The Case of the Daring Decoy

Chapter One

Jerry Conway opened the paper to page six.

There it was, just as it had been every day for the last week.

It was a half-page ad signed: PROXY HOLDERS BOARD OF SALVAGE, cleverly written, starting off with a statement that was manifestly true on the face of it:

Conway closed the paper. It was, he admitted to himself, an ad that would get proxies. The ad also hurt.

According to the Proxy Holders Board of Salvage, it was simply a stroke of luck that the C. & T. Global Development & Exploration Company had been right in the middle of the Turkey Ridge pool.

After that pool came in, Jerry Conway could have declared big dividends, pushed up the value of the stock. Instead he had chosen to put the money into other holdings potentially as big as the Turkey Ridge pool.

Gifford Farrell had been a disruptive influence from the start. Finally there had been a showdown before the board of directors, and Farrell had been thrown out. Now he had started a fight for proxies. He was trying to wrest control of the company away from Conway.

Who was back of Farrell? What money was paying for the ads in the papers? Conway wished he knew. He wished he knew how to strike back.

Conway’s over-all, master plan had to be carried out quietly. The minute he tried to blueprint his plans, he defeated his own purpose. Prices of properties he hoped to acquire would go up beyond all reason.

Conway couldn’t explain publicly. He intended to address the stockholders’ meeting. He was hoping that the stockholders who were there, and most of the big ones would be, would stand by him. But what about the smaller stockholders? The ones who had put in a few dollars here, a few dollars there? Stockholders who concededly wanted profits and action?

Would these people stay in line, or would they send their proxies to Farrell?

An analysis of the books showed that there were enough small stockholders to take over control, if they acted as a unit. If Farrell could get their proxies, they’d act as a unit. If, however, Giff Farrell’s clever ads didn’t get more than 60 per cent of these smaller stockholders, and if Conway’s personality could hold the larger investors in line at the stockholders’ meeting, everything would be all right.

Those, however, were two great big ifs. And at the moment Jerry Conway didn’t have the answer.

Jerry Conway folded the newspaper, switched out lights in the office, and was heading for the door, when the phone rang.

Jerry answered it. He was answering all phone calls now. He dared take no chance of offending some of the small stockholders who would want explanations, and, heaven knows, there had been enough of them who had called up! So far, these people had listened to his explanation that a company in the process of acquiring valuable oil properties couldn’t blueprint its plans in the public press. Stock that the investors had bought a year ago had more than doubled in value. Giff Farrell said that was due purely to a “stroke of luck” with which Conway had nothing to do. Conway would always laugh when he quoted that. Stay with him and there might be more strokes of luck, he promised. Tie up with Giff Farrell’s crowd, and the company would be looted for the benefit of insiders.

So Jerry Conway picked up the telephone.

“Jerry Conway speaking,” he said.

The woman’s voice was intriguing, and yet there was something about it that carried its own warning. It was too syrupy-smooth, and Conway felt he had heard it before.

“Mr. Conway,” she said, “I must see you. I have some secret information which will be of the greatest value to you.”

“I’ll be in my office at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and—”

“No, no. I can’t come to your office.”

“Why not?”

“People are watching me.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I want to meet you privately, alone, somewhere where no one will know, somewhere where we won’t be disturbed.”

“You have some idea?” Jerry asked.

“Yes, if you’ll go to the Apex Motel out on Sunset tonight, register under your own name as a single, turn your lights out, leave your door unlocked, and wait until after midnight, I’ll—”

“I’m sorry,” Jerry interrupted. “That’s out of the question.”

“Why is it out of the question?”

“Well,” Jerry equivocated, “I have other plans for this evening.”

“How about tomorrow night?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t do it tomorrow night, either,”

“Is it because you’re afraid of me?”

“I’m living in a glass house at the present time,” Conway said drily.

“Look,” she said, “I can’t talk with you any longer. My name is— Well, let’s say it’s Rosalind. Just call me Rosalind. I want to see you. I have information you should have, information that you must have in order to protect the stockholders, protect yourself, and save the company. Giff has a lot more proxies than you think he has. He’s a very dangerous antagonist. You’re going to have to start a counter campaign.”

