The Case of the Glamorous Ghost

Chapter number 11

A somewhat bored attendant at the coroner’s office said, “I’ll have to call either the D.A. or the police.”

“You won’t catch the D.A. at this hour,” Mason said. “There was a stipulation made in court this afternoon that we could inspect the clothing of Douglas Hepner.”

“Oh, I guess it’s all right,” the attendant said. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Didn’t Raymond Orla testify up there today?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’ve got a night number. I can get him. He’ll be getting home just about this time. You wait here.”

The attendant entered another office, carefully closing the door behind him, then, after some five minutes, came back and nodded. “It’s okay,” he said. “Orla said the D.A. said you could look at them. Right this way.”

He led the way down a long corridor, into a room where there were numbered lockers. He took a key from his pocket, opened a locker and said, “There you are. These are the clothes.”

“There were some articles of personal property,” Mason said. “A fountain pen, notebook, things of that sort.”

“Those will be in this little lock box here.”

The attendant opened the lock box, placed them all on a table. “I’ll have to sort of stick around,” he apologized.

“Certainly,” Mason said, glancing significantly at Della Street.

“My, what a job you must have here,” Della Street said, moving over to inspect some of the other lockers. “You have to keep all of these straight.” She laughed. “As a secretary I can appreciate the problem you have.”

The attendant began to warm up. He moved over to Della Street’s side. “Well, it’s quite a job,” he admitted. “Of course, you see, things keep changing here. We’ll have cases come in and... some of them aren’t here twenty-four hours. Some of them where there’s a court action on are here for weeks. Now over here is our temporary side. Things here run from twenty-four to seventy-two hours. And in this other room over here we keep the bodies. On this temporary side the numbers on the lockers and the numbers on the lockers containing the bodies are both the same so that we can give a body a key-number — take a tag and tie it on his big toe.

“I presume this is all pretty gruesome to you. Most women get the creeps. You can see that tier of files in there looks like oversized filing drawers. Each one of them has a body, kept under just the right amount of refrigeration.”

“No, it doesn’t frighten me,” Della Street said, her voice showing interest. “I’m a realist. I know that death is one logical end of the life stream, just as birth is at the other end. And I know that a certain percentage of deaths are sudden and unexplained. It’s up to you people to keep the records straight.”

She moved over toward the other room and the attendant, after pausing to glance momentarily over his shoulder, followed her, explaining as he went.

Mason examined the garments. “This is a tailor-made suit, Paul,” he said, “but the label has been carefully cut out. Suppose the police did it?”

“I doubt it,” Drake said. “You never can tell. It’s been cut out all right.”

Mason said, “Take this underwear, Paul. Hold the coat over it. Now get your ultraviolet light going.”

Paul Drake held the coat over the underwear, making something of a tent of it, then flashed the ultraviolet light on the underwear.

Almost immediately a number flared into brilliance.

“This is it,” Mason said excitedly. “Get this, Paul.”

Mason smoothed out the underwear. Drake held the light.

The number N-4464 flared up brilliantly.

“Quick,” Mason said. “Get that light away, Paul. I don’t want the attendant to report to the police what we’ve been doing and give the police any ideas.”

“What about the suit?” Drake asked.

“We won’t bother with it now,” Mason said. “While Della has him over there get the wax impression of those keys. I’ll hold the coat up as though I’m looking through the lining and hold it between you and the attendant.”

The attendant, looking back at them, had turned and started moving back toward the table. Della Street held him back with one last question. Mason held up the coat on its wire hanger, apparently inspecting the lining.

Della Street veered over toward a locker. “What’s this?”

The attendant, suddenly suspicious, broke away, hurried forward. Mason turned the garment on the hanger, apparently completely oblivious of the fact that anyone else was in the room, yet managing to hold the coat in front of the attendant very much as a toreador holds the cape in front of the bull.

“What are you guys doing?” the attendant asked.

Mason said accusingly, “They’ve cut the label out of this coat. We’re going to have to see that label.”

“Who’s cut it out?” the attendant demanded.

“How should I know?” Mason said. “It’s in your custody.”

“Well, it wasn’t cut out after it came here.”

“It wasn’t?” Mason asked in surprise. “Didn’t the police do it?”

