Chapter 3
At approximately seven-thirty Mason was called to the telephone from the cocktail lounge of his apartment hotel. He recognized the rich, throaty voice of Mrs. Bedford, even before she gave him her name. “Have you,” she asked, “heard anything from the aunt in the case — Breel, I believe her name was?”
“Not yet,” Mason said. “Her disappearance, however, is apparently voluntary. I’ve had my office telephone the various police stations, emergency hospitals, and check the ambulance calls.”
“And she hasn’t been arrested for shoplifting?” Mrs. Bedford inquired, in an amused drawl.
“If she has,” Mason told her, “the police haven’t heard of it.”
She laughed. “Well, I think my gems are safe. I thought I’d ring up so you could reassure that poor little starved wallflower.”
“You’ve recovered them?” Mason asked.
“Well, not exactly recovered them, but Aussie telephoned he’s found where George Trent had pawned them. It’s a second-rate gambling joint on East Third street, known as The Golden Platter. They have a café downstairs, and a little bit of everything upstairs. Aussie said George had the stones with him, all right, and hocked them for six thousand. I told Aussie three was my limit. Aussie said he thought three thousand was all the money Trent actually got on them that the other three thousand was an attempt at a shake-down. He said he could bring some pressure to bear on the man who ran the place, and get the stones for three thousand. I told him to go ahead. We’ll adjust the three thousand with Trent when he sobers up... I thought you’d like to know.”
Mason said, “Thanks. I do. Cullens hasn’t found Trent?”
“No. He figures Trent can take care of himself. Aussie’s on his way to get the stones. I expect to hear from him within an hour.”
“How,” Mason asked, “did you get this number?”
She laughed, and there was something purring in the quality of her laughter, a sensual, feline something which was quite definitely calculated to rouse the male to conquest. “You forget, Mr. Mason, that you’re famous,” she said. “And,” she went on, “having forgotten that, you are apparently oblivious of the additional fact that you’re interesting. Good night, Mr. Mason,” and he heard the sound of a definite click at the other end of the line as the wire went dead.
Mason hung up the receiver, casually and mechanically noted the time on his wrist watch, and returned to his cocktail. Thinking the matter over, he called Della Street and instructed her to telephone Virginia Trent that the gems were located and would soon be recovered. Thereafter, Mason dined in the apartment hotel, and, as a matter of preference, dined alone. Finishing his coffee and cigarette, a bellboy approached him. “Telephone, Mr. Mason,” he said.
“Let it go,” Mason told him. “Get the number and I’ll call back.”
“Beg your pardon, sir, but it’s Sergeant Tremont at headquarters. He says it’s important.”
Mason ground out his cigarette, pushed back his coffee cup, laid down his napkin and a tip, and followed the boy to the telephone, where he heard Sergeant Tremont’s voice, crisp, businesslike, and coldly efficient, coming over the wire. “Mason, your office rang up all the hospitals this afternoon, looking for a Mrs. Sarah Breel. You were trying to trace ambulance calls and automobile accidents.”
“That’s right,” Mason said, his eyes wary and watchful, but his voice jovial. “What about it, Sergeant?”
Sergeant Tremont said, “Mrs. Breel was knocked down half an hour ago by a motorist out on St. Rupert Boulevard. She’s receiving emergency treatment at the ambulance receiving station right at present. She’s unconscious, fractured skull, broken leg and possible internal injuries... Now then, Mason, what we’re particularly interested in, is what led you to believe she was going to be hurt.”
Mason laughed, and tried to keep the laugh from sounding forced. “Naturally, Sergeant, I couldn’t look ahead and anticipate that she was going to be knocked down by an automobile.”
“No?” Sergeant Tremont asked, his voice containing more than a faint note of skepticism. “Just in case you had, you couldn’t have been any more solicitous.”
Mason said, “Forget it. I was interested in getting information, that’s all.”
“Well, you have it now,” Sergeant Tremont told him. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I happen to know her niece,” Mason said, “a Miss Virginia Trent. I’m going to advise her.”
“Well, we’ve tried to advise her and can’t locate her.” Sergeant Tremont told him. “There are a couple of angles on this. I think you’d better run down to headquarters and talk things over.”
There was a hint in the officer’s voice that the invitation might become more insistent if the occasion seemed to require, so Mason said casually, “Well, that’s not a bad idea. I’d like to investigate the circumstances and see if there’s anything I can do. Who hit her, Sergeant?”
“A man by the name of Diggers. He seems to be all broken up about it.”
“Are you holding him?”
“Temporarily. We’re going to let him go in a few minutes. Evidently she ran out in front of the automobile.”
“I’m just finishing dinner,” Mason told him. “I’ll get in my car and run down.”
“Better make it snappy,” Sergeant Tremont told him. “We want to ask you some questions about some diamonds.”
“Diamonds?” Mason echoed.
“Uh-huh,” Tremont said, and hung up.
Mason had his car brought out of the garage, and, while he was waiting for it, telephoned Della Street again. “Any luck with Virginia Trent?” he asked.
“Not a bit, Chief. I’ve been calling her at ten minute intervals. She doesn’t answer.”
“All right, let it go,” Mason told her. “Mrs. Breel was knocked down by an automobile out on St. Rupert Boulevard. Apparently she has a fractured skull, a broken leg, and possible internal injuries. The police are trying to locate Miss Trent. Sergeant Tremont has given me what amounts to an official summons to appear at headquarters and answer questions about some diamonds. There are a couple of angles about the thing I don’t like. Ring up the Drake Detective Agency. Get Paul Drake personally on the job. Tell him to grab a cab and go down to headquarters. He’ll find my car parked somewhere in the block. It’ll be unlocked. Tell him to climb in and wait. Also, tell him to get a couple of good men and hold them in readiness.”
Della Street said, “Okay, Chief. I’ll get busy right away. What’s all the shooting about?”
“I don’t know,” Mason told her, “something in Sergeant Tremont’s voice which I didn’t like.”
She chuckled and said, “I never heard anything in an officer’s voice yet that you did like, Chief.”
“Baggage!” he charged, and hung up the receiver as the doorman brought him his car.
Mason drove slowly to police headquarters, his eyes, narrowed to thoughtful slits, staring out from beneath level eyebrows. He realized he had neglected to obtain any address where he could communicate with Lone Bedford, and the realization was disquieting. For reasons of his own, Mason felt that it would be very much to his advantage to know just what had transpired at The Golden Platter before talking with the police.
He parked his car near the ambulance receiving station and had walked less than twenty steps when Sergeant Tremont stepped out of the shadows to take his arm in a cordial but firm grasp. “Who is this woman, Mason?” he asked. “A client of yours?”
“Not exactly,” Mason said.
“A friend?”
“Hardly that. I had lunch with her today, as it happens.”
“Where?”
“Oh, in a department store tea room.”
“How does it happen you’re eating in department store tea rooms?”