The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink

Chapter 3

It was around nine-thirty when Perry Mason unlocked the hail door to his private office, and found Della Street arranging piles of freshly opened mail on his desk.

“Hi, Della, what’s new?” Mason asked, crossing over to the hat closet and placing his hat on the shelf.

“Morris Alburg telephoned.”

“What did he want?”

“An insurance agent wanted to see the waitress.”

“You mean Dixie?”

“That’s right. He represents the company that carried insurance on the car that hit Dixie as she ran out of the alley.”

“Fast work,” Mason said. “Too fast.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“They want to rush through a settlement, getting proper releases, and... No, they don’t either.”

“It would certainly look like it.”

Mason paused, standing by the corner of his desk. He ran the tips of his fingers over his clean-shaven jaw, frowned down at the papers on the desk without seeming to see them, and said, “That’s a new one.”

“I don’t get it. I thought insurance companies always did that.”

“They used to,” Mason said. “Some of them still do, but for the most part insurance companies are pretty ethical now. If there’s a claim against them they want to see that a reasonable and fair compensation is paid.

“But here’s a case where a girl runs out of the back door of a restaurant and into an alley, dashes right in front of an oncoming car, which, of course, hit her.”

Della Street said, “I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Simply this,” Mason said. “The driver of the car that hit her couldn’t have been negligent unless there’s something we don’t know anything about. He was driving his car along the road, apparently going at a reasonable rate of speed. He was probably intent on making the traffic signal at the corner, but he had the right to expect that everyone on the street would be using it in a safe and prudent manner. All of a sudden this girl darts out from the curb, running in blind terror, and jumps right in front of him.”

“Perhaps he had been drinking.”

“The records indicate that he stopped his car almost at once. There’s nothing to show that he had been drinking, yet within a few hours here comes a man from the insurance company wanting a settlement... What did Morris Alburg tell him?”

“Told him to come up and see you, that you were taking care of everything pertaining to Dixie Dayton’s affairs.”

Mason laughed and said, “I’ll bet that answer gave the fellow something to think of.”

“You don’t think he’ll come up here?”

Mason laughed and said, “I hardly think he wants to deal with an attorney. He— Wait a minute, Della. There’s just a chance that this is simply an attempt to find out where the girl is. That man may be simply— Did he give Morris Alburg a name?”

Della Street nodded. “George Fayette.”

“How long ago did Morris call?”

“A little after nine.”

The phone on Della Street’s desk gave a jingle. Della Street picked up the receiver, said, “Yes, hello, Gertie... Who is it?... Just a moment.”

She cupped her hand over the transmitter and said to Mason, “He’s here.”

“Who?”

“George Fayette.”

Mason grinned. “Go on out and bring him in, Della. Let’s not let him have a change of heart and get away. I want to see what he looks like, and I want to ask him a few questions.”

Della said into the telephone, “I’ll be right out, Gertie,” and hung up.

Mason settled himself in the chair behind his desk, and Della Street walked out to the reception room to escort George Fayette into Mason’s private office.

A moment later she was back, alone.

“What happened?” Mason asked sharply. “Did he leave?”

Della Street carefully closed the door, said, “Chief, it’s the same one.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man I was trying to follow last night, the man who sat alone at the table...”

“You mean he’s out there now, supposed to be representing an insurance company that carried insurance on the car that hit Dixie Dayton?”

“That’s right.”

Mason grabbed the telephone. “Get the Drake Detective Agency on the line right away, Gertie. Get Paul Drake if you can. Tell Mr. Fayette I’ll see him in just a minute. Don’t let him hear you. Tell him I’m on a long-distance call.”

Mason looked at his wrist watch. “Telephoning may be a waste of time, Della. Paul’s office is just down the corridor. Perhaps you’d better go and...”

“Wait a minute... Gertie says Paul’s on the line.”

Mason said, “Hello, Paul, Perry Mason.”

“Well, well, well, how are you...”

“Hold it, Paul, this is a rush job.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a man in my office. He has given his name as George Fayette. I don’t know whether that’s his real name or not. I doubt very much if it is. I want that man shadowed. I want to know who he is, I want to know where he goes, I want to know what he does.”

“Okay, how much time do I have?”

Mason said, “I’ll stall him along as much as possible, but I have an idea that five or ten minutes is all I can count on. Now, Paul, he’s about thirty-five years old, he’s about five feet seven inches tall, but he must weigh pretty close to a hundred and eighty-five. He’s dark and has bushy eyebrows — and he may fool you. He’ll seem to be completely engrossed in his own affairs, and yet he’ll be wary as the devil.”

