The Case of the Shapely Shadow

Chapter Seven

When Paul Drake had left the office Mason turned to Della Street. “Well,” he asked, “what about the description you gave Paul? Did you paint her as a demure young thing?”

“Not to Paul,” she said. “I gave him a physical description. Color of hair, color of eyes, the clothes she was wearing and all that.”

“You mentioned that she was made up to look rather plain and severe?” Mason asked.

“I definitely did not,” she said. “I have an idea that when we find Miss Janice Wainwright we will find that there has been a very remarkable transformation; that she spent hours in a beauty parlor and has emerged from the cocoon of repression as a full-fledged butterfly”

Mason said, “Perhaps it’s time, young lady, that you and I compared notes.”

“I think it is,” she said, smiling.

“Suppose you start,” Mason said.

“Well, I might be able to do a better job if you’d tell me the salient points of your conversation with the second Mrs. Theilman.”

“The salient points?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. Never mind the curves, just the points.”

“Well,” Mason said, “first, Morley Theilman was tremendously anxious to make certain that everyone knew he was being blackmailed by A. B. Vidal.”

“Check,” Della Street said.

“In the first place,” Mason said, “there was this mysterious letter from A. B. Vidal; the instructions to Janice Wainwright not to open any mail from Vidal — something that would naturally arouse her curiosity. Then there was the receipt of the letter and the fact that the letter was torn into several pieces and tossed into the wastebasket where the printed headlines pasted on the torn paper would have been so conspicuous as to have aroused the curiosity of anyone.”

Della Street nodded.

“Now then,” Mason said, “the same letter apparently was received by Theilman at his house. He told his wife he was going to Bakersfield for a conference with Cole B. Troy — and asked her to get out a fresh suit of clothes. Then he went into the bathroom and ran an electric razor over his face. That was after he had put on the trousers of the fresh suit of clothes, leaving the coat of that suit and the rumpled old suit in the bedroom.”

“A fresh suit of clothes to go and confer with a business associate in Bakersfield?” Della Street asked. “A fresh suit of clothes to take a hundred-mile ride in an automobile?”

“You don’t get the point,” Mason said. “The fresh suit of clothes was so that his wife would have an opportunity to follow her custom of going through the pockets of the suit he’d taken off to see if he’d left anything in the pockets.”

“Oh, I see,” Della Street said, “and in the pockets of the discarded suit she found this second letter from A. B. Vidal?”

“Exactly,” Mason said.

“So we have the mysterious Mr. Vidal sending identical blackmail notes to the office and to the house?’ Della Street asked.

“That’s right,” Mason said. “But there’s one thing that puzzles me.”

“What’s that?”

“Let us suppose,” Mason said, “that Morley Theilman wanted everyone to know he was being blackmailed; he wanted to vanish under mysterious circumstances; he wanted to draw money out of the bank so it wouldn’t be noticed. He invented a fictitious blackmailer. He sent himself blackmail letters which everyone would know about when he had disappeared.

“Let us further suppose he went down to the Union Depot and secured keys to several lockers and had duplicates made of those keys. Then he gave his secretary the job of buying a suitcase, after having first aroused her curiosity and her suspicions... But why, in the name of common sense, would he select a name for his fictitious blackmailer that was his wife’s real name?”

“I didn’t go all the way with you,” Della Street said. “I went off on a detour.”

“What’s the detour?” Mason asked.

“When you talked about having aroused the curiosity of the secretary. I am afraid, Mr. Perry Mason, that this secretary is playing a very smooth, smart game. I think that the shapely shadow that was seen by Mr. Cole B. Troy in Bakersfield following Mr. Theilman to the place where he had parked his car was none other than the demure secretary, Janice Wainwright. I think she had by that time been to a beauty shop and had emerged radiantly beautiful. I think that she joined the restless and sexually adventurous Morley Theilman.

“I think Theilman and his secretary spent the night together, then Morley Theilman, under an assumed name, went to the place where they had probably already established a dual indentity. I think that Janice Wainwright telephoned here this morning, but I don’t think she was talking from her apartment, although she gave us the number of her apartment. I think she was actually standing right by the side of a grinning Morley Theilman when she telephoned.

