The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse

Chapter number 15

It was early afternoon when Mason stopped his car in front of the auto court where he had left Lois Fenton the previous afternoon.

There was about the place that atmosphere of drowsy dejection which clings to auto camps during the middle of the day, when out-going guests have long since departed, when newcomers are still pushing down the throttle many weary miles from their destination.

Mason ran lightly up the steps of the little cottage that had been rented to Lois Fenton and tapped on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Mason. Are you decent?”

Lois Fenton opened the door. “What’s new?” she asked.

Mason said, “You’re looking better. How did you sleep?”

“Off and on.”

“Not too good?”

“No.”

Mason said, “You’re going to be arrested.”

“When?”

“Probably pretty soon. The police have traced your horse. They’ll find the horse and you within a few hours. It might be better for you to get in circulation. Act as any woman in your situation would and let them nab you.”

“How did they find out about the horse?”

“They covered the valley. They found the man who was keeping him.”

“Is... is Jasper mixed up in it?”

“I think I can pin the horse on Irene and her boy friend, Harry.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You might begin by telling me the truth.”

“About what?”

“About that rooming house on East Lagmore.”

She bit her lip.

“Don’t cry,” Mason said impatiently. “Talk.”

“I don’t cry, ever.”

“I thought you were getting ready to.”

“No, I never cry.”

“Talk then.”

“Arthur told me that I must never tell anyone, not even you, about that.”

Mason said, “When Sheldon left the hotel, he went to a rooming house at 791 East Lagmore. He registered there. Now, the strange thing is that he had registered there earlier in the day, long before he knew that he was going to have to check out of the hotel. Do you know why he did that?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

For several seconds she remained silent. Then she said, “It was on account of Jasper.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes. Jasper was coming to town. I wanted to get a room for him. The hotels were full. Arthur had to get this place in the rooming house. He registered his own name and took the key. We intended to let Jasper stay there, but when Jasper didn’t show up... well, I guess Arthur went down there and took the room himself after he had to leave the hotel.”

Mason said, “Now this is important. Did you ever go there?”

“You mean to that rooming house?”

“Yes.”

“I went there at 4 o’clock in the morning.”

Mason whistled, then after a moment said, “This was the thing Sheldon told you not to say anything about?”

She nodded her head in silent misery. “I feel like a heel about it, Mr. Mason.”

“You stayed there with Sheldon?”

“No, no, not with Sheldon! I took a separate room. There were rooms that could be rented that way. The woman who ran the place put a sign on the counter and...”

“I know all about that,” Mason said. “But tell me, why did you rent this room?”

“I... well, Arthur got word to me that he had to see me.”

“Gave you that address?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened?”

“Arthur told me that when he got to the room he found something in it.”

“You mean someone was there?”

“No. Something.”

“A body?”

“No, no. It was something else. Something terrible.”

“What?”

“One of my fans.”

“What about it?”

“It had been literally soaked in blood. It was... it was terrible.”

“And Arthur said he found that in the room when he got there?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“I took a room in the same rooming house and I worked over that fan, washing it in the washbowl and getting some of the worst of the stains out of it.”

“Then what happened?”

“I threw the fan away.”

“Where?”

“A place where it’ll never be found.”

Mason said, “There isn’t any such place.”

“Oh yes there is. I took it way out of town — way out on the outskirts and buried it.”

“Where?”

“In a field.”

“By the main highway?”

“No, I turned off on a side road and went up until I found a field. I dug a little hole with a shovel I had in the car — a small garden shovel — and buried the fan, and that’s all there is to it.”

“What time was it?”

“Just around daylight.”

“Did Arthur go with you?”

“No.”

“Did Arthur have any idea how the blood had got on the fan?”

“No.”

“Or how the fan had got in his room?”

“No.”

Mason studied her in frowning concentration for half a minute. “Do you,” he asked, “know what happens to little girls who lie to their lawyers?”

“What?”

“In murder cases,” Mason said, “they wind up in the death row at San Quentin, or perhaps because they’re nice-looking women they get sent to prison for a term of years. How would you like to take ten years in the Women’s Prison at Tehachapi? Ten years of prison. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Ten long years right out of your life, cooped up in a cell with no make-up, the clanging of iron doors, the drab routine of an eventless life. You...”

“Stop!” she screamed at him. “Stop! My God, what are you trying to do — pull my nerves out by the roots?”

“I’m trying to get you to tell the truth.”

“I’ve told you the truth.”

Mason said, “You’ve got to buck up. You’ve got to learn to face things. Right now you’re going to get in the car with me and go to the police. You’d just heard they wanted to question you.”

“But Mr. Mason,” she said in panic, “I thought you were keeping me here, keeping me hidden so that I...”

“Keeping you hidden long enough for the police to pick up a red herring that I threw across their trail,” Mason said.

“But now you mean that I...”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “The police are on the trail of the horse. They’ll be here any time now.”

“How bad is the case against me?”

“Either you’re lying to me, or Sheldon lied to you, and you’re pretty dumb to have let him tell you a story like that and get away with it. In any event, the case against you is so black right now that I can’t take a chance on having it made any blacker. You can’t be in concealment. You can’t be running away. You’ve got to go to the police. You’ll have to talk; but be damn certain they don’t trap you in any lies. Tell your story up to the time you left Callender at two o’clock, then deny everything, and clam up.”

“There’s no other way out? Nothing else for me to do?”

“No.”

“All right,” she said. “You wait here. I’ll get my coat and hat and make up my face.”

“Your face looks all right now,” Mason said.

“No, I’ll... I’ll be with you in a minute.”

She walked over to the bathroom, closed the door and called out, “You’ll find a morning paper on the table, Mr. Mason.”

Mason picked up the paper from the table, settled back in the chair and after a quick glance at the headlines, read the comics and then turned to the sporting section. He read the baseball news, glanced at the financial section, then at his wristwatch, and called out, “Hey, make it snappy, Lois.”

There was no answer from the bathroom.

Mason moved over, knocked on the bathroom door. There was still no answer.

Mason jerked the door open.

The room was empty. The window at the far end war open and the screen had been taken off. In the soft ground outside of the window two heels had left an imprint in the soil.

The lawyer walked back to the other room, picked up his hat, carefully closed the door behind him, and walked toward the place where he had left his car.

The car was gone.

It was a good half mile before Mason came to a gas station that had a telephone. He called his office. “Hello, Della,” he said. “How would you like to borrow a car from Paul Drake and come and get me?”

“Where are you?”

Mason gave her the address.

“What happened to your car?”

“It was stolen.”

“Where’s your client?”

“As far as I know, she’s in my car.”

“I’ll be right out,” Della told him cheerfully. “Hold everything.”