The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse

Chapter number 13

The office Mason wanted was in a loft building, where a general atmosphere of unconventionality clung to the elevator and the corridors.

The man who operated the slow, rumbling elevator cocked a weather-beaten eye at Perry Mason in a knowing leer, when the lawyer asked directions to the office of Sidney Jackson Barlow, the booking agent.

“Fourth floor,” he said, and clanged the door of the big elevator shut. “You turn right, and can’t miss it.”

He was a tall man who had once had blond hair. Now there were ragged fringes clinging to the scalp around his ears and the back of his neck. A long, drooping mustache hung dejectedly down from his upper lip.

“Barlow’s got a nice filly stable,” he volunteered.

“Has he?”

“Sure has. Known him long?”

“No.”

“Nice guy. He’ll use you right. Just don’t ask him for addresses. Addresses are his stock in trade.”

“How would he be for stag parties?” Mason asked.

“Best in the world,” the elevator man said. “Here we are — fourth floor. Barlow’s office is down the corridor on the right.”

Mason thanked him and walked down the hallway. A door sign said, SIDNEY JACKSON BARLOW, Walk in.

Mason accepted the printed invitation.

The office contained a long row of chairs ranged along the wall, intended perhaps to impress the casual visitor that the business of this man Barlow was impressive in its proportions; that while this might be the slack moment of a dull day in an off season, the normal business of the office called for actors and actresses waiting patiently in a long line to see the very important Mr. Barlow, who was ensconced behind the mahogany door marked in gilt letters, PRIVATE.

As Mason entered the room, his keen ears detected the sound of a faint buzzing noise behind the mahogany. Evidently an electrical device under the carpet near the door had sounded a warning note in the private office.

Almost instantly a striking blonde, holding a notebook, three or four pencils and half a dozen letters in her hand, opened the door and made a great show of bustling efficiently to the typewriter in the corner. Her manner was that of one who is loaded down with secretarial business, and is fighting for minutes in order to keep abreast of her work.

“How do you do,” she said to Mason. “Did you wish to see Mr. Barlow?”

“That’s right.”

“What’s your name, please?”

“Mason.”

“What did you want to see him about?”

“Talent.”

“You mean you want to arrange for some programs?”

“Something like that.”

“Just a moment,” she said, smiling sweetly. She bustled into the inner office, carefully closed the door behind her, emerged after a matter of some ten or fifteen seconds and smiled again at the lawyer. “You may go in, Mr. Mason.”

Sidney Jackson Barlow was seated behind a desk littered with papers and telegrams. At first glance it seemed that these papers had been piled in careless confusion on the desk, but a more careful observer would have noticed that letters were placed diagonally across telegrams so that the datelines were never visible. The walls of the office were decorated with dozens of autographed, professional photographs, men with profiles meant to be impressive, women whose pictures emphasized curves, legs and eyes, women with low-cut dresses and well-curved breasts, women with no dresses at all.

Barlow, a heavy-set, bald-headed man with thick lensed glasses, devoted a cold-eyed appraisal to his visitor. “What was it you wanted, Mr. Mason?”

“I wanted to see you about some talent.”

“Yes, yes. We have an excellent array of talent. Almost anything you want in the line of entertainment we can give.”

“I wanted to see you in particular about a fan-dancer.”

“Ah, yes. Something rather... er... intimate for a lodge gathering, Mr. Mason, or are you perhaps running a night club somewhere?”

“I wanted to see you about a particular dancer,” Mason said. “A Lois Fenton whose stage name, I believe, is Cherie Chi-Chi.”

The cold eyes instantly became veiled. “Yes,” Barlow said, “what was it you wanted to find out about Miss Fenton, Mr. Mason? Of course, you understand our addresses are our stock in trade and...”

“It isn’t that,” Mason said. “I’m wondering if it has occurred to you that you have been guilty of fraud in connection with this dancer?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Mr. Mason.”

“The Lois Fenton whom you have recently been booking is not the same Lois Fenton as the one you were booking six months ago.”

“Why, that’s impossible!” Barlow said. “Furthermore, Mr. Mason, I would like to understand your object in making such an accusation.”

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Oh!”

“Perry Mason,” the lawyer went on, putting his card on Barlow’s desk. “You may have heard of me.”

“Oh!” Barlow said again, and this time there was a certain note of dismay in his voice.

“Do you see the acts that you book before you book them?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You saw Lois Fenton dance?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Why, I don’t know, Mr. Mason. It was some time ago. I can’t tell you the exact date.”

“You were impressed by her?”

“A very remarkable fan-dancer, Mr. Mason. One who has a remarkable record.”

“You have photographs?”

“Professional?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, undoubtedly I have them. Did you wish to see them?”

Mason nodded.

Barlow pressed a button.

The door opened and the blonde stood in the doorway, a model of secretarial efficiency. “Yes, Mr. Barlow?”

Barlow said, “Get me the file of Lois Fenton.”

She walked over to a steel filing case, slid it open and handed Barlow a folder. Barlow opened the folder, extended to Mason an eight by ten photograph on glossy paper.

The photograph showed a young, graceful woman smiling at the camera, portions of her nude body concealed by two ostrich-plume fans.

“Is that the only photograph you have?”

“No, we have some more recent ones that we’re sending out on publicity. Elsie, where’s that file of photographs?”

The secretary crossed over to a cabinet, opened a drawer, took out some two dozen glossy photographs and handed two of them to Barlow.

