The Case of the Horrified Heirs

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mason and Della Street were in the lawyer's private office.

Della had the big electric percolator filled with coffee, waiting for Paul Drake.

Mason paced the floor restlessly, back and forth, his thumbs hooked in his belt, his head thrust slightly forward.

At length he stopped from sheer weariness, dropped into a chair and gestured toward the coffee.

Della filled his cup.

«Why did you make all this to-do about the handbag?» she asked. «Do you have any information I don't?»

Mason shook his head. «You know I don't.»

«But I haven't heard anything about fifty thousand dollars in cash.»

Mason said, «There's something mighty peculiar about this case, Della. Why wasn't the handbag found in the car?»

«Well,» Della Street said, «with a wild surf, a stormy night, a car toppled into the ocean-«

«The handbag,» Mason said, «would be on the floor of the car. Or, if it fell out, it wouldn't drift far. I didn't say the handbag had fifty thousand dollars in cash; I asked Eagan if he didn't know it had fifty thousand dollars in cash. I wanted to inspire a host of amateur divers to search for that bag. I-«

Drake's code knock sounded on the door of Mason's office.

Della Street jumped to her feet, but Mason beat her to the door and jerked it open.

Drake, his face showing lines of fatigue, said, «I think I've got your man, Perry.»

«Who is it?»

«A character by the name of Hallinan Fisk. He has been a long-time stoolie for the police in one of the suburbs but there was one case where the police had to disclose his name and one case where Fisk had to testify. Now he's a known informer. He thinks his very life is in danger. He's trying to get sufficient money from the police undercover fund to leave the country.»

«Any hope of success?» Mason asked.

«Probably some,» Drake said, «but the police don't have that kind of money. This is a dog-eat-dog world. It's not generally known, but the police in this outlying town sometimes pay off their informers by letting them cut corners.

«Fisk has been giving the police information on big-time stuff and also on dope. He's been making his money out of being a runner for a bookmaker. The police closed their eyes to this in return for tips on dope. Now that his occupation as a stoolie is out in the open, the bookmaker is afraid to have him around even though Fisk told the bookmaker he can virtually guarantee him freedom from arrest.

«The bookmaker is afraid that hijackers are going to lift his cash and that he may get himself bumped off. He's had a couple of anonymous telephone calls telling him to get rid of Fisk, or else; and in that business, that's all that is needed to make Fisk as desirable as a guy with smallpox.»

«You get his address?» Mason asked.

«I think I know where he can be found,» Drake said.

«Let's go,» Mason said.

Della got up from her chair, but Drake motioned her down with his hand, «Nix,» he said. «This is no place for ladies.»

«Phooey,» she said. «I know about the birds, the bees, the flowers and the underworld.»

«This is going to be tough,» Drake said.

Della Street looked appealingly to Perry Mason.

Mason deliberated a moment, then said, «Okay, come on, Della, but you're on your own… How are you fixed for protection, Paul?»

Drake pulled back his coat to show a gun in a shoulder holster.

«If the going gets tough,» he said, «we can flash my credentials and, if it comes to a real showdown, we can use this.»

«We're dealing with murder,» Mason said.

They carefully switched out the lights in the lawyer's private office, locked the door, and went down to Drake's car.

Drake drove down to skid row, which at this hour was a blaze of nighttime activity.

From time to time he looked dubiously at Della Street.

Drake finally found a parking place near the rooming house which was their destination.

Della, tucked in between the broad shoulders of Perry Mason and Paul Drake, was guided across the street along some thirty feet of sidewalk, then up a flight of stairs to a dimly lit little alcove where a counter held a plaque with the word OFFICE on it, and a bell.

Back of the counter were hooks containing various keys.

«Number five,» Drake said. «The key isn't on the hook, so we'll take a look.»

«He's not apt to be in, is he?» Della asked. «This is the period of high activity for skid row.»

«I think he is,» Drake said. «I think he's afraid to leave his room.»

They walked down a corridor, dark, smelly and sinister.

Drake located No. 5, pointed toward the underside of the door.

«There's a light,» he said.

Mason's knuckles tapped a peremptory message on the panels of the door.

For a moment there was no answer, then the voice of a man standing close to the door said, «Who is it?»

«Detective Drake,» Drake said.

