The Case of the Shapely Shadow

Chapter Five

Perry Mason, consulting the address he had copied from the phone book, turned into Dillington Drive, a winding road which followed the contour of the hill and looked out over a lazy, haze-filled valley.

The lawyer drove slowly and stopped at number 631, a modern house of flat roof, glass sliding panels, and sloping lawn. His watch showed the time to be eleven-ten.

Mason climbed a gentle incline on broad cement steppingstones and pressed a button.

Chimes sounded in the interior of the house. A few moments later a door opened and a strikingly beautiful woman in her late twenties stood looking up at the lawyer with clear blue eyes.

“Mrs. Theilman?” Mason asked.

“Yes,” she said guardedly.

“I’m Perry Mason, an attorney,” the lawyer said. “I would like to talk with you — about your husband.”

“Come in,” she invited.

Mason entered a room which was mellow with subdued sunlight filtering through pearl-gray drapes. There was wall-to-wall oyster-shell-colored carpeting on the floor. The chairs were deep and comfortable. The whole room, while tastefully decorated, gave the impression that it had been designed for living, rather than to conform to any particular style of interior decoration.

“Won’t you be seated, Mr. Mason?”

Mason thanked her, seated himself, and said, “Mrs. Theilman, I’m sorry that I can’t put all of my cards on the table at this time. I understand, however, that you are anxious to get information concerning your husband, and I am just as anxious as you are.

“I am representing an undisclosed client. I am satisfied that I am not representing any interests that are adverse to you. Otherwise I would not be here. As far as I know, there is no reason why you can’t talk frankly with me and, to the best of my knowledge at the present time, I think it would be to your interest to do so.”

“Did my husband consult you?” she asked.

Mason said, “Frankly, he did not, Mrs. Theilman, although I have the feeling that my interest in the matter may be connected with what is best for him.

“Now I’m going to tell you very frankly the reason I am here. You have reported to the police that your husband has disappeared. You have apparently reported to the police that you felt your husband was being blackmailed by an individual named A. B. Vidal. The police have questioned me because of an interest I had shown in Mr. Vidal sometime earlier. I gave the police all the information I was able to give them.”

“You’re not representing Mr. Vidal, are you?”

“No, I’ve never seen Vidal in my life as far as I know, and from all the information I have at the present time I consider his interests are adverse to those of your husband.”

“I think,” she said cautiously, “I’d want to know a little more about your connection with the case and just what your interest is, Mr. Mason.”

Mason said, “I can tell you this much. I had reason to believe A. B. Vidal might be trying to blackmail your husband. My secretary put the key to locker FO82 at the Union Depot in an envelope and mailed it to A. B. Vidal, General Delivery. That was shortly before noon yesterday.

“I hired a private detective agency to keep watch on the post office and when A. B. Vidal called for the envelope with the key in it I wanted him shadowed. I wanted to find out who he was; I wanted to get the license number of the car he was driving; I wanted to get his general appearance and find out where he went.”

Her face showed sudden interest. “Were you able to do this?”

“I was not,” Mason said, “for the simple reason that Vidal was too smart to be caught in that kind of a trap. The whole business of mailing the key to him at General Delivery was simply a decoy. He had evidently prepared a duplicate key to the locker and so was able to remove what was in the locker without calling for the envelope. He then deposited a quarter in the slot, removed the duplicate key and left the locker locked and empty.”

“You’ve told that to the police?”

“Yes.”

“If your secretary mailed the key to Mr. Vidal, then she must have been the one who opened the locker and put the package, or whatever it was, in the locker in the first place.”

“That doesn’t necessarily follow,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t want to deceive you and I wouldn’t want you to deceive yourself. All I can say is that my secretary did put the key in an envelope and mailed it to Vidal at General Delivery.”

“You aren’t my husband’s lawyer?”

“As far as I know,” Mason said, “I have never met your husband.”

“Then if you aren’t connected with Vidal and you aren’t connected with my husband, how did you get into the case?”

“I didn’t say that I wasn’t connected with your husband, Mrs. Theilman. Actually I am not retained by him directly, but I do feel that my client has your husband’s best interests at heart.”

