The Case of the Postponed Murder

Chapter 2

Paul Drake, long and loose jointed, entered Mason’s private office with the familiarity born of years of intimate association, and said, “Hi, Perry. Hi, Della. How’s tricks?”

He crossed over to the client’s chair, swung around so he was seated crosswise in the seat, and let his legs hang over one of the arms. “Thanks for the case, Perry,” he said.

“What case?”

“The girl you sent me yesterday.”

“Oh, you mean Miss Farr?”

“Uh huh.”

“Any money in it?” Mason asked.

“Oh, so so. Enough to cover a preliminary investigation and report. I figured it shouldn’t take over three or four hours to locate the girl.”

“Find her?” Mason asked.

“No, but I found out a lot about her.”

Mason grinned and reached for the cigarette humidor. “Smoke, Paul?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” Drake said. “I’m chewing gum today.”

Mason turned to Della Street. “He has something on his mind, Della. When things are coasting along, he smokes cigarettes and sits in the chair like a civilized human being. When you see him tie himself up in knots like a snake with a stomach ache, you know he has something on his mind. And chewing gum is another infallible sign.”

Drake tore the cellophane end off a package of gum and fed three sticks into his mouth, one after another, rolled the wrappers into a tight ball, and tossed them into Mason’s wastebasket. “Perry,” he said, “I want to ask you a question.”

Mason flashed Della Street an obvious wink. “Here it comes, Della,” he said.

Drake said, “No kidding, Perry, you did call the turn on me.”

“I know I did,” Mason said. “What is it, Paul?”

“Why the devil did you interest yourself in that girl’s case?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t take it,” Drake said, “but from what she told me, you must have given her quite a bit of time.”

“Did she think so?” Mason asked.

“No,” Drake said. “She was sore. She thought you’d thrown her out on her ear. I explained to her that you were one of the highest-priced trial lawyers in the city and that darn few people ever got as far as your private office. That smoothed her down some.”

Mason said, “I darn near took her case at that, Paul.”

“That’s the way I figured it. Why?”

“Mason grinned and said, “You found the sister was in a fair-sized mess of trouble, didn’t you, Paul?”

The detective nodded, watching Mason warily.

“A fugitive from justice?” Mason asked.

“Nope,” Drake said. “Forgery.”

“I thought so,” Mason said.

Della Street looked at the lawyer curiously. Drake said, “Come on, Perry. Give me a break. How did you figure it?”

The lawyer’s eyes narrowed somewhat as they looked past the detective. “Darn it, Paul,” he said. “I wish I didn’t take such a keen interest in people and in mysteries. If there’d been just a little more mystery about that case, I’d have taken it and found myself donating five thousand dollars’ worth of work for a fifty dollar fee.”

“What was the mystery?” Drake asked.

“Did you locate Mae Farr?” Mason countered.

“No, we can’t find her.”

Mason made a gesture with his hand as though tossing something onto the big desk in front of him. “There,” he said, “is your answer.”

“What do you mean, Perry?”

Mason said, “Look at the setup. This girl comes to see us about her sister. Her sister has disappeared. She thinks her sister is in some sort of trouble, doesn’t know anything at all about what it might be, but is filled with vague forebodings.

“Notice the way she’s dressed — shoes that are the best on the market, a skirt and jacket smart in design but not new, a coat that apparently is new, of the cheapest sort of material cut along flashy lines with a fur collar and trim which looks as though it came direct from an alley cat.”

“Well,” Drake asked as Mason hesitated, “what’s the answer?”

Mason waved back the question with a quick gesture. “Her nails,” he said, “were manicured carefully. Her hair was slicked back. Her face had very little makeup on it. There was virtually no lipstick on her mouth, and then to clinch matters, her purse was full of money — and pawn tickets.”

Drake, nervously chewing away at his gum, looked across at Della Street, then back to Mason, and said, “I don’t get you, Perry. You’re leading up to something, but hanged if I know what.”

Mason said, “It’s a column of figures that doesn’t add up, that’s all. What does a country girl do when she goes to the city? Puts on her best clothes, tries to look her best. The country girls — the good looking ones — are the ones who try to look sophisticated. They’re the ones who go heavy on makeup when they’re calling on a lawyer. They’re particularly careful to have their hair done as soon as they get to the city.”

