The Case of the Deadly Toy

Chapter Ten

It was ten o’clock on Sunday morning when Mason’s unlisted telephone rang.

Mason picked up the receiver. “This is Perry.”

Paul Drake’s voice, sharp with urgency, came over the telephone. “I have something, Perry, that you’d better look into. I’m afraid my man pulled a boner, but there was nothing to tip him off.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I had tails put on the Jennings’ house the way you wanted. Barton Jennings went out this morning, visited an apartment house and then came back. My man tailed him both ways, but he’s a little uneasy about it.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Call it an investigator’s sixth sense, if you want,” Drake said, “but my man feels that Barton Jennings went out there on a specific errand and managed to accomplish that errand right under the nose of the operative.”

“Where’s your man now?”

“Up here.”

“You’re at the office?”

“Yes.”

“Hold him there,” Mason said. “I’m coming up.”

Mason telephoned the garage man in the apartment house to have his car ready for action. He took the elevator to the garage, jumped in his car, drove to the all but deserted parking lot in front of the office building, left his car and went to Drake’s office.

Drake’s operative was a small man whose silvery-gray eyes were thoughtfully watchful beneath bushy white eyebrows. He was small in stature, somewhere in his late fifties, and as keenly incisive as a sharp razor. He had, nevertheless, cultivated a habit of blending into the background as successfully as a chameleon.

Mason had a vague impression that this man’s name was Smith. He had met him on half a dozen different cases but had never heard him referred to by any other name than “Smithy.”

Paul Drake, tilted back in his chair with his heels up on the desk, smoking a contemplative cigarette, waved a greeting to Mason.

Smithy shook hands.

Mason sat down.

“You tell him, Smithy,” Drake said.

The operative said, “At eight o’clock this morning Barton Jennings left his house carrying a suitcase. He was moving with some difficulty. His leg was bothering him. He had a cane in one hand, the suitcase in the other. He got in his automobile and drove very slowly and casually down to a gas station. He had the car filled up with gas, the windshield washed, the tires checked, then he drove around the block and started back toward home.

“Just something about the way the fellow was driving the car made me feel he had something in mind that he intended to do, if he was certain he wasn’t wearing a tail. So I hung way, way back, just taking a chance.

“Then I saw him swing over to the side of the road a bit. I’ve had guys pull that trick on me before, so I turned down a side street, went for half a block and made a U turn.

“Sure enough, Jennings did just what I thought he was going to do. He made a complete U turn and came tearing back down the street going fast. I was where I could get a brief glimpse of the maneuver, so I came dawdling out of the side street at slow speed and crossed the intersection just ahead of him. That gave him a chance to pass me and it never occurred to him I was following him. After about eight or ten blocks at high speed he slowed down and then drove directly to this apartment house.

“He parked the car, took the suitcase, went in, and was there for about half an hour; then he came out and drove to his house. After he left the apartment house, he didn’t take any precautions to see that he was free of a tail. He had all the assurance of a man who had accomplished a mission and wasn’t worrying about anything any more. He had the same suitcase with him that he’d taken in.”

“He went home?” Mason asked.

“He went home, put his car in the garage, went in the house, and after a while came out and sat on the porch, ostensibly reading the Sunday papers, but actually looking around to see if anybody was keeping him under surveillance.

“When a subject does that, it’s a lot better to get off the job and have somebody else come on, so I beat it to a phone, telephoned Paul for a relief and told him I had something to report.”

“You have any idea what apartment the guy went to?” Mason asked.

“No.”

“What apartment house was it?”

“The Cretonic. It’s a small apartment house out on Wimberly. I don’t think there are over fifteen or twenty apartments in the place altogether. It’s a walk-up, two-story affair, moderately priced apartments — the kind that would appeal to persons in the low white-collar brackets.”

“Let’s go,” Mason said.

“I thought you’d want to take a look,” Smithy said. “Two cars?”

“One,” Mason said. “We’ll go in mine. You sit here on the job, Paul, and we may telephone for some help. Come on, Smithy, let’s go.”

Smithy and the lawyer took the elevator down to Mason’s car, drove out to the Cretonic apartments. Mason got out and looked the place over.