“I’m sorry,” Conway said. “There are certain matters I can’t discuss over the telephone, and certain matters I can’t discuss in the press. After all, the stockholders must have some faith in someone. Otherwise, they’ll wind up in the financial gutter. Their holdings have doubled in value during the past year under my management. I have every reason to believe they’ll continue to climb, and—”

“Good heavens!” the voice exclaimed. “Don’t try to sell me. I know. Giff Farrell is a crook. He’s trying to get control of the company so he and his friends can make a cleanup by manipulating company assets. I wouldn’t trust him two feet away for two seconds. I want you to have the information that I have.”

“Can you put in a letter?” Conway asked, curious.

“No, I can’t put it in a letter,” she said impatiently, “and if you knew as much as I know, you’d realize that I’m in danger just talking to you.”

“What danger?” he asked.

“In danger of getting killed,” she said angrily, and slammed up the telephone.

Jerry Conway sat at his desk for some minutes after he had dropped the receiver into its cradle on the telephone. There had been something about the voice that had carried conviction.

However, Jerry knew the necessity for caution. Half a dozen attempts had been made to frame him during the last two weeks. If he should go to a motel, leave the door open, have some young woman join him in the dark, and then perhaps a few minutes later there should be the sound of police whistles and— No, it was a chance Jerry simply couldn’t take. Even a little unpleasant newspaper notoriety coming at this time could well turn the tide in the proxy battle.

Jerry Conway waited for fifteen minutes, then again switched out the lights, saw that the night latch was on the door, and went down in the elevator.

Rosalind telephoned the next day at a little after eleven.

Jerry Conway’s secretary said, “There’s a woman on the line who gives the name of Rosalind and no other name. She says you know her, that she has to talk with you, that it’s important.”

“I’ll talk with her,” Jerry said. He picked up the telephone, said, “Hello,” and again heard the smooth tones of Rosalind’s voice, a voice that he felt he should recognize but couldn’t.

“Good morning, Mr. Conway.”

“Good morning, Rosalind.”

“Did you know you’re being followed?”

Jerry hesitated. “I have wondered if perhaps certain people weren’t taking an undue interest in my comings and goings.”

“You’re being tailed by a high-class detective agency,” she said, “and that agency is being supplemented by a couple of thugs. Be very, very careful what you do.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Jerry said.

“But,” she went on, “you must see me. I’ve tried to think of some way of getting in touch with you. One of the men who’s shadowing you at the present time is a private detective. He’s not dangerous. He’s just doing a routine job of shadowing. However, there’s another individual named Baker, whom they call Gashouse Baker. He’s a one-man goon squad. Watch out for him! Are you armed?”

“Lord, no!” Conway said.

“Then get a permit to carry a gun,” she said. “You shouldn’t have too much trouble spotting the detective. Baker will be more difficult. At the moment, he’s driving a beat-up, black car with a corner bent on the license plate. Don’t take any chances with that man!

“These people are playing for keeps and they don’t intend to play fair. You’re looking for a straightforward battle for proxies and you’re planning everything along those lines. These people don’t play that way.

“And don’t ever mention to anyone that you have been in communication with me. I shouldn’t have given you the name of Rosalind, but I wanted to put the cards on the table.”

Jerry Conway frowned thoughtfully. “I wish you could tell me something of the nature of the information you have, something—”

“Look,” she said, “I can tell you the number of proxies they hold, and if I have your assurance that you can protect me, I can give you the names of the people who have sent in proxies. However, if any of this information should get out, they’d know where it came from and I’d be in danger.”

“How much danger?” Jerry Conway asked. “If it’s economic security that you—”

“Don’t be silly!” she interrupted sarcastically. “I’ve seen one woman after Gashouse Baker worked her over. I— Oh-oh!”

The phone abruptly clicked and the connection went dead.

Jerry Conway gave the matter a great deal of thought. That noon he drove around in a somewhat aimless pattern, carefully watching cars in his rearview mirror. He couldn’t be certain anyone was following him, but he became very uneasy. He felt he was in danger.

Conway knew that he was going to have to take a chance on Rosalind. If she had the information she said she had, it would be of inestimable value. If he knew the names of the persons who had sent in proxies, there would still be time to concentrate a campaign on those people.

Rosalind called shortly after two-thirty. This time there was a note of pleading and desperation in her voice.

