The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

Chapter 8

The lobby of the Keymont Hotel was a scene of activity. Newspaper reporters and photographers came in and snapped flashlight photographs, entered the elevator and rattled up to the upper floors.

A uniformed police officer sat behind the desk. By police orders, no unusual number of automobiles were permitted on the outside. From the street, the Keymont Hotel seemed to present the perfectly normal appearance of a second-rate hotel. It was that dead hour of the night which occurs well before the first streaks of daylight silhouette the city’s buildings against a pale skyline. It was too early for the morning traffic, too late for even the last of the revelers. A few venturesome cab drivers, cruising dispiritedly because there was nothing else to do, would occasionally crawl along the all but deserted street. The city-wise eyes of the drivers noticed an unusual bustle about the lobby of the hotel. There would be a brief slackening of pace, then the cab would cruise on. The Keymont Hotel was the Keymont Hotel — just one of those things.

The elaborate police trap had so far been unproductive. No one except police and newspapermen had entered the hotel. No one had tried to leave.

The night clerk, held in police custody, seated across the lobby from Mason and Paul Drake, glanced from time to time across at the lawyer and private detective. His face held no more expression than a good poker player shows when he picks up his hand.

Newspaper reporters, trying to interview Mason, received merely a shake of the head.

“Why not?” one of them asked.

“I’m co-operating with the police,” Mason said. “They want me to tell my story to them and to no one else.”

“That’s okay. We’ll get it from the police.”

“That’s the way to get it.”

“You talked with them already?”

“Some.”

“That isn’t the way they feel about it.”

“I can’t help how the police feel.”

“Suppose you tell us just what you’ve told them, and...”

Mason smiled, shook his head.

The newspaperman pointed his finger at Paul Drake.

“No comment,” Drake said.

“Hell, you’re co-operative.”

“I have to be,” Drake said.

The switchboard buzzed into noise.

The uniformed officer behind the desk plugged a line in, said, “Hello... Okay, Lieutenant.”

He pulled the line out of the plug, nodded to one of the plain-clothes men in the lobby and exchanged a few words of low-voiced conversation.

The plain-clothes man came over to where Mason and Drake were seated, said, “Okay, boys. The Lieutenant will see you now. This way.”

He led the way past the elevator to the stairs, up a flight of stairs, down a corridor, past a uniformed officer on guard, and opened the door to what was evidently the most pretentious suite of rooms in the house.

Lieutenant Tragg, smoking a cigar, lounged in a comfortable chair at the far end of the room. Slightly to one side, Sergeant Jaffrey was seated in an overstuffed chair smoking a cigarette. On the other side of Lieutenant Tragg, at a table on which a piano light shed illumination, a police shorthand reporter had his notebook in front of him and held a fountain pen poised over the pages.

Mason gave the book a quick glance as he entered the room, and noticed that perhaps twelve or fifteen pages had already been covered with shorthand notes.

“Come on in and sit down,” Tragg invited. “Sorry I had to keep you boys tied up, but that’s the way things are.”

Drake and Mason found chairs.

“Now then,” Tragg said, “let’s have the story.”

Mason said, “A client telephoned me and asked me to meet him in room 721. He told me to walk in without knocking. I went up to 721 and entered the room.”

“Anybody there?” Tragg asked.

“No one.”

Tragg said, “Shortly afterwards you telephoned Paul Drake. The switchboard records show that a call was put through from room 721 to Drake’s office.”

“That’s right.”

Tragg turned to Drake. “And what did you do, Drake?”

“I followed Mason’s instructions.”

Tragg said evenly and suavely, “Mason cuts a lot of corners, Paul. He’s very skillful, very adroit, and he knows every comma and semicolon in the law. He hasn’t been disbarred.

“He drags you along with him. You don’t know periods and semicolons in the law. You have a license as a private detective. You can lose that license pretty damned easy. Now then, let’s hear you talk.”

Drake glanced apprehensively at Mason, looking for some sign. Mason’s face was completely devoid of expression.

Sergeant Jaffrey said, “Now, I’m going to tell you guys something. This case is tied up with the killing of Bob Claremont. Bob was one nice boy. However, that’s neither here nor there. Bob Claremont was a cop. He was killed by a bunch of penny-ante slickers who thought they had the town sewed up, and Bob was on the trail of something big. You can’t tell me that he just got bumped off because he was going to pinch some guy for being a bookie. Now, you guys may think you draw a lot of water, but that isn’t going to cut any ice with me. I don’t give a damn who you are. I’ll take you down to headquarters and work you over if I have to. I want to hear some conversation out of you birds, and I want the answers to be the right answers.”

