“What, for instance?”
“They wouldn’t need to specify. They’d claim it was some bit of evidence we didn’t want to have found by the police. Oh, what’s the use, Della. We just can’t afford to get caught.”
She laughed. “I was just getting posted on the law.”
“Do you want to wait in the car and...”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I can go in and take a preliminary look around...”
“What would you know about fixing evidence so it would look as though a girl had been unpacking instead of packing? You’d botch it all up. Any man would. Don’t be silly, let’s go.”
Mason slid the car to a stop in front of the flat.
“Do we do any more reconnoitering?” Della asked.
“Definitely not. Anyone who might happen to be looking out from one of the adjoining houses would immediately think we were guilty of something. We walk right up to the place, just like we were police detectives getting evidence. Just like this.”
Mason led the way across the sidewalk, fitted the key to the door of the flat.
“And go right up?” Della Street asked.
“Right up,” Mason said. “After all, the housing shortage being what it is, the neighbors might think some friend of the chief of police had made a new lease on the flat before they had the body moved out. Just don’t turn on the lights, Della. We’ll use flashlights and keep the beams shaded.”
Mason produced two small flashlights which he had taken from the glove compartment of his car, and they moved cautiously up the stair treads.
“Keep a little to one side,” Mason warned. “The sides of the treads don’t creak as much. I don’t want the people in the flat below to hear steps moving around up here.”
“The building’s constructed rather substantially,” Della Street said.
“I know, but just take it easy.”
Keeping to the side of the stair treads, they moved cautiously up to the second floor. Mason, keeping the beam of his flashlight shielded, moved quietly through the living room, down the short stretch of corridor and into the bedroom.
The body had been moved, and where the red pool had been there was now only a sinister stain. Chalk marks on the floor outlined the general position of the body when it had been found.
“They’ve dusted everything for fingerprints,” Mason said, “but aside from that, they’ve left stuff just as it was.”
“Then they haven’t made an inventory of the things that were in the suitcases?”
“I don’t think so. They probably just lifted the edges of the various garments. They may intend to do some more photographing or bring in some more witnesses. Perhaps later on they’ll close these suitcases and take them up to the District Attorney’s office. All right, here you are, Della. Get busy.”
Della Street bent over the suitcases. Mason held his flashlight so it gave her a circle of illumination.
Della Street’s deft fingers ran through the garments.
“What do you make of it?” Mason asked.
Della Street said, “She was either going to get married or she was going on a trip of some importance. She certainly put her finery in here and lots of it. Looks to me as though she’d raided her hope chest. She went heavy on lingerie and nighties... expensive stuff.”
“How can you make it appear she’d been unpacking instead of packing?”
“Give me time, Chief, I’ll have to figure that one out.”
Her skillful fingers raised the folds of each one of the garments without disturbing the manner in which it had been packed.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Della Street said in a low whisper. “The girl was a darn good packer and I don’t think there was anything hasty about the way she did this packing, either. It’s been done very carefully.”
“Stay with it,” Mason said. “See what else you can find.”
Della Street ran through the other suitcase, then said, “She evidently hadn’t packed one side of it. What are the clothes on the dresser?”
Mason raised the beam of his flashlight so Della Street could inspect them. Suddenly she whistled.
“What’s the matter?” Mason asked.
Della Street said, “Chief, the theory of the police is that these garments were folded and placed on top of the bureau so they could be put into the suitcase?”
“That’s right.”
Della Street shook her head. “She couldn’t have folded them that accurately. You see, the edges are all uniform, just absolutely the dimensions of the suitcase.”
Della Street picked the garments up and eased them down into the suitcase. “See, they fit exactly!”
“Well?” Mason asked.
“Don’t you get it?” Della Street said, her voice excited.
“Get what?”
“Chief, you’re right! You had it all the time.”
“You mean she was unpacking?”
“She was! She had to be. See what happened? She folded these garments into the suitcase, one by one. That’s the reason they exactly fit the dimensions of the suitcase. As she folded them, they were inside the suitcase. Then when she started to unpack, she lifted out the garments that were on this side of the suitcase and put them on the top of the bureau... Probably something she wanted out from underneath. Then she left them there on top of the bureau. There aren’t enough here to fill... Let’s take a look, Chief.”
Excitedly, Della Street opened the bureau drawers.
“Look,” she said breathlessly, “look at these garments! They’re folded exactly in the same way the others are. Let’s see.”
Della Street carefully picked up a blouse and superimposed it on top of the pile of garments on top of the bureau.
“You see what I mean? She had started to unpack! She really had, Chief! She’d taken these garments out of the suitcase, placed them on top of the bureau; and then she was proceeding to put them back in the bureau drawers, and because the dimensions of the suitcases were somewhere near those of the drawer, she hadn’t bothered to fold them again, but had left them folded just as they had been to go into the suitcase.”
Mason said dubiously, “You don’t think it could be just a coincidence? It...”
Della Street said, “If you think it’s a coincidence, just try it. Try to take a garment and fold it so that it is exact in the dimensions of its fold. You can’t do it, unless you have something to hold it, something that keeps it in size. You need a box or a suitcase, or...”
“Let’s get out of here,” Mason said abruptly. “We’ll get a court order demanding that the property be undisturbed. We’ll get photographers. The thing now is to get official access to these premises before the police have mixed everything up.”
Della Street said, “But even if they do, we could testify. I could say that...”
Mason’s laugh was harsh. “A fat chance!” he said. “You’d get on the stand and testify to what you had seen and the District Attorney would take you on cross-examination and say sarcastically, ‘What sort of visibility did you have, Miss Street? What kind of light were you using?’ And you’d say, ‘A flashlight,’ and then the District Attorney would ask you what time of night it was, and you would say, ‘About one-thirty in the morning,’ and..."
“Well, what difference does it make what time it was?” Della Street demanded. “Facts are facts.”
“Sure they’re facts,” Mason said, “but the District Attorney would make it appear that you and I had entered the building so that we could refold those garments so they would just fit into the suitcase and...”
“But we didn’t do it.”
“You’d say we didn’t do it, Della, but when you come right down to it, what did we come in here for? Suppose we’d had to do it?”