The Case of the Long-Legged Models

Chapter Thirteen

Shortly after two-thirty Della Street entered Mason’s private office and said apprehensively, “Junior is out there.”

“Garvin?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

“He wants to see me?”

“He wants to see you very much indeed,” Della Street said.

“How is his disposition?”

“His disposition as indicated by his manner is very, very bad. He has chips on both shoulders. He wants to fight.”

“Then you’d better send him in right away,” Mason told her.

“Chief, let me have Paul Drake come down, or send a bodyguard, or...?”

Mason shook his head.

“Young Garvin is big and tough and strong,” she said. “You know what it would do to the case if there was a knock-down-drag-out fist fight right here in your office.”

“Send him in,” Mason said. “I think he’ll listen to reason.”

“He doesn’t act as though he would.”

“Send him in anyway,” Mason said, “and we’ll get it over with. If he sees Paul Drake here, he’ll know that I sent for him to act as bodyguard, and then he’ll feel that I’m afraid of him. That wouldn’t be good. Let’s have it out man to man and straight from the shoulder right now. I’ll see if I can clear up some things in Junior’s mind.”

“Well, here goes,” Della Street said, “but I don’t like it.”

A moment later the door literally burst open and young Garvin came striding into the office.

“What the hell are you trying to do, Mason?” he shouted.

Mason said, “Sit down, Junior, take a load off your feet, and off your mind. Suppose you tell me what’s the reason for all this outburst.”

“I want to know what the hell you’re trying to do dragging my wife’s good name through all this muck and mire.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was dragging your wife’s good name through the muck and mire.”

“Well, everybody else is aware of it, even if you’re not.”

“Precisely what did I do?” Mason asked.

“You have made her the number one suspect in the killing of George Casselman.”

“How?”

“By getting me to take that gun up to Stephanie Falkner. Damn it, Mason, I don’t intend to stand for that. I’m going to hold you strictly responsible both as an attorney and as a man. You’re going to account to me legally and unless you can give me some satisfactory explanation, I’m going to bust you in the puss before I get out of here.”

Mason regarded the younger man with steely-eyed scorn. “So you think it would do some good to bust me in the puss, as you express it?”

“It would give me the greatest personal satisfaction,” Garvin told him.

“It might also get you a broken jaw,” Mason said. “The point is, however, would it do your wife any good? Would it do your case any good? You let the newspapers get the idea that you’re having trouble with me over this thing and you’ll really make a story of it.”

“They’ve made a story out of it anyway.”

“No, they haven’t,” Mason said. “They won’t dare to publish the full implications with the full sensational embroidery unless you give them a peg on which they can hang a lot of innuendos. Now either sit down and tell me calmly what this is all about, or else get the hell out of the office and let me try to figure the thing out.”

Garvin took a couple of steps toward Mason’s desk, paused uncertainly before the look in the lawyer’s eyes, detoured a little to the side, and propped one hip against a corner of the big desk.

“Dawn worked in Las Vegas,” he said angrily. “Casselman knew her and...”

“Now I take it Dawn is your wife?” Mason asked.

“Yes, Dawn Joyce. Casselman knew her and Casselman was always on the prowl. A girl in that kind of work gets hungry for real friendships. The tourists come and go. The transients make passes at her, and that’s all they’re thinking about.

“Casselman was a local man. He was friendly, and... well, Dawn liked him.”

“They had dates?” Mason asked.

“Apparently so.”

“Did she know he was here in town?” Mason asked.

“She knew he was here. After the write up in the paper — well, Casselman called her, just a social call, just a matter of wishing her every happiness in the world.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Mason said.

“The hell of it is,” Garvin said, “in the apartment where Casselman lived police found a notebook by the telephone with some numbers in it. He’d written down Dawn’s telephone number, and she’d written down his unlisted number. It was on a pad by her phone.”

“Anything else?” Mason asked tonelessly.

“Tuesday night, when Casselman was killed,” Garvin said, “I had to go out to interview a car dealer about taking twenty used cars off his hands. He was stuck with them and he knew it. He wanted to get his money out of the old cars so he could put it into new merchandise. It looked like a good opportunity for me to make a appointment with him.”

“You had an appointment with him?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“Don’t bother about that,” Garvin said angrily. “I can prove where I was every minute of the time.”

“Carry a gun with you?” Mason asked.

“I did not. I left it in the desk drawer.”

“I see. And where was your wife?”

“Where any wife would be at that time. She was home waiting for me, and she was just a little bit angry because I broke in on a honeymoon to go out and close a business deal.”

“She was there when you got back?”

“Of course she was.”

“And what time did you get back?”

“About nine-thirty or ten. I can’t remember just what time. It was along in the latter part of the evening.”

“And all this time your gun was in the drawer of the desk at your office?”

“During my conference it was. I got it after the conference and took it home.”

“And your wife doesn’t even have a key to the office?” Mason asked.

Garvin hesitated.

“Well,” Mason asked, “does she or doesn’t she?”

“The unfortunate part of it was she did have a key. But she didn’t use it. I... hang it, Mason! I tell you she was home.”

“All right, she was home,” Mason said.

“But the point is, she can’t prove it. She was home alone because I was out on this damned used car deal. She’s got no way of proving that she was home.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Mason said. “If anybody wants to prove anything on her, let them prove that she wasn’t home.”

“Well, there’s one unfortunate thing,” Garvin said.

“What?”

“I tried to call her on the telephone and apparently I dialed the wrong number. She didn’t answer, and...”

“You don’t need to tell anybody about that,” Mason said.

“It was in connection with this business deal. I talked with this fellow and I wanted to get some data about some of my accounts receivable. It was in a little notebook that I thought I had with me, but I’d left it on the dresser.”

“And you telephoned your wife?”

