The Case of the Lazy Lover

14

“Drake in?” Mason asked the night janitor who brought up the elevator.

“Yeah. He came in fifteen or twenty minutes ago. You fellows must be working on something hot.”

Mason said, “Oh, we’re just keeping out of mischief.”

Drake kept switchboard operators on twenty-four hours a day, so Mason, opening the office door, jerked his thumb toward Drake’s inner office and at the same time raised his eyebrows in silent interrogation.

The girl at the switchboard, busy taking a call, nodded and pointed.

Mason unlatched the gate from the narrow, cramped waiting room, walked down the long corridor and into Drake’s office.

Drake was talking on the phone as Mason came in.

He motioned the lawyer to a seat, said into the telephone, “Okay, I got it. Now give me that address again.

“All right. No, stay on the job. Just keep an car to the ground and see what you can find out. Telephone anything that looks important.”

Drake hung up the phone and said, “Well, that’s a break. I don’t know how much of a break.”

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“That’s my man down there at headquarters in the pressroom.”

“What’s he found out?”

“The last reports say Fleetwood is still sticking to his amnesia story.”

Mason said, “That’s not a break. That’s something I want to talk with you about, Paul. What else?”

“He went through the motions of just having regained his memory, and called his girl friend.”

“Did your man get her number?”

“Her name, telephone number and address.”

“What’s her name?”

“Bernice Archer.”

“Her name hasn’t entered the case. What about her?”

“Oh, he just called her to tell her that he’d been suffering from a lapse of memory, that the police told him he’d been holed up at the ranch of a man named Overbrook, that he’d just regained his memory, and that under no circumstances was she to pay any attention to anything she might hear about him, until he had an opportunity to explain things to her.”

“What sort of a conversation was it?” Mason asked. “Was it difficult, do you know?”

“How do you mean?”

“Was the girl throwing a fit?”

“No. Apparently it was just a routine conversation. He called her, talked to her and then hung up.”

Mason frowned, then said, “That doesn’t seem right, Paul.”

“Why not?”

Mason said, “Suppose you’re a guy’s girl friend. Every one of your friends knows that he’s going with you. Now all of a sudden, the fellow takes a run-out powder. Apparently he’s run away with a married woman. You don’t hear anything from him. Then out of a clear sky, he rings up and says, ‘Listen, sweetheart, don’t believe anything you hear about me. I’ve had a lapse of memory. I’ll be up to see you as soon as I can.’ Well, that just isn’t right.”

“You mean the girl friend would throw hysterics?”

“She’d probably raise hell. There would be tears and recriminations, and then she would wind up with the question, ‘Well, do you love me? Well, tell me you love me. Well, tell me this other woman was nothing in your life.’ You know, all that sort of stuff.”

“Could be, all right,” Drake said.

“Of course,” Mason went on, “I’m having troubles of my own, Paul, and I’m looking for loopholes everywhere.”

“What’s happening?”

Mason said, “My client tells me a story that’s probably okay. She swears it is. It’s a story that could stand up, if it had just the right props, but it’s a story that could fall down mighty easy.”

“Well?”

“Now this man, Fleetwood,” Mason said, “is in a spot. He pulled this amnesia business, and I managed to get him into the hands of the police before he’d had an opportunity to do too much thinking about it. Right now, he’s stuck with the murder of Bertrand Allred. He was the last man to see him alive, and he can’t deny that he killed him, because he doesn’t know anything at all that happened.

“Obviously, a man as shrewd as Fleetwood is not going to let himself be placed in that position without trying to do something about it. The only thing that he can do is to come out and admit that all this amnesia business was a stall, that he remembers everything.”

“The minute he does that, he’s put himself in a hell of a fix,” Drake said.

“I know that,” Mason said, “and that’s the thing that I’ve been counting on as a prop to help hold up Mrs. Allred’s story — but a great deal is going to depend on what he says when he starts telling the truth.”

Drake shook his head. “If he took Mrs. Allred’s car, then he was the last person to see her husband alive. If he gives a load of this amnesia business to the police, and through them to the newspaper boys, and finally weakens and says that he knew what was going on all the time, it doesn’t make such a hell of a lot of difference what his story is. I think his best move is to sit tight on the amnesia, regardless of how much it hurts.”