“Jennings needed a key,” Mason said, “to get in or else he pressed the bell of some apartment and they buzzed the door open.”

Smithy nodded.

“You don’t have any idea which?”

“No, Mr. Mason, I don’t. I just wasn’t close enough to see what he was doing, and I didn’t dare to get close enough. I can tell you one thing though, he was stooped over here at the side of the building. I could see his left elbow hanging pretty well down.”

“Well, that’s a clue,” Mason said. “Let’s look at the lower cards.”

Mason took his notebook, jotted down some names, said, “There’s half a dozen, but that’s still too many.”

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Mason,” Smithy said, “if you’ll stand right here in the doorway and look down at the names on the directory and let your left arm stick out a little bit the way it would if you were leaning over and punching a button with your right thumb, I might be able to do a better job. I’ll go back to the same place where I had my car parked and in that way we may be able to narrow it down a little bit.”

“Go ahead,” Mason told him.

He waited until the detective was in the right position and then Mason stooped down and made a pretense of jabbing each one of the lower call buttons with his thumb.

When he had finished, Smithy came moving up and said, “I think it’s the lowest one on the left-hand side, Mr. Mason. Your elbow looked just about right then.”

Mason examined the card. It was oblong, but evidently from an engraved calling card, and said simply, Miss Grace Hallum.

“We’ll give it a try,” Mason said.

“Any idea what you’re going to tell her?”

“I’m not going to tell her anything,” Mason said. “She’s going to tell us.”

He pressed the button.

There was no answer.

Mason pressed the button two or three times more, then pressed the button marked Manager.

A moment later the outer lock buzzed open and Mason entered the small lobby. A door opened behind a counter in the corner of the lobby and an intelligent looking, well-kept woman in her early fifties stepped out to smile at the lawyer and the detective.

“Something for you gentlemen?” she asked.

“Vacancies?” Mason asked.

She smiled and shook her head.

“I understood that Grace Hallum’s apartment was to be vacant,” Mason said. “I tried to ring her but she doesn’t answer. Do you know anything about her?”

“Oh yes,” the manager said. “She’s going to be gone for some little time. She made arrangements with me to feed her canary.”

“When did she leave?” Mason asked.

The manager looked at him curiously. “Are you a detective?” she asked.

Mason grinned and jerked his thumb at Smithy. “He is.”

“Oh — what’s the trouble?”

“No trouble,” Mason said. “We’re just trying to get a line on her.”

The manager’s lips clamped together. “Well, I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can tell you except that she’s gone.”

Mason played a hunch. “Did she have the boy with her?”

“She had the boy with her.”

“Suitcases?”

“One doesn’t go for an indefinite stay without suitcases.”

“Taxicab?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“Does she own a car?”

“I don’t think so.”

Mason tried to be as charming as possible. “It wouldn’t hurt you to be a little more communicative.”

“I’m not so certain about that. I don’t discuss tenants’ affairs.”

“Oh well,” Mason said, “it isn’t particularly important. We’re just checking, that’s all. How long has she had the boy, do you know?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.”

“Well, thanks a lot,” Mason said. “Good-by.”

He gave her his best smile and led the way out of the apartment house.

“I don’t get it,” Smithy said.

“What?”

“Your technique,” Smithy told him. “I’d have flashed my credentials and suggested she might get into trouble if she tried to withhold information.”

“I have a better idea,” Mason told him, studying the directory. “Let’s see, Grace Hallum was in 208. Let’s look at 206 and 210 — who’s in 206?”

Smithy consulted the directory.

“Miss M. Adrian,” he said.

“Give her a ring,” Mason instructed.

Smithy pressed his thumb against the button.

In a few moments the door was buzzed open.

Mason and the detective again entered the apartment house. The manager had now retreated into her apartment and the door behind the little counter was closed.

The two men climbed the steps to the second floor.

Mason tapped on the door of 206.

The door opened the scant two or three inches allowed by a heavy brass safety chain. A woman with a long, thin nose surveyed the two men suspiciously. “What is it?” she asked.

Mason studied the blinking eyes, the nose, the thin lips, the prominent chin, said, “Show her your credentials, Smithy.”

