we’re going to be up against.”

“Okay. Now, here’s a break. Within a matter of minutes the police will come boiling into the Siglet Manor. My clients have gone there, which means that the men who are trailing them have also gone there. They’ll see the police come in and know something has happened, but they won’t know what it is. It’ll take them a while to find out.”

“Not very long,” Drake said. “If those fellows are any good, they’ll have ways of getting information out of the police.”

“Don’t I know it! Now, what’ll happen when they do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Put yourself in their position. Suppose your agency were handling the thing, and you ran slap-bang into a murder — what would you do?”

“In the first place, my operatives would rush the information to me — either personally or by telephone. I’d immediately get in touch with my client and advise him and ask for instructions.”

“How would you get in touch with your client?”

“Probably by telephone.”

“How much could you tell him over the telephone?”

“Just the high spots.”

“What would the client do?”

“You mean,” Drake asked, “would he come rushing into the agency and be closeted with me, getting information hot off the bat?”

“That’s right.”

Drake nodded. “You’ve got something there, Perry.”

“Okay. How long will it take you to cover that angle?”

“Not very long. If one of those operatives phones his agency, one of my men may get close enough to the booth to see what number he’s dialing. If he goes to report in person, he’ll be tailed.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “Now then, let’s act on the assumption that the trail will lead to a private detective agency. I want enough men on the job to shadow that agency, and if anyone comes in who looks as though he’s in a hurry on a matter of some urgency, I want that man shadowed when he leaves the agency.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “It won’t take more than two men in addition to the ones we have.”

“All right. Get them.”

“Any chance your clients had anything to do with the murder?” Drake asked.

“Don’t be silly, Paul. My clients never have anything to do with murders. These people simply happened to stumble over the corpse. They notified me and wanted me to come out. I have already used up my allotment of corpse-discoveries so far as the police are concerned. I told them to get in touch with the police.”

“And tell them they’re your clients?”

“Why not?”

“That’s going to make for a lot of interesting developments... I’ll put these calls through, get my men on the job, and then come down to your office.”

“Before you leave here,” Mason said, “try to get all the details that are available about the killing.”

“You say Hines was the victim?”

“That’s right.”

“And he’s the one who hired the women?”

“Right.”

“Well, let me put these calls through, Perry, and get the men on the job. Maybe we’ll find out something.”

And Drake was reaching for the telephone as Mason left the office.

“Did you get Paul all right?” Della Street asked when he had returned to his desk.

Mason nodded. “Paul Drake’s going to have men on the job covering the whole thing. He’ll also get details about the murder. Meantime, there’s nothing much to do except stick around and bite our fingernails. I’d give a good deal to be there right now. That’s the trouble: I’ve too often been on the ground when corpses have been discovered. This time I’ll keep in the background.”

“How long do you suppose we’ll have to wait?”

“For detailed information?”

“Yes.”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Several things. The breaks, mostly. If one of the persons shadowing those women gets in touch with his principal personally, and if we get the breaks, we could know something within an hour.”

Della Street thought things over for a while. “Gosh,” she said, “there’s one thing that keeps cropping up in my mind.”

“What’s that?”

“Adelle Winters having a .32-caliber revolver in her handbag. Do you suppose the police will search her?”

“You’re reading my mind!” Mason said.

“If it turns out that Mr. Hines has been shot by a .32 gun,” Della went on reflectively, “wouldn’t that... What would it do?”

“That depends. It might not mean too much. Of course, the whole thing will depend on what happens when they recover the bullet and the ballistics experts get done with it. They can tell whether it was or was not fired from any particular gun. You know that.”

“If they have the bullet?”

“That’s right.”

Della was looking at Mason in a peculiar way. “And the gun?”

“And the gun.”

“That last,” she said slowly, “changes the situation.”

“No, it doesn’t change it any,” Mason returned, “but it does complicate it.”

“Of course, no one knows just how smart Adelle Winters is.”

Mason grinned and looked at his watch. “We’ll probably have an answer to that question, too, within an hour, Della. Let’s go get something to eat.”