The Case of the Phantom Fortune

Chapter 9

Thursday morning Mason entered theoffice and asked hopefully, "What do we hear from Gideon, Della?"

"Nothing."

"No letter, no telephone?"

"Nothing."

"Perhaps an anonymousletter?"

"No, not this morning."

Mason left his desk, walked over tothe window, looked down at traffic on the street below with frowningconcentration.

"Should we have heard?"Della asked.

"We should have heard,"Mason said. "I'm a little afraid that our friend Gideon has transferredhis attention to Mrs Horace Warren."

The lawyer started pacing the floor,said at length, "Its inconceivable that he would have the consummate nerveto go there, yet – Ring up Paul Drake and tell him to put two more men on thehouse," Mason said. "I want the license numbers of every automobilethat calls there and I want a description of every person who calls. Theoperatives will have to use binoculars and keep in the distance."

"Anything else?" Dellaasked.

"That's all," Mason said.And then added grimly, "At the moment."

By mid afternoon Mason was restive,pacing the office floor, frowning, reacting nervously every time the phonerang.

At three o'clock Mason's phone rang. Della said, "Yes?Hello?" then nodded to Perry Mason.

"Gideon?" Mason asked.

"Paul Drake," she said.

Mason picked up his telephone."Yes, Paul, what's new?"

"My face is red," Drakesaid.

Mason tilted back in his swivelchair, crossed his ankles on the desk, and seemed suddenly to lose all histension.

"Why, what's the matter,Paul?" he asked solicitously.

"That damned Gideon!" PaulDrake said. "I told you that these fellows get smart in stir. This guy hasbecome too smart for his britches."

"Meaning he was too smart foryou?" Mason asked.

"He was too smart for mymen," Drake said, "and then – Well, damn it, yes, Perry. He was toosmart for me."

"What happened?" Masonasked.

"The guy went down to aused-car lot. He looked over some used cars, then he purchased one and paidthree hundred dollars down."

"In cash?" Mason asked.

"Of course, in cash. Hell'sbells, it was out of the money you'd given him."

"Well, I'm glad to see he usedit to buy something useful," Mason said. "After all, a man needs anautomobile to run around in these days."

"Now, wait a minute,Perry," Paul Drake said. "This is pretty damned serious. It's abrand-new stunt as far as I'm concerned."

"Go on," Mason said."Or why don't you come down to the office and tell me about it? Della willmake you a cup of coffee and -"

"Because I don't want to faceyou," Drake said. "Also I'm sitting here in my office with fourtelephones working, trying my damnedest to get on his trail again."

"Well, what happened to thegovernment men?" Mason asked. "Weren't they on the job?"

"My God," Drake said,"there were three government smooth shadows on the job, one rough shadowand my two shadows. That made six shadows that were tailing that bird."

"And he walked away from all ofthem?"

"I'll say he did."

"What did he do?"

"Well, he got this automobile,made a down payment on it, signed the contract, and started out.

"Of course we felt that sincehe had that automobile it was going to be the old run-around, that he'd gothrough signals just as they were changing and all that stuff. My men felt thatway about it and apparently the government men did, too."

"How do you handle a situationof that sort?" Mason asked.

"With enough shadows, it's acinch," Drake said. "We had one shadow get ahead of him and one staybehind him. We had him bracketed. Then whenever we'd come to an intersectionwith a signal one of my men would go ahead and the other would stay behind. Andof course the rough shadow stayed behind. In that way if Gideon went through asignal just as it was changing, or took a chance on running a red light, theshadows could wait patiently behind because there were shadows ahead to pickhim up."

"What about the governmentmen?"

"They were playing it the sameway," Drake said. "My men spotted at least one of the government men,and that government man had spotted him, because he gave him the high sign."

"And Gideon got away from adeal of that sort?" Mason asked.

"I'll say he got away fromit."

"How?"

"He ditched the rough shadowand one of the smooth shadows," Drake said. "He seemed to feel he hadit made. He drove to th airport, parked the car with the motor running andtipped the attendant to let it stay there for five minutes."

"Go on," Mason said.

"Well, that was a cinch,"Drake said. "The remaining government men came up and made a kick aboutthe car being there in a place where there was supposed to be no parking. Theysquawked a little bit and insisted the attendant drive it away.

"While they were doing allthis, of course, they were putting an electric bug on the car so they couldfollow him without crowding him. With one of those electric bugs you can beseveral blocks away and still follow a guy."

"Go on," Mason said,"what happened? Did they follow him into the air terminal?"

"No, they didn't," Drakesaid, "because when a man has just paid three hundred dollars down on anautomobile you don't think he's going to walk away and leave it with the motorrunning."