“She was worried,” Drake said. “She didn’t have time to go to a hairdresser.”

“She had had time to get her nails manicured,” Mason said, “and she’d been to a hairdresser. Her hair was pulled back to make her look as plain and unsophisticated as possible. A country girl would have economized on shoes, and put what she saved into getting a better coat, unless she was the type who liked that kind of a coat. In that event, she wouldn’t have ever had the shoes Miss Farr was wearing. The coat didn’t go with the clothes. The coat didn’t go with the shoes. The hair didn’t go with the nails. The face didn’t go with the story.”

Drake chewed away at the gum with nervous rapidity, then suddenly straightened in the chair. “Cripes, Perry, you don’t mean that she... that she was...”

“Sure, she was,” Mason said. “She was a fugitive from justice. She wanted a lawyer to pull some chestnuts out of the fire. She didn’t dare use her right name, so she posed as sister Sylvia.”

“I,” Drake announced slowly and impressively, “will be damned. I believe you’re right, Perry.”

“Of course I’m right,” Mason said, as though disposing of a matter which was entirely elementary. “That’s why I almost took her case. I wondered what kind of character she possessed, what sort of a scrape she was in, what mental quirk had given her the resourcefulness and ingenuity to think up that approach. Most girls would either have sought refuge in tears or hysterics or would have been hard boiled enough to brazen the whole thing out. She wasn’t particularly hard boiled. She looked as though she knew her way around. She was frightened, but she wasn’t giving way to tears. She was self reliant and, all in all, pretty resourceful. She’d hocked all her valuables, bought herself a flashy coat, had her hair done so that it made her look as plain as possible, but entirely overlooked her shoes and the fact that her nails were freshly manicured.”

Drake resumed his gum chewing. He slowly nodded. “Well,” he said, “she’s in a jam.”

“How much of a jam?” Mason asked.

“A forged cheque for eight hundred and fifty smackers for one thing,” Drake said.

“Who cashed the cheque, Paul?”

“Stylefirst Department Store.”

“Some cash and some credit?” Mason asked.

“Credit on a nine hundred and fifty dollar balance,” Drake said. “The department store received the cheque in the mail, put it through without paying very much attention to it, had it returned marked as a forgery, and got peeved about it. In the meantime, Mae Farr had evidently got wind of what had happened and skipped out.”

Mason pushed his chair away from the desk, got to his feet, and started walking the floor, his eyes staring in frowning concentration at the carpet as he walked. “Paul,” he flung over his shoulder, “I’m going to ask you a question. I hope the answer to the question is ‘no.’ I’m afraid it’s going to be ‘yes.’ Was that forged cheque signed by a man named Wentworth?”

“That’s right,” Drake said. “Penn Wentworth, and it was a lousy forgery.”

Mason whirled to stare steadily at the detective. “It was what?” he asked.

“A lousy forgery,” Drake repeated.

Mason once more made that characteristic tossing gesture with his right hand. “There you are, Paul,” he said. “Another figure in the column which throws the account out of balance. That girl wouldn’t have committed a poor forgery. Notice her hands and fingers — long, slender, tapering, artistic, swift and sure about everything they did.

“When she was in here, she was nervous as the devil, but she opened her purse, took out a fresh pack of cigarettes, tore off a corner of the package, took out a cigarette and put it in her mouth, all with smooth, swift grace. That girl can play a piano, can probably paint, and would never, never be guilty of committing a crude forgery.”

“Well, she’s done it this time,” Drake said. “I saw the cheque. It was payable to Mae Farr in an amount of eight hundred and fifty dollars and was endorsed on the back, ‘Pay to the order of Stylefirst Department Store, Mae Farr.’”

“How about her signature on the endorsement?” Mason asked.

“What about it?”

“Did it look all right?”

Drake raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Why the devil wouldn’t it look all right?” he asked. “Cripes, Perry, no one is going to forge an eight hundred and fifty dollar cheque just to show a department store a good time.”

“What,” Mason asked, “does Wentworth say?”

