The Case of the Crimson Kiss

Chapter eight

It was after nine o’clock that night when Della Street, signing the register in the elevator, was whisked up to the floor where Perry Mason had his offices.

The offices of the Drake Detective Agency on the same floor, nearer the elevator, were kept open twenty-four hours a day. The innocent-looking entrance door showed merely a single oblong of frosted glass, the illumination back of the glass showing the offices were open, but giving no indication of the unceasing nocturnal activities of the staff which worked in a veritable rabbit warren of offices.

Della Street started to look in on Paul Drake, then changed her mind and kept on walking down the long, dark corridor, the rapid tempo of her heels echoing back at her from the night silence of the door-lined hallway.

She rounded the elbow in the corridor and saw that lights were on in Mason’s office. She fitted her latchkey to the outer door, crossed through the entrance office, and opened the door of Mason’s private office.

The lawyer was pacing the floor, thumbs pushed in the armholes of his vest, head shoved forward, wrapped in such concentration that he did not even notice the opening of the door.

The desk was littered with photographs. There were numerous sheets of the flimsy which Paul Drake used in making reports to clients.

Della stood quietly in the doorway, watching the tall, lean-waisted man pacing back and forth. He was granite-hard of face, broad-shouldered, flat-stomached; the seething action of his restless mind demanded physical outlet in order to preserve some semblance of internal balance, and this restless pacing was but an unconscious reflex.

After almost a minute Della Street said, “Hello, chief. Can I help?”

Mason looked up at her with a start. “What are you doing here?”

“I came up to see if you were working and, if so, if there was anything I could do to help.”

He smiled. “I’m not working. I’m like an animal running around his cage trying to find an outlet.”

“Had any dinner?” she asked.

He glanced at his wristwatch and said, “Not yet.”

“What time is it?” Della Street asked.

He had to look at his wristwatch again in order to tell her. “Nine-forty.”

She laughed. “I knew you didn’t even look the first time you went through the motions. Come on, chief, you’ve got to go get something to eat. The case will still be here when you get back.”

“How do we know it will?” Mason said. “I’ve been talking with Louise Marlow on the phone. She’s been in touch with Dane Grover and she knows Dane Grover’s mother. Dane Grover says he’ll stick. How does he know what he’ll do? He’s exploring uncharted depths in his own mind. He doesn’t know what he’ll find. His friends and relatives are turning the knife in the wound with their sympathy, the silent accusation of their every glance. How the hell does he know what he’s going to do? How can he tell whether he’ll stick?”

“Just the same,” Della Street insisted, “I think he’ll do it. It’s through situations such as this that character is created.”

“You’re just talking to keep your courage up,” Mason said. “I’ve pulled that line with a jury once or twice myself. Soul-seared in a crucible of adversity — the tempering fires of fate — burning away the fat of wealthy complacency as he comes to grips with the fundamentals of life — baloney!”

She smiled faintly.

“The guy’s undergoing the tortures of the damned,” Mason went on. “He can’t help but be influenced by the evidence, by the worldly-wise, cynical skepticism of all his associates. The woman he loves on the night before the wedding having trouble trying to push herself away from the slimy embraces of the man who gave her money and a certain measure of security — until she had an opportunity to trade that security in on a newer and better model.”

“Chief, you simply have to eat.”

Mason walked over to the desk. “Look at ’em,” he said. “Photographs! And Drake had the devil’s own time obtaining them — copies of the police photographs — the body on the floor, glass on the table, an overturned chair, a newspaper half open by a reading chair, an ordinary, mediocre apartment as drab as the sordid affair for which it was used. And somewhere in those photographs I’ve got to find the clue that will establish the innocence of a woman, not only innocence of the crime of murder, but innocence of the crime of betraying the man she loved.”

Mason crossed over to the desk, picked up the magnifying glass which was on his blotter, started once more examining the pictures. “And, hang it, Della,” he said, “I think the thing’s here somewhere. That glass on the table, a little Scotch and soda in the bottom, Fay Allison’s fingerprints all over it. Then there’s the brazen touch of that crimson kiss on the forehead.”

“Indicating a woman was with him just before he died?”

