The Case of the Spurious Spinster

Chapter 6

Sunday traffic made for delays in the first part of the drive. Mason, his face granite hard, said little.

Then as the traffic began to thin out, the lawyer put the car into speed.

Knowing Mason’s feelings about safe driving and his conviction that an automobile driven at high speed was a deadly missile which should be operated only by one who was in full possession of his faculties and concentrating on the driving, Della Street made no effort to discuss the case until after they came up over the little hill, crossed the railroad tracks and saw the town of Mojave spread out along the main street.

The desert air was crystal clear. The buildings seemed etched in the afternoon sunlight.

Mason pulled in to a filling station, said to the attendant, “Fill it up,” then after the hose had been placed in the tank, Mason said casually, “Do you happen to know a man named Lowry? Ken Lowry?”

“Sure,” the attendant said. “He’s— There he is, right across the street, getting in that pickup!”

Mason followed the direction of the other man’s pointing finger and saw a somewhat battered pickup with the name MOJAVE MONARCH MINE on the side door.

The lawyer started hurrying across the street but Lowry pulled out when Mason was still half-way to the car.

The attendant at the service station gave a shrill whistle and the man at the wheel of the pickup jerked his head, saw Mason waving at him, and slowed the car to a stop.

Mason approached the car. “You’re Lowry of the Mojave Monarch?”

“Right.”

“I’m Perry Mason, an attorney from Los Angeles, and I’d like very much to talk with you.”

“What about?”

“About the mining business.”

Lowry smiled and shook his head. “I don’t talk business with strangers,” he said. “Leastwise, not mining business.”

“All right,” Mason said, “if you don’t talk, will you listen?”

Della Street, hurrying across the road, came up to the car.

Mason said, “This is my secretary, Miss Street, Mr. Lowry.”

Lowry, a grizzled, leathery-faced, grey-eyed individual in the early forties, surveyed Della appreciatively. A gust of desert wind whipped her skirts and Lowry promptly lowered his eyes to take in the scenery. “How do you do, ma’am? Very pleased to meet you,” he said.

Della Street gave him her most winning smile and her hand. “How do you do, Mr. Lowry?”

“I know you’re busy,” Mason said, “but we drove out here just to see you. Could we have a few minutes of your time?”

“I can’t talk.”

“Will you give us a few minutes?”

“I’ll listen for a few minutes.”

“Where can we talk?” Mason asked.

“Right here’s as good a place as any,” Lowry said.

Della caught Mason’s eye, said, “Why can’t we get in the car with Mr. Lowry and talk there? That way we won’t attract so much attention and won’t have to raise our voices.”

Lowry hesitated and Mason said, “Good idea, Della.”

The lawyer walked around the front of the automobile, held the door open for Della Street.

Della jumped in with a quick flash of generously displayed nylon which, for the moment, held Lowry’s undivided attention. Then Mason got in beside her and closed the door.

“I’m listening,” Lowry said.

He swung half-way around in the seat so that he could be facing Perry Mason and as he caught the full dazzling effect of Della Street’s eyes he settled back against the cushion, slid his right arm along the back of the seat and indicated by his manner that despite his words he wasn’t going to be in too great a hurry to terminate the interview.

“I suppose Endicott Campbell has been here and warned you against talking to anyone,” Mason said.

Lowry merely grinned.

“And perhaps he even mentioned my name,” Mason went on.

Lowry said, “I’m listening.”

“All right,” Mason told him, “I’m talking. I’d like to know something about the Mojave Monarch mine. I’d like to know how the thing is set up, how it operated, how long the mine’s been shut down.”

Lowry sat silent.

“Well?” Mason asked.

“Not talking,” Lowry said. “What’s more, I’m not going to talk.”

Della Street said, “Mr. Lowry, would you listen to me?”

“I’m listening.”

