The Case of the Curious Bride

Chapter 14

Paul Drake slowed his light car and swung in close to the curb. Danny Spear, a nondescript individual, with a flatcrowned brown hat tilted back to show rusty brown locks straggling out from under the sweat band, glanced inquiringly at Perry Mason.

Spear would never have been taken for a detective. There was something wideeyed and innocent about him that made him appear to be a typical «rube» pausing in front of a shell game at a country fair. His face habitually wore the pleased grin of a yokel who is seeing the world for the first time. "What do I do?" he asked.

"You trail us into the apartment house," Mason told him. "We'll go in the jane's apartment and buzz the door. If she opens the door to let us in, you walk on past as though you were going to some apartment down at the end of the corridor. But you time things so that you get a look at her face as you walk past the door. It'll only be a quick glimpse, but you can get a flash of her face so you can spot her later on. Now, it's important that you get her fixed in your mind. If you don't get enough of a look to recognize her, you'd better wait until we get in and then come and knock at the door and put up some kind of a stall about knowing the jane that used to live in the apartment, or something of that sort. If you do get a good look at her, take a divorce from us and tail her if she goes out. We'll leave you with the car. When Drake and I leave the place, we'll call a cab. You can be sitting in the car. Do you get that straight?"

Danny Spear nodded. "I gotcha," he said.

"The probabilities are she'll watch us when we leave," Mason said. "She'll be worried, because that's what we're going there for. We're going to worry her. I don't know whether she pulled this stuff alone, or whether she didn't but that's one of the things I want to find out."

"Suppose she telephones?" asked Spear.

Mason said slowly. "She won't telephone. We're going to make her think her line has been tapped."

"You're just going to make her suspicious, is that right?"

"Yes."

"She'll be looking for a shadow," Danny Spear protested.

"That's something we can't help. That's where you've got to play it carefully, and that's why I want you to get a divorce from us as soon as we leave the place. She'll see you walking past us in the corridor and won't figure that you're with us at all."

"Okay," Danny Spear said. "You birds had better drive around the block and let me off at the corner. I'll walk up behind you and time things so we go in the apartment house together. There's just a chance some of her friends might be watching out of a window. If they saw the three of us get out of the same car, it might not be so hot."

Drake nodded, shifted the car into gear, ran around the block, dropped Danny at the corner, swung once more into a parking place in front of the apartment house, got out leisurely, and pulled down his vest, gave his coat collar a jerk and adjusted his tie. With wellsimulated carelessness, the two men entered the apartment house, walking slowly. Behind them came Danny Spear, walking rapidly.

A fat man was seated in a rocking chair in the lobby. He was the only occupant.

Still walking slowly toward the elevator, Paul Drake and the lawyer swung slightly to one side as Danny Spear bustled past them. To the fat man in the chair it seemed purely a fortuitous combination of circumstances which placed all three men in the elevator at the same time.

In the upper corridor, Danny Spear held back, while the other two found the door of the apartment they wanted and tapped on the panels. There was the sound of motion, the click of a lock. The door opened, and a rather plain woman of about twentyfive years of age, with large brown eyes and thin, firm lips, stared in mute interrogation.

"Are you," asked Perry Mason in rather a loud voice, "Doris Freeman?"

"Yes," she said. "What do you want?"

Perry Mason turned slightly to one side, so that Danny Spear, walking rapidly down the corridor, could see the young woman's face.

"My business," said Perry Mason, "can hardly be stated in the corridor."

"Book agent?"

"No."

"Life insurance?"

"No."

"Selling anything?"

"No."

"What do you want?"

"To ask you a few questions."

The thin lips clamped more firmly together. The eyes widened. There was a flicker of fear in their depths. "Who are you?"

"We're collecting some data for the Bureau of Vital Statistics."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

By this time, Danny Spear had gone well past them toward the end of the corridor, where he was pounding on a door with imperative knuckles. The door swung open, and a man's voice gruffed a greeting and the operative said, "I've got an express package down stairs for C. Finley Dodge. Where do you want it delivered?…"

Perry Mason boldly pushed his way past the woman, into the apartment. Drake followed and kicked the door shut. She remained standing, clad in a print housedress, and, as the light from the windows struck her face, it brought out incipient caliper lines which were stretching from her nostrils toward the ends of her thin lips. There was no makeup on her face, and her shoulders were slightly rounded. There could be no mistaking the fear in her eyes as her glance shifted from Mason to Drake, then back to Mason again. "What is it?" she asked.