“Can’t you explain more than that?”

Mason shook his head and said, “I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Theilman said, “The person using the name A. B. Vidal is, in my opinion, using that name as an alias.”

“You think he is a blackmailer?”

“I know it.”

“Can you tell me how you know it?”

Mrs. Theilman thought things over for a few moments.

“I can assure you,” Mason went on, “that if I had any interests which I felt were adverse to yours, or if my client did, I would not be here. If I wanted to get any information from you under those circumstances, I would have asked you to give me the name of an attorney who was representing you and with whom I could deal.

“At the present time I am here simply in the capacity of one who seeks information from a witness. I am trying only to get factual information.”

“All right,” she said, “I’ll give you factual information, Mr. Mason. I’ll give it to you in the same way that you have given the factual information to me. I will tell you what I have told the police. I will not put all my cards on the table until you are in a position to put all your cards on the table.”

“All right,” Mason said, “can you tell me what you told the police?”

“My husband came home from the office yesterday afternoon about two o’clock. He seemed very much concerned. He said that he had to go to Bakersfield. He wanted to change his clothes and asked me to get out another suit for him. I did, and he put on the fresh suit.

“As is my habit, I went through the pockets of the suit he had taken off, which I was going to send out to be cleaned and pressed. I wanted to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten anything.”

“This was after he’d put on the other suit?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“And he’d taken the things out of the pockets of the other suit himself?”

“Yes, he always does. I wasn’t transferring things from his pockets. I wasn’t even in the room while he was changing. I came in and picked up the discarded suit which he had tossed on a chair and simply went through the pockets to make sure he had left nothing. Quite frequently he leaves a knife or some keys or coins, or something of that sort. I guess all men do that. They have so many pockets and — well, when they’re in a hurry...”

“I understand,” Mason said, smiling. “I’ve been guilty quite a few times myself.”

“Well,” she said, “there was a letter in the inside breast pocket of the coat. When I took it out I couldn’t help but see what it was. It was a letter that had been composed of words cut from a newspaper, or newspapers, and pasted together so that it made a message.”

“Do you remember the message?” Mason asked.

“I can recite it verbatim,” she said. “It was, get money. instructions on telephone. failure will be fatal.”

“You didn’t make any copy?”

“No. I simply remembered it.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“There was an envelope in the pocket,” she said. “It evidently was the envelope the letter had come in. It was just an ordinary stamped envelope with my husband’s name and address typewritten on it, and up in the upper left-hand corner the return address was A. B. Vidal, General Delivery.”

“So what did you do?” Mason asked.

She said, “My husband was in the bathroom, shaving with an electric razor. He had left his coat, that is, the coat of the fresh suit that he was going to wear, on a hanger. I took the letter and the envelope and slipped them into the inside breast pocket and quietly left the room.

“Since he had said nothing to me about this, I felt that it might be embarrassing if I asked him for an explanation and— Well, Mr. Mason, I’m one of those wives who doesn’t believe in asking for explanations or in embarrassing a husband. I feel that if my husband has anything he wants to tell me, he will tell me. If he doesn’t tell me, it is because he either doesn’t want to worry me or because he doesn’t want me to know.”

“This letter, however, caused you some concern?” Mason asked.

“The letter, plus the fact that for some time I have had a feeling my husband had something on his mind, something that was worrying him.”

“Do you know anything about your husband’s financial affairs?”

“Very little. We sign joint income tax returns, but I simply sign my name on the dotted line without even bothering to look at the amount of the tax.”

“You aren’t in the habit of discussing financial affairs with your husband?”

“My husband,” she said, “gives me a very generous allowance. That’s all I ask and all I want. I run the house from that, and from time to time my husband makes me presents of a new car or things of that sort. I buy my clothes from my allowance.”

“It is ample?” Mason asked.

“Quite ample,” she said, smiling.

Mason swept his eye up and down and said smilingly, “It seems to be very ample indeed, and spent with superb taste.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“And then your husband left for Bakersfield?” Mason asked.

“I assume that he did. He got in his car and drove away and he was in quite a hurry.”