“I know the type,” Drake said. “We’ll handle him.”

“I’m very much interested in getting the license number of his automobile,” Mason said, “and finding out who he is, all of that stuff.”

“Okay. You think I’ll have ten minutes?”

“Better figure on five,” Mason said. “I feel quite certain I can hold him here for ten minutes, but he may not like the looks of the thing, figure on stalling, and start out.”

Drake said, “I’ll have a man waiting to ride down in the elevator with him. Be sure I have at least five minutes, Perry.”

Mason hung up, said to Della Street, “Now, Della, go out and stall him for a minute. Smile sweetly at him, tell him that I’m talking long distance on a call that just came in from the East; that you’ll let him know as soon as I’ve finished. Then go over to Gertie’s desk and tell her to wait until you cough. When she hears you cough she can say that I’m finished with my call. Get it?”

“Uh-huh. When do I cough?”

“When he begins to get restless. Hold him as long as you can. We want time. If you see he’s getting nervous, cough.”

“I’m on my way,” she said, and glided out through the door to the outer office.

The door had hardly closed before Della Street jerked it open once more.

“Chief, he’s gone!”

“What? When?”

“Gertie says the minute she started to put through your call to Paul Drake’s office, he got up, smiled reassuringly at her, said, ‘Be back in a second,’ and stepped out in the corridor. He...”

Mason jumped up so violently that his desk swivel chair was hurled back against the wall. He rounded the desk, jerked open the door of his private office, said, “Come on, Della. Tell Paul! Let’s go!”

Mason sprinted to the turn in the corridor, looked down toward the elevator. There was no one in sight.

He dashed to the elevator and frantically jabbed at the bell button.

Della Street, running on tiptoes behind him, detoured into the office of the Drake Detective Agency.

A red light flickered on and off, then glowed steadily. A cage came to a stop. Mason jumped in, said to the elevator operator, “Run it all the way down to the ground floor, buddy. Don’t stop. It’s important. Let’s go.”

The elevator operator threw the control over, and the cage dropped rapidly.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Want to catch a guy,” Mason said.

The cage came to a smooth stop. The door slid open. An angry elevator starter said, “What’s the idea, Jim? You...”

“I’ll take the responsibility,” Mason said, and dashed across the lobby to the street.

He looked up and down the street, saw no immediate trace of the man he wanted but recognized that the crowded sidewalk offered a perfect opportunity for anyone to mingle with the pedestrians and vanish.

Mason moved to the curb, looked down the street to see if a taxicab had recently pulled away from the curb, spotted one at the corner waiting for a stop light, and ran down halfway to the corner before the signal changed and the cab glided away.

Back at the entrance of the building, Mason saw Paul Drake, Della Street and one of Drake’s operatives standing by the door.

“No dice,” Mason said. “Not here. Let’s cover parking lots. Della, you know him. Take Drake’s operative and cover the parking lot down the street. Paul and I will take the one across the street. If you see him, stop him.”

“How?” Della Street asked.

“Stop him,” Mason said to Drake’s operative. “I don’t give a damn what you do. Pretend he ran over your toe, hit you, or anything else; just stop him. Claim he smashed a fender on your car. Demand to see a driver’s license.”

“Get rough if I have to?”

“Hell, yes,” Mason said. “Come on, Paul.”

Paul Drake and Mason ran out from the curb, threaded their way through traffic, regardless of the angry protest of horns, and crossed over to the parking lot across the street.

“If he came in his own car,” Mason said, “we’ll catch him one place or the other. Watch here, and get everyone who’s coming out, Paul. I’ll signal Della.”

Mason moved over to the curb, waved a signal, then said, “Come on, Paul, let’s take a look through and be sure he isn’t just sitting in a car.”

Five minutes later Mason acknowledged defeat. He walked back across the street to where Della and the operative from Drake’s office were waiting, and said, “Well, I guess we’re licked. I still don’t see how he could have got down and vanished into thin air, but in that time...”

“The taxicab?” Drake asked.

“I think it was empty. I don’t think he could have made it, Paul. I had my elevator operator shoot all the way down without stops. I sprinted out to the curb. Remember, if this man had been ahead of me... Oh, well, let’s go talk to the elevator operators and see if they know anything.”

They entered the building.

One by one they checked the elevator operators as they brought their cages down. The fourth and last operator listened to their story, said, “My gosh, Mr. Mason, I remember him perfectly. He didn’t go down, he went up.”

“Up?” Mason said.