«I don't know any dicks by the name of Drake.»

«I have something for you,» Drake said.

«That's what I'm afraid of.»

«You want me to stand here in the hall and tell it so everybody can hear it?»

«No, no.»

«Well then, let us in.»

«Who's the 'us'?»

«I have a girl with me,» Drake said, «and a friend.»

«Who's the girl?»

Della Street said, «My name is Street.»

«Well, go find yourself another alley, sister.»

Mason said, «All right, if that's the way you want it, that's the way it'll be. You'll pay the price. You wanted to get lost and the deal I have gives you a chance.»

«_You_ can do the getting lost,» the man's voice said. «I'm not opening the door for any crummy gag like this. If you want me to open up, get someone I know.»

Mason motioned to Paul Drake, said, «You and Della wait here in the corridor, Paul. If he comes out, nab him.»

«What do I do with him?»

«Hold him, one way or another. Push him back in the room. Put him under citizen's arrest if you have to.»

«For what?» Drake asked.

«Hit-and-run,» Mason said. «But I don't think he'll be out.»

Mason walked down the long, smelly corridor to a telephone booth which smelled of stale cigar smoke.

Mason dialed police headquarters. «Give me Homicide,» he said, when he had an answer.

A moment later when a voice said, «Hello, this is Homicide,» Mason said, «I have to get Lieutenant Tragg on a matter of the greatest importance. How long would it take to get a message through to him? This is Perry Mason talking.»

The voice at the other end of the line said, «Just a minute.»

A second and a half later Lieutenant Tragg's dry voice came over the wire. «What's the matter, Perry, you found another body?»

«Thank heavens you're there,» Mason said. «I'm really in luck.»

«You are, for a fact,» Tragg told him. «I just dropped in to see if there were any new developments on a case I am working on. What's the trouble?»

Mason said, «I want you to join me. I've got something big.»

«A corpse?»

«No corpse, not yet. There may be one later on.»

«Where are you?» Tragg asked.

Mason told him.

«Shucks,» Tragg said, «that's only a short distance from headquarters.»

«Will you join me?» Mason asked.

Tragg said, «Okay.»

«Bring a man with you,» Mason told him.

«Okay,» Tragg said, «I'll grab a police car and be there within a matter of minutes.»

«I'm waiting for you at the office at the head of the stairs,» Mason told him. «This is a walk-up rooming house, second floor only-over a bunch of hock shops and honkytonks.»

«I thought I knew the dump,» Tragg said. «We'll be there.»

Mason stood waiting by the phone booth.

Two men came up the stairs, paused at the office, looked furtively around them, saw Mason standing there, started toward him.

The lawyer moved a step or two forward.

The men looked at his height, at his shoulders, looked at each other, then wordlessly turned, walked back to the head of the stairs and went down to the street.

A few moments later, Tragg, accompanied by a uniformed officer, came to the head of the stairs, paused and looked up and down the corridor.

Mason came striding forward.

Tragg paused by the counter, waiting for him, looking at the lawyer with kindly, quizzical eyes.

«All right, Perry,» he said, «what is it this time? Here's your cat's-paw. Where's the chestnut you want pulled out of the fire?»

Mason said, «Room five.»

«How hot is the chestnut?»

«I don't know,» Mason said, «but once we get in and shake him down, I think we'll find the solution of the Lauretta Trent murder case.»

«You don't think we have it already?»

«I know you don't have it already,» Mason said.

Tragg sighed. «I could have saved myself a trip if I'd only been properly skeptical,» he said. «What's more, the office takes a dim view of our running around on the hunches of defense attorneys trying to undermine cases the district attorney is prosecuting in court.

«Played up in newspapers, it wouldn't make a very nice story, now, would it?»

«Have I ever left you in the middle of a story in the newspapers that didn't look good?» Mason asked.

«Not yet,» Tragg said. «I don't want you to start.»

«All right,» Mason told him, «you've come this far, come on down to room five.»

Tragg sighed, said to the officer, «Okay, we'll take a look. That's all we're doing, taking a look.»

Mason led the way down to where Paul Drake and Della Street were waiting.

«Well, well,» Tragg said, «we seem to have a quorum.»

Mason banged on the door again.

«Go away,» the voice inside said.

