The Case of the Long-Legged Models

Chapter Six

Stephanie Falkner opened the door, said, “Hello, Mr. Mason. Hello, Miss Street... Homer!”

Garvin said, “I tagged along, Stephanie.”

She gave him both of her hands. “Congratulations! Have you seen her?”

“Not yet,” Garvin said. “I’m just back from Las Vegas and I’ve been busy.”

“You’ll love her, Homer. I was in Las Vegas when she was a hostess and prop bathing girl at one of the pools. She’s a darling... Come on in! I’ll rustle up some chairs. I was just getting ready to call it a day.”

She ushered them into the simple apartment, said, “Can I buy you folks a drink?”

“No, thanks,” Garvin said. “We’re here on business.”

“Oh.” Her face fell.

Garvin said, “I’m going to give it to you straight from the shoulder, Stephanie. It’s about your father. I’m going to put it right on the line.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’ve been in Las Vegas, checking some angles I have up there. I have some sources of information.”

“Go on.”

He said, “I haven’t anything that I can go to the authorities with as yet, but George Casselman was the man who killed your father.”

“I see,” she said, her face suddenly wooden, and she added, “I wish I’d known that a little earlier this evening.”

“All right,” Garvin said, “let’s put it on a business basis. I picked up stock in that motel corporation to help you when I thought you were going to be one of the family.

“It isn’t efficient for that little motel to continue to operate as it’s now operating. The property has become too valuable. Taxes are too high. Yet you can’t do anything with that property as it is. There’s no chance of getting the property on the north, and the property on the south is controlled by this syndicate that wants to get the motel property in order to put up a reasonably big building which can pay off. It’s time for you to sell out.”

“Yes,” she said, “I think it’s time for me to sell out and pull up my roots here.”

Garvin said, “I think Casselman is a chiseler. I doubt if he actually represents the syndicate. I think he’s an independent operator, but of course the syndicate would be glad to do business with him if he had the property.

“It’s my plan to go direct to the syndicate and find out what their best offer is. In order to do that I want to be in a position to close out the deal. Now then tell me, what do you actually want for your stock?”

“I was offered thirty thousand dollars by Casselman,” she said. “I’ll take it if I can’t do better, but I don’t think that’s enough.”

“What would you take and be satisfied?”

“Anything over thirty thousand.”

“All right,” Garvin said, “give me a ten-day option to sell your stock at eighty thousand dollars, and if I can get anything above that, we’ll split the profits. You take half and I take half. I’ll put my stock in at the same time, at the same price ratio, and we’ll make a deal with the syndicate. We’ll split anything above that figure fifty-fifty.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “Only you can’t get eighty thousand for my stock.”

“You have a typewriter here, Stephanie?”

She nodded.

“Then, let’s draw up a document. Mason, you can dictate it and we’ll sign it right now.”

“I can do it at my office in the morning,” Mason said.

“I’d like to get the thing cleaned up tonight.”

“All right,” Mason told him and motioned to Della Street.

Stephanie Falkner found stationery and carbon paper. Della Street sat at the typewriter and typed as Mason dictated a short form of agreement.

When he had finished, she ratcheted the paper out of the typewriter, handed one copy to Mason, one to Stephanie Falkner, one to Garvin.

“Okay?” Garvin asked Stephanie after he had read it.

“Okay,” she said.

“Let’s sign.”

They signed the agreement.

“Well,” Mason said, “I guess that covers everything we can do tonight. You’ll be in touch with me in the morning, Homer?”

“Probably,” Garvin said.

“And how about you, Miss Falkner? I can reach you here?”

“If anything turns up, yes.”

Garvin hesitated.

Della Street flashed Mason a glance, said, “Well, I’m a working girl. I should be getting home.”

“I’ll drive you home,” Mason said.

Garvin hesitated a moment, then said to Stephanie Falkner, “Now I’ll take that drink, Stephanie.”

Stephanie Falkner saw them to the door, stood watching them down the corridor, then, as they entered the elevator, closed the door gently.

“Now,” Mason said, “why should she keep insisting Casselman only offered her thirty thousand dollars for forty per cent of the stock when he offered me that same amount for fifteen per cent of the stock, and offered to buy it all at the same rate?”

“Any ideas?” Della Street asked.

“No,” Mason said, “but I’m certain that if it hadn’t been for that phone call he was going to make me a firm offer of eighty thousand for her stock and thirty thousand for Garvin’s stock.”

“Then the phone call caused him to change his mind?”

“Something did,” Mason said.

“Someone who saw him?”

“No one entered the apartment house except... Oh well, let’s let things wait until tomorrow. We may know a lot more when we see Garvin again.”