Mason said, “That’s your position?”
“That’s my position.”
“Want to change it?”
“No.”
Mason said, “I think you’re covering up, Fulda. I have an idea you were in on that job. If you were, it’s pretty important that we find out just what...”
“I know you, Mr. Mason, and I know your reputation, and I don’t intend to be browbeaten in my own home. I’ve given you my answer and that’s final. Now, do you gentlemen want to come to my office at nine o’clock?”
“No,” Mason said.
“All right, you don’t have to.”
“We’re going to talk right here.”
“We’ve already talked.”
“Sure we have,” Mason said. “We’ve said about one-half of what we’re going to say.”
“It seems to me I have already expressed myself clearly. I’ve said everything I care to say.”
Mason said, “All right, now I’ll tell you something.”
“You don’t need to tell me a thing, Mr. Mason.”
“I know,” Mason said. “You’re one of these smart fellows, you know it all.”
“Mr. Mason, I resent that.”
“Go right ahead,” Mason said, “resent it. If you were really smart you’d at least listen until you knew what the score was.”
“I know what the score is right now.”
“Like hell you do,” Mason said. “There was a murder committed in the Keymont Hotel.”
Fulda made an elaborate gesture of shrugging his shoulders. “I guess those things happen even in the best of hotels.”
“And the Keymont isn’t the best,” Mason reminded him.
Fulda said nothing.
“The Homicide Squad went into action,” Mason went on. “They found that room 721 had been wired. The wires ran into another room. Presumably there was a lot of high-priced equipment in use; equipment that recorded conversations, automatic stuff that would switch on and off...”
“And simply on the strength of that you come to see me?”
“And,” Mason continued, without apparently noticing the interruption, “Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide is very anxious to find out who had done the wiring.”
“Naturally he would be.”
“Now, Lieutenant Tragg didn’t say anything to me,” Mason said, “but my best guess is that he’s starting to trace this equipment, and that shouldn’t be too hard. I would gather that it’s very modern, very recent, very expensive, and right up to the minute. Whoever bought that equipment probably didn’t pay all cash for it. It’s probably being purchased under contract. There are serial numbers on the machines. Lieutenant Tragg will get those serial numbers. He’ll call up the manufacturers. They’ll refer him to their local agency. The local agency will get out its contracts and...”
“Oh, my God!” Fulda said, and sat down in the chair as though somebody had knocked the props out from under him.
Mason nodded to Mrs. Fulda. “I think,” he said, “your husband is going to want some of that coffee.”
She continued to stand in the doorway for a moment, then silently glided into the kitchen. The swinging door closed, then, after a moment, was pulled open and left open.
“I’d never thought of the serial numbers,” Fulda said.
“You should have,” Mason told him. “You should have thought of that the first thing.”
“I felt — felt I could— Well, I didn’t realize they’d trace me that way or that soon.”
“What’s your story?”
“I want time to think.”
“I know,” Mason said, “you came home, got out of your clothes, mussed up your hair a little bit and decided you’d bluff it out. You scared your wife half to death, and you’re pretty badly frightened yourself now. What happened to frighten you?”
“I–I don’t know.”
“All right, let’s find out. Tell us your story and tell it fast. There’s just a chance we can help you.”
“I–I don’t know what to do.”
“Start talking.”
“I specialize in sound equipment—”
“Yes, I know.”
“In recording conversations — blackmail and things of that sort in the criminal field, and recording speeches and depositions, courtroom proceedings and so forth in the noncriminal field.”
“Tell us about the Keymont Hotel,” Mason said.
“Not so long ago,” Fulda said, “I did a job for Morris Alburg. It was — well, it was confidential.”
“It won’t be,” Mason said.
“Well, it is now.”
“By the time the district attorney starts asking questions—”
“That’s different.”
“I’ll read about it in the papers then.”
“All right,” Fulda said, “you’ll read about it in the papers, but until you do, it’s confidential. All I can say is it was a blackmailing job, and it was carried through very successfully.”
“How long ago?”
“A little over a year.”
“Then what?”
“So yesterday afternoon Morris Alburg came to me. He wanted me to fix a setup in the Keymont Hotel, and — well, of course, it had to be very confidential and...”
“Go on,” Mason said, “that isn’t what’s worrying you. Tell us what’s worrying you.”
“Well,” Fulda said, “the damn fool told me that he was wanted by the police and that put me in a spot.”
“Did he say what he was wanted for?”
“He said they were looking for him and he was keeping under cover.”
“And you took the job on that basis?”
Fulda nodded morosely.
“All right,” Mason said, “you don’t need to tell the police all the conversation you had with your client. So far as you were concerned it was a routine job. What did you do?”
“I got my sound equipment together, went up to the hotel, told the clerk my sister was coming on an evening plane and I wanted two rooms, preferably adjoining.”
“And he wouldn’t give them to you?”
“He said he didn’t have two adjoining rooms, but he did have two rooms on the same floor. I asked him where they were located and he said they were 721 and 725, so I told him I’d take a look at them.”
“You went up and looked them over?”
Fulda nodded.
“Then what?”
“They were ideally suited. I told him that I was going to move in, that I’d sleep for a while before dinner and didn’t want to be disturbed because I was going to meet my sister on the night plane.”
“How did that register?”
“He gave me a knowing leer and let it go at that.”
“So what did you do?”
“All of this modern sound equipment is fixed so it resembles hatboxes, suitcases and that stuff.”
“I know,” Mason said.
“The bellboy got a hand truck and we moved the stuff up. We distributed it. Some in 721, some of it in 725.”
“Then what?”
“Then after the boy left, I moved it all down to 725, all the recording machinery and all that stuff, and left nothing in 721 but a microphone. I did a good job concealing that.”
“How? In the wall?”
“No. These new jobs are slick. The bug was in a reading lamp I clamped to the head of the bed. Aside from the fact it looked too classy for the dump it was in, it was perfect. I ran the wires along the picture molding, then out through the transom and down the corridor and into 725. I had to work fast, but I was all prepared to work fast, and I did a good job of it.”
“Then what?”
“Then I tested the equipment to see that it was working, and then left word for Morris Alburg to come to room 721, that everything was all right.”
“How did you leave word?”
“I called the number he had given me and said that if Morris came in to say that Art had told him everything was okay.”