“Heck, I don’t know. We just keep the stuff, that’s all. But no one here cut any labels out.”

“You mean to say you don’t cut out the labels in order to check...?”

“We don’t touch a thing. You’ll have to take that business up with the police. All we’re supposed to do is keep the stuff. I have orders to let you look at it, that is, the D.A. said you could look at it, and that’s that. As far as I’m concerned, go ahead and look. What’s that guy doing over there?”

Drake straightened, holding the key container in his hand. “I’ve been studying these keys,” he said, “trying to find out whether there’s any identifying number on them.”

The attendant laughed. “That’s one thing the police sure worked on. They went over those keys with a magnifying glass. There aren’t any numbers on them.”

“Oh well,” Drake said, tossing the keys back on the table. “I guess there’s no need for me to look at them then. How about it, Perry? Have you seen everything you want?”

“I suppose so,” Mason said grudgingly. “What about his shoes?”

“I can tell you something about the shoes,” the attendant said. “Of course I don’t want to be quoted.”

“It’s confidential if you say it’s confidential,” Mason told him.

“Well, the shoes were sold by a downtown department store as you can see. Police checked. It was a cash purchase. This guy didn’t have any credit there. The shoes were part of a shipment received about three months ago. Police thought they had something for a while but it turned out to be a blind alley.”

“Just what were they looking for?” Mason asked.

“Looking for anything they could find. There was something mysterious about the guy’s apartment. He wasn’t there much of the time. The police are trying to find out where he spent his time.”

“Probably in travel,” Mason said casually.

“That’s the way of it,” the attendant said. “It’s probably the explanation. The guy was on the move all the time. Well, you folks finished?”

“We’re finished.”

The attendant returned the articles to the lock box and the filing cabinet, locked the filing cabinet, smiled at Della Street and said, “It was a pleasure. Anything else I can do for you fellows?”

“Not at the moment,” Mason told him. “Well, let’s go and eat. I just wanted to check on that stuff,” he explained to the attendant. “You know how it is. You can hear someone describe a suit of clothes or something but it’s hard to tell...”

“Yeah, I know,” the attendant said. “I guess you’ve got the picture now.”

“I think I have,” Mason said.

“Well, good night.”

They moved into the fresh air or outdoors, away from the stuffy smell of corpses, pathological specimens and the odor of death.

“Well?” Drake asked.

“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Paul,” Mason said. “You’ve got to get that laundry mark traced and you’ve got to do it fast.”

“Have a heart, Perry, I’m hungry. We can’t get the thing until...”

“You’ve got to get it,” Mason said. “In the first place the police have most of these laundry marks filed, that is, the general code and...”

“And you know how anxious they’ll be to help us,” Drake said.

“Try the sheriff’s office,” Mason said. “Dig out some of your contacts. Get hold of the secretary of the laundry association.”

Drake groaned. “I can see that I’m going to have a night of it.”

“You may get it faster than you think,” Mason told him. “Those laundry marks are important. Hamilton Burger was too sure of himself on this case. He thinks he’s got a cinch case and has just made a superficial investigation. Some of the police would have known about that laundry number. A lot of laundries are using that ultraviolet device now. They can stamp on a big, easily read number without defacing the garment. Now get busy, Paul. Did you get the wax impression of the keys?”

“I sure did. Just had time to get the last impression when that attendant came back. Thought for a moment he’d caught me.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference if he had,” Mason said. “We’re entitled to inspect those keys, and in order to inspect them we can photograph them or do anything else.”

Della Street said, “I can take charge of having the keys made, Paul. There’s a locksmith who has his shop near my apartment. He frequently works late, and if he isn’t working I know where to find him. I pass the time of day with him every once in a while. You go ahead and chase down the laundry mark. Chief, you go to the office and I’ll take the car and go down and get the keys made.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “but remember he has to keep his mouth shut.”

“I think you can trust him all right,” Della said. “He’s a great fan of yours, follows all of your cases in the newspapers, and if he thought he was doing something to help he’d be tickled to death.”

“Well, he can do something all right,” Mason said, “and let’s hope it will help. Paul, you get busy on that laundry number. Della, as soon as you get the keys made come back to the office and we’ll wait for Paul and see if he gets any results.”