Lieutenant Tragg, with a warning motion to Jaffrey and a glance at the shorthand reporter, said hastily, “Understand, we aren’t making any threats, but we feel that you gentlemen owe us a voluntary statement. We want it to be truthful. We want it to be accurate. We want it to be complete. And I warn you that if you start holding out on us we are in a position to crack down on you. Now tell us what happened.”

Mason said, “A client telephoned me to come to that room.”

“Who was the client?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“What happened?”

“Someone came to the room.”

“The client?”

“Not the one who telephoned me, no.”

“And then what happened?”

“The person who was in the room left for a few minutes. I wanted Paul Drake to get on the job and shadow this woman. I telephoned him. That’s just about all I know.”

Sergeant Jaffrey got up out of his chair.

“Just a minute, Sergeant,” Tragg said hastily, and this time unmistakably motioned toward the shorthand reporter. “Let’s interview Paul Drake. He doesn’t have the professional immunity and privileges that a lawyer does, and I think under the circumstances he’s going to be more co-operative — a lot more co-operative.”

Lieutenant Tragg turned to Paul Drake. “All right, Drake, this is a murder case. We have every reason to believe that you have evidence dealing with the homicide. I’m not trying to pry into your private relationship with Perry Mason, but I want your story of everything that happened that can have any possible bearing on that homicide. Now get started.”

Drake coughed nervously, shifted his position.

“And we don’t want any run-around,” Sergeant Jaffrey said. “Not from you. This is a show-down. Whether you go on making a living out of running a detective agency, or whether you’re all done and buttoned up, is going to be determined within the next few minutes right here in this room, so start talking.”

“Perry,” Paul Drake said in an agonized voice, “I’ve got to tell what I know that’s evidence.”

Mason said absolutely nothing.

“And we don’t have all night,” Sergeant Jaffrey said.

“You kept us waiting more than an hour,” Mason reminded them.

“That’ll be all out of you,” Sergeant Jaffrey said. “We kept you waiting because we were getting some evidence, and don’t kid yourself we haven’t got it. We can check up on you boys. This is one chance we have to find out which side of the fence you’re on. Start talking, Drake.”

Drake said, “I was at home asleep. The telephone rang. Mason wanted me to find out who was in room 721 with him.”

“Man or woman?”

“A woman.”

“Did he mention a name?”

“If he did, I can’t remember. I was rather sleepy at the time. He said this woman had been in the room and had gone out and was going to come back. He wanted me to tail her and find out who she was.”

“All right, you’re doing better,” Jaffrey said, assuming an attitude that was slightly less belligerent. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

“I only had a few minutes in which to work,” Drake said. “I knew that I would have to have someone on the outside of the hotel and also someone who could put a finger on this woman when she came out of 721. I felt certain that it would be impossible to have one person do both jobs. She’d be suspicious of anyone she happened to meet in the corridor when she emerged from 721, doubly suspicious of anyone who might happen to ride down in the elevator with her at that hour in the morning.”

Tragg nodded.

Drake said, “It was an emergency. You may know how Perry Mason is when he’s working on a case. He wants everything, and he wants it fast. He’s an important client. Pie accounts for a good percentage of my business. I cater to him.”

“Never mind that. What did you do?” Tragg asked.

“I telephoned my office to find out if anyone was immediately available. No one was. I have a switchboard operator who seems to be very competent.”

“Her name?” Sergeant Jaffrey asked.

“Minerva Hamlin.”

“Go ahead.”

“I telephoned Minerva to close up the office temporarily, to look in the lockers where we keep occupational disguises, to take a maid’s cap and apron, put them in a suitcase, dash to the Keymont Hotel, register, and tell the clerk she had to have a room that was on the front of the hotel.”

“Why the front of the hotel?” Tragg asked.

“So she could signal me,” Drake said. “She was to put on the maid’s uniform and hang around in the corridor so she could see who came out of 721. When the girl started down in the elevator Minerva was to run to her room and signal me with a flashlight. I was parked in front with a car. At that hour of the night there wouldn’t be much chance of slipping up. If I knew when the woman was taking the elevator down, I’d be in a position to watch her as she crossed the lobby and follow her as she went out... I parked my car where I could see into the lobby and see the elevator. I had my outside rear-view mirror adjusted so that I could pick up a signal made with a flashlight from a front room.”

“Damn good work,” Jaffrey admitted grudgingly.

“What happened?” Tragg asked.