Barlow handed them to Mason. They showed Irene in street clothes, the same short-skirted outfit she had worn to Mason’s office, and they showed her without clothes, two very carelessly applied fans acting as costume.

Mason studied the photographs, said, “Just as I thought, Barlow. It isn’t the same girl.”

“What!” Barlow exclaimed incredulously.

“It’s not the same girl.”

Barlow took the two photographs, held them side by side, compared them. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said, under his breath.

The blonde secretary moved over and looked over Barlow’s shoulder.

“How did it happen you didn’t discover this, Elsie?” Barlow asked her, without looking up.

She said nothing.

Barlow put down the photographs, studied Mason carefully. “Who are you representing?”

Mason looked him squarely in the eyes. “Lois Fenton.”

“Which one?”

“The real one.”

“How does it happen I haven’t heard from her before?”

“She didn’t know what was going on.”

Barlow moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Oh, nuts!” the secretary said calmly and clearly.

“Now, Elsie,” Barlow said in a flutter of apprehension, “don’t mix into this. This is a matter of...”

“Nuts,” she said again, this time louder and more vehemently.

Barlow sighed with an attitude of a henpecked man who can do nothing further. He said apologetically to Mason, “My secretary handles a great deal of the clerical work in connection with the bookings.” And, having delivered himself of that statement, sat back in the swivel chair and clasped his hands behind his neck, seeming to withdraw from the conversation by this gesture as effectively as though he had drawn a curtain between his visitor and himself.

Mason said, “And I gather that your secretary is in a somewhat skeptical frame of mind at the moment?”

“You’re damn right I am,” the girl said. “Don’t tell me Lois Fenton didn’t know someone had moved in on her territory. Those things just don’t exist — not for as long as this has been going on. That photograph of Cherie Chi-Chi was taken three months ago.”

“Miss Fenton,” Mason said, “has been busy.”

“That’s your story.”

“Now, now, take it easy. Don’t offend Mr. Mason,” Barlow muttered.

“She has taken an excursion into the realm of matrimony,” Mason said. “Now she has encountered domestic troubles and wishes to resume her profession. She finds that through your negligence, Mr. Barlow, someone has capitalized on her reputation, apparently with your connivance.”

“Okay,” the blonde said, in a hard-boiled manner. “Come on, let’s get it over with. What do you want? Out with it.”

Mason said, “I want to interview the person whom you are now booking as Lois Fenton, or Cherie Chi-Chi. You doubtless have her address.”

Barlow started stroking his sleek jowls with the tips of well-manicured fingers. “I think perhaps I’d better see my lawyer.”

“Okay, if you want to look at it that way,” Mason said. “I thought perhaps I could keep you out of it, if it should appear that you had been the innocent victim of a misrepresentation.”

The blonde said, “Nuts to this lawyer business. Let me handle this, Sidney.”

She walked around the desk to sit on the corner nearest Mason, one foot resting on the carpet, the other swinging gracefully back and forth in a nervous arc. “What happens if you talk with this woman and it turns out she slipped one over on us?”

“In that case my client would be inclined to absolve you of responsibility.”

“Suppose this woman doesn’t want to talk with you?”

Mason smiled and said, “That will be the measure of your good faith.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t need to tell her anything about my errand. You can simply tell her that a man who is interested in talent is going to be here in an hour, and that you would like to have her available to talk things over with him.”

“That might make trouble,” Barlow murmured.

“Keep out of it, Sidney,” the blonde flashed back over her shoulder. “I’ll run this. What kind of a party is it going to be, Mr. Mason?”

“That will depend on circumstances.”

“Rough?”

“Certainly not. I simply want to get at the facts of the case.”

“Why?”

“In order to protect my client.”

“Look, you’re not dumb enough to think that you can go to court and sue a fan-dancer and get any dough out of her.”

“The situation could be rectified,” Mason said.

The secretary’s eyes narrowed. “In an hour?”

“Yes.”

She turned to Barlow, said, “Well, why not?”

Barlow shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay,” the secretary said. “We’ll have her here.”

“Thank you,” Mason told them, and walked out.

From a phone in a drugstore two blocks away, Mason called his office, using the unlisted number which rang the phone directly in his private office.

When Della Street answered, Mason said, “Be careful about what you say, Della. Is anyone in the office?”

“No.”

“Anyone in the outer office?”

“A couple of clients who didn’t have an appointment. I explained to them that you were out on business and I didn’t know whether you would be back at all today. They both decided to wait a little while on the chance you might be in.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

“No one been asking for me?”

“No.”

Mason said, “I’m being shadowed, Della. I thought it was the police. The fact they haven’t been calling for me at the office proves it.”

“How long have you been wearing this tail?”

“Ever since I left the office after we returned from the auto court. I took the shadow on a journey — to see Barlow.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just be careful not to act as though you didn’t know where I was. I don’t want the police to think I deliberately ditched this shadow.”

“Have you ditched him?”

“Not yet.”

“But you will?”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“Then Lieutenant Tragg will go to see Barlow and ask questions, and be around asking you questions. Tell him I told you I had to go out of town on business and that I might not be back until tomorrow night. Make it sound very casual.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Just close up the joint at five o’clock and go on home. You may be shadowed. Don’t notice it if you are. Remember to keep everything very, very casual.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Be a good girl,” Mason said.

“And be casual about that, I suppose,” Della said.