Mason drove back to the office. Drake started work at once on the telephone. Della Street took the car and went out to get the keys made.

Mason latchkeyed the door of his private office, switched on the lights, and started pacing the floor, taking mental inventory.

Fifteen minutes lengthened into twenty, became a full half hour.

The unlisted telephone rang sharply. Mason picked it up. Drake’s voice came over the wire. “Think I’m getting some place, Perry. I managed to locate the secretary of the laundry association. He doesn’t have any idea what I’m working on. The number is a code. The 64 means that it’s the Utility Twenty-four-hour Laundry Service, and the N-44 is the individual mark. The secretary tells me that the name of the patron whose laundry mark is registered probably begins with an N and that he’s forty-fourth on the list. He’s given me the name of the manager of the laundry and I’m trying to locate him now. I hope I’ll have something for you within a short time. When do we eat?”

“When we get this thing buttoned up.”

“Look, Perry. I can have a hamburger sent up from downstairs. It’s not much, but a hamburger and a good mug of coffee will help a lot.”

“When Della gets back,” Mason said. “If we haven’t had a break by that time we’ll have something sent in while you’re working.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “I just thought I’d let you know that we’re striking pay dirt. But why would the thing be listed under N? Do you suppose Hepner was using an alias?”

“He could have,” Mason said. “There’s something pretty damn mysterious about Hepner’s whole background.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “I’ll let you know.”

Another ten minutes passed, then Della Street came in jingling a bunch of keys.

“Okay?” Mason asked.

“Okay, Chief. I had two of each made so that in case we were fortunate enough to find the locks they fitted we would have two strings to our bow. Sometimes in making up keys from a wax impression some little imperfection or other will throw them off. I have a file here. The key man gave it to me and suggested that if the keys didn’t work we start filing the edges, just touching them up a bit.”

“And he’s going to keep quiet about it?” Mason asked.

“He’s having the time of his life,” Della Street said. “He told me to pass the word on to you that any time he could help you in any way on a case to just let him know and that you could trust him to be the soul of discretion.”

“Well, that helps,” Mason said, grinning. “You and the locksmith seem to think that once we find the locks that these keys fit we’re going to walk right in.”

“Well,” Della Street asked, “what’s the object of having keys if you aren’t going to use them?”

“That, of course,” Mason said, “is a question. Let’s go on down to Drake’s office and see how he’s coming. He thought maybe he’d have something for us in a short time and suggested that we might celebrate by having hamburgers and coffee sent up to the office.”

“I could use some of that,” Della Street said. “Let’s go.”

They switched off the lights, walked down the corridor to Drake’s office. The night telephone operator motioned for them to go in.

“Paul’s on the phone,” she said. “He’s been on the phone almost constantly. Go on in. I won’t need to announce you.”

Mason held open the wooden gate and Della Street preceded him down the long, narrow corridor, flanked by the doors of small offices on each side where Drake’s operatives interviewed witnesses, prepared reports and at times conducted polygraph tests.

Drake was talking on the telephone, making notes, as Mason and Della Street entered. He waved his hand at them, nodded his head exultantly and said, “Just a minute, let me get that down. Now, let’s see. That’s Frank Ormsby Newberg at the Titterington Apartments on Elmwood Place... Can you tell us how long he’s been a customer?... I see... kept the same laundry mark, eh?... All right, thanks... No, no this is just a routine check trying to trace a lost suitcase. Question of whether or not there’s a twenty-five dollar limit on liability for loss of a suitcase and trying to prove the identity of garments. Nothing except a routine matter and I’m sorry I bothered you after office hours but I’m working against rather a tight schedule... That’s right. This is the Drake Detective Agency... Sure, look me up. Perhaps we can give you a helping hand some time. Okay, good-by.”

Drake hung up the telephone, said, “Well, we have it. Frank Ormsby Newberg, Titterington Apartments, Elmwood Place.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “let’s go.”

“Eats?” Drake asked.

Mason shook his head, glanced at his wrist watch, said, “Not yet.”

“It would only take a minute to...”

“We don’t know how many minutes we have left,” Mason said. “You can’t tell what we’re going to run into. We’re working against time and against the police. That attendant at the coroner’s laboratory may not have been as preoccupied as he seemed.”