“I stopped by the office and picked up Minerva Hamlin. We made it up here in record time. I parked my car, adjusted the rear-view mirror so I could pick up any flashlight signals, sat and waited. Minerva went into the hotel, told the clerk she needed a front room, registered, and was shown to her room. Of course, she immediately put on the maid’s disguise and walked over to where she could see 721.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing happened,” Drake said, “until I saw Minerva herself emerging from the elevator. She seemed rather upset about something.”

“Go ahead,” Tragg said.

“She crossed the lobby and came out to report directly to me. That was something she shouldn’t have done. However, we’d been in pretty much of a hurry and we hadn’t had a chance to agree on signals that would cover unexpected developments. She thought I should know what had happened, and she had to tell me. There was no other way to relay the information.”

“All right, what had happened?”

Drake related Minerva’s actions up to the point were the girl she was shadowing went into room 815.

“Then what?” Tragg asked.

“Then Minerva waited awhile, realized that Mason would be getting nervous, that I might want to change my entire plan of operations, so she dashed down and across the lobby, and out to where I had parked my car.”

“What did you do?”

“I went up and reported to Perry Mason.”

“What did Minerva do?”

“She went back to the office,” Drake said.

“She didn’t shadow room 815?”

Drake shook his head. “Remember, I had parked my car where I could see the elevator. That meant the night clerk saw the whole business. When Minerva came running out to report to me he knew that I was waiting there to shadow somebody. I felt that Minerva’s usefulness was finished. She couldn’t drive the car and shadow the girl. That was in my department. I felt pretty certain the woman would stay in room 815, at least until I had time to get some instructions from Mason... In the meantime, we’d called a couple of operatives, who were presumably on their way to the office. I told Minerva to send them down and have them report to me as soon as they arrived... Now then, gentlemen, that’s my story.”

“That’s a hell of a story,” Jaffrey said.

“It’s the truth,” Drake told him hotly.

“Is it the whole truth?” Tragg asked.

“It’s the truth so far as it relates to room 815.”

“We’re interested in finding out something about this woman.”

“Of course, I never did see her,” Drake said.

Jaffrey got up from his chair, looked meaningly at Tragg and left the room.

Tragg said, “Well, when you joined Perry Mason in room 721 did you find anything that was significant?”

Drake glanced once more at Mason. There was an agonized question in his eyes.

Mason said suavely, “I assume that you have made a thorough search of the room, Lieutenant?”

“I’m asking questions of Paul Drake,” Tragg said.

Mason shrugged his shoulders. “Tell him anything that he wants to know, Paul. That is,” he added hastily, “anything that you found or discovered.”

“You mean anything that I found?” Drake asked.

Tragg nodded.

“That’s one thing,” Drake said, “but how about conversations? “

“We want all conversations,” Tragg said.

“No conversations,” Mason supplemented.

“I think we’re entitled to them,” Tragg said.

“Why?”

“We want to check on whether Drake is telling the truth.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully for a moment, then he said suddenly, “When I entered that room, Lieutenant, I noticed an imprint on the bed which looked as though someone had been sitting there. There was another imprint on the bed. It looked as though a gun had been put down on the bedspread.”

“I know,” Tragg said.

“And,” Mason said, watching him shrewdly, “I found something else. A tube of lipstick.”

“Where is it?”

Mason reached in his pocket, took out the lipstick and handed it over to Lieutenant Tragg.

“You’ve messed this all up now,” Tragg said, “so there aren’t any fingerprints on it.”

Mason said, “That certainly was careless of me.”

“Damned if it wasn’t!” Tragg flared angrily.

“Of course,” Mason went on, “if the Homicide Department had telephoned me and said, ‘Look here, Mason, we’re not ready to announce it right at the moment, but in about fifteen minutes there’ll be a murder committed in room 815, and the young woman who’s talking with you at the moment is going to room 815’ — then, of course, I would have taken steps to preserve fingerprints...”

“We don’t want any sarcasm,” Tragg said, “we want facts.”

“That’s what you’re getting.”

“What about the lipstick?” Tragg asked.

Mason, watching Tragg’s face for expression as a hawk might watch the entrance to a rabbit warren, said, “You’ll notice the end of that lipstick looks as though it had been rubbed across some relatively rough surface, rather than merely used to decorate some woman’s mouth.”

“And what do you deduce from that?”

Mason, his eyes gimlets of watchful inquiry, said, “I thought someone might have used the lipstick to write a message.”

“And what did you find?”

“We found a message,” Mason said.

