The Case of the Cautious Coquette

Chapter 23

At noon the next day, Mason, working casually and unconcernedly in his office, received word that Lieutenant Tragg was once more a visitor.

Tragg followed on the heels of Gertie as she made the announcement.

“Pardon me for not waiting in the outer office,” Tragg said, “but you have such a habit of slipping out of doors and things, and hiding in packing cases...”

Mason, a stack of morning papers on his desk, said irritably, “Damn it, Tragg, I don’t know how that rumor got started.”

“Well, the Blade certainly had a scoop,” Tragg said. “Guess you had quite a time out there, didn’t you?”

“Oh, so-so.”

“You knew that Goshen identified you?”

“Did he?”

“Absolutely. He saw you walk and he saw you run.”

Tragg settled himself comfortably in the chair. “Now look, Mason,” he said, “you have a lot at stake. Don’t let this two-timing little bitch get you into a position where your professional career is ruined.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Well, then, come clean.”

Mason said, “It’s just as I’ve told you, Tragg. You’re a square shooter, but there are people in the district attorney’s office who have been laying for me. They’d do anything on earth to get me.”

“Well, they’ve got you now.”

“Then let them prove it.”

“They just might surprise you.”

“On the other hand, I might surprise them. How did Sergeant Holcomb find out where I was last night?”

“I don’t know,” Tragg said. “Frankly, that was what I wanted to ask you about. Holcomb claims it was the result of some damn fine detective work. I had an idea it might — just might, you understand, have been the result of a tip-off.”

“The Blade had a clean scoop. You don’t suppose...”

“No. Holcomb’s sore as hell at the Blade.”

“Why?”

“Well, they didn’t use pictures of him. They only had pictures of you giving an interview in the cottage after he’d left, and pictures of you coming out of the door trying to hold your hat in front of your face.”

“I know exactly how he feels,” Mason said. “Only I don’t care about having my picture in the paper.”

Tragg grinned. “Holcomb does.”

“Is that so?”

“You know damn well it’s so. He’s been all over town buying papers, and he’s intimating he made good on the job after I fell down.”

Mason said, “That’s leading with his chin.”

Tragg looked long and searchingly at Perry Mason. “There’s something about Holcomb’s account of that thing that doesn’t jibe.”

“Is that particularly unusual?”

“I’m not commenting about what he says about his detective work. I’m referring to what he says about the photographers.”

“Oh?”

“According to Holcomb there were photographers all over the place.”

Mason lit a cigarette. “Well,” he said, “Sergeant Holcomb is a trained observer. He should know.”

“But no reporters,” Tragg went on, “only photographers. Now when you stop to think of it, that’s peculiar.”

Mason blew smoke at the ceiling.

“Moreover, with that number of photographers every newspaper in town should have had a picture. Only the Blade carried the story.”

“The trouble with Sergeant Holcomb,” Mason observed, his eyes following the spiral of smoke which eddied up from his cigarette, “is that he hypnotizes himself, because he always wants the facts to be his way. I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed it, Lieutenant, but Sergeant Holcomb will get an idea, then he tries to make the facts fit that idea.”

Tragg studied Mason with cautious, speculative eyes. He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, lit the cigar, and said, “I’m sorry I can’t promise you immunity all the way through the D. A.’s office.”

“I know,” Mason said.

“The way things look now,” Tragg said, “they’ve already charged Lucille Barton with murder. They’ll rush her up for a preliminary, and hold everything else in abeyance.”

“Uh huh.”

“Ready to close in on the others,” Tragg went on, “when the situation becomes a little more clarified, as it will at the preliminary hearing. You probably know you’re the one they’re laying for.”

“I thought they’d take me in this morning,” Mason said. “In fact, I thought that was why you were coming here. I was getting my business cleaned up a bit and...”

“There have been complicating circumstances,” Tragg said, grinning.

“What are they?”

“Hollister’s automobile, for one.”

“No trace of Hollister?”

“Not so far. It’s only due to luck we found the car. It could have stayed there for a month or two.”

“No trace of Dudley Gates?”

“Dudley Gates heard we were looking for him and telephoned us. He’s in Honolulu. He’d rushed over by plane on a business deal. He tells a straightforward story, but it deepens the mystery on Hollister. Gates was planning to go with Hollister on Monday afternoon, but he had to change his plans on a few minutes’ notice. He says he was supposed to go with Hollister leaving at six o’clock Monday night, but that afternoon an urgent matter came up and he suddenly decided to fly to San Francisco, and then take a plane to Honolulu. He says he’d previously advised Hollister and Hollister had talked with him in San Francisco at about quarter of five. A check of Hollister’s phone records shows that’s right. He called Gates at the airport in San Francisco and had him paged. Gates said Hollister told him he was going to leave Santa del Barra within an hour.”

“Very interesting,” Mason said.

“That changes the whole setup. You can probably see it from the D.A.’s viewpoint.”

“Anything else on Hollister’s movements that afternoon?”

“At four-thirty Monday when the housekeeper left the place, Hollister was just about ready to leave. His car was in the driveway. He told her six o’clock was the absolute deadline. We haven’t been able to locate him.”

“What does the housekeeper look like?”

“Not bad. About forty. She says he was playing around with Lucille and that Lucille had nicked him for furniture. Oriental rugs, an antique desk and a lot of other stuff.”

“She evidently doesn’t like Lucille?”

“Definitely not.”

Mason nodded. “She wouldn’t. Which direction was the car headed when it was run off the grade, Lieutenant — upgrade or downgrade?”

“It’s hard to tell from the tracks. There’s a wide place there, then the drop. The tracks are very faint and almost at right angles with the road. But the car must have been driven up from Santa del Barra.

“Someone pulled the usual stunt of locking the car in low gear, easing it off the road over to the edge, then jerking open the hand throttle and jumping from the running board to the ground.”

“Then, of course, you’re looking on all of the steep turns and sharp drops farther up the grade?”

“Up the grade?”

“That’s right. If someone had wanted to dispose of something in the car, and then wanted to dispose of the car, he’d find the place to run the car over the cliff, and he’d naturally dispose of the object after he’d located the place.”

“Then it would be down the grade. The car must have been driven up from Santa del Barra.”

“That’s right. The driver would first spot the place to dispose of the car.”

Tragg thought that over.

“But the heavy object would have to be disposed of while he still had the car.”

Tragg arose hurriedly. “I’d better be going.”

“Well, drop in any time,” Mason said.

Tragg shook hands. “Thanks, I will.”

When he had left the office Mason winked at Della Street over the circling wisp of cigarette smoke.

She said, “You virtually promised him you’d make Sergeant Holcomb wish he hadn’t boasted about that identification, chief.”

“Did you get that impression, Della?”

“Well, in a way, yes.”

“Then Tragg must have got it.”

Della frowned as she studied Mason’s face. “He likes you, doesn’t he? — I mean personally, not officially.”

“He should,” Mason said.