The Case of the Baited Hook (15 page)

"You will," Mason said. "Sit down."

Freel sat on the bed. Mason possessed the only other chair in the room, a rickety, cane – bottomed affair which creaked as he sat down.

It was a small, cheerless bedroom with an iron bedstead, a thin mattress, and a mirror which gave back distorted reflections. Dripping water had left a pathway of reddish incrustations spreading fan – shaped from beneath each faucet in the washstand. There were only the two chairs, a rug worn thin from much use, a wardrobe closet, the bed, and some faded lithographs as furnishings of the room.

Beneath the bed appeared the ends of a suitcase and a handbag. A worn, tweed overcoat was folded across the white enameled foot of the iron bed. The grayish white counterpane had been patched in two places and was worn almost through in another place.

Freel nervously pushed his newspaper to one side. In the silence of the room, the rattle of the paper sounded unusually loud. "What is it?" he asked.

"You know what it is," Mason said, watching him narrowly.

"I'm sure I haven't the faintest idea what brought you here, or what you're talking about."

"Your name's Freel?"

"Yes."

"You were a bookkeeper and accountant for the Hidden Home Welfare Society years ago?"

The man's nervousness increased perceptibly. "Yes," he said.

"What," Mason asked, "are you doing here?"

"Looking for work."

Mason's snort was contemptuous. "Try again," he said. "This time try telling the truth for a change."

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what right you have to make these insinuations."

"I could make accusations," Mason said.

The stooped shoulders straightened. There was a sudden glitter of hard defiance in the faded gray eyes. "Not against me, you can't," the man said.

"No?" Mason asked sarcastically.

"No."

Mason suddenly pointed a forefinger squarely at the man's chest. "I could," he said, "for instance, accuse you of the murder of Albert Tidings."

The little man on the bed jumped as though an electrical discharge had sparked from Mason's forefinger to his chest. His mouth sagged in astonishment and consternation. "Me!" he shrilled in a voice high – pitched with fear and indignation.

"You," Mason said, and lit a cigarette.

The silence of the room was broken only by the creak of the bedsprings as Freel shifted his position uncomfortably.

"Are you," he asked, "the police?"

"This man," Mason said, indicating Paul Drake with a gesture of his thumb, "is a detective," and then added after a moment, in a lower voice, "private. He's working on that Tidings case."

"What's he got to do with me?"

"You mean what's he going to do to you? When did you last see Tidings alive?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You mean you don't know Tidings?"

"No," Freel said defiantly. "I don't know who he is."

"You've been reading about it in the paper," Mason said.

"Oh, that! You mean the man who was found dead?"

"That's the way murdered people are generally found."

"I just happened to be reading about him. I didn't even connect the name."

"Well," Mason said, "the name connected you."

Freel straightened and inched forward to sit on the extreme edge of the thin mattress. "Now you look here," he said. "You can't come in here and pull this kind of stuff on me. You can't…"

"Forget it," Mason interrupted. "Quit trying to dodge the question. When did you last see Tidings alive?"

"I never saw him. I never knew him."

"You're certain of that?"

"Yes."

Mason just laughed.

There was another interval of strained, uncomfortable silence broken by Mason's sudden question. "When did you last see Mrs. Tump?"

"Who?"

"Tump."

"You look here," Freel protested, in his thin, high – pitched voice, "I didn't murder anyone. I… I had some business dealings with Mrs. Tump, that's all."

"And how about Tidings?"

Freel averted his eyes, "I didn't know him."

"Guess again," Mason said, "and you'd better guess right this time."

"Well, I'd only met him casually. He – he hunted me up."

"Oh, he did, did he?"

"Well, in a way, yes."

"When was that?"

"Oh, I don't know. A week or ten days ago."

"You didn't hunt him up?"

"No."

"Did you hunt up Mrs. Tump?"

"Well… What did you say your name was?"

"Mason."

"You're Perry Mason, the lawyer?"

"Yes."

"Why, you're representing Byrl Gailord."

"Mrs. Tump told you that?"

"Yes."

"What else did she tell you?"

"She said you were going to get Byrl's money for her."

"What do you know about Byrl?"