“It might be, at that,” Mason said, “and we don’t want him to do what’s good for him. We want him to do what’s good for my client. We’ll force his hand. I think that he’ll start telling the truth about the amnesia, and when he does he’ll tell a story that will have been carefully thought out.”

“It’ll have to be quite a story, Perry.”

“Well, he may be just the boy who can think one up. I’d like to force his hand, Paul. I’d like to make him tell his story before he’s ready to tell it. I want to make things so hot for him, he’ll start squirming and twisting.”

“How would you go about doing that?”

“I think the first place to start might be his girl friend.”

“Want to go out there first thing in the morning, and...”

“Why not go out there now?”

Drake made a little shrugging gesture with his shoulders.

Mason said, “What is it? An apartment house, Paul?”

“Uh huh.”

Mason said, “She’s had a phone call from Fleetwood. She’s awake. She’s probably curious. Let’s go out and have a talk with her.”

“Okay by me,” Drake said. “I just swigged about a gallon of coffee, and won’t be able to sleep tonight, anyway. I thought you’d probably have enough stuff to keep me going all night.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “We’ll drive out in your car. You have the address?”

“Right.”

“Let’s go.”

They left the office, entered Drake’s car, and Mason immediately settled back against the cushions, put his head on the back of the front seat and closed his eyes.

“Tired?” Drake asked.

“I’m just trying to think,” Mason told him. “This isn’t an ordinary case where you don’t know what happened or how it happened. This is a case where the District Attorney is going to have to prosecute one of two persons for murder. One or the other of those persons simply has to be guilty as the facts now stand. If my client is lying, she may be guilty. If she is, I’m simply going to represent her to the best of my ability and let it go at that, but if Fleetwood is guilty and he is trying to blame it on my client, I’m going to try and outwit him.”

It was some fifteen minutes later that Drake eased his car to a stop in front of an apartment house. “This is the place,” he said. “We’ll probably have to drive a couple of blocks in order to find a parking space. It’s pretty well cluttered up with automobiles.”

Mason said, “Looks like a place across the street there. That’s a fire plug.”

“How about it?”

“Sure,” Mason said, “provided you can park and still leave access to the plug in case there should be a fire.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Drake told him. “In case there’s a fire these boys get to the fire plug all right. It’s kind of tough on your automobile, but they get there. I saw one car that had been left locked in front of a fire plug. There was a fire and the fire department just chopped a hole in both sides of the car, put the hose right through and went to work. When the owner came back, he had a car with a tunnel chopped through it and tickets for overtime parking and tickets for parking in front of a fire plug.”

“Probably cured him,” Mason said. “Wait a minute, Paul. That man looks as though he’s going to get in a car and drive away. If he has a parking place... there he is, unlocking that Dodge. Hey, Paul, drive on past, fast!”

Mason dropped down, out of sight.

“What’s the matter?” Drake asked, speeding up.

“That fellow,” Mason said, “is George Jerome, Allred’s partner.”

“Want to try to tail him?” Drake asked.

“Hell, no,” Mason said. “It isn’t where he’s going that’s important. It’s where he’s been.”

“You mean he’s...”

“Sure,” Mason said. “He’s been calling on this girl friend of Fleetwood’s. What did you say her name was?”

“Bernice Archer.”

“Drive around the block,” Mason said, “then come on back. Perhaps we can get in the parking place that Jerome had.”

Drake said, “He’s a big brute, isn’t he?”

“Uh huh.”

“A powerful man like that could pick a fellow up and break him with his bare hands. I’d hate to get tangled with him in an alley on some dark night.”

“We may have an opportunity to do that very thing before we get done,” Mason said. “He’s mixing in this case altogether too much to suit me.”

“What does he want?”

“He says he wants to get Fleetwood’s testimony nicely sewed up in order to protect him in a lawsuit.”

Mason got back on the seat. Drake drove around the block, found that the parking place which had been vacated by Jerome’s car was still available, and skillfully parked his car.

The doors of the apartment house were closed and locked at this hour of the night, but there was an electric callboard and a buzzer system.

Drake ran his fingers down the directory until he came to the card of Bernice Archer, then pressed the button opposite it.

“Suppose she’ll use the speaking tube?” Drake asked. “If she does, what’ll we tell her?”

