The Case of the Mischievous Doll

Tragg opened it, read the message, folded the paper again, put it in his pocket, glanced at Perry Mason and said, “Well, you can see what it feels like on the other side now, Perry.”

“What do you mean?”

“The man who was removed in the ambulance was dead on arrival, so now we have a homicide.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have two of them,” Mason said.

Tragg led the way to the elevator, down to the basement floor, out into a parking place in the rear where there were rows of numbered garages.

“This way,” Tragg said, leading the way across the parking place to the garage which bore the figure 907 above it.

Tragg took a key from his pocket, unlocked a padlock, said, “Now, I’m going to have to ask you to keep your hands in your pockets, not to touch a thing. I just want you to take a look, that’s all.”

Mason pushed his hands in his pockets. After a moment Drake followed suit.

Tragg switched on a light.

“There’s the car,” he said.

Mason looked at the big light-colored automobile.

“What about it?” he said.

Tragg said, “Take a look at that right-hand fender, Perry. Stand over this way a little bit — a little farther — right here. See it? See that spider web and the flies in it? That spider web goes from the emblem on the car to the edge of the little tool bench in the garage, and notice the flies that are in it. That spider web has been there for some time.”

Tragg, watching Mason’s face, said, “I’ve been in this business, Perry, long enough to know that you can’t trust a woman when she’s telling a story, particularly if she’s had an opportunity to rehearse that story.

“If Dorrie Ambler is your client, she may or may not have been abducted. There was a murdered man on the floor of her apartment. She may or may not have been responsible for that, but there’s an automobile in her garage and she sure as hell is responsible for that automobile. That’s a stolen automobile in the first place, and in the second place it was involved in a hit-and-run.

“Now then, Perry, I’m going to ask you just how much do you know about Dorrie Ambler?”

Mason was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then said, “Not too much.”

“Everything based on what she’s told you?”

“Everything based on what she’s told me,” Mason said.

“All right,” Tragg said. “I’m not going to tell anybody that I showed you that spider web. We’re going to have it sprayed and photographed. It’ll be a big point in the district attorney’s case whenever the case comes up.

“I’ve shown you that on my own responsibility. I want to make a trade with you. That’s information that’s vital to your client. I think you have some information that’s vital to me.”

Tragg ushered Mason and the detective from the garage, locked the door behind them.

“How about it, Perry?” he asked.

Mason said, “Tragg, I’d like to co-operate with you but I’m going to have to think things over a bit and I’m going to have to do some checking on certain information.”

“And after you’ve checked on it you’ll give us everything you can?”

“Everything I feel that I can conscientiously give you and which will be to the advantage of my client, I will.”

“All right,” Tragg said, “if that’s the best you can do, that’s what we’ll have to take.”

“And,” Mason said, “I’d like to ask one thing of you.”

“What?”

“As soon as you get in touch with my client, will you let me know?”

“When we get in touch with your client, Mason, we’ll be questioning her in regard to a murder and a hit-and-run and we’ll tell her she has an opportunity to consult counsel if she desires, but we’re going to do everything in the world to make her talk. You know that.”

“Yes,” Mason said, “I know that.”

Chapter Six

Mason turned to Drake as soon as Tragg was out of earshot and said, “Get your office, Paul. I want Minerva Minden. I want to talk with her before the police do.”

“Okay,” Drake said, “we’d better go down the street a ways before we do any telephoning.”

Mason said, “She may still be at the courthouse.”

“Could be,” Drake said, “but I have an idea her lawyer whisked her out of circulation just as rapidly as possible.

“You know and I know that a thousand-dollar fine means no more to Minerva Minden that the nickel she dropped into the parking meter. The tongue-lashing given her by the judge was just so much sound as far as Minny Minden was concerned. That girl has been in enough scrapes to learn how to roll with the punch. She listened demurely to the judge’s lecture, paid the thousand dollars with due humility and then looked for some place where she could open a bottle of champagne and celebrate her victory.

“Judges don’t like to have persons who have been sentenced by them start celebrating. Attorneys know that, and the attorney is thinking not only about this case but about Minny’s next one and about his next one before that same judge, so my best guess is he’s told her to get out of circulation, stay away from the public, see no one and refuse to come to the telephone.”