“Apparently, Wentworth is very much concerned,” Drake said. “Now, here’s a funny thing. When that charge account was originally opened, Wentworth guaranteed it.”

“So he’d be stuck on the account anyway?” Mason asked.

“Yep.”

“Then the forgery wouldn’t have actually injured him,” Mason said. “He was obligated to pay anyway.”

“No,” Drake said, “if the girl had paid, he wouldn’t have had to. His okay was as a guarantor.”

“And he’s burnt up about the forgery?”

“I’ll say. Says that the girl is a base ingrate and that he’s going to put her behind bars regardless of what comes of it.”

Perry Mason heaved a deep sigh. “Paul,” he said, “the whole business is screwy.”

Drake glanced across at Della Street. “How’s he doing, Della?” he asked. “He’s got me interested now. But what about Perry?”

Della smiled. “He’s been interested all along,” she said, “only he hasn’t admitted it to himself until just now.”

Mason said, “By gosh, Della, I think you’re right.” He turned to Drake and said, “Okay, Paul, tell her I’ll handle her case. When she comes in, tell her this forgery is a serious business and we should do something to protect her sister. Don’t let on that you know the sister business is a stall. I want to spring that on her after she figures she’s got away with something — when it’ll come out of a clear sky.”

“Okay, Perry,” Drake said.

“And one more thing,” Mason went on. “How about a photostatic copy of that forged cheque? Do you think you could get me one?”

“Nothing to it,” Drake said. “The bank had it photographed. Whenever they turn down payment of a cheque on the ground that it’s forged, they protect themselves by having photostatic copies made. I managed to get one.”

“Okay, Paul. Wire the Motor Vehicle Department for a photostatic copy of Mae Farr’s driving licence. That’ll have her signature, among other things. When you get her signature, I’m going to send the photostatic copy of the cheque and her signature over to a handwriting expert.”

“But, my gosh, Perry,” Drake protested, “you don’t need a handwriting expert to tell that cheque is a forgery. It’s a tracing, and you can see it’s a tracing. All the little tremors of the hand which are characteristic of that type of forgery show up plain as day.”

Mason said, “I don’t want to get an opinion on Wentworth’s signature. I want an opinion on the signature of Mae Farr on the endorsement.”

The detective’s forehead knitted into a perplexed frown.

“Get the picture?” Mason asked. “A department store has a bill of nine hundred odd dollars against a Mae Farr with a Penn Wentworth as guarantor. They get a cheque, apparently drawn by Wentworth, payable to Mae Farr, and endorsed over to the department store. They shoot it through in the ordinary course of business. The cheque is a forgery. It comes back to the department store on the first bounce. They notify Wentworth, and Wentworth goes straight up in the air. Naturally, everyone supposes Mae Farr forged the cheque because apparently she’s the one who stands to profit by the forgery.”

“Well?” Drake asked. “You can’t get away from that reasoning.”

Mason grinned. “Suppose,” he observed, “that Mae Farr’s signature is also a forgery.”

“I don’t get you,” Drake said.

Mason’s grin broadened. “Think it over for a while, Paul. The situation has possibilities.”

Mason nodded to Della Street. “Take a letter, Della,” he said.

She whipped a shorthand book from the desk drawer and held a fountain pen poised in readiness.

Mason dictated, “To Mr. Penn Wentworth. Drake will give you his address. ‘Dear Sir: Miss Sylvia Farr of North Mesa, California, has retained me to locate her sister, Mae Farr, who formerly lived at the Pixley Court Apartments in this city, and to act as her legal representative in any difficulties in which she may be involved.’ Paragraph. ‘From information contained in some of Mae Farr’s letters to her sister, it occurs to me that you may be in a position to give me some information as to the present whereabouts of the party in question. In the event you should, by any chance, be in direct communication with her, please assure her that her sister has made all necessary arrangements for this office to represent her to the extent of its ability.’ Paragraph. ‘Thanking you in advance for any information you may be able to give, I am very truly yours.’”

As Mason finished dictating, he glanced across at Paul Drake. “Unless I miss my guess,” he said, “that letter will get us plenty of action.”