“Where was the message?”

“It was on the underside of the table.”

“That was all?” Tragg asked.

“What do you mean, that was all?”

“You only found one message?”

Mason said, “I was trying merely to explain things to save Paul Drake embarrassment.”

“Don’t save anybody embarrassment,” Tragg said. “Did you find more than one message?”

Mason remained silent.

Tragg whirled to Drake. “Did you find more than one message?”

Drake glanced at Mason.

The lawyer nodded.

“Yes,” Drake said.

“Where was the other one?” Tragg asked.

“On the back of the mirror.”

“What were those messages?”

“I can’t remember them verbatim,” Drake said. “They’re still there.”

“Did you try to decipher them? The one on the underside of the table, did you feel that it was in code, and did you crack the code?”

“Sure,” Mason said. “It wasn’t much of a code. It related to the room’s telephone directory, volume three, page two-sixty-two, line fifteen of the left-hand column. That was the listing of Herbert Sidney Granton.”

The door of the room opened. Sergeant Jaffrey returned, nodded to Lieutenant Tragg.

“And the other message?” Tragg asked.

“On the back of the mirror,” Drake said. “We didn’t decipher it. We thought it might be the license number of an automobile. We were about to look it up when you gentlemen came in.”

“Now was there something that made you feel one of those messages was a decoy?” Tragg asked Paul Drake.

Drake said, “I think Mason and I had some discussion about the messages, and whether they were both — well, what — well, how they happened to be written.”

“What was the discussion?”

“Gosh, I can’t remember all of it.”

“Remember some of it then.”

“I’ll interpose a question,” Sergeant Jaffrey said. “Did Mason tell you the name of the client who telephoned him and told him to be there in that room?”

Drake shifted his position.

“I want an answer, yes or no,” Jaffrey said.

Drake hesitated, then said, “I believe he did.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t think I have to tell that,” Drake said.

Jaffrey glanced at Tragg. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t think I have to tell you.”

Tragg’s face held no expression, but there was a swift glitter of triumph on the face of Sergeant Jaffrey.

Abruptly Mason said, “Go ahead and tell him, Paul. Give him the names of the clients, tell him everything that happened in that room.”

Drake looked at him in surprise.

“Don’t you get it?” Mason said. “They’re trying to trap you so they can take your license away from you. They were outside of that door during all of our conversation, or else there was a bug in the room, and they have the whole damn thing. All they’re trying to do now is lay a trap so that they can get your license.”

Sergeant Jaffrey came up out of the chair with a bound. He walked over to Mason and grabbed hold of the lapels of his coat, jerking the lawyer up out of the chair. His beefy shoulders were packed with power. One big, hamlike hand locked itself in the folded layers of the lawyer’s coat and the other was drawn back for a punch.

Tragg came up out of his chair hastily. “Hold it, Sergeant, hold it,” he said sharply, and then added, “A shorthand reporter is taking down all of this conversation.” Then he went on smoothly, “The shorthand reporter, of course, is not trying to take down the motions of everyone in this room or describe what is happening every time anyone gets up out of a chair.”

He glanced quickly at the shorthand reporter to see that the man appreciated the hint he was dropping.

Slowly Sergeant Jaffrey released his grip on Mason’s coat.

Mason straightened out the lapels of his coat and said, “I think Sergeant Jaffrey lost his temper, Paul. You can see that lie grabbed me and messed up my coat and necktie and was on the point of hitting me when...”

“That’s merely Mr. Mason’s conclusion,” Jaffrey said smugly. “I did no such thing. I merely put my hand on his shoulder.”

Lieutenant Tragg said wearily, “I told you, Sergeant, that we’d do better if we interrogated these men separately. I think we’d better do it now.”

“All right, wise guy,” Sergeant Jaffrey said to Mason, “now go on back down to the lobby and wait.”

“And I take it,” Mason said, “that while Sergeant Jaffrey was gone from the room, he sent an officer up to Drake’s office to bring Minerva Hamlin up here.”

“Out, wise guy,” Jaffrey said, holding the door open, “and if you don’t get out fast this is once I really can ‘lay my hand on your shoulder’ and the shorthand record will show I was amply justified.”

“I’m leaving at once, Sergeant,” Mason said, smiling, “and I’d advise you to answer all questions about everything that took place in that room, Paul.”

With which Mason bowed himself out of the room.

He had barely crossed the threshold when the door slammed with such force that it threatened to dislodge the plaster.

The uniformed officer waiting outside the door said to Mason, “Back to the lobby, Mr. Mason.”