“I have to get this information to you so you can act on it. Otherwise the company will be ruined.”

“Exactly what is it that you want?”

“I want to give you information. I want primarily to keep Giff Farrell and his crowd of goons from wrecking the company. I want to protect the honest investors, and I... I want to get even.”

“With whom?”

“Use your imagination,” she said.

“Now, look here,” Conway said, “I can have a representative meet you. I can send someone in—”

She interrupted with a hollow laugh. “The business that I have with you is with you personally, with the number-one man in the company. I’m not taking any assurances from anyone else. If you’re too cautious to meet me face to face to get this information, then I guess the things Giff Farrell is saying about you are true!”

Conway reached a sudden decision. “Call me back in fifteen minutes,” he said. “I’m not free to make arrangements at the present time. Can you call in fifteen minutes? Will you talk with me then?”

“I’ll call,” she promised.

Conway summoned his secretary. “Miss Kane, the young woman who has just called me is going to call again in fifteen minutes. She’s going to make arrangements with me for a meeting, a meeting which has to be held in the greatest secrecy.

“I want you to listen in on the conversation. I want you to make shorthand notes of exactly what is said so that if the necessity should arise, you can repeat that conversation verbatim.”

Eva Kane never appeared surprised. She took things in her stride, with a calm, professional competence.

“Do you want shorthand notes of what she says, or shorthand notes of the entire conversation?”

“Notes of the entire conversation. Transcribe them as soon as you’ve taken them, and be in a position to swear to them if necessary.”

“Very well, Mr. Conway,” Eva Kane said, and left the office.

When the phone failed to ring at the end of the fifteen-minute period, Conway began restlessly pacing the floor.

Abruptly the telephone rang. Conway made a dive for the desk, picked up the receiver, said, “Yes?”

Eva Kane’s calmly professional voice said, “A young woman on the line who says you are expecting the call. A Miss Rosalind.”

“You ready, Miss Kane?” Conway asked.

“Yes, Mr. Conway.”

“Put her on.”

Rosalind’s voice came over the line. “Hello, Mr. Conway?”

“Rosalind?”

“Yes. What’s your answer?”

“Look here,” Conway said, “I want to talk with you, but I’ll have to take adequate precautions.”

“Precautions against what?”

“Against some sort of a trap.”

Her laugh was bitter. “You’re childless, unmarried, thirty-six. You aren’t responsible to anyone for your actions. Yet you worry about traps!

“Tonight at exactly five-thirty the private detective who is shadowing you goes off duty. Another one takes over for the night shift. They don’t make contact. Sometimes the night man is late. Perhaps it can be arranged for him to be late tonight. At precisely one minute past five-thirty leave your office, get in your car. Start driving west on Sunset Boulevard. Turn at Vine. Turn left on Hollywood Boulevard. Go to Ivar. Turn right, and then start running signals. Go through signals just as the lights are changing. Keep an eye on your rearview mirror. Cut corners. Make certain you’re not being followed. I think you can shake off your tail.”

“And after that?” Conway asked.

“Now, listen carefully,” she said. “After that, after you are absolutely certain that you’re not being followed, go to the Empire Drugstore on Sunset and LaBrea. There are three phone booths in that store. Go to the one farthest from the door, enter the booth and at precisely six-fifteen that phone will ring. Answer it.

“If you have been successful in ditching your shadows, you will be directed where to go. If you haven’t ditched your shadows, the phone won’t ring.”

“You’re making all this seem terribly cloak-and-dagger,” Conway protested somewhat irritably. “After all, if you have any information that—”

“It is terribly cloak-and-dagger,” she interrupted. “Do you want a list of the stockholders who already have sent in proxies?”

“Very much,” he said.

“Then come and get it,” she told him, and hung up.

A few minutes later, Eva Kane entered the office with impersonal, secretarial efficiency, and handed Conway typewritten sheets.

“A transcript of the conversation,” she said.

“Thank you,” Jerry told her.

She turned, started for the door, paused, then suddenly whirled and came toward him. “You mustn’t do it, Mr. Conway!”

He looked at her with some surprise.