“Now,” Mason said, “you’re to the north of Los Angeles. About how long does it take your husband to get from the house to his office?”

“Around half an hour. Of course he tries to avoid the congested traffic whenever possible. He is an early riser and he tries to get to the office before the daily morning traffic jam and he tries to get back early in the afternoon. When he can’t do it, he telephones and says that he won’t be home until late. He then waits until after six o’clock in the evening before he starts. He doesn’t like traffic jams.”

“I see,” Mason said. “Now, you saw this message that had been prepared by pasting together words that had been cut from the newspaper.”

“Yes.”

“They were pasted on a sheet of paper.”

“Yes.”

“Now,” Mason said, “I’m going to ask you to think carefully, Mrs. Theilman, because this answer may be important. Had those words been torn in any way?”

“What do you mean, torn?”

“Torn in two and then pasted together again?”

“No. They had been cut neatly with a pair of scissors.”

“No evidence of tearing?”

“None whatever.”

“The address on the envelope,” Mason said, “was it the address of your husband’s office or—”

“Frankly, I didn’t notice that. He gets quite a bit of mail here at the house.”

“I don’t suppose you noticed the envelope when it came in.”

“Heavens, no. I just glance through the mail that comes in and if it’s for my husband I put it on a little table to the right of the door. He picks it up when he comes in.”

“How much mail does he have come to the house?”

“Not too much but still quite a bit. Mostly it’s unimportant mail, circulars and things of that sort. Naturally his business mail comes to the office.”

“But this one came to the house?”

“It could have. I remembered only my husband’s name being on the envelope and the name of A. B. Vidal being in the upper left-hand corner. I saw it for only a second or two.”

“Your husband doesn’t come home to lunch?”

“No. He eats lunch in town.”

“And this time he came home about two o’clock in the afternoon?”

“It was a little before two. I don’t know the exact time.”

“And there was some mail for him that you had placed on the table?”

“There were, I think, three letters.”

“Do you remember whether they were business letters; that is, whether the envelopes had been addressed in handwriting or—”

She smiled and said, “There were no scented envelopes addressed in a feminine handwriting, if that’s what you mean, Mr. Mason. I would have noticed those. No, there were just three or four letters that were the ordinary type of business letter one would expect. That is, the envelopes indicated it was just a batch of routine mail.”

“But this letter from Vidal may have been one of the three or four letters?”

“I think it must have been. I can’t tell positively.”

“Did you notice the envelope at that time?”

“Mr. Mason, it’s just as I’ve told you, I don’t know when that envelope came in.”

“Did you notice the postmark on the envelope?” Mason asked.

“You mean when I took it out of his pocket?”

“Yes.”

“No. I didn’t want to pry into his affairs. I saw the message and of course I was startled. I looked at the envelope and I remembered the name of A. B. Vidal on the return address and, of course, the address of General Delivery. But I didn’t— It’s difficult to explain, Mr. Mason. I didn’t want to pry into my husband’s affairs. I simply took the letter, looked at it, felt in the pocket, found the envelope was in there, and transferred both letter and envelope to his other suit. Of course, I was concerned but I still didn’t want to pry. I’m not the sort of wife who is jealous or prying. I think wives who have those reactions are simply torturing themselves and undermining the very foundation of their marriage.”

“You’re happily married?” Mason asked.

“Very happily married.”

“This is a delicate question,” Mason said, “but are you— Well, is your husband approximately the same age as you are? I gather he isn’t because he has evidently been in business long enough to establish himself financially and you are...”

“Yes, yes. Go on,” she said, smiling, as Mason hesitated. “A woman always likes to hear that.”

“Well, you’re quite young,” Mason said.

“Thank you,” she said.

After a moment’s silence she added, “I’m not as young as you think, but I am younger than my husband, Mr. Mason, and since I know the other questions which will naturally be in your mind, I am a second wife. My husband was married to a woman who was nagging, jealous and the exact antithesis of what I try to be. She was inordinately suspicious, she kept asking him for explanations of everything he did, she undermined the happiness of the marriage by making home a place which Mr. Theilman wanted to avoid.”

“Was it this house?” Mason asked.

