The Case of the Careless Kitten

Chapter 7

The Homicide Squad car, screaming along Hollywood Boulevard, swerved and swayed through frozen traffic. Pedestrians stood staring at the speeding car, watching it swerve and twist until the red tail-light disappeared and the normal traffic once more came to life and motion.

Mason stepped out from in front of his parked car to stand in the beam of the headlights of the oncoming police machine. As the big car slid to a stop, a door swung open, and Lieutenant Tragg said tersely, “Get in.”

Mason climbed in, noticing that the rear seat beside Lieutenant Tragg had apparently been reserved for him.

“Where to?” Tragg asked.

Mason took the folded map from his pocket. “There’s the map which gave me my directions.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“It came in a letter.”

“Where’s the letter?”

Mason passed it over. Tragg took it, but held it, making no attempt as yet to read it.

The officer who was driving the car looked back at Tragg for instructions.

Tragg said, “Take it easy a minute, Floyd. The man up there in the automobile is dead. He isn’t going to make any moves that will confuse us. Mr. Mason is very much alive.”

“Meaning that I’m apt to make confusing moves?” Mason asked with a smile.

Tragg said, “Well, I always like to interview you as soon as possible after one of your nocturnal adventures makes my presence necessary. I find that sometimes simplifies matters.”

“I didn’t discover this body.”

“No? Who did?”

“A lawyer named Gerald Shore.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He doesn’t do much courtroom work and no criminal work. I think you’ll find he’s a very respectable member of the profession.”

There was a certain grudging admiration in Lieutenant Tragg’s eyes as he looked Mason over. Tragg was utterly unlike the popular conception of a police detective. Not quite as tall as Mason, he was slender, suave, sophisticated, and thoroughly imbued with a knowledge of his profession. When Lieutenant Tragg started following a trail, he was not easily detoured. He had imagination and daring.

“Now this letter,” Tragg said, balancing it in his hand as though trying physically to weigh the evidentiary importance of the document. “Where did you get this?”

“From the clerk of the Castle Gate Hotel.”

“Oh, yes. The Castle Gate Hotel, rather a second-rate, shoddy affair; and in case you’re interested, Mason, it’s down on our list as being somewhat friendly to persons who don’t have exactly the best reputations — or perhaps you hadn’t heard about that.”

“I hadn’t heard about it.”

“In any event, it’s hardly a hotel which you’d have picked as a stopping place.”

“That’s right,” Mason admitted. “I wasn’t registered there.”

“Therefore, it’s logical to ask you what you were doing there?... Drive ahead slowly, Floyd. We’re getting too much of an audience around here.”

One of the officers in the front seat said, “I can start ’em moving and keep ’em moving.”

“No, no,” Tragg ordered impatiently without taking his eyes from Mason. “Drive on. Dispersing crowds takes time. Mr. Mason wants to tell us his story while it’s still fresh in his mind, don’t you, Mason?”

The lawyer laughed.

Tragg pushed the map across to the front seat. “Here, Floyd. Take this map. Follow the road. Don’t give her the gun until I tell you to. Now, Mason, you were about to tell me why you went to the Castle Gate Hotel.”

“I went there to see a man. If you’d read that letter, you’d understand.”

“The man’s name?” Tragg asked, still holding the letter in his hand, but keeping his eyes on the lawyer.

“Henry Leech.”

“And what did you want to see him about?”

Mason made a little gesture with his hands as though tossing something away. “Now there, Lieutenant,” he said, “you have me. I went to see Mr. Leech at the suggestion of Mr. Leech. He wanted to tell me something.”

“The invitation came directly from Leech?”

“Indirectly.”

“Through a client?”

“Yes.”

“The client’s name?”

“Helen Kendal, and I presume she came to me through this attorney, Gerald Shore.”

“They knew what Leech wanted to see you about?”

“Mr. Leech was to take me to see someone else, as I understood it.”

“Oh, a case of a mysterious witness taking you to a mysterious witness?”

“Not exactly. The person I was to see was a man who had disappeared some time ago and...”

Tragg held up his hand, half closed his eyes, snapped his fingers twice, said, “Wait a minute — wait a minute! I’m getting it now. What was his name?”

“Franklin Shore,” Mason said.

“That’s right. The most baffling disappearance of 1932. I’ve placed your lawyer, Gerald Shore, now. Leech knew something about his disappearance?”

“Of course,” Mason said, “I’m only giving you hearsay. You can perhaps do better by communicating with the parties who really know the background.”

