The Case of the Cautious Coquette

Chapter 4

“Come on,” Della Street said, “give.”

Mason grinned. “A very nice girl with wheat-colored hair, laughing blue eyes, a luscious strawberry mouth with white, pearly teeth.”

“Oh, my Lord,” Della Street said. “He’s in love.”

Paul Drake said, “How old, Perry?”

“Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty.”

Della Street brought a thesaurus and placed it on Mason’s desk.

“Thank you, Della,” Mason said. “Now let’s see, Paul. How do I find exactly the words with which to describe her?”

Mason turned the pages, said, “Ah, yes, here we are, Paul — virtuous, maidenly, virginal, vestal, upright, moral, worthy, honorable...”

“What does she do for a living?” Drake asked.

“You would ask that,” Mason told him.

“Come on,” Della Street insisted, laughing, “let’s have the story.”

Mason walked over and sat on the corner of his desk, the left foot on the floor, the right foot swinging in an arc in much embarrassment at their kidding.

“He’s afraid to tell,” Drake said.

“I do believe he’s blushing,” Della charged.

Mason said, “Well, if you want to know the truth, it was a trap.”

“Badger game?” Drake asked.

“Don’t be silly,” Mason told him. “Apparently this girl read the ad in the Blade and decided that while a detective agency was after the information, a lawyer must be in back of the detective agency.”

“Go ahead,” Drake said, “tell me about what happened when you opened the door.”

“Apparently,” Mason said, “she was in the bathtub.”

“Oh, oh!” Drake observed.

“So,” Mason said virtuously, “I noiselessly withdrew to the corridor, waited two minutes, then knocked on the door. She let me in. You’d get a kick out of her apartment, a lot of perfectly grand furniture, which must have come from a settlement when her marriage broke up, mixed with some terrible junk which could have been part of the furniture in the place.

“There’s an Oriental rug that’s worth a lot of money. It’s a beauty, and the desk is an antique that’s in perfect condition. The ash tray and glasses show she was entertaining a man last night and didn’t even bother to empty the ash tray when she went to bed — and they didn’t break up the party until the Scotch was all gone.

“But she’s clever. She seems almost naive in her excessive friendliness, but back of it all she must be a scheming, cautious gold-digger. She was very friendly. Having lured me into close quarters, she sized me up before planning the kill.”

“What’s the catch?” Drake asked.

“The catch,” Mason said, “is that she wants some attorney to handle an alimony matter with her ex-husband. Having used the bait to lure me into the apartment, she proceeded to use her eyes, teeth, and her figure to hold my personal and undivided attention while she tried to interest me in a project to keep her ex-husband, one Willard Barton, who, I understand, is a rather practical, hardened, and exceedingly ingenious individual, from reducing her alimony to a figure materially less than the two hundred dollars a week which it costs her to live.”

“Did she say anything about a retainer?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned; and said, “Not a word.”

“You’re sure the thing was a plant?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “Judge for yourself.”

He took from his pocket the sheet of pink stationery. “Here’s some stationery that I mooched from the drawer in the table, Della. You might compare it with the stationery of the letter which we received. I also used the typewriter. We can check to see if this same machine was used in writing that letter.”

Della Street hurried to the files, brought out the original letter, held the two sheets of stationery side by side, and said, “The paper’s the same.”

“How about the typewriter?” Drake asked.

They bent over the desk studying the alignment of the type. “It’s the same.” Mason said. “Notice that ‘g’ is a little out of alignment, and the T has dropped down a little and is canted over to the right.”

“Well, that settles it,” Drake said. “Hang it, I was hoping we had a lead. The hundred-dollar reward offer should get some action.”

“Give it time,” Mason said. “Remember the paper was hardly off the presses when this woman had her brain storm.”

“Well,” Della Street said, “since you have now spent most of the morning in a romantic adventure, I take it there’ll be no objection on your part to tackling that pile of mail that’s marked ‘important.’”

Mason dismissed Drake with a gesture. “My nose, Paul, is being held to the grindstone... Let me know if you get any answers to the ad.”

Drake nodded.

When he had left the office, Mason and Della Street settled down to work. Coffee and sandwiches were brought in at noon, and by one-fifteen they had most of the mail out of the way.

Gertie, the office receptionist, appeared with a letter. “A letter for you, Mr. Mason,” she said. “It came by messenger. I thought you’d want to see it.”

Mason groaned. “That, Della, is the reward of virtue. We try to get this pile of mail whittled down and what happens? More comes pouring in.”

Della Street picked up a paper knife and slit the edge of the envelope, saying as she did so, “A plain stamped envelope with a special delivery stamp put on it, and — there’s something in here, chief, something heavy.”