“I think Mr. Theilman had his arm around her waist and a smug expression on his face. I think there was a suitcase containing approximately a hundred and seventy-five or two hundred thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills on the floor beside them, and I think that Mr. Theilman and his demure secretary are now starting out on a new life under a new name. I think that when the second Mrs. Theilman starts trying to put together the various odds and ends of business affairs, she will find that she has been left holding an empty sack; that Theilman’s obligations far exceed his assets.”

“And,” Mason said, “you think that I have been made a dupe in this scheme.”

“I wouldn’t say a dupe,” Della Street said. “You were faced with a situation where you could take only one course of action. Remember that I’m a woman. I should have seen through the subterfuge. She fooled me one hundred per cent. I desperately wanted you to take that case. I felt sympathetic and curious and tremendously intrigued. There’s something about a woman who deliberately tries to disguise her beauty that arouses curiosity.”

Mason got up from his chair and started pacing the floor.

“Well,” Della Street asked, “don’t you agree with me?”

“As far as you go,” Mason said.

“Heavens!” Della Street said. “I thought I’d gone all the way.”

Mason said, “Just suppose the second Mrs. Theilman isn’t as dumb as you’ve painted her in that picture. Suppose the second Mrs. Theilman wondered why her husband wanted to put on a fresh suit in order to go to Bakersfield and see a masculine business associate. Suppose she also started wondering why he was shaving at that time in the afternoon in order to go and keep a business appointment.

“So, suppose the second Mrs. Theilman, thinking things over, got in her car, drove over to Bakersfield and picked up her husband’s trail. Suppose she watched the office of Cole B. Troy until her husband left. Suppose that she was the shapely shadow Troy saw tailing Theilman across the street.”

Della Street’s eyes widened. “That could be, all right,” she said, “but remember that Theilman telephoned his wife at eight o’clock...”

“How do you know he did?” Mason said. “Theilman probably told his wife he’d telephone her at eight o’clock and let her know whether he’d be home or not. So the second Mrs. Theilman simply said that she had received the telephone call. Cole Troy doesn’t know who Theilman called. All he knows is that Theilman said he was calling his wife.”

“Yes,” Della Street conceded, “that would complicate matters very much. If Mrs. Theilman was shadowing her husband and the runaway secretary, she would know where they went, what the new identity was that they had built up. She might even know where the suitcase containing the cash was secreted. It would make a very complicated situation, if she is a dangerous antagonist.”

“She is a very dangerous antagonist,” Mason said, “and if anything should happen and Morley Theilman should be found dead, Janice Wainwright would have a perfect murder charge draped around her neck. The seductive second Mrs. Theilman would then become a weeping widow and inherit all of the money, including the suitcase full of cash.”

Della Street’s eyes widened. “Don’t, Chief,” she said, “you terrify me.”

Mason, pacing the floor, said, “The minute you begin to assume that that shapely shadow was cast by the seductive figure of the second Mrs. Theilman, you open up a whole train of possibilities that are completely fascinating.”

“Completely frightening,” Della Street amended.

“Well,” Mason observed, “the police have slowed down their attempts to locate Theilman. We have Paul Drake on the job. We’ll keep in touch with him, and since you should be instantly available in case something breaks, I suggest, Miss Street, that we finish up here and then you accompany me to cocktails, dinner and perhaps a little dancing. From time to time we will call Paul Drake and see if he has uncovered anything new.”

“This invitation, I take it, is strictly in the interests of business and a more efficient operation of the office,” Della Street said.

“It will so appear on the statement of expenses you will prepare for the Bureau of Internal Revenue,” Mason said. “As to any other and ulterior motive, on the advice of counsel I decline to answer.”

Della Street’s eyes searched his face. “On the ground that it might tend to incriminate you?”

“I’d better discuss that after the second cocktail,” Mason said.

“Not if you want me to look the income tax investigator squarely in the eye and explain to him that the evening was a necessary business expense in order to justify a charge of one dollar by way of retainer.”

Mason grinned. “On second thought, Della, until we get a more substantial retainer, you had better consider the evening one of social activity.”