“She’ll probably buzz the door open,” Mason said. “She’ll think it’s Jerome coming back.”

They waited for a moment, then Drake pressed the button again.

The electric buzzer signified that the catch had been thrown back on the street door. Mason, who had been standing with his hand on the knob, pushed it open, said, “Okay, Paul, here we go.”

The small lobby was dimly lit, but they could see a corridor and an oblong of bright light which indicated the location of the automatic elevator.

“Jerome left the elevator for us,” Mason said.

They walked down the thinly carpeted corridor, entered the elevator, and Drake pressed the button.

The elevator rattled slowly upward.

“You do the talking,” Drake asked, “or do you want me to?”

“You start in,” Mason said. “Introduce yourself as a detective. Don’t say whether you’re police or private, unless she asks. Start asking her questions about Fleetwood, about when she heard from him last, and things of that sort. I’ll chip in if she gives me an opening. Don’t introduce me. She may think I’m another detective.”

The automatic elevator stopped. The door slowly opened. Drake, sizing up the numbers on the apartments, said, “Okay, Perry, it’s down here to the right.”

Drake knocked at the door.

The woman who opened it was about twenty-five, a blonde with clear blue eyes and skin which needed but little make-up. The silk robe did not conceal much of a strikingly good figure.

There was a wallbed in the room which had been let down. The covers were rumpled and the pillow showed that it had been in recent use. The door to the closet was open, showing several dresses on hangers.

Drake, assuming a hard-boiled voice, said, “I’m Paul Drake. You may have heard of me. I’m a detective.”

“May I see your credentials, please?” she asked very quietly.

Drake glanced dubiously at Perry Mason, then produced a billfold which he showed briefly, then snapped shut and started to return to his pocket.

“Just a moment,” she said, “please.” She calmly reached out for the billfold, studied the card, said, “Oh, I see. This is your license as a private detective.”

“That’s right.”

“And the gentleman with you?” she asked.

Mason grinned. “I’m Mason.”

“A detective?”

“No.”

“May I ask what you are, then?”

“A lawyer.”

“Oh,” she said, and then after a moment, “you’re Perry Mason?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you’re Mrs. Allred’s lawyer.”

Mason, beginning to enjoy the situation thoroughly, said, “That’s right.”

“Won’t you gentlemen please be seated?”

She indicated chairs for them, and went over herself to sit on the edge of the bed. The bottom part of the robe slid away from a smoothly stockinged leg. She was wearing street shoes.

“It is pretty late, isn’t it?”

Mason laughed. “Our business is rather special.”

“I suppose so.”

“And,” Mason said, “we knew that you had already been disturbed.”

“How, may I ask?”

“Bob Fleetwood called you.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You received his call?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“Simply that he had recovered his memory. I’m glad to hear it.”

“You knew then that he had lost his memory?”

“No.”

“But he told you over the phone that he had been suffering from amnesia?”

“That’s right.”

Drake said, “How long have you known Bob Fleetwood, Miss Archer?”

“About six months.”

“You’re quite friendly?”

“I like him.”

“He likes you?”

“I think so.”

“You heard that he had run away with a married woman?”

“I understood he had disappeared.”

“You heard that Mrs. Allred had gone with him?”

“No.”

“You read the papers?”

“Yes.”

“You read that police were interrogating Mrs. Allred?”

“I understood so.”

“You didn’t know that she was away with Bob Fleetwood?”

“I didn’t think so. No.”

“You knew that there was at least an intimation to that effect in the papers?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t believe he was with her?”

“No.”

“Do you believe it now?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to wait until I can talk with Bob.”

“When do you expect to see him?”

“As soon as I can see him. Whenever it will be permitted. I understand he’s being held as a material witness.”

“Did you know that Bertrand Allred had been murdered?”

“I heard it over the radio.”

“How much did Bob tell you when he telephoned you?”

“Merely that he was being detained, that he’d probably be detained for at least a day and that he’d had a spell of amnesia, that the police told him he had stayed with a man named Overbrook, but that he had recovered his memory and was feeling all right now.”

“You were glad to hear that?”

“Naturally.”

“It came as quite a surprise to you?”

“Not exactly. Bob has been subject to fits of amnesia before.”