The operator nodded. “I remember there was both a down and an up signal on your floor, because just as I picked him up the cage going down stopped and the door slid back, but there was no one waiting to go down. What he’d done was to press both the up button and the down button... Of course, sometimes fellows will do that when they want to go up. They’ll mechanically press the down button and then remember and change it to the up button, and...”

“Not this guy,” Mason said. “He knew he was hot. He wanted to get away fast. He pressed both buttons and took the first cage that stopped. He wanted to get off that floor. Paul, there’s a damned good chance he’s still in the building.”

“How was he dressed?” Drake asked.

Della Street said, “He had on a dark, double-breasted suit, a red and blue necktie, white shirt.”

“A hat?”

“He had a black hat last night, and— Yes, I’m quite certain there was a black hat on the chair beside him.”

Mason said to Drake, “Go on upstairs, Paul. Put one of your girls at my switchboard. Gertie saw him. Get her down here. He may have gone up a few floors, got off and just waited around, figuring he’d outwait us. We know now that he couldn’t have been ahead of us. I’ll go ask the girl at the cigar stand.”

Drake said, “A couple of minutes more and I’ll have another operative here. Let’s check at the cigar stand, Perry.”

The girl who was running the cigar stand and magazine rack flashed them a smile. “What was all the rush?” she asked.

Mason said, “Trying to find someone. I wonder if you might have noticed him.”

She shook her head and said, “Not unless he’s a regular tenant. People stream past here all day, and...”

“This man must either be in the building, or must have come out very shortly after I left,” Mason said. “He may, or may not be wearing a black felt hat, a dark, double-breasted suit, blue and red necktie, about thirty-five years old, five feet seven inches tall, weighs about a hundred and eighty-five. His most noticeable feature is a pair of bushy eyebrows.”

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed.

“What’s the matter?”

“Why, he got off the elevator just after your secretary and Paul Drake and the other man reached the street.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“He didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all. He was just sauntering out of the building when he abruptly veered over here to the counter and started looking at a magazine.”

Mason exchanged glances with Paul Drake, said, “You see what happened, Paul? He saw Della Street standing out at the curb so he swung over and buried his face in a magazine.”

“Then he bought a cigar,” the girl said, “and when you and Mr. Drake ran across the street he went out of the door and turned to the right... I guess the only reason I noticed him was because I was so interested in seeing you dash across the lobby, and then your secretary and Mr. Drake and this other man came running out. Naturally, I wondered what was happening. He...”

“Come on, Paul,” Mason said. “Della, Paul and I will grab the first taxi and go up the street. You take the next one that comes along, go to the corner and turn right. We’ll keep circling around the blocks, watching pedestrians and seeing if we can pick him up.”

“What is this?” Drake asked. “A murder?”

“Not yet,” Mason said grimly.

“What’ll we do if we find him?” Drake’s operative asked.

“Tail him,” Mason said. “Don’t try to stop him now. But one way or another, find out who he is.”

Mason went to the curb, and by luck found a cruising cab almost immediately. He and Drake jumped in and went four blocks up the street, then turned right a block and came back down on a parallel street.

“Like hunting for a needle in a haystack,” Paul Drake said.

Mason nodded, but with his eyes intent on the sidewalk, studying the pedestrians, said, “Go slow. After you get down to the next street, turn right and then go five blocks on the cross street, then turn and start threading back and forth along the cross streets. Just keep moving.”

“Are you the law?” the driver asked.

Mason said, “Don’t worry about who I am. Just watch your driving and keep your eye on the meter.”

“No rough stuff,” the driver said.

“No rough stuff,” Mason promised. “Just keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel.”

They cruised slowly up and down the various streets until finally at a corner they picked up the cab in which Della Street and Paul Drake’s operative were also cruising.

“Blow your horn,” Mason said. “Get the attention of the people in the other cab... That’s right.”

Mason flashed a signal to Della Street when she looked up at the sound of the horn.

She slowly shook her head.

Mason gestured back toward the office, turned and settled back against the cushions. “That’s it, Paul,” he said. “We give the guy the benefit of the first trick — actually, the first two tricks.”

“Who is he?” Drake asked.

“That’s what I was hiring you to find out.”

Drake asked, “Am I hired?”

“You’re damned right you’re hired,” Mason told him. “How strong do you want me to go?”

“Shoot the works. I’m tired of having some cheap crook make a monkey of me.”

“He may not be cheap.”

“Perhaps, but I’ll give you ten to one he’s a crook. Della will give you all the information we have. You take it from there.”