Smithy took a worn billfold from his pocket, extended it so the woman could look it over.

“Detectives!” she said.

“Smithy is a detective,” Mason said. “I’m a lawyer. We want to talk with you.”

“What’s your name?”

Mason gave her his card.

Her face showed surprise. She looked from the card to Mason’s face and then said, “Good heavens, you are! Why you’re Perry Mason.”

“That’s right.”

The chain snapped off the catch. “Well, come in,” she said. “I’m honored. Of course, I haven’t been preparing for visitors and Sunday is usually my morning to straighten up the apartment. I usually go out to a movie on Saturday night and... well, sit down and tell me what this is all about.”

“It’s about your neighbor next door,” Mason said.

Miss Adrian, a woman in her late fifties, small boned, spry as a bird, paused in mid-stride. “Well now, I just knew there was something wrong there,” she said.

Mason nodded. “That’s why we came to see you.”

“But I didn’t tell anybody. I’ve kept my own counsel. Now, how in the world did you know that I’d seen anything?”

“We have ways of finding out things like that,” Mason said. “Would you mind telling us about it?”

“What do you want to know?”

“When did the boy come here?”

“Yesterday morning,” she said. “Yesterday morning at exactly four-thirty-five.”

“Do you know who brought him?”

“His father, I suppose.”

“And what do you know about Grace Hallum?”

“She’s divorced — lives on alimony. She works as a baby sitter part of the time for extra money and calls herself Miss Grace Hallum rather than Mrs. Hallum. She used to be a model and she never lets a body forget it.”

“Does she work for the Nite-Out Agency?”

“I believe that’s right, yes.”

“Well, then,” Mason said, smiling casually, “you didn’t think there was anything unusual about it, simply someone bringing a boy to stay with her.”

“Nothing unusual about it!” Miss Adrian exclaimed. “Well I like that!”

“There was something unusual then?”

“I’ll say there was. At that hour in the morning with my wall bed down, my head right up against that partition and... I’ll say one thing about this apartment house, the only way you can have any complete privacy is to talk in sign language.”

“You heard what was said?”

“I heard enough of it.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, Grace Hallum was a little shocked at the idea of being called at that hour in the morning but the man was a regular client of hers so she opened the door and let him in. Well, you know, she was terribly coy about not being dressed and all that.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-seven, but she says it’s twenty-four,” Miss Adrian snapped, “and she has looks. She is very, very well aware of those looks and she had just as soon other people would be aware of them too, if you know what I mean. She’s a blue-eyed, tall blonde and she’s always posing. She wears dresses that show her hips, if you know what I mean.”

“We know what you mean,” Mason said affably. “Just what was the conversation?”

“This man wanted her to keep the boy until he gave her further instructions. He asked her to get some suitcases ready because she might have to travel and... that’s about all there was to it yesterday morning.”

“And then what happened after that?”

“Well, the man came up this morning and I’ve never heard such a conversation in my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man was talking with the boy about some sort of a shooting. He kept saying, ‘Now remember, you didn’t shoot anyone. You had a bad dream,’ and I heard the boy say, ‘I did too shoot the pistol,’ and the man laughed and said, ‘So what of it?’ and then said, ‘You thought you shot the pistol, you dreamed you did, but the pistol really wasn’t fired at all!’”

“Then what?”

“Then the boy said, ‘No, I fired the pistol. The rest of it may have been a dream, but I know I fired the pistol.’”

“Go on,” Mason said. “What happened after that?”

“Well, the man talked with the boy a while and said he was going to send him on a long trip with Miss Hallum and to be sure and be a good boy and do everything Miss Hallum told him to.”

“Did Miss Hallum seem surprised?”

“Not her — now I can tell you this much, there’s been a lot of goings on in that apartment, suitcases banging around, people coming with this and that. She was packing and talking with the boy and the boy was doing quite a bit of crying. He seemed to be terribly upset about something.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“Well, that’s about all I know except that another woman came and called on her last night. I gathered she was the woman who runs the Nite-Out Agency. They had quite a conversation. A lot of it was in whispers. Apparently the boy was asleep and they were trying to keep him from knowing anything about it.”

“What happened this morning?” Mason asked.