Della Street said, “A young woman, a most attractive young woman, is being charged with a crime. Mr. Mason is trying to represent her. He isn’t doing this for money. She hasn’t paid him as much as a nickel. She can’t afford to pay him even a fraction of what his services are worth. She’s a young secretary who has her whole life in front of her. That life can be ruined if the facts are distorted. We’re trying to get the true facts, that’s all we want. There’s no reason why anyone should be afraid of the truth, is there, Mr. Lowry?... Or is there any reason for being afraid of the truth?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then why aren’t you willing to answer a few simple questions so that we can get the real facts? Do you have any idea what it means to a woman to go to prison? A woman only has a few of the golden years in her life when she’s attractive. Even at the best, when she can get lots of vitamins, fresh air, sunshine, exercise, and mental stimulation she begins to fade after a few years.

“Think of what it means to a young, attractive woman to have the prison doors close on her and to realize that as she endures that treadmill existence her beauty is slipping through her fingers.”

Lowry said, “There hasn’t any beauty slipped through your fingers, ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Della Street gave him her most dazzling smile. “I don’t mind your saying so,” she said, “but it seems to me you’re a fair man, you’re a square shooter, you’re the type of individual who scorns subterfuge and deceit. Now it’s my best guess that you’ve had to do things that you didn’t want to do and that has worried you. In fact, I think you’re worried right now. Mr. Mason is a very clever lawyer. There’s just a chance he could help you.”

“I don’t need any help,” Lowry said.

“Perhaps you think you don’t, but there are all sorts of angles to a thing like this,” Della Street went on. “Remember that Endicott Campbell is very much interested in saving his own skin.”

Lowry looked across at Perry Mason and said, “She’s a pretty dam good saleswoman.”

“Convincing you?” Mason asked, smiling.

“Not yet.”

“She should have convinced you by this time,” Mason told him, “because she’s telling the truth.”

“She sure makes it sound convincing.”

“The truth is always convincing,” Della Street said. “There’s something unmistakable about the truth. Now I’m going to risk getting thrown out of here right on the sidewalk by telling you that you’ve got yourself to think of. You’re an outdoor man, I can tell that by looking at you. You’re accustomed to the big spaces, you’re accustomed to wind on your face, you’re accustomed to sunlight, you’re accustomed to lots of fresh air. Don’t think for a minute that you’re completely in the clear in this thing, Mr. Lowry.

“I’ve told you what it would mean to a young woman to go to prison but do you realize what it means to an outdoor man to go to prison, to be shut up within stone walls, to be deprived of sunlight, of air, of freedom? Do you realize how many people of that sort contract prison tuberculosis?”

Lowry’s face flushed. “Say,” he said angrily, “what are you doing? Threatening me?”

Della Street looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I’m not threatening you, Mr. Lowry, I’m warning you. You’re a pretty good specimen of manhood. I wouldn’t like to see you spend the next ten years behind bars. I’m also going to tell you something else. My boss, Mr. Mason, is a pretty smart individual. If you tell him your story perhaps he can help you.”

Lowry doggedly shook his head.

Della Street whirled to Mason, lowered her right eye in a wink, said, “All right, Chief, let’s go.”

“Now wait a minute,” Lowry said. “I’m thinking things over a little bit.”

“You’d better think fast then,” Mason said, following up Della Street’s lead.

There was silence for several seconds, then Lowry again shook his head. “Nope,” he said, “I’m not talking.”

“All right,” Mason said to Della Street, “get your notebook, Della.”

Della Street took a notebook out of her purse.

“Put down the date and the time,” Mason said, “and take this statement: This is dictated in the presence of Ken Lowry, Manager of the Mojave Monarch. We called on Mr. Lowry and asked him to tell us something about the operation of the mine. We pointed out to him that a young woman was being charged with a crime, that she was innocent; that circumstances had conspired against her and that she was quite possibly the victim of a frame-up. Mr. Lowry would make absolutely no statement. He wouldn’t tell us anything about the operation of the mine, he wouldn’t divulge the location of the mine, he wouldn’t tell us how long it had been shut down; he refused to discuss anything, thereby indicating his own bias and that he was trying to cover up the true facts.”