The lawyer, who had been sizing her up carefully, nodded imperceptibly to Paul Drake. "It's important," he said, in a harsh, aggressive voice, "that you answer all of our questions truthfully. If you start lying to us, you're going to get into trouble, do you understand that?"

"What do you mean?" she countered.

"Are you married or single?" asked Perry Mason.

"I don't know what business it is of yours."

Mason raised his voice, "Never mind that, sister. You just answer my questions and keep your comments until later. Are you married or single?"

"I'm married."

"Where did you live before you came here?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

Mason looked over at Paul Drake and said significantly, "That is the best proof of guilt we can have."

As Doris Freeman turned to stare apprehensively at Paul Drake, Perry Mason lowered his right eyelid in a significant wink. "That isn't a sign of guilt, in itself," said Paul Drake, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

Mason whirled toward the young woman. Once more, his voice became the voice of a lawyer browbeating a witness. "You lived in Centerville, didn't you? Don't deny it. You might as well admit it now as later."

"Is it," she asked, "a crime to live in Centerville?"

Mason turned back to Drake. His lips twisted in a sneer. "How much more do you want?" he asked. "If she isn't in on it she wouldn't stall like that."

Doris Freeman's hands crept to her throat. She walked unsteadily toward an overstuffed chair, sat down suddenly, as though her knees had lost their strength. "What," she said, "what…"

"Your husband's name," said Perry Mason.

"Freeman."

"What's his first name?"

"Sam."

Perry Mason's laugh was scornful. He flung his arm out in rigidly pointing accusation. An extended forefinger was leveled at her face as though it had been a loaded revolver. "Why do you tell us that," he said, "when you know his name was Gregory?"

She wilted, as though the life force had oozed from her pores. "Who… who are you?"

"If you really want to know," Perry Mason said, "the telephone company is investigating a charge that your phone has been used for blackmail."

She straightened slightly and said, "Not for blackmail. You can't call that blackmail."

"You were trying to collect money."

"Of course I was trying to collect money. I was trying to collect money that was due me."

"Who was helping you?" asked Perry Mason.

"That's none of your business."

"Don't you know that you can't use the telephone for that purpose?"

"I don't know why not."

"Haven't you ever heard that it's against the law to demand money on a postal card?"

"Yes, I've heard of that."

"And yet you have the nerve to sit there and claim that you don't know it's against the law to ring up a man and demand that he pay you money?"

"We didn't do that," she said.

"Didn't do what?"

"Didn't ring him up and demand that he give us money—not in so many words."

"Who's the 'we'?" asked Paul Drake.

Mason frowned at him, but the detective caught the significance of the signal too late to check the question.

"Just me," said Doris Freeman.

Perry Mason's voice showed exasperation. "And you didn't know that it was against the law to ask for money over the telephone?"

"I tell you we… I didn't ask for money."

"It was a man's voice," Perry Mason chanced, staring steadily at the young woman. "Our operator says it was a man's voice that did the talking." Doris Freeman was silent. "What have you to say to that?"

"Nothing… that is, it may have been a mistake. I had a cold. I talked rather gruffly."

Mason strode abruptly across the room, jerked the telephone receiver from its hook, placed it to his ear. At the same time, his right hand, resting carelessly across the top of the telephone, surreptitiously pushed down the telephone hook so there was no connection over the line. "Give me the investigations department, official sixtwo," he demanded.

He waited a few moments, then said, "This is Number Thirteen talking. We're out at this place where the threatening telephone call came through on the morning of June sixteenth. The apartment is in the name of Doris Freeman, but she's shielding some male accomplice. She claims she didn't know it was against the law to make a demand like that over the telephone."

