The Case of the Shapely Shadow

Chapter Two

It was quarter past twelve when Della Street returned to the office.

“Everything okay?” Mason asked.

She circled her thumb and forefinger, indicating that everything was all right.

“You got the suitcase in the box?” Mason asked.

“And mailed the key.”

“The suitcase went in there and was locked up?”

“That’s right,” she said. “And I took occasion to do a little snooping, just to be sure. I told her I wanted to see the envelope so that in case I had to report to you I could report everything was all right. So then she suggested that I be the one to mail the envelope and I took her up on it.”

“The envelope was sealed?”

“Sealed, stamped, and addressed to A. B. Vidal, General Delivery. Why, Chief? Why are you so suspicious of her?”

“I’m not exactly suspicious of her,” Mason said, “I’m distrustful of the whole set of circumstances.”

“Why?”

“To begin with,” Mason said, “why should this mysterious blackmailer go to all the trouble of cutting these words out of newspapers? That must have taken quite some time and quite a bit of newspaper reading.”

“But,” Della Street said, “in that way they can’t trace him through his handwriting or typewriting.”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “So then he goes ahead and addresses an envelope to Morley Theilman on a type-writer and puts his return address on it, A. B. Vidal, General Delivery. Typewriting is as distinctive as handwriting. If our blackmailer was going to take chances with a typewriter on the envelope, why didn’t he go all the way and type the message?”

Della Street said, “I’ll bet he went into a typewriter store and asked to look at a used machine and then, while apparently testing it, addressed the envelope.”

“Then why didn’t he go all the way and type the message on that machine as well?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Neither do I,” Mason said.

Della Street frowned, then said, “Isn’t it axiomatic that crooks always manage to do something that traps them?”

“Statistics seem to so indicate,” Mason said dryly, “but it’s unusual for a man to go out of his way to trap himself. You know, he could have cut Theilman’s name and address out of a telephone directory and pasted it on the envelope. Let’s see if Paul Drake’s in his office, Della. I just want to check on a couple of aspects of this problem.”

Della Street regarded him curiously for a moment, then placed the call to the Drake Detective Agency, which was on the same floor of the building where Mason had his offices.

“He’s just leaving for lunch,” Della Street said.

“Ask” him to come down, will you, Della?”

Della Street relayed the request and a moment later walked over to open the corridor door in response to Drake’s code knock.

Paul Drake, tall, slow-moving, with long arms and legs, grinned at Mason, turned to Della Street, said, “Hi, Beautiful,” then turned back to the lawyer. “Whatever it is, Perry, I hope it doesn’t interfere with my lunch.”

“It probably won’t,” Mason said. “How about staking an operative out at the post office?”

“Where at the post office?”

“At the General Delivery window. I want to get a line on a person who picks up a letter addressed to A. B. Vidal, General Delivery.”

“Can it wait until after lunch?” Drake asked.

“It can, but I don’t think it should,” Mason said. “Here’s the telephone. Get an operative on the job.”

“Well,” Drake said, “I was thinking of saving you a little money.”

“How come?”

“I’ve worked with the postal inspectors a couple of times,” Drake said, “and I think they’d do me a favor. They could save you the cost of one operative. You see, you can’t cover a place absolutely with one operative. A man can stand on his feet and lounge around only so long, and operatives, being human beings, have to powder their noses and report occasionally on the telephone.

“Now, if it’s all right for us to take a postal inspector into our confidence, I know I can fix it up so that I could just have one man waiting outside the building where he wouldn’t attract attention and the minute anyone showed up at a window and asked for mail addressed to A. B. Vidal, he would be stalled until my man could get a signal and be on the job.”

Mason nodded. “How long would it take a letter mailed in a post office box at the Union Depot to get delivered to General Delivery, Paul?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Drake said, “but I’d guess it wouldn’t take very long.”

Mason said, “Go to lunch, then drive down to the post office, contact your friend the postal inspector, tell him that I’m working on something that I don’t fully understand. It may tie in with a postal crime and it may not. I just don’t know. We want to find out about A. B. Vidal.”

“That’s a cinch,” Drake said. “Tell you what I’ll do, Perry. I’ll get my man on the phone and he’ll spot the letter as it comes in. He’ll call my office the minute the letter comes in and then I’ll have an operative down there and we’ll pick up Vidal. Now, after we get him, what do you want done with him?”

“I want to find out who he is, where he goes, what he does, and everything you can about him — whether he’s driving his own car or a rented car; whether he’s using a taxi and, above all, I want to find out where I can put my finger on him in case I want him.”

“Can do,” Drake said. “It’ll take a couple of men to do a job like that.”

“Use a couple of men, then,” Mason said. “And telephone your friend the inspector.”

Drake looked at his watch, said, “As a matter of fact he doesn’t go to lunch until one o’clock. I’ll give him a ring right now, take him out to lunch and get his co-operation.”

“Remember,” Mason said, “I want to check that envelope before it’s delivered. Be sure you don’t eat so much lunch that the letter is put in the General Delivery, Vidal comes and gets it and goes out, and—”

“Leave it to me,” Drake said. “After I’ve talked with my friend for five minutes, he’ll ring up the post office and put a stop order on the delivery. Regardless of when it comes in, it won’t get delivered until my men get on the job... There’s one thing, though, Perry. He’ll want to know the minute we find we’re working on something involving a violation of the postal laws.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “we’ll go that far with him — that is, I think we will. You can tell him that the minute you know there’s been a violation of the postal laws, you’ll let him know.”

“Meaning that you may not tell me?” Drake asked.

“Meaning you can promise him that much,” Mason said, “and no more.”

Drake stretched, yawned, said, “Okay. On my way, Perry. Forget about it. Everything will be okay. Tomorrow morning we’ll give you all the answers.”