The Case of the Calendar Girl

Chapter Sixteen

Perry Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, George Ansley and Dawn Manning sat in the lawyer’s private office.

“Well,” Dawn Manning said, “I have to hand it to you, Mr. Mason. I certainly thought you had tossed me to the wolves.”

“I did,” Mason admitted, “but then I came along with another car and picked you up before the wolves got there.”

“Just what do you think happened?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “I think that Meridith Borden had caught Frank Ferney in some theft or embezzlement. I believe Borden handled large sums of money in the form of cash which were passed out here and there as bribes and which were received by various people. Borden didn’t dare to have checks made so they could be traced on his bank account. He didn’t give checks.

“It is reasonable to suppose that with that much cash around, Frank Ferney had managed to embezzle some. The probabilities are he was about to be discovered, or perhaps he had been discovered and Borden had decided to report the case to the police.

“An elaborate plan was worked out by which Dawn Manning would have been brought on the grounds immediately after nine o’clock and then left there. She would have been escorted to the photographic studio by Loretta Harper. In the meantime, Frank Ferney would apparently have been nowhere around. Loretta Harper, who was driving a stolen car so that the car and the driver couldn’t be traced from the license plates, would have asked Dawn to excuse her for a moment, telling Dawn to go ahead and run up to the studio. Then Loretta would have vanished. She would have been back at her apartment in time to corroborate Frank Ferney’s alibi.

“However, everything depended upon split-second timing. It was necessary to kill Meridith Borden precisely at a certain minute, so that Ferney could get back to the apartment house, climb up the fire escape and get into bed. The understanding was that he was to be aroused in order to keep his appointment with Dr. Callison.

“Ferney carried out his end of the bargain right on schedule. George Ansley’s visit had been unexpected. As soon as Ansley left and Borden had telephoned the inspectors, Ferney lured Meridith Borden up into the studio and killed him. Then he waited impatiently for the arrival of the car with Dawn Manning.

“For reasons that we know, that car didn’t arrive.

“That called on Ferney to do some quick thinking. For one thing, he decided he’d have to change the time of the murder to a time when Loretta Harper would also have an alibi. Dr. Callison was going to be his alibi.

“It wasn’t until the next day, after it was seen how far their original plan had gone awry, that it was decided to plant the murder gun in the glove compartment of George Ansley’s automobile and blame the murder on him. For a while they thought they could get away with it. Then, when it appeared that I was knocking holes in their case against Ansley, Loretta Harper, who was the shrewder of the pair, signaled Frank Ferney to go back to their original plan and blame the crime on Dawn Manning.”

The telephone rang.

Della Street picked up the receiver, said, “It’s for you, Paul.”

Drake took the phone, listened for several moments, then said, “Thanks, let me know if there are any more details.” He hung up and turned to Mason.

“Well,” he said, “your hunch was right. Ferney has just broken down and confessed. The details are just about the way you figured them. Ferney knew that he was trapped, so now he’s trying to blame Loretta as the originator of the scheme. The D.A. found a witness who saw a man going down the fire escape from the fourth floor of the Dormain Apartments. If the police had been on the job, they’d have had the information long ago, because the witness telephoned in to the police station to report a prowler. The Mesa Vista police went out, looked the place over and then did nothing more about it.”

“Well,” Dawn Manning said, “I’ve heard of people getting out of trouble by the skin of their eyeteeth. I never thought it would apply to me.”

There was a twinkle in Della Street’s eye. “Not your eyeteeth,” she said demurely.