He waited for a few more moments, then laughed sarcastically. "Well," he said, "that's what she claims. You can believe it or not. She came here from Centerville. Maybe they haven't got a city ordinance against that in Centerville. You never can tell… Well, what do you want me to do with her, bring her in?… What?" screamed Perry Mason. "You mean that call that went through was to Moxley, the man that was murdered!.. Gee, chief, that puts a different aspect on the situation. This is out of our hands. You'd better notify the district attorney. And watch the calls that come in over this line… Well, you know how I feel about it… Okay, G'by."

Mason hung up the telephone, turned to Paul Drake. His eyes were wide with wellsimulated, startled surprise. He lowered his voice, as though awed by the grim portent of that which he had discovered. "Do you know who that call was to?" he asked.

Paul Drake also lowered his own voice. "I heard what you said to the chief," he remarked. "Was that right?"

"That's right. That call went through to Gregory Moxley, the man that was murdered, and the call went through just about half an hour before his death."

"What's the chief going to do?"

"There's only one thing he can do—turn it over to the district attorney. Gosh, I thought it was just a routine investigation, and here it has run into a murder rap."

Doris Freeman spoke with hysterical rapidity.

"Look here," she said, "I didn't know anything about any law that we couldn't use the telephone to collect money. That was money that was due to me. It was money that man had stolen from me. It was money he'd swindled me out of. He was a devil. He deserved to die. I'm glad he's dead! But the telephone call didn't have anything to do with his murder. It was Rhoda Montaine that killed him! Don't you fellows ever read the papers?"

Mason stared at her with scornful appraisal. "The woman that was in the room when he was killed may have been Rhoda Montaine," Mason said, "but it wasn't a woman that struck that blow, and the district attorney's office knows it. That blow was struck by a powerful man. And you folks certainly had a motive for murder. It's a perfect case. You rang up less than half an hour before the death and told him he had to kick through…" Mason abruptly shrugged his shoulders, lapsed into silence.

Paul Drake took up the conversation. "Well," he said, "you'd better come clean and…"

"Let's just forget it, Paul," Perry Mason said. "The chief is going to turn it over to the district attorney. The D.A. won't like the idea of having us mixed in on it. It's entirely outside of our province. Let's quit talking about it."

Drake nodded. The two men started for the door. Doris Freeman jumped to her feet. "But let me explain!" she said. "It isn't what you think it is at all. We didn't…"

"Save it for the D.A.," Perry Mason told her, and pulled the door open, motioning to Paul Drake to precede him into the corridor.

"But you don't understand," she said. "It's just a question of…"

Mason literally pushed the detective into the corridor, jumped out after him and slammed the door shut. Before they had gone five steps, Doris Freeman had the door open. "But won't you let me explain?" she said. "Can't I tell you…"

"We're not mixing in that kind of a mess," the lawyer declared. "That's outside of our jurisdiction. The chief has taken it up with the D.A. It's up to him."

The men almost ran to the elevator, as though the woman who stood in the doorway might be afflicted with some sort of plague. When the elevator door had closed on them and the cage was rattling downward, Paul Drake glanced inquiringly at Perry Mason. "She was ready to spill her story," he said ruefully.

"No, she wasn't. She was going to pull a line to get our sympathy, a long tale of woe about how Moxley tricked her. She'd never have told us about the man. He's the one we want. She'll go to him now. There's nothing that gets a person's goat like not letting them talk when they are trying to make a play for sympathy."

"Do you suppose it's some one living there with her?" Drake asked.

"It's hard to tell who it is. The thing that I'm figuring on is that it may be a detective or a lawyer."

The detective gave an exclamation. "Boy, some lawyer is going to be plenty mad when she comes to him with a story about a couple of dicks who were going to arrest her for using the telephone to demand money. Do you suppose she'll call him on the telephone to tell him?"

"Not after the line we handed her about the calls being watched. She'll be afraid to use the telephone. She'll get in touch with him personally, whoever he is."

"You think she smelled a rat?" asked Drake.

"I doubt it," Mason answered. "Remember, she's awed by the city—and, if she does smell a rat, she'll think we're police detectives laying a trap for him."

The men piled out of the elevator, strode across the lobby and were careful not to even glance in the direction of the car, where Danny Spear sat slumped behind the wheel. They turned to the right, crossed the street, so that they would be in full view of the apartment house, and signaled a cruising cab.