Mason said, «Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide and an officer.»

«You got a warrant?»

«We don't need a warrant,» Mason said. «We-«

«Now, just a minute,» Tragg interrupted, «I'll do my own talking. What's this all about?»

Mason said, «This man registered under the name of Canton Jasper at the Saint's Rest Motel. He's also the stoolie who gave the police the bum steer on the dope in Virginia Baxter's suitcase. He's waiting for police funds to get out of town.

«He's been a professional informer for the dope squad and-You want me to stay here and yell the whole business out in the corridors, Fisk?»

There was a sound of a bolt on the door; then a chair being moved. The door opened to the limit of a safety chain. Obsidian black eyes peered out anxiously, came to rest on the police officer's uniform, then looked at Tragg.

«Let me see your credentials,» he demanded.

Tragg slipped a leather container from his pocket, held it where the man could see it.

The man said, «Look up and down the corridor. Anybody there?»

«Not now,» Mason said, «but a couple of torpedoes came up a few minutes ago. They started down to your room and then turned back when they saw I was a witness.»

Shaking hands fumbled with the chain on the catch on the door.

The door opened.

«Come in, come in,» Fisk said.

The little group walked into the room-a bedraggled place with a cheap, sagging bed, a paper-thin carpet in which holes had been worn in front of the cheap, pine dresser, its wavy mirror distorting reflections.

There was one cushioned chair, one cane-bottomed, straight-backed chair.

Fisk said, «What is it? You fellows have got to give me protection.»

Mason said, «What was the idea of framing Virginia Baxter on that dope, and why did you go to the Saint's Rest and take her car?»

«Who are you?» Fisk asked.

«I'm her lawyer.»

«Well, I don't need your type of mouthpiece.»

«I'm not a mouthpiece,» Mason told him. «I'm a lawyer. And here, my friend, is a subpoena for you to appear in court tomorrow and testify as a witness in the case of Peopie versus Baxter.»

«Say, what kind of a dodge are you pulling on me?» Tnagg asked. «Getting me down here just so you could serve a subpoena.»

«That's all,» Mason told him cheerfully, «unless you want to use your head. If you do, you can cover yourself with glory.»

«You can't serve me with any subpoena,» Fisk said. «I only opened the door for the law.»

«How come your fingerprints are all over Virginia Baxter's car?» Mason asked.

«Phooey, you won't find a fingerprint on the thing.»

«And,» Mason said, «when the officers went to Virginia Baxter's apartment to search it on the strength of your representation that there was dope hidden there, you managed to fix the door so you could get back in with the person who did the typewriting on Virginia's typewriter.»

«Words, words, words,» Fisk said. «I get so tired of having people try to frame things on me. Listen, lawyer, I've been worked over by experts. You amateurs don't stand a chance.»

«You wore gloves in handling Virginia Baxter's car,» Mason said, «but you didn't have gloves on in the Saint's Rest Motel. Your fingerprints are all over the room.»

«So what? Sure, I admit I was at the Saint's Rest Motel.»

«And registered under an assumed name.»

«Lots of people do that.»

«And gave a phony license number.»

«I wrote it down according to the best way I could remember it.»

Mason, looking at the man, said suddenly, «Good heavens, no wonder! There's a family resemblance. What's your relationship to George Eagan?»

For a moment the black eyes looked at Mason with cold defiance.

«That,» Mason said, «is something we can check.»

Fisk seemed to grow smaller inside of his coat, «All right,» he said. «I'm his half-brother. I'm the black sheep of the family.»

«And,» Mason said, «you switched license numbers with Eagan's automobile and of course Eagan didn't notice-that was just in case anyone tried to identify you through the license number.»

«Got any proof?» Fisk asked.

«I don't need it,» Mason said. «By the time I put you on the witness stand tomorrow and the newspapers publish your picture and the history of your activities as a stool pigeon and double-crosser, the underworld will take care of you a lot better than I can. Come on, folks, let's go.»

Mason turned and started to the door.

For a long moment Fisk stood there, then he grabbed Mason's coat sleeve. «No, no! Now, look, look, we can square this thing.»

He turned from Mason to Lieutenant Tragg. «I've given you folks the breaks,» he said. «You folks can help me out. Get this mouthpiece off my neck. Get me out of town.»

