The Case of the Crooked Candle

Chapter 12

It was late afternoon when Della Street and Perry Mason emerged from the elevator and walked down the long corridor. As they went past Paul Drake’s office, Mason opened the door, thrust his head in and said to the girl at the switchboard, “Drake in?”

“Yes. He’s waiting.”

“Ask him to come down to my office. What are you doing at the switchboard? I thought this was your day off.”

“The girl who takes care of the board Saturdays and Sundays is laid up with the flu,” she said, “so I’m having to work right on through,” and she made a little grimace. “However, Mr. Drake says I can get off next week for... Here he is now.”

The door from one of the inner offices opened and Drake, talking in his characteristic drawl, said, “Hi, Perry. Thought I heard your voice. Hello, Della. Want to talk now?”

“Uh huh.”

“Okay, I’ll come on down with you. I’ll be in Mr. Mason’s office if anything turns up, Frances. You have the unlisted number, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Hold everything, except on this stuff I’m doing for Mason; put that on through to me.”

Drake moved over to take Della’s arm. “Why don’t you work for a good outfit?” he asked. “We keep our girls on a five-day week, a seven-hour day.”

“Yes, I notice. Frances was just telling us.”

Drake laughed and said, “You can’t win!”

Mason opened the door of his office.

Drake said, “There’s something new on that murder, Perry. Remember that doorway to the after cabin on the yacht? It was shown in those pictures.”

“Yes, I remember. What about it?”

“The autopsy surgeon thinks that Milfield may have received the fatal injury by being knocked over against the raised brass-covered threshold between the main cabin and a smaller private cabin.”

“In other words, he may have met his death as the result of a fist fight? That would change it from first-degree murder to manslaughter.”

“That, of course, will be up to a jury. Police will go ahead on the first-degree murder theory. You understand this other thing is just a possibility, Perry. It...”

The phone on Mason’s desk rang sharply. Mason said, “Better answer it, Paul. It’s probably Frances relaying some information.”

Drake took the telephone, said, “Hello,” then listened carefully for nearly two minutes, made a couple of notes, said, “Okay Tell him to wait right there at that telephone for five minutes.”

Drake hung up, said, “We’ve located J. C. Lassing, the man who rented that double cabin at the Surf and Sun Motel. My operative says he’s got the guy parked outside the drugstore where he’s calling. He thinks Lassing will give him a written statement.”

Mason showed excitement. “What does he say?”

Drake said, “J. C. Lassing lives at 6842 La Brea Avenue, Colton. It was a little job tracing him because he’d transposed two of the figures on his license number when he registered at the motel. Lots of people do that; even when they’re looking right at a figure, they’ll transpose a couple of the digits in writing it down, and when they’re trying to remember a license number...”

Mason said, “I know.”

“What I’m getting at,” Drake pointed out, “is that it may have been accidental that he gave the wrong figure. Again, it may not. Anyhow, he just about corroborates Burbank’s story. He says he rented two double cabins; that there were four people in his party, and that he ‘believes there were subsequently two more people who arrived.’ He won’t tell the names of any of them.”

“You say your man can get a written statement from him?”

“He thinks he can. He has Lassing waiting outside in his car. There’s one thing that bothers me though, and that’s why he rang up before he tried to get a statement. Lassing mentioned casually that his party checked out right after noon Saturday That wouldn’t fit in with your time theory, would it, Perry?”

Mason said, “No. Burbank apparently didn’t leave until around four or five o’clock in the afternoon. Get your man on the phone, Paul, tell him to ask Lassing more about that time element.”

Drake dialed his office on the telephone, said, “Ring up Al, Frances, tell him that he’s to find out more about that checking out time before he tries to get the written statement out of Lassing. Have him call back as soon as he finds out.”

Drake hung up the telephone and turned to Mason. He had only started to say something when the phone rang again.

Della answered the phone, said, “Yes... Yes, this is Miss Street... Just a moment. Hold the phone.”

She placed her hand over the mouthpiece, said to Mason, “It’s Carol. She’s at the Union Terminal; wants to know if you’ve found out anything.”