“Now wait a minute,” Lowry said. “Since you’re writing that down you just put in there that I said I’m not covering up anything, that I’ve simply been instructed not to discuss the matter with anyone and particularly with Perry Mason.”

“Who gave you those instructions?” Mason asked.

“Endicott Campbell, if you want to know.”

“All right,” Mason said grimly, “before I get done with Endicott Campbell he may not be giving anyone instructions. And if you want to tie in with him, go ahead. But before you plunge along in blind loyalty to Campbell you’d better find out something about what Campbell has been doing and find out what the facts are.

“I’ll probably be cross-examining you in court, Mr. Lowry. Don’t say that I didn’t give you every opportunity.”

Mason opened the door of the car.

Lowry said angrily, “All right, you’ve given me every opportunity. I don’t have to talk to you and I’m not going to.”

Della Street turned to him, put her hand impulsively on his arm. “Listen, Mr. Lowry,” she said, “please let’s not misunderstand each other.”

“I’m not misunderstanding anybody.”

“Perhaps we’re misunderstanding you. But let me put it to you this way. You’ve had an opportunity to see Endicott Campbell. You’ve known him for some time and—”

“Yesterday was the first time I ever set eyes on him,” Lowry said.

“All right,” Della Street went on, glancing significantly at Perry Mason. “You probably pride yourself on judging character. How do you judge Endicott Campbell? Would you go out on a prospecting trip with him? Would you like to have him as a partner?”

“I pick my own partners,” Lowry said, “and I pick ’em carefully.”

“No, you don’t,” Della Street said. “Endicott Campbell picked you as a partner and he’s sold you a bill of goods. You’re his partner in this thing right now, just the same as though you were partners in a mining enterprise.”

“He isn’t any partner of mine,” Lowry said.

“That’s what you think,” Mason said. “Campbell came out here. He handed you a razzle-dazzle and told you not to talk and now you’re refusing to give out pertinent information — information that we’re entitled to, information that you should give out in order to protect yourself, to say nothing of this young woman.”

“Now wait a minute, wait a minute,” Lowry said. “This thing sort of gets me when you put it that way. I tell you, the guy isn’t my partner.”

“And I tell you he is,” Mason said. “He’s hypnotized you into a partnership. You’re playing right along with him. You’re following his instructions and doing exactly what he’s told you to do. You’re not his partner in a mine, you’re his partner in something that may be a criminal enterprise and the partnership may leave you in a lot of trouble.”

For the first time Lowry turned, took his eyes off his visitors, looked out through the windshield, down the long street.

“Why should I tell you anything?” he asked.

“Why shouldn’t you?” Mason said. “Unless you have something to conceal. I’ll put it another way. Why should you go into partnership with Campbell just because he comes out and tells you what he wants you to do?”

“Because in a way I’m working for Campbell.”

“Following Campbell’s instructions?”

“Well, following instructions from headquarters.”

“And do you think Endicott Campbell is representing headquarters?”

“He said he was.”

Mason’s smile was enigmatic.

Lowry narrowed his eyes, took a deep breath. “All right,” he said, “I want to talk. I want to explain my position in this matter. But I promised Campbell I’d not tell you anything.”

“Then you did take Campbell as a partner,” Della Street said.

“For heaven’s sake, quit harping on that,” Lowry said irritably. “I tell you, the man isn’t my partner.”

Mason looked at Della Street, smiled and shook his head tolerantly.

Della Street said, “I’m sorry you can’t see it, Mr. Lowry.”

Lowry thought things over for a moment, then said, “All right, I’m going to tell you this much. I did some peculiar things but everything I did was the result of orders I received directly from Miss Corning.”

“Personally?” Mason asked.

“Over the long-distance telephone.”

“How many conversations?”

“Two.”

“From South America?”

“No. She called me up from Miami. She made two business trips up to the States and she called me personally.”

“You know her personally?” Mason asked.

“I’ve never met her.”