“Heavens, no,” she said. “I didn’t want to have anything around me that would remind me of that woman. I had Morley, my husband, sell that house furnished and we moved into this place and I furnished it according to my own ideas.”

“You did a very fine job,” Mason said, looking appreciatively around the room.

“Thank you again.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “you reported to the police that your husband had disappeared.”

“That’s right.”

“Did the letter which you had read from A. B. Vidal have anything to do with that?”

“A great deal,” she said, “a very great deal. If it hadn’t been for that, I probably wouldn’t have even given it a second thought.”

“He telephoned you last night?”

“About eight o’clock last night. He said he would be back around eleven or eleven-thirty. He telephoned from Bakersfield. When he hadn’t shown up by three o’clock, I became worried. I asked the police to check accidents and hospitals and when that report was negative I was very much relieved, and was able to go back to bed and sleep. I assure you, Mr. Mason, that I understand there are times when a man can change his mind about going home. I don’t expect any husband of mine to be a plaster saint. He wasn’t when I married him, and I’m not foolish enough to think that marriage to me is going to change him. Just the same, when he wasn’t home by seven, when I awoke, I became seriously alarmed.”

“What, generally, is the nature of your husband’s business?”

“Real estate. He speculates — buys and sells and subdivides.”

“You mean he acts as a realtor on—”

“Lord, no! The real estate commissions on sales wouldn’t pay office overhead — not the way my husband does things. He’s a speculator.”

“I take it then, he has quite a pretentious office.”

“On the contrary, his actual office is... well, it’s well furnished and all that, but my husband does a great deal of his business on the outside. He doesn’t wait for people to come to him. He goes out and meets opportunity halfway.”

“How many secretaries?” Mason asked casually.

“One.”

“What’s her name?”

“Janice Wainwright... I get so exasperated at that girl, I sometimes want to grab her and pull her hair.”

“Why?” Mason asked. “Does she—”

“Make passes? Anything but. That’s the trouble with her. Ever since I entered the picture she’s become the most mouse-like little creature you ever saw. She fixes her mouth so it looks positively hideous. She slicks her hair back and wears huge spectacles — the most unbecoming type she can possibly get.”

“You say this was since you entered the picture?”

“Since I entered the picture,” Mrs. Theilman said.

“Then you knew her before that time?”

“I had seen her,” she said cautiously, “yes.”

“And she wasn’t like that before your marriage?”

“Heavens, no. She was an attractive girl.”

“Do you think your husband knew she was attractive?”

“Of course he knew she was attractive. He’d hired her, hadn’t he? And his first marriage had been unhappy for a period of some ten years. And if he hadn’t made passes at her, he was just a plain damn fool. And, further-more, I think she was pretty much in love with him then, and I know she’s in love with him now.”

“How do you know that?” Mason asked.

“Because she’s making herself look all frumpy so I won’t try to get her fired. Whenever a girl does that... Well, if she thinks that much of a man she thinks a lot of him.”

“In other words, then, her effort to make herself look plain has back-fired. It’s had exactly the opposite effect of what she was trying to achieve.”

“It certainly has. It shows that she’s in love with Morley. At least, it convinces me she is.”

“And you don’t resent it?”

“Why should I resent it? If the girl wants to be in love with him, that’s her business.”

“And despite the fact you think there may have been some, let us say romantic interludes, you still make no effort to have him get a new secretary?”

Mrs. Theilman’s laugh was throaty. “Look, Mr. Mason,” she said, “this conversation is taking a highly personal turn.”

Mason smiled and said, “I’m sorry if I’ve gone too far.”

“You haven’t,” she said, “you’ve just opened a few doors and I walked through. I’m a frank creature myself and I accept the biological facts of life at face value.

“Now then, Mr. Mason, you can look around here and you see a very fine house, expensively furnished, and you can rest assured that I have no intention of letting some secretary grab my man away from me. I don’t care how Janice feels toward Morley. The thing that I’m concerned with is how Morley feels toward Janice. If she wants to make herself unattractive so she can hang around him, that’s okay with me. If she wants to make herself attractive, that’s still okay. And if he can’t forget what you have delicately referred to as romantic interludes, that’s still okay.