“Probably another key,” Mason said.

Della Street’s voice showed surprise. “The paper that’s in here, the stationery — chief, it’s the same pink colored stationery, and it is another key.”

She shook the envelope and a key fell out on the blotter. The key had an ornamental design at the end, was about two and a half inches long, hollow at the end of the shaft, with an intricate design of square-faced grooves on the part which was intended to actuate the lock.

“Looks like the key to a piece of furniture,” Della Street said.

Mason, grinning, unfolded the letter. Della Street came to look over his shoulder.

Mason opened the drawer of his desk, reached for the magnifying glass, said, “Well, I suppose we may as well make a routine check of the typing.”

Della Street’s quick eyes caught the letters which were out of alignment.

“It’s the same typewriter, chief,” she said, “and the same stationery.”

Mason nodded.

Della Street regarded Mason with brows that were knit together, causing two furrows in the otherwise smooth contours of her forehead. “Will you tell me what’s the answer?”

Mason said, “I’m darned if I know. I have an uneasy feeling that I’m being played for a sucker.”

“But surely, chief, she’s smart enough, realizing you know it’s a trap, not to expect you to walk into it a second time. And you simply can’t expect her to be so dumb as to write this second letter on a typewriter that she knows by this time you have seen.”

“Of course,” Mason pointed out dubiously, “there are many people who don’t realize that typing is as individual as handwriting, Not only does the type face tell the make and model of the typewriter on which a message is written, but the alignment gives a definite answer as to whether a document was or was not written upon a certain machine. However, it is surprising how many people fail to realize that.”

“But, even so,” Della Street pointed out, “that pink stationery. She must have known that you used some of it this morning.”

“The thing gets me,” Mason admitted, studying the letter.

Gertie, after a perfunctory knock on the door, pushed her head in and said, “A Lucille Barton is here, Mr. Mason. She said it would only take a minute and that she knew you’d want to see her.”

Della Street smiled. “I’ll have to have that thesaurus, chief. What were the words? Virginal, maidenly, sweet, attractive, charming, naive...”

Mason grabbed up the letter and envelope, pushed them down into a drawer in his desk. He hastily dropped the ornamental key into the side pocket of his vest where it rubbed against the key to the apartment, said, “I’ll see her, Gertie.”

“There’s a man with her.”

“What’s his name?”

“Mr. Arthur Colson.”

Mason said, “Show them in, Gertie.”

As Gertie nodded and closed the door, Mason turned to Della Street and said with swift decision, “Della, if I give you something to be typed for these people to sign before they leave the office, I want you to hold them here under one pretext or another. Be sure they don’t get away.”

“I don’t get it,” Della said.

“It will be a stall, Della. I want you to hold them so I can get down to her apartment and look in that desk.”

“But, chief, isn’t that just what...”

“I can’t help it,” Mason said. “My curiosity is aroused now. I’m going to find out what this is all about.”

“But suppose she has...”

The door opened. Gertie, with an air of formality, said, “Miss Lucille Barton and Mr. Arthur Colson.”

Lucille Barton came gliding across the office. Her tight dress emphasized her voluptuous figure, but the laughing candor of her eyes, the freshness of her face, and the spontaneous smile gave her an appearance of wholesome frankness.

“Mr. Mason, I couldn’t understand the insinuations you made this morning. You thought I was lying about where I was on the afternoon of the third, trying to hold you up or something. And you mentioned an ad in the paper, so I read die ads, and found the one you must have been referring to. So I decided to come and prove to you how wrong you were. Mr. Mason, I want you to meet Mr. Colson.”

Arthur Colson, a slender individual, slightly stooped, with eyes that peered out studiously from under straight eyebrows, extended a thin, muscular hand with an air of preoccupation. “How do you do, Mr. Mason?” he said, in a voice cultured almost to the point of affectation. “I suppose you wonder what I’m doing here. I do myself, but Lucille insisted. Impetuous as ever. Something about being a witness, I believe.”

“Miss Street, my secretary,” Mason introduced them.

They both bowed.

“How do you do?” Della Street said.

“Will you be seated?” Mason asked.

Della Street picked up a pencil, held it poised over her notebook as she seated herself at her secretarial desk.

Lucille Barton went on hurriedly, “I feel that I owe this to you and to myself. You know, Mr. Mason, when I told you that I was no good at remembering what takes place from one day to another, I was fibbing a little. I was with Arthur on the third, but I wasn’t certain he’d want to be — well — have his name mentioned. So I waited until I could get in touch with him and get his permission to tell you.

“You see I am working with Arthur. It’s just a part time job, two to five. But the third was his day off, so we went to see The Gay Prince.”