“Oh, I know,” she said, the words pouring out in rapid succession as though she were afraid he might be going to stop her. “You’ve never encouraged any personalities in the office. I’m only a piece of office machinery as far as you’re concerned. But I’m human. I know what you’re going through, and I want you to win out in this fight, and... and I know something about women’s voices, and—” She hesitated over a word or two, then trailed off into silence as though her vocal mechanism had been a motor running out of fuel.

“I didn’t know I was so unapproachable,” Conway protested.

“You’re not! You’re not! Don’t misunderstand me. It’s only that you’ve always been impersonal... I mean, you’ve kept things on a business basis. I know I’m speaking out of turn, but please, please don’t do anything as ridiculous as this woman suggests.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because it’s a trap.”

“How do you know it’s a trap?”

“It stands to reason if she had any information she wanted to give you, she could simply put it in an envelope, write your name on the envelope, put a stamp on the envelope, and drop it in the nearest mailbox.”

Conway thought that over.

“All of this mystery, all of this cloak-and-dagger stuff, it’s simply a trap.”

Conway said gravely, “I can’t take any chances on passing up this information.”

“You mean you’re going?”

“I’m going,” he said doggedly. “You said something about her voice?”

She nodded.

“What about it?”

“I’ve trained my ears to listen to voices over the telephone. I was a phone operator for two years. There’s something about her voice... and I— Tell me, do you have the feeling you’ve heard that voice before?”

Conway frowned. “Now that you mention it, I do. There’s something in the tempo, in the spacing of the words more than in the tone.”

Eva Kane nodded. “We know her,” she said. “She’s someone who has been in the office. You’ve talked with her. She’s disguising her voice in some way — the tone of it. But the tempo, the way she spaces the words can’t be changed. She’s someone we both know, and that makes me all the more suspicious. Why should she lie to you? I mean, why should she try to deceive you about her identity?”

“Nevertheless, I’m going to go,” Conway announced. “The information is too valuable, too vital. I can’t afford to run the chance of passing up a bet of that sort.”

Suddenly Eva Kane was back in character, an efficient, impersonal secretary.

“Very well, Mr. Conway,” she said, and left the office.

Conway checked his watch with a radio time signal, started his car precisely on the minute, and followed directions. He went through a light just as it was changing and left a car which seemed to be trying to follow him hopelessly snarled in traffic with an irate traffic officer blowing his whistle.

After that, Conway drove in and out of traffic. At five minutes past six he was in the drugstore, waiting in the phone booth farthest from the door.

At six-twelve the phone rang.

Conway answered it.

“Mr. Conway?” a crisply feminine voice asked.

“Yes... Is this... this isn’t Rosalind.”

“Don’t ask questions. Rosalind must take precautions to get rid of the people who were shadowing her. Here are your directions. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. As soon as you hang up, leave the phone booth and the drugstore. Get in your own car. Drive to the Redfern Hotel. Park your car. Go to the lobby. Tell the clerk that your name is Gerald Boswell and that you’re expecting a message. The clerk will hand you an envelope. Thank him, but don’t tip him. Walk over to a secluded corner in the lobby and open the envelope. That envelope will give you your cue as to what you’re to do next.”

She hung up without saying good-by.

Conway left the phone booth, went at once to his car and drove directly to the Redfern Hotel.

“Do you have a message for Gerald Boswell?” he asked the clerk.

For a moment, as the clerk hesitated, Conway was afraid he might be going to ask for some identification, but the hesitation was only momentary. The clerk pulled out a sheaf of envelopes and started going through them.

“Boswell,” he said, repeating the name mechanically as he went through the envelopes. “Boswell. What’s the first name?”

“Gerald.”

“Oh, yes. Gerald Boswell.” The clerk handed Conway a long envelope, and for a moment Conway’s heart gave a sudden surge. The envelope was of heavy manila, well sealed, well filled. This could be the list of stockholders who had sent in their proxies, the list that would make all the difference in the world to him in his fight to retain the company management.

Conway moved over to a corner of the lobby, sat down in one of the worn, overstuffed chairs as though waiting for someone to join him.

Surreptitiously he sized up the other occupants of the lobby.

There was a middle-aged woman immersed in her newspaper. There was a bored, seedy-looking man who was working a crossword puzzle; a younger woman who seemed to be waiting for someone and who apparently had not the slightest interest in anything other than the street door of the hotel lobby.

Conway slipped his penknife from his pocket, slit open the envelope and slid out the contents.

