The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

Chapter 11

Mason said to Drake, “Go on up to your office, Paul. Talk with that girl of yours and find out if she’s really positive about her identification of that photograph.”

Drake paused with one foot on the running board of his car. “You think she’s made a wrong identification?”

“I’m damn near certain of it.”

“She’s pretty efficient, Perry.”

“Look at it this way,” Mason said. “That room was wired. There was a bug in it some place that we didn’t find. That means it was done cleverly and was a professional job.”

“Well?” Drake asked.

“Now, then, Morris Alburg wanted me to meet him in that room... Either Morris wired the room or he didn’t.”

“Well, let’s suppose he didn’t,” Drake said.

Mason shook his head. “Somehow that idea doesn’t appeal to me, Paul. The facts are against that supposition.”

“Why?”

“Morris wanted me to meet him in that room. He had something he wanted, some witness he wanted to interrogate, something that he wanted recorded. He wanted me to do the questioning. He was all hooked up for a big killing. Something happened to him.”

“Well?”

“Figure it out,” Mason told him. “Morris Alburg apparently is playing hand in glove with this Dixie Dayton. Now if that had been the real Dixie Dayton who was talking with me she would have been in touch with Morris Alburg and therefore would have known the room was wired.

“In that event she’d probably have told me, because I’m supposed to be playing ball with them, but even if she hadn’t, she never would have made the statement that Alburg was going to kill George Fayette.”

“That sounds logical,” Drake admitted.

“On the other hand,” Mason said, “if something had happened to the real Dixie Dayton, if Morris Alburg was being detained somewhere against his will, and this woman was sent to stall me along, knowing that I had never met Dixie Dayton, and if she knew that George Fayette had been killed, or was about to be killed, and wanted to lay a perfect trap for my clients, she’d have said exactly what this woman said.”

“Then you don’t think the woman was Dixie Dayton?”

Mason shook his head.

“Sounds reasonable,” Drake said. “I wish you could have got a look at that picture.”

Mason said, “I can’t help but feel that we’re playing for big stakes, Paul. Fayette was just a tool. When Fayette bungled the job of getting Dixie Dayton rounded up he didn’t do himself any good, and then when he made the mistake of coming to my office and trying to get information under the guise of being an insurance agent, and when he realized that the woman who had been trying to follow him the night before was my secretary, he put himself on a spot.

“In addition to that, the automobile that had been used in the kidnaping attempt was his own automobile, registered in his name. Someone had the license number. That made Fayette a cinch for police interrogation.”

“You mean members of his own mob killed him?”

Mason said, “I can’t picture Morris Alburg as getting in that hotel room and killing Fayette in cold blood.”

“You never know what these chaps will do when they get crowded into a corner,” Drake pointed out.

“I know,” Mason told him, “but let’s look at it this way, Paul. Suppose the thing was a beautiful trap. Suppose Alburg and Dixie Dayton were there in room 721 waiting for me, and suppose someone came in and got the drop on them and took them out of the hotel.”

“Sounds rather melodramatic,” Drake said. “I told you before, it sounds like the movies.”

“Well, there may have been more than one man,” Mason said. “There may have been a couple, and you don’t know that they walked across the lobby of the hotel.”

“That’s true, of course.”

“But,” Mason told him, “let’s look at it from the standpoint of a case in court. Suppose some phony is in that room with me and tells me that Morris Alburg, who is working with her in a common cause, is out killing George Fayette so that Fayette won’t kill him. She makes it sound rather reasonable. An attempted self-defense by first launching a counteroffensive.”

“Well?” Drake asked.

“And,” Mason said, “that conversation is recorded on acetate discs, and the police have those discs. Then your secretary and the hotel clerk identify the woman who was talking with me as Dixie Dayton. The corpse is found in her room. How much of a chance would that leave a defense attorney?”

Drake gave a low whistle. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. You’d have about the same chance as the proverbial snowball.”

“That’s exactly it,” Mason said. “Now, I don’t believe that woman was Dixie Dayton, and I sure don’t want to have your girl get off on the wrong track. Get up and talk with her, and then I’m coming up.”

“You’re not driving up with me?”

“You take your car and I’ll take mine. I’ve got places to go and things to do. I want to locate the person who put in that sound equipment. I want to find out how much stuff the police have, and how much they don’t have.”