“Well, this man came again with some clothes for the boy. Right after the man left she went to the phone and called a taxicab. I heard her say she wanted to go to the airport.”

“The cab came?”

“That’s right.”

“And she left?”

“Yes, she and the boy.”

“How long ago?”

“Well, it must have been — oh I guess an hour and a half ago.”

“Did you have any idea where they were going?” Mason asked.

“The man said something about Mexico.”

Mason got up and gave his hand to Miss Adrian. “Thank you very much for your co-operation,” he said. “We’re just checking.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, I’ll certainly say you’re checking, coming around to see a body on a Sunday morning. Can you tell me what it’s all about?”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said. “We just wanted to make sure that the boy had left.”

“Yes, he left all right, but can you tell me why all this mystery?”

Mason smiled and shook his head. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Adrian, I hate to be a one-way street on these things, but you know how it is.”

She sniffed, “Well, I can’t say as I do. It seems to me that if I give you information, you should give me information.”

“I may be back after a while,” Mason said. “It may be a few hours or it may be a few days, but I’ll talk with you some more and by that time I may be able to give you a little more information.”

“Well, I’d certainly like to know what it’s all about,” she said. “It’s not that I’m curious, you understand. I like to lead my own life and let other people lead theirs, but what’s all this about a boy crying because he thinks he’s fired a gun that his daddy didn’t want him to, and all of that?”

“Oh, children do have nightmares,” Mason said.

“Yes,” she snapped. “Nightmares of shooting people and then they’re brought to a baby sitter at half-past-four on a Saturday morning and then a lawyer and a detective come and ask questions. Don’t think I’m foolish, Mr. Mason. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

Mason shook hands with her, held her hand for a long moment in his, patted the back of it with his left hand and said, “Now, don’t go making a mountain out of a molehill, Miss Adrian, and please don’t say anything to anybody else, at least for a while. I’d like to have the information all to myself for a day or so.”

“And then you’ll tell me what it’s all about?”

Mason lowered his voice and said, “Look, if you’ll be co-operative, I think I can promise you that you’ll have an opportunity to get on the witness stand and—”

“The witness stand!” she almost screamed in dismay.

“That’s right,” Mason said, “you’ll pose for newspaper photographs and your testimony may make quite a commotion. But that will only happen if you’re very, very careful not to say anything to anyone prior to the time of trial.”

“Good heavens, I don’t want to get on the witness stand.”

“Why not?”

“Standing up in front of all those people and telling how old I am.”

Mason shook his head, “You won’t have to tell how old you are, just say that you’re over thirty...” He paused to lean forward and look at her intently. “You are over thirty, aren’t you?”

Miss Adrian was suddenly coy.

“Well,” she said, “it’s all right if someone doesn’t ask me how much over thirty I am... it’s longer than I like to think of.”

“That’s all right,” Mason said, “the judge will protect you. You won’t have to tell anything about your age. Now, we’ve got to move on, Miss Adrian, but if you’ll just try to think over the events of the last day or so — just so someone doesn’t get you mixed up on cross-examination.”

“Cross-examination?”

“Of course,” Mason said casually, “all witnesses have to be cross-examined, but that’s nothing.”

“Well, I’d always heard it was quite an ordeal.”

“Not if you’re telling the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“And not if you remember all the details and don’t get confused.”

“Well, I remember all the details, but I don’t know whether I’m going to get confused standing up there in front of a whole crowd of people like that.”

Mason smiled affably. “Just start planning on what you’re going to wear, Miss Adrian. I’m sure you’ll want to look your best. Sometimes the flashlight photographs they use in newspapers aren’t the most flattering photographs a person can have but... you’ll be all right.”

“Well, I’m glad you gave me some notice in advance,” she said, going over to the mirror, patting her hair and smoothing the wave around back of the ears. “I’ll tell the world some of those newspaper pictures are terrible!”

“Good-by,” Mason said. “Remember now, not a word of this to anyone.”

Mason let himself and the detective out in the corridor.

“Pay dirt,” Smithy said under his breath.

“Pay dirt,” Mason agreed. “Now we’ve got to phone Paul and get some operatives out at the airport in a rush.”