To his disgust, the envelope contained only pieces of old newspaper which had been cut to a size to fit into the envelope. Nor did these bits of newspaper clippings have any significance or continuity. The sections of newspaper had been cut crosswise and evidently used only to fill out the envelope.

Folded in with these pieces of newspaper, however, was a key attached to an oval brass tag carrying the imprint of the Redfern Hotel and the number of the room, 729.

His sense of prudence urged Conway to terminate the adventure then and there, but the mere thought of so doing gave him a feeling of frustration. The person who had dreamed up this plan had used applied psychology. Once persuaded to do a lot of unconventional things to avoid detection, Conway was conditioned for a step which he would never have considered if it had been put up to him at the start.

Conway pushed the strips of newspaper back into the envelope, put the envelope into the container for waste-paper and moved over toward the elevators. After all, he would at least go up and knock on the door.

The young woman who was operating the elevator seemed completely absorbed in her paperbacked novel. She gave Conway a passing glance, then lowered her eyes.

“Seven,” he said.

She moved the cage to the seventh floor, stopped it, let Conway out, and was dropping the cage back to the ground floor before Conway had more than oriented himself as to the sequence of numbers.

The hotel had an aura of second-class semi-respectability. The place was clean but it was the cleanliness of sterilization. The carpets were thin. The light fixtures were cheap, and the illumination in the corridor was somewhat dim.

Conway found Room 729 and tapped on the door.

There was no answer.

He waited and tapped again.

The key in his hand was an invitation. The thought of inserting it in the door and entering the room was only a little less distasteful than that of putting the key in his pocket, returning to the elevator and leaving forever unsolved the mystery of the locked room and the possibility of obtaining the lists of stockholders who had sent in proxies.

Jerry Conway fitted the key to the door. The spring lock clicked smoothly, and Conway pushed the door open.

He found himself peering into the conventional sitting room of a two-room hotel suite. The door that he judged would lead to the bedroom was closed.

“Anybody home?” Conway called.

There was no sound.

Conway closed the corridor door behind him, and gave the place a quick inspection. There was hope in his mind that this was part of an elaborate scheme to deliver the papers that he had been promised, a delivery that could be made in such a manner that he would have no contact with the person making the delivery.

He found nothing in the sitting room and was thoughtfully contemplating the bedroom door, when the knob turned and a young woman wearing only a bra, panties and sheer stockings stepped out into the parlor, closing the bedroom door behind her. Apparently, she hadn’t even seen Conway. She was humming a little tune.

Her hair was wrapped in a towel. Her face was a dark blob, which Conway soon recognized as a mud pack that extended down to her throat.

The figure was exciting, and the underthings were thin, filmy wisps of black lace which seemed only to emphasize the warm pink of the smooth skin.

Conway stood stock-still, startled and transfixed.

Then abruptly she saw him. For a moment Conway thought she was going to scream. Her mouth opened. The mask of the mud pack kept him from seeing her features. He saw only eyes and the red of a wide-open mouth.

“Now, listen! Let me explain,” Conway said, talking rapidly and moving toward the young woman. “I take it you’re not Rosalind?”

The figure answered in a thick voice due to the hard mud pack. “I’m Rosalind’s roommate, Mildred. Who are you? How did you get in here?”

She might have been twenty-six or twenty-seven, Conway judged. Her figure was full, and every seductive curve was visible.

Standing there in the hotel suite confronting this young woman, Conway had a sense of complete unreality as though he were engaged in some amateur theatrical, playing a part that he didn’t fully understand, and confronted by an actress who was trying in an amateurish way to follow directions.

“How did you get in?” she demanded in that same thick voice.

“Rosalind gave me her key,” Conway said. “I was to meet her here. Now look, Mildred, quit being frightened. I won’t hurt you. Go get your clothes on. I’ll wait for Rosalind.”

“But why should Rosalind have given you a key?” she asked. “I— That isn’t at all like Rosalind... You can imagine how I feel coming in here half-nude and finding a strange man in the apartment. How do I know Rosalind gave you the key? Who are you, anyway?”

“I’ve been in touch with Rosalind,” Conway said. “She has some papers for me. I was to pick them up here.”