“In other words,” Mason said, “you listened to a voice on the telephone. The voice on the telephone told you to do certain things. Those things were highly irregular. Then a man whom you’ve never seen before comes out here and tells you not to discuss those things... It seems to me you’re rather a credulous individual, Mr. Lowry.”

“You mean that wasn’t Amelia Corning who was talking with me on the telephone?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “Furthermore, you don’t know. Let me ask you this: did Endicott Campbell tell you that a woman showed up yesterday who impersonated Amelia Corning?”

“Heavens, no!” Lowry said.

“Well, she did. If anyone is desperate enough to impersonate Amelia Corning in a personal interview, it certainly wouldn’t be hard to do it over long-distance telephone.”

Lowry thought things over.

“All right,” he said at length. “I’m not going to buy Endicott Campbell as my partner. I don’t like the guy. He’s a little too smooth and a little too slick. I guess you opened my eyes, Miss Street, when you asked me if I’d like to camp out in the desert with him. I wouldn’t share blankets with that guy on a bet. I don’t think I’d trust him.”

Mason said, “Now is a good time to get the situation clarified.”

“I’ll tell you this much,” Lowry said. “I was hired by a letter from Amelia Corning. She had taken over the Mojave Monarch. She’d bought all the mine — lock, stock, and barrel. She told me to go ahead and run it in accordance with her instructions.”

“What about the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company?”

“That’s an affiliated enterprise,” Lowry said, “but I was working directly under Miss Corning and I was making reports to her... Well, we ran into trouble. The vein faulted on us and I didn’t know what to do. I wrote to her and she told me that she’d let the Los Angeles company give me instructions. Then the next day she called me up and said she’d changed her mind. She asked me what I thought about closing the mine up and I told her that I thought it was the only thing to do; that we might spend a fortune trying to find that vein.

“All right, she told me she’d let me know. Then she called me up a little later and told me that for tax purposes she couldn’t afford to have the mine closed. She told me she’d turned the thing over to the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company with headquarters in Los Angeles; that I would write every month and send them figures on what the payroll would have been if the mine was going full blast; that as far as the books were concerned I’d be having twelve men on each of three eight-hour shifts working here, which would make a total of thirty-six employees. I was to tell the Los Angeles office how much money I wanted for this payroll, and they’d send me a check which I was to cash in one-hundred-dollar bills, deduct my salary, and then mail those hundred-dollar bills in to Los Angeles. In that way, she said, it was just a cash transaction and all she’d be out would be the employer’s liability insurance and incidental expenses, but as far as the books were concerned, for tax purposes it would show that the mine was still being operated... Now then, was that crooked?”

“What do you think?” Mason asked.

“That’s what bothers me,” Lowry said. “I followed instructions all right and did what she told me but I didn’t like doing it.”

“All right,” Mason said, “you sent the money to the Los Angeles company?”

“No. I sent the money to the Corning Affiliated Enterprises in Los Angeles. I sent it to a post office box there.”

“You sent it in the form of cash?”

“I just got that check cashed at the bank here in hundred-dollar bills. I’d deduct the amount of my salary, then wrap the rest of those hundred-dollar bills in a plain package. Now that’s the thing that I didn’t like about the whole business. She told me not to register the money, not to have it appear that there was anything of value in the shipment; to just wrap it up and send it parcel post to this Corning Affiliated Enterprises at the post office box.

“I’d get checks from the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company to cover all operating expenses. Every two weeks I’d endorse the check and take it in to the bank here to be cashed.”

“Didn’t the bank know something was wrong?” Mason asked.

“What do you mean wrong?”

“Well, I mean, didn’t the bank think there was something unusual?”

“Sure the bank thought there was something unusual, but the bank wasn’t blowing the whistle. I told the bank that I was acting under direct orders from headquarters and... Well, the bank knows me.”

“You’ve lived here quite a while?”

“That’s right.”

“And, I take it, have a pretty good local reputation for integrity?”

“I certainly hope so.”