“Oh, he has?”

“Yes.”

“You’d known about them?”

“He’d told me about them.”

“Some time before this fit came on?”

“Yes.”

Drake glanced at Mason and made a little shrugging gesture with his shoulders.

“You have an automobile?” Mason asked her abruptly.

She turned to regard Mason with the cautious appraisal of the fighter sizing up an adversary.

“Yes,” she said, at length.

“Had it long?”

“Around six months.”

Mason glanced at Drake.

Bernice Archer said, calmly, “I had it very shortly before I met Bob Fleetwood, if you’re intending to put two and two together on the six months’ period of time, Mr. Mason.”

“Not at all,” Mason said. “I just noticed the fact that you had mentioned the interval of six months on two occasions.”

“That’s right.”

Mason said abruptly, “Yesterday night, Monday, you took your automobile out, didn’t you?”

She looked at him for some twenty seconds. “Is it any of your business?”

“It might be.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“It depends on where you went.”

“I drove out to the apartment of a girl I know, picked her up and drove her out here. She spent the night with me.”

“Why did you do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you think you might need an alibi?”

“Don’t be silly! I wanted someone to talk to. So I got my friend and drove her over here. We talked until the small hours and then we went to sleep.”

Mason said, “Bob Fleetwood is being a little foolish.”

“Is he?”

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t think this amnesia business is really doing him any good.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean he could have thought up something better.”

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

“Amnesia has come to be pretty much of a racket. It happens quite frequently that when a person wants to escape the responsibility for something, he says his mind was a blank.”

“Have you talked with Bob?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you believe he really had amnesia?”

“No.”

“Then why should he pretend that he did?”

“It gets him out of rather an embarrassing situation.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Telling what he knows about what happened to Bertrand Allred.”

“He doesn’t know anything about that.”

“How do you know he doesn’t?”

“I’m certain he doesn’t.”

“What course in telepathy did you take?” Mason asked.

She said, “I don’t have to study telepathy to know what happened. Obviously Mrs. Allred killed her husband.”

“And what makes you so certain?”

“I’m not exactly stupid, Mr. Mason. When you come out here and tell me what you think Bob should do, I know you’re Mrs. Allred’s lawyer. Therefore, what you want Bob to do is what you think would be for the best interests of Mrs. Allred, not for the best interests of Bob Fleetwood.”

“Not necessarily. I try to protect my client’s interests, but I still think Bob should throw this amnesia business overboard. He’ll have to, sooner or later.”

“And you came here hoping you could sell me on that idea, so I, in turn, would sell Bob on it. Is that right?”

“Only in part.”

“My, my, what splendid consideration you show for a man who is almost a stranger to you, Mr. Mason. Running around at three o’clock in the morning, a high priced lawyer, getting me out of bed to tell me what Bob should do. It’s touching!”

“Have it your way,” Mason said.

“I intend to. And now let me tell you something.”

“What?”

“Get rid of Mrs. Allred as a client. Let some other lawyer handle her case.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t stand a chance, not a chance in the world.”

“You think she murdered her husband?”

“I know she murdered her husband!”

“There’s a motorist who can give her a perfect alibi. She hitchhiked a ride with him.”

“Before or after her husband died?”

“Before.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

She laughed. “Because she told you so. That’s the only way you have of knowing. And that’s not good enough. Mr. Mason, I wish I could tell you what I know, but I don’t think I should. I don’t think the police would want me to, but I can tell you this much: Don’t represent that woman. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to go to bed and get some sleep.”

Mason looked at the bed, and said, “You’ve already been to bed.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you always put on stockings and shoes when you answer the telephone?” Mason demanded.

She looked at Mason steadily without answering.

“You had another caller?”

“A caller, Mr. Mason?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mason, but I’m not accustomed to receiving people in my apartment at this hour.”

“How about George Jerome?” Mason asked.

She looked at him with eyes that were suddenly hard and narrow. “Are you having my apartment shadowed?” she asked.

Mason said, “Before I answer that question, tell me whether you have been talking with George Jerome.”

By way of answer, she walked over to the telephone, picked up the receiver, dialed Operator and said, “Get me police headquarters, please. This is an emergency.”

