The Case of the Crooked Candle

Chapter 14

The room at Police Headquarters had barred windows, held a clean, somewhat battered table, nearly a dozen chairs, three huge brass cuspidors on rubber mats, and nothing else. It was a plain room, obviously designed for just one purpose. It was devoid of ornament and cheer. People who were held in that room were like cattle herded into the killing pen of a stockyard. They simply waited until such time as the persons who controlled their destinies were ready to receive them.

Della Street and Carol Burbank sat over on the far side of the table near the window. Across the table from them, and between them and the door, the police officer who had been delegated to “keep an eye” on them, rested an elbow on the table, propped his feet on the rung of an adjacent chair, and gave the girls a view of the somewhat beefy profile of a man slightly past middle age.

The passing of years had made him indifferent to feminine beauty, and long association with the police had utterly calloused him to human misery. His manner indicated that he had detached himself from the scene of which he was a part. His body hulked between the prisoners and the door, which constituted a discharge of his duty. His mind was far away, occupied with the mathematical percentages of his prospects for winning on the races the next afternoon; daydreaming what he would do when he became eligible for pension; and rehashing in his mind an argument he had had with his wife that morning, thinking somewhat ruefully of her natural aptitude for delivering an extemporaneous tongue lashing, whereas he hadn’t thought of his best retorts until long afterward. His wife had a gift that way. No, damn it, she’d inherited it from her mother — that must be it. He remembered some of the scenes with his mother-in-law before she’d died some ten years ago. At that time, Mabel had been all worked up over the way the old lady used to have tantrums. That was before Mabel had got fat. She certainly had a good figure in those days. Well, come to think of it, he’d put on a little weight himself. Got pretty much out of shape after he quit that handball exercise. Thinking back on it, he couldn’t remember exactly when it was he’d quit. It had been after a spell of the flu, and then they’d changed his hours for a while, and...

Della Street said firmly, “I insist upon the right to use the telephone.”

The officer frowned at having his thoughts interrupted. He didn’t even turn his eyes toward Della Street. He said mechanically, “If they book you, you’ll have a right to call a lawyer.”

“I demand that I be permitted to communicate with an attorney right now.”

The officer didn’t say anything. He was frowning, trying to think just what had happened to make him quit handball — it had had something to do with a police shake-up. He wondered if that was the time the captain had been facing a grand jury investigation over the squawk the woman had made who ran that house out on...

Della Street said firmly, “I insist upon my right to communicate with Mr. Perry Mason, who is both my employer and my attorney.”

“That isn’t getting you anywhere, sister.”

“All right, you’ve heard me make the demand. We’ll see whether it gets me anywhere or not. I think there’s some law on the subject.”

“You can talk to the Lieutenant.”

“All right, let me talk to the Lieutenant.”

“He’ll see you when he’s ready.”

“Well, I’m ready now, and I’m not talking to the Lieutenant — I’m talking to you.”

“I’m just following orders.”

Della Street said, “You might find yourself on the spot, you know. Perry Mason isn’t going to like this.”

“Ma’am, the Lieutenant just don’t give a damn whether Perry Mason likes it or whether he doesn’t.”

“And when he doesn’t like a thing,” Della Street went on, “he’s very apt to do something about it. He might even prefer charges against you.”

The officer’s feet came down to the floor with a bang. He turned to look at Della Street now. “Charges against me?” he said.

“Exactly.”

“On what grounds?”

“For refusing to let me communicate with a lawyer, for failing to take me before the nearest magistrate without unnecessary delay.”

“Now wait a minute,” the officer said. “You aren’t arrested yet.”

“Then why are you holding me here?”

“The D.A. wants to talk with you.”

“I don’t want to talk with the D.A.”

“That’s your hard luck.”

“You mean I’m here as a witness?”

“Well, in a way — yes. There’s a crime under investigation.”

“If I’m held as a witness,” Della Street said, “you have to get a court order to hold me. If I’m arrested, you have to take me before the nearest and most accessible magistrate without any unnecessary delay.”

“Well, we’re just sort of waiting to get the magistrate,” the officer said with a smile.

“Have it your own way,” Della said, “but when charges are made against you, don’t say I didn’t warn you. You look like a man who has a long police career back of you. It would be a shame if you did something now that would keep you from getting a pension.”

“Say, what are you talking about?”

“About the fact that if you are guilty of a violation of my rights, and if charges should be preferred against...”

“Say, listen. I’m just obeying orders.”

“Orders that you’re to hold me here without letting me communicate with a lawyer?”

“Well, that I’m to hold you here.”

Della Street smiled triumphantly. “You know what the higher-ups will say when someone starts putting on the pressure. They’ll say, ‘Why, we just instructed that officer to give them seats in an anteroom. We didn’t tell him they were under arrest. We supposed, of course, they were willing to remain there voluntarily in order to help us investigate the crime. We certainly didn’t tell him they weren’t to communicate with an attorney. We thought, of course, he’d know enough to see they weren’t deprived of their constitutional rights. If he violated the law, he did it on his own. We aren’t responsible. We never gave him any such orders.’ ”

The officer said, “Say, wait a minute. You’re like my wife. Women are all the same.”