Mason made a gesture of impatience. “Tell her we’re waiting for an important call. Tell her to wait right there. Get a number where we can call her back. As soon as we can clear the line, I want to ask her where her father is and what he was doing calling on Frank Palermo Friday afternoon. Don’t tell her that. Just get a number where we can call her and get her off the line.”

Della relayed the message, hung up.

They waited in tense silence for less than a minute, then the phone rang again. Della answered it, said, “Just a minute, Frances,” and passed the phone over to Paul Drake.

Drake said, “Hello... Yes, Frances... The devil!.. Look, can you work the switchboard so as to put him on the line? It’ll save time... All right, do it... Oh, hello, Al... That’s what Frances told me... Tell me exactly what happened.”

There was an interval of silence. Then Drake said, “Just a minute, I’ll pass that on. You hold the phone.”

He turned to Mason. “Al says he left Lassing out in his car while he put through the call to me. You heard me tell him to stick around the telephone for five minutes, so he waited right there. Then when Frances called him back and told him to go ask Lassing about that time element, he went out. Lassing wasn’t there.”

“Skipped out?” Mason rasped.

“No, the cops nabbed him.”

“Is Al sure?”

“Yes. A kid told Al some men came up in a car that had a red spotlight on it and a star on the side door. One of the men got out and went over and started talking with Lassing, and then, all of a sudden, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs, put them on Lassing and...”

“Handcuffs!” Mason interrupted.

“That’s what Al says the kid told him.”

Mason said, “Tell Al to get out of there, fast!”

Drake said into the telephone, “Okay Al, come on back to the office — step on it,” and hung up the phone.

Mason, pacing the floor, quickened the tempo of his stride.

Drake said, “I can’t figure what...”

“Wait a minute,” Mason interrupted, his voice sharp with nervous tension. “Let me think.”

For two or three minutes he paced up and down the office, then he suddenly whirled to Paul Drake, “Got a good woman operative, Paul — one you can trust?”

Drake said, “What for, rough stuff, siren stuff or...”

“No, someone who can stay with a high-class woman every minute of the time, not let her out of her sight day or night.”

“I know a girl like that. It’ll take me a while to get her lined up,” Drake said.

“How long?”

“Oh, four or five hours maybe, perhaps sooner.”

Mason shook his bead. “We’ve got to do something before then, Paul.”

Drake said dubiously, “I have a woman who used to... No, Perry, I don’t think she’ll do.”

Mason said, “Damn it, we haven’t got all night!”

“Can I do it?” Della Street asked.

Mason turned to contemplate her thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said, “you can do it — and I guess you’ll have to do it.”

“What is it?”

Mason said, “When you leave here be damn certain you aren’t followed. Get on and get off streetcars, then grab yourself a taxicab. Tell the driver you have to be absolutely certain you aren’t being tailed. He’ll know what to do.”

Della Street merely nodded.

“When you’re absolutely certain that nobody’s following you,” Mason went on, “beat it down to the Union Terminal. Pick up Carol Burbank. Tell her not to ask any questions and don’t give her any information. Take her to the Woodridge. We know the manager there. I’ll have things all fixed up by the time you arrive. Register under your own name, and register Carol under her name, only use her initials. In other words, if her middle name is Annie, register her as C. A. Burbank. — That will sound like a businessman rather than a woman — get me?”

Again Della Street nodded.

“Get rooms with a connecting bath,” Mason said. “Have twin beds in your room. After you’ve been moved in and the bellboy has left, move Carol’s baggage into your room. Lock the bathroom door so you’ve locked off the adjoining room. Keep Carol in with you.”

“For how long?”

“Until you hear from me. Get her out of circulation and keep her out of circulation.”

Della Street walked over to the hat closet, took out her hat, adjusted it on her head, and pulled her coat off a hanger.

Paul Drake said, “I don’t like this, Perry.”

Mason snapped irritably, “Neither do I, damn it. If you could only get some woman who...”

“Have a heart, Perry. You can’t just pick up women for a job now. I’m lucky to have any female operatives at all...”

Della Street walked to the door, hesitated, “Okay?” she asked Perry Mason.

Mason waved her on her way. “Go to it, Della — and luck.”