The Case of the Fabulous Fake

12

Perry Mason sat on the edge of the seat of the taxicab counting the minutes until the driver reached his office building. Then he tossed the driver a five-dollar bill, said, “Keep the change, cabbie. Thanks for speeding it up as much as possible.”

The lawyer sprinted across the foyer of the building into the elevator, then hurried down the hallway to his office.

“Well, hello!” Della Street said as he made an explosive entrance into his private office. “What’s the rush?”

“Heard anything from Diana Douglas?” Mason asked.

She shook her head.

“Any collect call from San Francisco?”

Again she shook her head.

Mason sighed his relief, picked up the telephone, said to Gertie, “If any call comes in from San Francisco reversing the charges, I’ll take it. Put the call right through to me.”

The lawyer settled back in the swivel chair at his desk, took a deep breath, and said, “If we don’t hear within the next fifteen minutes, we’ll call the San Francisco police and make a demand on them, and if that doesn’t do the trick we’ll start a writ of habeas corpus in San Francisco.”

“What’s happened?”

“They’ve arrested Diana Douglas.”

“On the embezzlement?”

Mason shook his head. “The embezzlement is a minor matter.” he said, “although they may try to arrest her on the embezzlement so they can hold her up there in the hope that she’ll talk. If they do that I’m going to have to get right back to San Francisco in a hurry... The charge they are putting against her is the murder of Moray Cassel.”

“What!” Della exclaimed.

Mason nodded. “Somebody got into Moray Cassel’s apartment, killed him, and made an exit.”

“And the police think it was Diana Douglas?”

Mason nodded.

“When was this done?” she asked.

“There’s something of a problem. The police will probably try to show it was done Thursday afternoon. The body probably wasn’t discovered until today. That’s going to make a ticklish problem with experts giving various opinions, contradicting each other, and all of the stuff that goes with it.”

Della Street was thoughtful for a moment, “And our client was to have met you on the plane Thursday night at six twenty-seven and didn’t show up?”

Mason nodded.

“Do you suppose there’s any chance she could have been — But no, she isn’t that kind of a girl.”

“How do you know she isn’t?” Mason asked.

“You have ideas?” Della Street asked.

Mason said thoughtfully, “When I saw her in San Francisco she told me that when she got to the airport she didn’t have her credit card which she intended to use to pay for her ticket. Then she remembered that I had ordered two tickets charged to my account, so she picked up one of those tickets and said she’d adjust with me.”

“And?” Della Street asked, as Mason hesitated.

“And,” Mason said, “two officers from homicide showed up at the Willatson Hotel, barged in on Stella Grimes, shoved a BankAmerica credit card made out to Diana Douglas at her, and asked her to please identify the card.”

“Did she?”

Mason said, “I stepped into the picture, told her to keep quiet, and then it suddenly developed we were playing for much bigger stakes than the embezzlement. This was a murder investigation and I didn’t dare to carry on the deception any longer. So I had Stella Grimes identify herself to the officers, and then they rushed through a call to San Francisco as soon as they got the sketch and left orders to pick up Diana Douglas immediately on a charge of homicide.”

“And you’re expecting she’ll telephone you?”

Mason nodded. “If she’ll just follow instructions for once, keep her head, and keep her mouth shut — but they’re going to bring her down here and really try to work her over.”

“And so we enter into the picture?” Della Street asked.

“We enter into the picture,” Mason said. “We—”

He broke off as his phone rang, and, motioning to Della to monitor the conversation in shorthand, Mason picked up the receiver and said, “Perry Mason talking.”

A harsh voice said, “You’re attorney for Diana Douglas, an employee of Escobar Import and Export Company?”

“Right.”

“She’s under arrest and is asking for an opportunity to communicate with you. We’ve given her that opportunity.”

“Put her on,” Mason said.

“It’s a collect call,” the official voice reminded.

“Quite right,” Mason said.

A moment later Diana’s frightened voice said, “Mr. Mason, I don’t understand. They’re charging me, they claim that—”

“Shut up,” Mason said. “Don’t talk. Listen!”

“Yes, Mr. Mason.”

Mason said, “They’re going to charge you with the murder of Moray Cassel. They will offer to take you before a magistrate in San Francisco before taking you to Los Angeles. I want you brought down here. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t say anything to anyone about anything. Just use two words, ‘No comment’, and then add, ‘I answer no questions. I make no statements except in the presence of my attorney, Perry Mason.’ Can you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do it?”

“I think so.”

“Let me talk to the officer in charge,” Mason said.

A moment later the official voice came on the line once more.

Mason said, “I’m attorney for Diana Douglas. I have instructed her to make no statement except in my presence. We waive any hearing in San Francisco in favor of a hearing before a magistrate in Los Angeles County. We make no objection to being transported from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Aside from that we make no stipulations, no admissions, no concessions, and as attorney for Miss Douglas I insist that I be present at all interviews and at all questioning. I wish to be notified the moment she arrives in Los Angeles.”

“If you’d let us talk things over with her, we might be able to straighten this out,” the officer said. “We don’t want to bring her down to Los Angeles unless there’s some real reason for it. If she can explain some of the circumstantial evidence in the case, and I certainly hope she can because she’s a very nice young woman who seems to have had a lot of trouble lately, we’ll turn her loose.”

“That’s certainly nice of you,” Mason said. “It’s a wonderful line. It’s caused a lot of people to talk themselves into prison. For your information, I have instructed Diana Douglas not to talk unless I am present, and I am instructing you not to interrogate her except in my presence. I don’t want her interrogated by anybody unless I am there. I am making a record of this conversation so that any further attempts to get information from Miss Douglas will be a violation of her constitutional rights. I think you understand the situation.”

“Well, as her attorney, will you explain certain things that we’d like to clear up?” the officer asked.

“I explain nothing,” Mason said.

“Do you know when your client first noticed that her BankAmerica credit card was missing?”

Mason laughed into the telephone.

“What’s so funny?” the officer at the other end of the line asked.

“You are,” Mason said, and hung up.