“A play?” Mason asked.

“A movie. It’s a swell picture, Mr. Mason. One of those things that makes you feel sort of chinned up inside.”

Arthur Colson contented himself with a nod.

“Where was it showing?” Mason asked.

“At the Alhambra. It’s a second-rim picture, but we both missed it when it first came out and I’ve been wanting to see it. Arthur is terribly, terribly busy, but I’ve persuaded him to take one day a week off, even if he is working for himself. As I told him, ‘All work and no play...’”

“Did you,” Mason interrupted, “after leaving the theater, go to the vicinity of Hickman Avenue and Vermesillo Drive?”

Colson shook his head in positive negation.

“Heavens, no,” Lucille said, laughing. “The Alhambra theater is way out at the other end of town, Mr. Mason. The show lasted until almost five o’clock and when we got out we...”

“Went to a cocktail lounge at a hotel near the theater,” Colson observed.

The man had an almost dreamy air of abstraction, as though his mind, immersed in books, had somehow become imprisoned between the printed covers of some text book and had failed to emerge. With him, life might well be a series of dim experiences lived in a state of half consciousness similar to that of a waking dream.

Lucille evidently noticed Mason’s appraisal.

“Arthur’s a chemist,” she interpolated hastily and enthusiastically. “He’s working on an invention of a new type of film that will react to infra-red rays of light so that...”

Colson suddenly came to life. The absent-minded air of studious preoccupation dropped from him abruptly. He said sharply, “We won’t discuss it now, Lucille.”

“Oh, I just wanted Mr. Mason to know what you’re doing, how successful you’ve been with inventions. And I wanted you to understand the relationship, Mr. Mason. I’ve invested a little money in financing him, and I work with him from two to five, doing his typing and things like that. Not that I’m too hot as a typist, but I can get by. And Arthur couldn’t trust any regular stenographer with the things he’s doing. He’s so ingenious! This new invention is...”

“We haven’t translated that invention into money yet,” Colson warned. “It’s better not to discuss these things.”

Mason said, “I don’t want to pry into your business, Mr. Colson, but I am interested in knowing what happened on the afternoon of third. Now, as I understand it, you went to a cocktail lounge.”

“That’s right.”

“And how long were you there?”

“Oh, I’d say an hour or so. We sat and drank cocktails and talked about the picture.”

“And then we went to Murphy’s for dinner,” Lucille supplemented.

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Then we went home and — well, Arthur stopped up at the apartment for a drink or two — and we sat and talked some more.”

“Until how late?” Mason asked.

They exchanged glances. Neither answered the question.

Mason raised inquiring eyebrows.

Both suddenly answered the question at the same time.

“Eleven o’clock,” Lucille Barton said positively.

“Half past twelve,” Colson said, the two answers being almost simultaneous.

Lucille recovered her composure first. “What am I thinking about?” she said. “Of course, it was the week before that you had to leave early. It must have been just about half past twelve... You see, Mr. Mason, Arthur takes one day a week off. The rest of the time he limits himself to a rigid schedule.”

Mason said, “I’m very sorry to inconvenience you people, but this is very, very important. Would you mind dictating to my secretary a statement covering what you have just told me, and then waiting until she’s typed it, and after that affix your signatures?”

“But, Mr. Mason,” Lucille Barton protested, “if we weren’t there, what difference does it make if...”

“It’s a matter of form,” Mason interrupted. “Of course you don’t have to do it. If you have any objection...”

“Not at all,” Arthur Colson said. “We’ll be glad to. In fact, Mr. Mason, there’s a book I’ve been trying to get hold of, one which you probably have available here in your law library. I could be reading while your secretary is typing.”

“What’s the book?” Mason asked.

“Wellman, on the art of cross-examination.”

“Indeed, yes,” Mason said. “You may wait in the law library. How about you, Miss Barton?”

She surrendered reluctantly. “Very well, if Arthur wants to, I will. You might give me some of those magazines from the table in the outer office to look at while Arthur’s reading. How long will it take?”

Mason said, “I suppose about half an hour. It should take you about ten minutes to dictate a complete statement, and then about twenty minutes for Miss Street to have it typed and ready for your signature. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment which I simply must keep. I’m very pleased I met you, and I’m certainly sorry if I am causing you any trouble.”

“Not at all,” Colson said. “There’s something in that book I wanted to look up. Ill be very happy. After we’ve dictated the statement I take it that we may wait...”

“In the law library,” Mason interrupted. “Della, you’ll be as quick as you can, won’t you?”

She caught and held his eyes. Her own eyes were apprehensive.

“Yes,” she said.