“Rather subtle that,” Tragg conceded. “But I think I’d prefer to have your story first, Mason.”

Mason said, “Leech was, I understand, going to take Miss Kendal to see Franklin Shore. Really, Lieutenant, I think you’d be wise to try and get up there as soon as possible. What happened there may well be a clue to something more important.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Tragg said. “You always have some very acceptable red herring which gets dragged tantalizingly across the trail just when I’m getting somewhere; but there’s a little more I want to find out first. Mason... Just keep driving slowly, Floyd... Now, Mason, how did it happen that Leech promised to take you to see Franklin Shore?”

Mason’s voice rasped with sudden impatience. “I don’t know, and I think you’re wasting valuable time. The message came to me through Miss Kendal.”

“But he did promise to take you?”

“Who?”

“Leech, of course,” Tragg said. “Quit sparring for time.”

“No,” Mason replied. “So far as I know, Leech didn’t talk with Miss Kendal. It was a telephone communication with another party that sent her to Leech.”

“Oh, I see,” Tragg said. “Someone else did the talking, and I take it you’re going to say you don’t know who this party was?”

“No,” Mason said. “I don’t know who he was.”

“I see. One of those anonymous conversations?”

“Not at all, Lieutenant. The man gave his name, and furthermore gave some rather interesting information to establish his identity.”

“And the name?” Tragg asked.

It was Mason’s turn to smile. “Franklin B. Shore.”

For as long as a second, Tragg’s face was changing expression as his mind digested the import of that information; then he snapped a command to the driver. “Step on it, Floyd. Give it everything it’s got. Get up there — fast!”

Mason settled back in the seat, took a cigarette case from his pocket, and offered one to Tragg. “I thought you’d like to get up there, Lieutenant. Have a smoke.”

Tragg said, “Put that damn thing back in your pocket and hang on. You don’t know Floyd.”

Mason reached for a cigarette, was all but thrown from his seat as the car lurched around a turn and dodged another automobile coming through an intersection.

“Get that siren going,” Tragg ordered. “And get some speed.”

The siren started its eerie screaming. The big, powerful car kept picking up momentum as it climbed. Mason, bracing himself, managed to get a cigarette from his case and up to his lips. He returned the case to his pocket, then was forced to hang on with both hands, having no opportunity to strike a match.

The car climbed rapidly, the screaming siren alternately roaring back in echoes from precipitous banks, then being swallowed up in the vastness of deep mountain canyons to return in muffled echoes from distant hillsides. The driver skillfully set the two red-beamed spotlights at such angles that no matter which way the winding road twisted up the mountain, a spot of illumination was thrown on the road.

At length the headlights on the police car illuminated the two parked automobiles, showed Della Street, Helen Kendal, and Gerald Shore standing closely together, their faces white ovals as they watched the approaching car.

Mason said, “Swing your headlights so they illuminate that first car, Lieutenant.”

“That the one that has Leech’s body?” Tragg asked.

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “I don’t know Leech when I see him.”

Tragg looked at him sharply. “You mean this body isn’t that of Leech?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who does?”

Mason said, “I’m sure I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know whether anyone in my party can make an identification.”

The police car lurched to a full stop.

Tragg said, “All right, let’s look around, boys. Mason, go over and see if anyone in your party can identify the body.”

If Lieutenant Tragg’s request had been intended to keep Mason from observing the police inspection of the car, it failed, for Mason merely raised his voice and called, “Come on over here — the three of you.”

“I didn’t say that,” Tragg said irritably.

Mason said, “I thought you wanted to know whether they could identify the body.”

“I do, but they don’t need to come over here and get in the way.”

“They won’t get in the way. How are they going to identify a body if they don’t see it?”

“They’ve taken a good look at him by this time,” Tragg said. “Trust you for that.”

“On the contrary,” Mason assured him, “two of these people haven’t been near the car.”

“How do you know they haven’t?”

“Because I left instructions for them not to do so.”

“How do you know they followed instructions?”

“Because Della Street was here.”

Tragg frowned at him and said, “The elaborate precautions you’re taking in this case make it look as though you had already stuck your toe in the water and found it mighty hot.”

Mason looked hurt. “You’ve got a nasty, suspicious mind, Tragg.” Then he grinned. “I’ll admit, though, that I try to remember the story of the guy who wanted to go swimming at night and dove into the pool without checking on whether it was filled.”

By that time, spotlights were blazing on the interior of the car. A photographer had setup his camera on a tripod and was inserting a bulb in the synchronized flash gun.