He scraped back the chair and, frowning portentously, lumbered to the door. He opened it, stood in the corridor, holding the door in his hand so that it was open five or six inches.

Carol Burbank said, “Good work. Miss Street. You’ve got him worried.”

The officer raised his voice, “P-s-s-s-s-t, Jim!”

Abruptly he pulled the door shut.

The girls were left alone for some five minutes, then the door opened again, and the officer said, “The Lieutenant will see you now.”

“I have nothing to say to anyone.”

“Well, you want to use a telephone, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there isn’t any telephone in this room. You want to go to a room where there’s a telephone, or don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then come this way.”

The girls arose, followed the officer down a corridor which echoed to the sound of their steps. The officer opened a door and, with a very evident gesture of relief, said, “Okay, Lieutenant, here they are.”

Lieutenant Tragg sat at a plain oak desk in a corner of the room. There were three chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of the desk.

“Sit down,” he invited courteously.

Della Street said, “I want to telephone Mr. Mason.”

“I want to ask you a few questions first.”

“I want to telephone Mr. Mason.”

Tragg said, “Now, listen. I don’t want to pick on you, Miss Street, but when Perry Mason starts using you to pull chestnuts out of the fire for him, I have no other alternative. I’m going to connect Perry Mason with what has happened, and the only way I can do it is through you.”

“What’s happened?” Della Street asked.

“You know as well as I do what’s happened. You and Perry Mason have been trying to suppress evidence.”

“Bosh!” Della said.

“You went whizzing down to pick up Miss Burbank and spirit her away where she couldn’t be found.”

“What are you talking about? I took Miss Burbank to a hotel and registered her under her own name. Does that look as though I were concealing a witness? All you had to do was consult the register and...”

“Yes, I know,” Tragg said. “It was done very cleverly, but the purpose for which it was done was to conceal this witness.”

“Try and prove it,” Della challenged.

“That,” Tragg said, “is the unfortunate part. Due to the clever ruse of registering Miss Burbank under her own name, I can’t prove it.”

“Then what are you holding me for?”

“But,” Tragg added with a triumphant smile, “I can hold you on one thing — and that is your attempt to conceal evidence.”

“What evidence?” Della Street asked.

With a sudden dramatic gesture, Lieutenant Tragg whipped open a drawer in his desk, pulled out a pair of woman’s shoes. “I suppose,” he said, “you’ll say that you’ve never seen these before?”

“I haven’t,” Della Street promptly declared.

Tragg’s smile was supercilious, “Unfortunately, Miss Street, that story doesn’t check with the facts. Perry Mason instructed Miss Carol Burbank to take these shoes, wrap them in a brown paper parcel, take them to the parcel checking station at the Union Terminal, check them and get a receipt. She did that. She got a claim check. She passed the claim check on to you. You took the claim check, placed it in an envelope and wrote the name ‘Perry Mason’ on that envelope in your own handwriting.”

For a long four or five seconds, Della Street said nothing. Then she asked, “What’s wrong with those shoes?”

Lieutenant Tragg picked up a magnifying glass, examined a section of the shoe just above the leather sole. “There’s nothing wrong with them, Miss Street. The shoes are all right. It’s you who are in the wrong. Those shoes...”

The door abruptly jerked open, Perry Mason pushed his way into the room, “Okay, Lieutenant, that will be about all.”

An officer showed his head through the door, “Did you send for him?” he asked.

“I did not,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

The officer entered the room. “Out!” he said to Perry Mason.

Della Street said very rapidly, “Lieutenant Tragg, this is my attorney. If I am to be accused of any crime, he is my counsel. If I’m not to be accused of any crime I have absolutely nothing to say as a witness, and will have nothing to say unless I am subpoenaed and examined in the regular manner.”

Mason said, “As attorney for both of these young women, I demand that they be taken before the nearest and most accessible magistrate immediately.”

Tragg’s smile was dry. “Unfortunately, Mason, this is Sunday. I’m afraid you won’t find any magistrate available until Monday morning when...”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Mason interrupted. “Judge Roxmann has done me the favor of going to his court. He’s sitting there waiting.”

Tragg slowly pushed back his chair. He sighed wearily. “All right,” he surrendered, “that does it.”

Mason motioned to Della and Carol.

“You mean we can go now?” Carol asked.

Tragg didn’t answer. Mason moved over, held the door open. Della Street stalked out. Carol followed. Tragg said as Mason started to close the door, “She’ll be back before midnight, Mason, and the next time she’ll stay.”

Mason pulled the door closed behind him. So far as giving any sign, he might not have heard what Tragg said.