A moment later she said, “I want to talk with someone who is in charge of the investigation of the murder of Bertrand C. Allred.”

“Ask for Lieutenant Tragg,” Mason interposed. “He’s the one you want to talk with.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason,” she said, and then into the telephone, “I think the officer I want is Lieutenant Tragg.”

There was a moment of silence, then she said, “Hello, is this Lieutenant Tragg? I am Bernice Archer — that’s right, the girl that Bob Fleetwood telephoned to a little while ago. I think I am a witness in the case. I have some information which may be of importance. There’s a Mr. Mason, a lawyer, and a Mr. Drake, a detective — yes, that’s right, Perry Mason — yes, it’s Paul Drake — how’s that? Yes, they’re here in the apartment. Mr. Mason is very insistent that I should tell him what I know, and... thank you very much, Lieutenant, I just wanted to be sure. I thought that would be what you’d want me to do.”

She hung up the phone, turned to Mason with a smile and said, “Lieutenant Tragg says to say absolutely nothing to anyone until I’ve talked with him, that I’m to come to police headquarters at once, and if you try to stay on here or interfere that he’ll send an escort. And now, if you gentlemen will get out of here, I’ll dress.”

“Come on, Paul. Let’s go.”

“Mr. Mason, please do what I told you to. Please get rid of that woman as a client.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s guilty, and even you can’t get her off.”

Mason grinned. “You were sarcastic over my concern for Bob Fleetwood. You insisted on questioning my motives. Now I’ll turn the tables. Your concern over getting me to drop my client — for my own good, of course — is touching indeed. Do you suppose it could be that you’re trying to cut your boy friend a piece of cake?”

She walked across the apartment, to the door. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I won’t.”

She held the door open for them. “Good night,” she said sweetly.

They walked silently down the corridor. It wasn’t until they were in the elevator that Mason said, glumly, “There’s the brains of the outfit.”

“Are you telling me!” Drake said. “Gosh, Perry. Think of a woman with looks like that and brains thrown in.”

“Don’t make any mistake about her, she’s dynamite!” Mason admitted. “She knows that it has to be either her boy friend or Mrs. Allred, and she’s playing ball with her boy friend.

“Jerome called on her. Jerome is mixed in this thing in some way that isn’t apparent, as yet. All of these people are too damned anxious to get in touch with Fleetwood. Jerome undoubtedly posted her on everything the police know, to date.”

“Providing Jerome knows,” Drake said.

“I think he does,” Mason said. “Anyhow, Paul, here’s a job for you. Get hold of the telephone company, impress upon them how important it is. Get access to their records, look up and see if Bernice Archer’s number that you got was called sometime Monday from Springfield, or from some of the service stations along that mountain highway.”

“You think Fleetwood was in touch with her, Perry?”

“He must have been. Try the telephone company, inquire at the motel where they stayed. Cover the gasoline stations along that mountain highway. I’ll bet ten to one that the phone call Fleetwood put in from the jail wasn’t the first time he’d called her since he left. And if he’d called her before, I’ll bet she’s mixed up in this thing, right up to those delicately arched eyebrows of hers.”

Drake groaned. “I knew you’d leave me with one of those rush jobs that are such a headache.”

Mason grinned. “I try not to disappoint people. This will give you a preliminary warm up. A little later I expect to have a real job for you.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh. I want you to reconstruct Bernice Archer’s time from Saturday noon on. I want to know where she was every minute, what she was doing, and with whom she did it. Have you found out anything about Overbrook?”

“Just neighborhood reputation. He’s a good egg, slow spoken, honest and poor. He mortgaged his property a year or so ago when he made an unfortunate investment, but he’s a steady, hard worker and is getting the mortgage paid off. In the meantime, he won’t spend a nickel for anything except his dog. He will buy food for the dog. He’s tight as a shrunken collar. They say he hardly ever leaves the ranch and pinches every penny, even to the extent of buying stale bread.”

“Any chance he knew Fleetwood?”

“Not a chance in ten million, Perry.”

“Okay, Paul, keep plugging.”

“On Overbrook?”

“No. The picture on him seems complete. Start working on that phone call to Bernice Archer. I’m betting ten to one such a call was made.”

Drake opened his mouth in a great yawn. “I knew that sleep I had was just coincidental,” he said.