Tragg, studying the man intently, said, «You tell us the whole story and we'll see what we can do. But we're not buying anything blindfolded.»

Fisk said, «Look, I've been in trouble, lots of trouble, lots of times in trouble. George had to get me out of it once when I was in bad trouble.»

«Who's George?» Tragg asked.

«George Eagan, Lauretta Trent's chauffeur.»

Mason and Tragg exchanged glances, then Tragg turned to Fisk and said, «All right, come on, what happened?»

«Well, I lost out with the police and lost all my connections and I was up against it. That was when this woman came to me who had helped out before.»

«What woman?»

«The nurse, Anna Fritch. I'd dated her once or twice and I'd furnished her with dope over a period of years.»

«Go on,» Tragg said.

«She was teamed up with Kelvin. Kelvin thought he was going to get the bulk of the Trent estate-he and his brother-in-law, and their wives, of course. So he got this nurse to hurry the old gal over the divide.

«They made three passes with arsenic. They didn't dare to kill her with arsenic, but she had a bad pump and the idea was that all the upchucking from a small dose would make the pump give out.

«Then while the old dame was being sick the last time, Kelvin found the will. He damn near dropped dead from the shock.

«So he had to change the will. They tracked down the lawyer's typewriter. The nurse was a good typist. If she had plenty of time she swore she could make a forgery they'd never detect, but she needed the lawyer's typewriter and stationery.

«That meant they wanted not only to get Virginia Baxter discredited so she couldn't spill their apples if she remembered the terms of the real will, but they wanted her in the cooler.

«They also wanted to either get Bannock's carbon copy of the real will or else scramble things so no one could ever get to first base by going to the old files-but they didn't think up this angle until later when I raised the question.

«Anyhow, first thing was to get this Baxter woman in the clink and get her convicted of a dope charge.

«Well, I did what I was supposed to. I bribed a guy to let me out to the plane to get my baggage on the ground; that it was an important shipment. I spotted the broad's bag as soon as it came off the plane; then said I'd lost my tags. They told me I had to identify the contents, so I got the suitcases opened and then said I'd made a mistake and, in the confusion, managed to plant the stuff I was to put in the suitcase.

«I thought that was all I was going to have to do.

«But that's the way it is with a broad. You get tangled up with them and they're always on your neck. So I had to take this girl's automobile and wait until George came along and then ram the car. I hated to do it, but George had been high-hatting me of late and-Well, a guy has to live.»

«All right,» Tragg said, «what did you do?»

«I did what I was told to,» Fisk said, trembling. «I was to give it a good sideswipe. I didn't know it was going out of control and-I thought I was just framing a hit-andrun… Well, that's the truth and now I've got it off my chest.»

«That was Virginia Baxter's car you were using?» Mason asked.

«That's right. I was told she'd be up at the Saint's Rest and given the license number of her automobile. She hadn't much more than got into her room and got settled down than I left my car and took hers. Then, as soon as I'd done the job, I came back up and parked her car and took mine.

«The parking stall her car had been in had been taken by somebody else, so I had to park the Baxter car in a new stall. I was told to be awfully careful with that car, to give the Lauretta Trent car a shove with the front end of the car, but to hit it hard with the back end so the Baxter car would run all right.»

«And how much did you get for that?» Mason asked.

«Promises. I was hot. I've got enemies and I've got to get where they can't take me for a one-way ride. This broad promised me twenty-five hundred, and she gave me two hundred in cash. I don't know how you found out about me, but… by God, if you put me on a witness stand and the newspapers publish this stuff, my life won't be worth a snap of my fingers… Hell, they're gunning for me right now… You said there were two torpedoes that came up the stairs?»

Mason nodded.

Fisk held out his wrists. «Take me into custody, Lieutenant,» he said. «Give me all the protection you can. I stand a chance of beating a rap, but you can't beat the big boy's torpedoes.»

«Who's the big boy?» Tragg asked.

Fisk, shivering with apprehension, said, «I've never ratted on him. Always the little guys and always the outsiders; but if it comes to a showdown and I have to, I have to-Get me in a cell where I'm by myself; give me protection and a chance to take it on the lam and I'll tell.»

Tragg looked at Mason, said, «Well, it seems there's butter on both sides of your bread.»