“Not necessarily. That lipstick is a perfect imprint of a pair of lips. There was no lipstick on his lips, just there on the forehead. A shrewd man could well have smeared lipstick on his lips, pressed them against Clements’ forehead after the poison had taken effect, and so directed suspicion away from himself. This could well have happened if the man had known some woman was in the habit of visiting Clements there in that apartment.

“It’s a clue that so obviously indicates a woman that I find myself getting suspicious of it. If there were only something to give me a starting point. If we only had a little more time.”

Della Street walked over to the desk. The cool tips of her fingers slid over Mason’s eyes. She said, “Stop it. Come and get something to eat. Let’s talk it over...”

“Haven’t you had dinner?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I knew you’d be working and that if someone didn’t rescue you, you’d be pacing the floor until two or three o’clock in the morning. What’s Paul Drake found out?”

She picked up the sheets of flimsy, placed them together, folded them, stacked up the photographs, put the flimsy on top of the photographs, and anchored everything in place with a paperweight. “Come on, chief, I’m famished.”

Mason walked over to the coat closet. Della had to stand on tiptoes to help him with his topcoat. The lawyer took his hat, switched out lights, and walked down the corridor with Della Street.

But he didn’t really answer her question until after he had become relaxed in one of the booths in their favorite restaurant. Then he pushed back the plates containing the wreckage of a thick steak, shoestring potatoes, golden-brown toasted and buttered French bread, and a lettuce and tomato salad.

He poured more coffee, then said, “Drake hasn’t found out much, just background.”

“What, for instance?” Della Street asked.

Mason said wearily, “It’s the same old seven and six. The wife, Marline Austin Clements, apparently was swept off her feet by Carver Clements’ determination to get her, by the sheer power of the man.

“She overlooked the fact that after he had her safely listed as one of his legal chattels, with title in good order, he used that same acquisitive, aggressive tenacity of purpose to get other things he wanted. Marline was left pretty much alone. That’s the price one has to pay for marrying men of that type.”

“And so?” Della asked.

“And so,” Mason said, “in the course of time, Carver Clements turned to other interests. Hang it, Della, we have one thing to work on, only one thing, the fact that Clements had no key on his body.

“You remember the four people who met us in the corridor. They had to get in that apartment house some way. Remember the outer door was locked. Any of the tenants could release the latch by pressing the button of an electric release. But if the tenant of some apartment didn’t press the release button, it was necessary for any visitor to have a key in order to get in.

“Now then, those four people got in. How? They must have had a key. Regardless of what they now say, one of them must have had a key.”

“The missing key?” Della asked.

“That’s what we have to find out.”

“What story did they give the police?”

“I don’t know. The police have them sewed up tight. I’ve got to get one of them on the stand and cross-examine him. Then we’ll at least have something to go on.”

“So we have to try for an immediate hearing and then go it blind?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Was that key in Fay Allison’s purse Carver Clements’ missing key?”

“It could have been. If so, either Fay was playing house or the key was planted. In that case when was it planted, how, and by whom? I’m inclined to think Clements’ key must have been on his body at the time he was murdered. It wasn’t there when the police arrived. That’s the one really significant clue we have to work on.”

Della Street shook her head. “It’s too deep for me. but I guess you’re going to have to wade into it. I can tell you one thing. Louise Marlow is a brick. I’ve known her since I was a child. If there’s anything she can do to help, you can count on her.”

Mason lit a cigarette. “Ordinarily I’d spar for time, but in this case I’m afraid time is our enemy. Della. We’re going to have to walk into court with all the assurance in the world and pull a very large rabbit out of a very small hat.”

She smiled. “Where do we get the rabbit?”

“Back in the office,” he said, “studying those photographs, looking for a clue, and...” Suddenly he snapped to startled attention.

“What is it, chief?”

“I was just thinking. The glass on the table in seven-oh-two, there was a little whiskey and soda in the bottom of it, just a spoonful or two.”

“Well?” she asked.

“What happens when you drink Scotch and soda, Della?”

“Why... you always have a little. It sticks to the side of the glass and then gradually settles back.”

Mason shook his head. His eyes were glowing now. “You leave ice cubes in the glass,” he said, “and then after a while they melt and leave an inch or so of water.”

She matched his excitement. “Then there was no ice in the woman’s glass?”

“And none in Carver Clements’. Yet there was a thermos jar of ice cubes on the table. Come on, Della, we’re going back and really study those photographs!”