“The police will beat you to it,” Drake said. “If that room was wired they’ll find out who...”

“They may and they may not,” Mason told him. “We’re working against time and so are the police. Get up to your office, Paul, and I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Drake nodded, jumped in his car and stepped on the starter.

Mason found his own car, drove down the street until he came to an all-night restaurant with a telephone booth, and stopped to call Morris Alburg’s restaurant.

Della Street answered the phone.

“You on the job, Della?”

“Just got here,” she said. “I have the cashier — it was a job getting her up out of bed and down here and...”

“You have the safe open?”

“Yes. She has no recollection of any detective agency, and Alburg didn’t keep a check register. But we’ve found a mass of check stubs, and we’re going through them, comparing them with names of the private detectives in the classified directory. It’s a terrific job. Where can I reach you if we strike pay dirt?”

“Sit right there until I get there,” Mason said, “unless, of course, you should get anything within the next few minutes. In that case call me at Paul Drake’s office. I’ll be there for a while, then I’ll join you within fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“All right. We’ll keep plugging, Chief, but it’s a terrific job. He paid for meats and groceries, paid help and personal bills, all from one checking account, and we have stacks of check stubs here.”

“Stay with it,” Mason said. “I’ll be there to help as soon as I can tie up some loose ends. Be good.”

“ ‘Bye now,” she said, and hung up.

Mason drove to his office building, swung his car into the all but vacant parking lot and rang the bell for the elevator.

The night janitor said, “Good morning, Mr. Mason. You’re certainly an early bird this morning.”

“Not early, late. Has Paul Drake gone up?”

“About five or ten minutes ago.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “Take me up.”

“You must be working on something big,” the janitor said hopefully.

“Could be,” Mason told him, signing the register in the elevator.

When the elevator came to a stop, Mason stopped at the door of the Drake Detective Agency, pushed open the door of the reception room and saw Paul Drake standing, with a rather puzzled expression, looking down at Minerva Hamlin, who was sitting rigidly, her mouth an angry straight line.

Drake looked up and said, “Hello, Perry. I’m not doing so good.”

“Is the purpose of your visit,” Minerva Hamlin asked acidly, “to influence me in my testimony? Am I supposed to commit perjury as part of the routine duties of this office?”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “Take it easy. No one wants you to commit perjury.”

“Well, Mr. Drake seems to challenge my identification.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, “let’s not get off on the wrong track. The identification of the woman who came out of room 721 may be a matter of the greatest importance.”

“I’m not entirely dumb, Mr. Mason. I think I understand that.”

Mason said, “That woman told me that she was Dixie Dayton.”

“Well, she certainly should know who she is.”

“But,” Mason went on, “there were reasons why it might have been to the advantage of certain people to run in a ringer.”

Minerva Hamlin sat in front of the switchboard, coldly erect and determinedly silent.

“Now, then,” Mason went on, “you did a very good job. You stepped in on an emergency in a marvelous manner, and...”

“You may spare the flattery, Mr. Mason.”

“I’m not flattering you. I’m telling you that you got on the job, and did a swell job, but the fact remains that you had to be masquerading as a maid in order to pick up the trail of the woman who came from room 721. You didn’t dare to do anything that would make you look too conspicuous. Your whole plan of operation was to try to look inconspicuous.”

“I will agree with you that far.”

“So,” Mason said, “you weren’t in a position to stare at the woman who came out of the room.”

“I didn’t have to stare.”

“You followed her down the corridor.”

“That’s right.”

“You must have had only a momentary glimpse of her face.”

“I saw her face.”

“But it was necessarily a momentary glimpse.”

“Mr. Mason, are you trying to make me out a fool or a liar, or both?”

“I’m simply pointing out certain obvious facts,” Mason said. “Therefore it’s difficult for you to make an identification of that face from a photograph. If you saw the person herself it might be different, but...”

“I am quite certain that the woman whose photograph I saw was the woman who left room 721. Moreover, she went directly to room 815 and took a key from her purse. You have heard the testimony of the night clerk, who is very positive that the woman is the one who rented room 815.”