“Move over to this side,” Tragg said. “You can see his face from there. Any of you know him?”

Solemnly they moved around to the side of the car to examine the features.

“I have never seen this man before,” Shore said solemnly.

“Nor I,” Helen Kendal supplemented.

“You?” Tragg asked Della Street.

She shook her head.

Tragg said, “None of you know Leech?”

There were two “No’s” and a shake of the head.

The photographer said, “Okay, Lieutenant, get ’em out of the way.”

An officer pushed the group back, and the instantaneous brilliance of the flashlight bulb cut the night apart with a quick stab of light.

“Hold it,” the photographer said. “I’ll get another shot from this angle, then one from the other side. Then you can have him.”

As the little group moved away from the car, Mason managed to get Della Street and Helen Kendal off to one side.

“When Lieutenant Tragg questions you,” he said, “answer his questions frankly but it might be a good plan not to volunteer any information — particularly unimportant information.”

“Such as what?” Della Street asked.

“Oh,” Mason said, with an elaborately casual manner, “any of the family gossip or anything of that sort. Tragg will ask you what he wants to know. Don’t take up his time with a lot of unimportant incidentals, such as the fact that Gerald Shore didn’t come into the hotel when we went in to call on Leech — things like that. Of course, if he asks you specifically, that’s different, but there’s no necessity to waste time telling him things in which he isn’t interested. He’ll ask you about everything he wants to know.”

Helen Kendal nodded innocently enough, but Della Street maneuvered Mason off toward the rear of the car.

“Why the secrecy about Gerald Shore not going into the hotel?” she asked. “And what’s significant about it?”

Mason’s manner was deeply thoughtful. “Hanged if I know, Della. For some reason, I don’t think he wanted to go into the hotel.”

“You think he really knows Henry Leech?”

“He may — or he might have been in there earlier tonight and didn’t want the clerk to recognize him.”

Della Street puckered her lips to give a low whistle.

“Mind you, that’s just a guess,” Mason warned. “There’s probably nothing to it, but I...”

“What are you two talking about?” Tragg demanded, coming around from the other side of the car.

Mason said, “Wondering whether he was shot from the left side by someone hidden by the side of the road or from the right side by someone sitting in the car.”

Tragg snorted, “Pardon me! From the secret huddle you’re in, I thought you might be discussing something confidential — like who won the last World’s Series. Just to satisfy your curiosity, he was shot from the left side by someone who was outside the car. The bullet entered the left side of the head, and the murderer stood far enough away so the weapon left no powder burns. Probably it was a .38 revolver, and it may have been an automatic. We’re going to look for the empty cartridge case. Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Quite a lot,” Mason said. “In fact, virtually all of the details.”

“Got a nickel?” Tragg asked casually.

Mason pushed his hand down in his pocket. “Yes. Why? Did you want to telephone?”

“No,” Tragg said, grinning. “Keep your nickel. You can buy a newspaper with it tomorrow and get all the details. Right now, I’m only going to tell you what I want you to know.”

Tragg walked past them to the side of the car. By this time, the deputy coroner had completed his examination and the men began searching the body.

A few moments later, Tragg walked over to the police car and said, “I’d like to have you four come over here. Mason, I’m going to ask you to let me do the talking for a moment, and not say anything unless I ask you some specific question.”

Mason nodded.

“Now then,” Tragg said turning to the others, “what was it Mason told you not to tell me about?”

Mason said, “What makes you think...”

Tragg silenced him by holding up his hand. He kept his eyes on Helen Kendal. “All right, Miss Kendal, I’ll ask you. What was it?”

In a loud, droning voice Della Street started in reciting, “‘Will you come into my Parlor,’ said the Spider to the Fly—”

“Stop that!” Tragg looked angry. “I’m asking Miss Kendal. Come on, Miss Kendal. What was it?”

Helen Kendal seemed embarrassed for a moment, then, looking straight at Lieutenant Tragg, said, “He told us to answer all your questions fairly and frankly.”

“That all?”

“He said not to waste your time by interpolating a lot of trivial little things.”

“Such as what?” Tragg asked, pouncing upon her answer with the alacrity of a cross-examiner who has found a weak point in the story of a witness.

Helen Kendal’s big, violet eyes were wide. “Such as the things you didn’t want to ask us about,” she said. “Mr. Mason said that you were very skillful and that you’d ask questions which would cover every single angle of the case about which you wanted information from us.”

Tragg’s face showed angry determination.

“And don’t think I won’t,” he promised grimly.