“Papers?” Mildred said. “Papers. Let me see.” She walked over to the desk with quick, purposeful steps, and again Conway had the feeling that he was watching an actress playing a part.

She pulled back the lid of the desk, put her hand inside, and suddenly Conway heard the unmistakable click of a double-action revolver being cocked. Then he saw the black, round hole of a barrel held in a trembling hand, the young woman’s nervous finger pressing on the trigger.

“Hey!” Conway said. “Don’t point that thing at me, you little fool! That may go off!”

“Put your hands up,” she said.

“For heaven’s sake,” Conway told her, “don’t be a fool! You’ve cocked that revolver, and the slightest pressure on the trigger will— Put that gun down! I’m not trying to hurt you!”

She advanced toward him, the revolver now pointing at his middle.

“Get your hands up,” she said, her voice taking on an edge of hysteria. “You’re going to jail!”

The hand that held the revolver was distinctly trembling, her finger rested against the trigger.

Conway waited while she advanced one more step, measured the distance, suddenly clamped his left hand over her wrist, grasped the gun with his right hand. Her hand was nerveless, and he had no difficulty forcing up the barrel of the revolver and at the same time pushing his thumb over the cocked hammer of the gun.

Conway wrested the gun from her limp grip, carefully lowered the hammer, shoved the weapon in his pocket.

“You little fool!” he said. “You could have killed me! Don’t you understand?”

She moved back to the davenport, seated herself, and stared, apparently in abject terror.

Conway stood over her. “Now, listen,” he said, “get a grip on yourself. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not here to make any trouble. I’m only trying to get some papers from Rosalind. Can’t you understand that?”

“Don’t hurt me!” she said. “If you’ll promise not to kill me, I’ll do anything... Don’t hurt me! My purse is in the desk. Everything I have is in it. Take it all. Only please don’t— Don’t...!”

“Shut up!” Conway snapped. “I’ve tried to explain to you! Can’t you understand? Can’t you listen?”

“Just don’t kill me!” she pleaded. “I’ll do anything you say if you just won’t kill me.”

Conway abruptly reached a decision.

“I’m leaving,” he said. “Don’t go near that telephone for five minutes after I leave. Don’t tell anyone that I was here, no one except Rosalind. Do you understand that?”

She simply sat there, her face a wooden mask.

Conway strode to the door, jerked it open, slammed it shut, sprinted down the corridor to the red light that marked the stairwell. He pushed open the door, ran down two flights of stairs to the fifth floor, then hurried over to the elevator and pressed the button.

It seemed an age before the elevator came up, then the door slid open and Conway stepped inside, conscious of his rapid breathing, his pounding heart.

The girl who was operating the elevator shifted her gum to the other side of her face. She held her book in her right hand. Her left hand manipulated the control which dropped the elevator to the ground floor. She didn’t even look at his face, but said, “You must have walked down two floors.”

Conway, mentally cursing his clumsiness, said nothing. The elevator girl kept her eyes lowered, raising them only for one swift glance.

Conway didn’t dare to leave the key to Room 729 on the clerk’s desk. Walking when he wanted to run, the revolver in his hip pocket, Conway moved rapidly across the lobby, out of the door of the hotel, and then hurried down the street to the place where he had parked his car.

He jumped inside, started the motor and adjusted himself behind the steering wheel. He became increasingly conscious of the bulge in his hip pocket.

He withdrew the 38-caliber revolver, started to put it in the glove compartment, then just as a matter of precaution, swung open the cylinder.

There were five loaded cartridges in the cylinder, and one empty cartridge case bearing the imprint of the firing pin in the soft percussion cap.

Conway snapped the cylinder back into place, smelled the muzzle of the gun.

The odor of freshly burnt powder clung to the barrel.

In a sudden panic, Conway pushed the gun into the glove compartment, started the car, and drove away from the curb fast.

When he came to a service station where there was a telephone booth, he parked the car and looked up the number of Perry Mason, Attorney at Law.

The directory gave the number of Mason’s office. There was no residence phone, but a night number was listed.

Conway called the night number.

A voice came on the line and said, “This is a recorded message. If you are calling the office of Mr. Perry Mason on a matter of major importance, you may call at the office of the Drake Detective Agency, state your name, address, and business, and Mr. Mason will be contacted at the earliest possible moment.”