“That’s just the point,” Mason said. “They had you in a position where they brought a lot of subtle influence to bear on you. They had the clerk identify the photograph as being that of the woman who rented room 815. Therefore it was only natural that you’d assume...”

“I am not that easily influenced, Mr. Mason. I think I am able to do my own thinking, and I think I am rather efficient in that thinking. May I say that I don’t like this attempt to make me change my testimony?”

“Good Lord,” Mason said with exasperation, “I’m not trying to make you change your testimony. I’m only trying to point out to you the importance of being certain, and the fact that it was exceedingly difficult for you to have had a good enough look at the face of that woman to make a positive identification.”

“I am quite capable of making my own decisions, Mr. Mason. I am a very determined person, Mr. Mason.”

“Damned if you aren’t!” Mason said, and turned on his heel. “Come on, Paul, we’re going places.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you when we get started.”

Drake said, “I have some long-distance calls coming in from the East...”

“Forget them.”

“I gather,” Minerva Hamlin said icily, “that you don’t care to tell me where Mr. Drake can be reached in case those calls come through.”

“I don’t know where he can be reached,” Mason said.

She turned back to the switchboard with an aggressive shrug of her shoulders.

Drake followed Mason out into the corridor.

“Good Lord, what a girl,” Mason said. “Where the hell did you get her, Paul?”

“Through an employment agent. She’s certainly efficient, Perry.”

“She thinks she’s efficient,” Mason said. “She’s a woman who wants to do her own thinking for herself, and then wants to do your thinking for you... Come on, Paul, we’re going down to Morris Alburg’s.”

“There won’t be anyone there this early in the morning.”

“Forget it,” Mason said. “Della Street is down there checking over the books. If Alburg was responsible for having room 721 wired I think we can find something. I’d like to beat the police to it for once in this case.”

“Of course,” Drake said, “so far you don’t have any positive evidence that the room was wired, and...”

“That’s the evidence I’m going after,” Mason said. “Come on, you can ride with me.”

“Why don’t you ride with me, Perry?”

“I can’t take that long. Come on, we’re going places.”

Drake groaned. “At least, Perry, have some decent regard for safety even if you don’t for the speed laws. At this hour of the morning traffic is beginning to pick up and — well, it’s dangerous.”

“I know,” Mason said. “Get in.”

Mason whipped his car out of the parking lot, swung it down the street and gathered speed. Paul Drake, rigidly bracing himself, glanced apprehensively at each intersection as Mason snaked the car through the early-morning traffic, and finally braked it to a stop in front of Alburg’s restaurant.

He banged on the door and Della Street opened it.

“Getting anywhere, Della?” he asked.

“We’ve just struck pay dirt, Chief,” she said. “A check for a hundred and twenty-five dollars was made a year and a half ago to an Arthur Leroy Fulda, who is listed as a private detec...”

“Know him?” Mason asked, turning to Paul Drake.

“Sure, I know him,” Drake said.

“What sort of a fellow is he?”

“All right. I think he’s on the square. He’s — Gosh, Perry, I bet that’s it, all right.”

“What is?”

“Fulda just recently put in a line of ultramodern sound equipment. He was telling me about it. Some of this latest automatic stuff, too.”

“Where does he live?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “His office is...”

“Where does he live?”

“I’ve checked the telephone directory,” Della Street said, “and he has an address on East Colter Avenue — 1325. I don’t know whether it’s an apartment house or...”

“East Colter,” Mason said musingly. “That probably will be a residence... Telephone his office, Della, just to make certain he isn’t there and — No, he won’t be. He’ll be at home if the police haven’t picked him up as a witness, and, of course, we have no way of knowing that until we can get out there. Come on, Paul, let’s go.”

“Do you want me to wait here?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head. “That’s the information we want. Close up the place, send the cashier home, turn out the lights, and forget about the whole thing, Della. Take the cashier out for a cup of coffee and some ham and eggs if she wants them. Get her to keep her mouth shut.”

“She’s a good girl. I think she will. She...”

“Okay,” Mason said, “we’re going out to round up Fulda. Thanks a lot, Della.”

“I hope he’s the one you want, Chief.”

“He has to be,” Mason said. “The whole thing checks in. Get the books back in the safe and close the place up, Della. The police may be around here before too very long. Come on, Paul, let’s go.”