Mason started to laugh.

"Go ahead and laugh, damnit!" Drake said irritably

"So you don't know where hewent?" Mason asked.

"Of course we know where hewent," Drake said. "We're not that dumb. We didn't follow him intothe air terminal but we went in and started milling around and we watched everyoutgoing plane that was scheduled to depart within the next thirtyminutes."

"Well," Mason said,"if he went in, he had to come out."

"He went out all right,"Drake said. "He walked right out the door, met another guy, identifiedhimself, and they walked twenty yards to a helicopter that was sitting therewith the motor running. They both got in and the helicopter took off and wewere left on the ground gawking."

"Couldn't follow him?"Mason asked.

"How the hell you going tofollow a helicopter out of a busy airport," Drake asked, "unless youhave another helicopter on the job?

"We did everything we could. Wegot the tower and told them to order the helicopter to come back. We gotanother helicopter warmed up, but of course Gideon expected all that. He hadthe helicopter go for about three minutes, then told the pilot to land him in avacant field by a boulevard where there was a good line of buses.

"The pilot did that and wasjust getting in the air coming back when he heard the tower calling him toreturn at once. Of course the tower felt that the helicopter pilot might havethe radio on the loudspeaker so that his passenger could hear everything thatwas being said, so the tower was very mysterious. They told him that because ofan emergency, and apparently because part of his gear was not in order, he wasto return at once and make a cautious landing.

"So the guy returned and -Well, that's all there is to it. The shadows are sitting on an empty car.Gideon's gone."

"What about the car?"Mason asked. "Don't they sign a contract that they have to keep uppayments and if they make false representations, don't they – "

"Oh, shucks," Drake said,"Gideon's too damned smart for that. Within twenty minutes after he'dgiven us the slip at the airport he called the used-car dealer, told him wherehe'd left the car, told him to get it and repossess it. He said that alterthinking things over he'd realized that he had no business buying the car inthe first place, that he wasn't going to have enough use for it, that somethingelse had come up and a friend had a car he could borrow. He told the startledused-car dealer that they'd just call the whole transaction off, that hewouldn't try to collect back any of his down payment because he realized it washis mistake, and all that stuff."

"And the car dealer fell forit?"

"Sure, he fell for it. Told himthat was very generous of him, said that if he sold the car within the nextcouple of days he'd be able to make some kind of refund on Gideon's downpayment, thanked him a lot and went out and got the car."

Mason's laugh died down to achuckle.

"I'm glad it amuses you,"Drake said stiffly.

"I remember," Mason said,"you told me not to let Gideon outsmart me, that those fellows got prettyslick after they'd been in prison and that I'd have to watch my step.Apparently you should have been taking some of your own advice."

"Oh, go to hell," Drakesaid irritably.

"Well," Mason said,"he's played right into our hands now."

"What do you mean?" Drakeasked.

Mason said, "As long as he hadshadows on his tail he had a perfect alibi."

"Alibi for what?" Drakeasked.

"For anything," Masonsaid. "He couldn't be accused of committing a crime because he'd simplycall the shadows to the stand, ask them where he was when the crime wascommitted and that would be that. I told you, once he'd lost his shadows he'dhave no alibi."

There was silence on the telephonewhile Drake was thinking that over. "So the five hundred dollars was goodbait."

Mason said, "I'm making nocomments, Paul, but from now on start keeping track of every unsolved crimecommitted in the city, that is, every major crime, particularly the murders andthe murder stick-ups where there are witnesses.

"Whenever you find one of thosecrimes, have one of your men take that police sketch, go to the eyewitnessesand ask them if that doesn't look like the man they saw at the scene of thecrime."

"And try to convince them thatit's the man they saw?"

"Oh, nothing like that,"Mason said. "Nothing crude, but just plant the idea in their minds thatsomeone, at least, thinks this man is suspect. Then if anything should happenwe could of course claim that we were acting in good faith, trying to solvecrimes of violence.

"You see, as far as I'mconcerned, Paul, here is a man with a criminal record who is at least short ofmoney. He might well turn to crime."

"Short of money, my eye,"Drake said. "The guy's smoking fifty-cent cigars and wearing atwo-hundred-and-fifty-dollar suit of clothes. That's what made the governmentmen so mad. The guy walked right into the best clothing store, big as life, andgot the best suit they had in the place."

"And the government men have noidea where he got the money?"

"Not the slightest. He musthave picked it out of thin air because they've been shadowing him from the timehe left prison."

Mason thought that over for a moment,then again chuckled. "Things are looking better every minute, Paul. Keepin touch with me."