“How much money did you send altogether to Los Angeles?”

“Somewhere around a hundred and eighty-one thousand dollars.”

“You sent in money for social security and...”

“No, I just sent the cash back to Los Angeles.”

“I never got so much as the scratch of a pen from the Corning Affiliated Enterprises, but I’d receive a telephone call after each shipment telling me that the shipment had been received okay.”

“Who made the call?”

“I don’t know who it was. Some woman. She’d simply state this was the Corning Affiliated Enterprises office and that she wanted to report the shipment had been received okay and to keep on as before.”

“Then you’ve heard two voices over the telephone,” Mason said, “the voice of the woman who acknowledged the shipments, and the voice of the woman who told you she was Amelia Corning.”

“Well, I guess so,” Lowry said. “I don’t remember the Corning voice too well.”

“Could it have been the same voice?”

“I don’t know. I... I... I’m beginning to get bothered about all this, Mr. Mason.”

“How about the voice that reported the receipt of shipments to you over the telephone? Do you think you could recognize that voice if you heard it?”

“I have an idea I could. At least I could make a stab at it.”

“Where were those calls received?”

“At my house at the mine, the manager’s house.”

“During office hours?”

“No. Every one of them would come in in the evening.”

“And Endicott Campbell told you not to say anything about this to anyone?”

“He told me not to say anything to you, but the more you come to think of it the more you realize that I’m in a peculiar position here. I’m not buying Endicott Campbell as a partner.”

“That’s right,” Mason told him. “I think you’ll realize that you did the right thing by telling me what happened.”

“Well,” Lowry said, “the thing that got me was what Miss Street said about having Campbell as my partner.”

“That’s right,” Mason told him, “you don’t want him as your partner... Now then, have you heard anything from Amelia Corning lately?”

“Not a word.”

“Did you make any other reports on what you were doing?”

“No, I was told not to — just to cash the check and send the money to Los Angeles.”

“Didn’t that impress you as being a peculiar way of running a business?”

“Sure it did. But I figured that there was a tax angle in it somewhere and, of course, you hate to have a mine close down. It gives it a black eye. Of course, people around here know the mine’s closed but as far as the books of the mining company are concerned, it would send out a big payroll every month and every month it would get back a shipment, which I suppose they’d claim came from ore. Since it was in the form of cash it couldn’t be traced.”

“That’s your supposition,” Mason said.

“That’s right.”

“And, as you so aptly remarked, since it’s in the form of cash it couldn’t be traced.”

“Say, what are you getting at?” Lowry asked.

Mason opened the car door, said, “Just be careful who you pick as a partner, Lowry. Perhaps truth is the best partner you can pick.”

Abruptly Lowry reached out and shook hands. “Say,” he said, “I’m awfully glad I met you, and this secretary of yours. I think you’ve given me some pretty darn good advice. I’m feeling just a lot better right now than I have been feeling all day.”

Della Street gave him a smile and her hand. “It’s been so nice meeting you, Mr. Lowry,” she said. “I could see that you were uncomfortable keeping this stuff bottled up inside of you. You’re not the type of individual to get mixed up in any shady transaction.”

“This thing’s been worrying me for a long while,” Lowry admitted.

“Thanks a lot,” Mason told him. “It was awfully nice meeting you.”

Lowry watched Mason and Della Street as they walked back to the service station.

“Thanks, Della,” Mason said, “you pulled that one out of the fire very nicely. That was good psychology, telling him that he’d bought Endicott Campbell as a partner... How did you think of that approach?”

“I’m darned if I know, Chief,” Della Street said. “It just popped into my head since he was the outdoor mining type.”

“I think I need your head along with me all the time,” Mason told her.

“It’s a good idea,” Della Street said. “It’s available. What do we do now?”

“Now,” Mason said, “we beat it back to Los Angeles. But first we get Paul Drake on the telephone. We concentrate on Endicott Campbell. We also find out all we can about this Corning Affiliated Enterprises. And I’m afraid we’re not going to find out very much.”