“But let that woman or any other woman start trying to get her hands into my security, and I’ll jerk the rug out from under her so fast she won’t know when she hit the floor... And I won’t do it by being a little bitch or making a scene or fixing things so my husband doesn’t want to come home nights.

“In short, Mr. Mason, the point is that I know my way around and I’m also smart enough to know that any time Morley L. Theilman isn’t happier at home than he is any other place, he isn’t going to want to come home.

“What’s more, I’m not foolish enough to try and hold a man by a sense of legal obligation. In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Mason, but I’m quite certain you have, I have looks and I don’t intend to waste those looks on any man who doesn’t appreciate them.

“According to my book that’s the main trouble with unhappy marriages. If a woman finds her husband is slipping, she doesn’t have guts enough and nerve enough to stand up and face the facts and clear out of the picture while she still is attractive to other men. She temporizes and nags and becomes frustrated and loses her looks and then the inevitable happens and she’s cast out on the world and sings the same old familiar dirge that she gave her husband the best years of her life.

“I’m giving Morley Theilman the best years of my life and I want him to know it and I want him to appreciate it and I want to be compensated for it.

“Now then, Mr. Mason, somehow or other you’ve drawn me out and know a lot more about me than I permit most men to know. You have a very adroit way of getting people to talk. I’ve said all I want to and I probably wouldn’t have said that much if it hadn’t been for the fact that I’m worried sick about Morley and I needed a shoulder to cry on.

“Now then, I’ve done my crying and that’s that.”

“You say you’re worried about your husband?”

“Of course I’m worried about him.”

“You think something may have happened to him?”

“Mr. Mason, I’m not clairvoyant. I’m a wife. And I’m a worried wife. And if you were in my position I think you’d be worried.

“I gather that you’re looking for my husband. Somehow I have an idea your methods are going to be highly personalized, somewhat individual and perhaps a little more spectacular than those of the police. I’m not going to detain you any longer. I want you to get on the job... I don’t suppose you’d be in a position to accept a retainer from me and act as my attorney?”

“Do you think you need one?”

“I’ve asked you a question. Answer my question and then I’ll answer yours.”

“No,” said Mason thoughtfully, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be in a position to accept a retainer from you. I might, but on the other hand certain interests might become adverse. I don’t think they would, but there’s always that outside possibility.”

“That answers my question,” she said, “and because of that answer there’s no reason for me to answer yours... I’ll tell you this much, Mr. Mason. I think Morley is in trouble. I think he’s in deep trouble and I think he’s dealing with people who could play rough.”

She rose and walked toward the door. “Thank you for dropping in, Mr. Mason, it was a pleasure meeting you.”

The lawyer followed her to the door, conscious of her superb figure, the well-tailored, tight-fitting dress; conscious also of the fact that she knew he was appraising her figure and didn’t resent it.

At the doorway she turned suddenly and extended her hand. Her blue eyes laughed up into his. “Thank you very much, Mr. Mason,” she said, “for all that you’ve told me.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more,” Mason said.

“But you did,” she answered.

“Did what?” Mason asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Told me more,” she said. “More, perhaps, than you realized,” and with that she gently closed the door.

Back in his office Mason said to Della Street, “Anything new from Paul, Della?”

“Not yet.”

“All right,” Mason said. “I have a job for you.”

“What?”

“Go grab a quick lunch and look up the case of Theilman versus Theilman,” Mason said. “See if the case came to trial or whether it was settled. Find out the exact dates. Look in the newspaper files and see what you can dig up.”

Della Street put a notebook and some pencils into her purse, smiled at Mason and said, “On my way. What was Mrs. Theilman like?”

“That,” Mason said, “is hard to tell. She’s difficult to describe.”

“Oh-oh,” Della Street said.

“What’s the matter?”

“When a man refers to a woman as being difficult to describe, and she’s young, attractive, and has been a corespondent...”

“What makes you think she was a corespondent?” Mason asked.

“The same thing that makes you think so,” Della Street said. “That’s why you’re sending me out to look up the reports on the case, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.” Mason grinned.

“I’m quite sure it is,” Della Street said, and went out.