“That’s right.”

“And got no answer?”

Garvin nodded, then added, “I apparently dialed the wrong number.”

“You gave up after the one call?” Mason asked.

“No, I called her twice.”

“No answer either time?”

“No answer.”

“How far apart were the calls?”

“Five or ten minutes. But I tell you, Mason, I’d only moved in to this new apartment about two weeks ago, and I had evidently transposed a couple of the figures in my mind. I dialed the wrong number. I must have, because she was there. And I mean she really was there. She isn’t the sort of girl who would lie to you. That’s one thing about Dawn, she’ll hand it to you straight from the shoulder.”

“The man with whom you were transacting the business knew you’d put through the calls?” Mason asked.

“Yes, that’s the devil of it. He has no way of knowing that I dialed the wrong number. Even I wasn’t aware of it at the time.”

“But you did put through the calls and received no answer?”

“Yes.”

“And as far as the man who was on the other side of the desk was concerned, you were dialing the right number and got no answer?”

“Yes.”

“And because you were expecting your wife would be home, you probably made some remark to him about it being strange there was no answer?”

“I guess I did.”

“What time did you put these calls through?”

“Around nine o’clock, I guess.”

“What time did you leave your home?”

“I never got a chance to get around there during the evening, Mason. I was demonstrating a car and then we had a sales meeting, and then this deal came up on the block of used cars, and I dashed down to get to this used car dealer before someone else beat me to it. I stopped for a hamburger on the way, and that’s all I had to eat.

“I really didn’t have any dinner, just that sandwich. I was intending to get back earlier than I did and take Dawn out for a good dinner some place.”

“You got back along in the latter part of the evening?”

“That’s right.”

“And had only had this sandwich?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ask your wife to go out?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“She was angry because I hadn’t been home for dinner, because I’d gone out to make a business deal so soon after we’d been married. We had a little argument.”

“That’s all you have to tell me?” Mason asked.

“That’s all, except this boneheaded stunt of yours of shooting a bullet hole in my desk and... And now the officers claim that gun was the murder gun. It’s absolutely impossible! It’s utterly ridiculous! But if they keep messing around with it, they’re going to drag Dawn’s name into the newspapers.”

“Not unless you do something that drags it in,” Mason said. “The officers think that I had the murder gun in my possession, that I went out to see you, got you to produce your gun and fired your gun into the desk. Then I supposedly switched weapons on you in the confusion, so that the gun I gave you was the murder weapon, and I slipped the gun that was in your desk drawer in my pocket.”

Garvin’s face showed his surprise. “You say the officers think that?”

Mason nodded.

“But why?” Garvin said. “They’re trying to sell me on the idea that my wife went down to the office, got the gun... They’ve insinuated that Casselman was trying to blackmail her, and— How do you know what the officers are thinking?”

“Because,” Mason said, “they’ve just been here and virtually threatened me with arrest for concealing evidence and a few other things.”

Garvin slowly straightened away from the desk. “By George!” he said, “I never thought of that, but you could have done it. I thought I smelled a rat. You’re not so dumb as to let a gun go off accidentally.”

“Therefore,” Mason said, “if I had the murder weapon in my possession, if I went out there and got you to produce your gun from your desk drawer and then if I fired your gun into the desk, I certainly made a sufficient commotion so that in the confusion I could have substituted the murder gun in place of your gun.”

“You sure could at that,” Garvin said.

“Now then,” Mason said, “which gun was it that I fired? The gun that you took out of the desk, or the murder gun that I had with me?”

“You discharged my gun, the one that I took out of the desk,” Garvin said unhesitatingly.

“You’re certain of that?”

“Absolutely certain. I remember every move you made. I remember producing the gun and handing it to you. You took it in your right hand and swung it up and down two or three times getting the balance of it, and about the third time you tried it you fired it right into the desk.”

“The gun that you handed me?”

“The gun that I handed you,” Garvin said. “But you certainly could have switched guns afterwards, because everyone was dashing in to the office. I remember you holding the gun in your hand, and then you— Good heavens, Mason! That’s what you did!”

“The police seem to think so.”

A grin spread over Garvin’s features. “Now that puts a different aspect on the whole business. How are they going to make any trouble for Dawn if you had an opportunity to switch weapons? All right, Mason, they say all’s fair in love and war. As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to play along with the police on the theory they have.”

“Well,” Mason said, “why the deuce do you think I gave you the tip in the first place?”

Garvin thought things over. Suddenly he moved over toward the lawyer, and shot out his hand. “Shake hands, Mason,” he said. “You’re... You’re a gentleman! Wait till I get hold of Dawn and tell her about this!”

Garvin started for the door, closed his hand around the knob, then suddenly turned back to face the lawyer.

“Any time you want a good deal on a sports car, Mason, I’ll make you a very extra special price on that X-60 job you were interested in.”

“Thanks,” Mason said, “but I wasn’t interested in it.”

“Well, I’ll make you a mighty good price on it anyway.”

“Just a moment,” Mason said. “Can you tell me everyone who has keys to your office?”

Garvin seemed surprised. “The janitor of course, my wife, my secretary.”

“Your dad?”

“Oh sure. I have a key to his office, and he has a key to mine. We don’t ever use them but we have them.”

“I was just checking,” Mason said.

“You don’t want to sign an order for that sports job?”

Mason smiled and shook his head.

“Let me know when you change your mind.”

Garvin whipped the door open, and walked out into the corridor.

Mason returned to his desk.

Della Street said with admiration in her voice, “That was some exhibition of salesmanship, Mr. Perry Mason!”

Mason might not have heard her. “Get down to Paul Drake’s office, Della. Ask him to get men on the job in Las Vegas and find out everything we can find out about Dawn Joyce.”