Freel settled back on the bed. He said unctuously, "Understand, Mr. Mason, I wasn't a party to any of that original fraud. The Hidden Home Welfare Society was guilty of numerous irregularities. You know how it is in that baby business. A couple wants to adopt a baby. It takes quite a while to get one that's been properly vouched for and whose parents are known. There's quite a demand for such children and always has been. Sometimes couples have to wait a year or even longer after their application is put in… A baby's something people don't like to wait for. That is, lots of them don't.

"A society like The Hidden Home can play the game coming and going. People go there and pay to have babies that will be released to the Home for adoption. A good many times the mother tries to arrange with the Home to support the child. She thinks she's going to work and keep on making payments. In ninety – nine cases out of a hundred she can't do it."

The little old man stopped and cleared his throat nervously. His eyes peered furtively over the tops of the reading glasses which had slid down on his nose, studying the faces of his listeners in the hopes that he could read their reactions in their facial expressions.

"Go on," Mason said.

"That's all there is. If the homes are on the square, they wait until the mother quits payments before they do anything about it, but sometimes they take a gamble."

"What do you mean by taking a gamble?" Mason asked.

"They just go ahead and release the child for adoption… You see, a very young baby gets a better price than an older child."

"Why?" Mason asked.

"After a child is four or five years old-old enough to remember about life in the Home-it realizes that it's been adopted. Most people never tell children they've been adopted. They want the child to look on them as its real father and mother."

"All right," Mason said. "How about Byrl Gailord?"

"They took a gamble with her-and they lost."

"Where did they get her in the first place?"

Freel said glibly, "She was Russian. Her parents were killed in a shipwreck. Mrs. Tump left her with them. At that time, she was older than the Home liked to have children, but with the heritage she had, it was a cinch for them to get a high price."

Freel moistened his lip with his tongue and started nodding his head up and down, giving silent emphasis to his words.

Mason studied the man narrowly for several seconds. Abruptly, he said, "Mrs. Tump has a daughter, hasn't she?"

Freel's head jerked in a quick half – turn as his eyes searched Mason's. "A daughter?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Why, what sort of a daughter?"

"A daughter," Mason said. "You know what the word means, don't you?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, of course… I'm sure I can't remember. A lot of those things have escaped my recollection- little details. I presume they got Mrs. Tump's history when the child was given to them."

"Why would they do that?" Mason asked.

"Oh, they want to know all about the child, everything they can find out. They usually make the girls give them the names of the fathers. The girls hate to do that… It's strange the way they try to protect the men who have betrayed them. It's the natural loyalty women have for men. Women are a lot more loyal to men than men are to women, Mr. Mason."

Mason took a last drag at his cigarette and ground it out in the ash tray.

"All right," he said. "Let's get back to Tidings."

Freel said, "Tidings tried to pump me. He wanted to find out everything I knew. I think he was looking for some flaw somewhere, something that would show that Byrl Gailord wasn't…"

"Wasn't what?" Mason prompted.

"Wasn't entitled to the money."

Mason stared thoughtfully for several seconds at the faded carpet. Freel studied him with the anxious scrutiny of a marksman who is anxious to see just where his bullets have struck in the target.

"Did the Home investigate that story about the torpedoed ship?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. Yes, indeed, Mr. Mason. They made a very complete investigation. They always want information about the parentage, you know. That information means dollars and cents to any home."

Mason got up from his chair, walked over to the narrow window with its dingy lace curtain over the lower portion of it. He raised a tattered, green shade, and stood with his elbows resting on the molding which divided the upper from the lower part of the window, and stared meditatively down into a dingy alley and at the blank wall of a brick building opposite.

Freel turned to Drake. "You believe me, don't you?" he asked.

"Sure," Drake said carelessly.

"Know Coleman Reeger?" Mason asked, still staring out of the window.

"No," Freel said. "Who's he?"

"You don't know anything about him?"

"No."

"Ever heard the name?"

"No, I'm quite certain I haven't. I have a good memory for names."

"You take a lot of prompting," Mason said. "It took quite a while to get you to remember Tidings."

"I was lying about Tidings," Freel confessed. "I thought it would be better not to let anyone know… Well, you know how it is."

"He came to you?"

"Yes. He wanted to bribe me."

"What did Mrs. Tump say when you told her that?"

There was sudden panic in Freel's voice. "I didn't tell her," he said. "You mustn't tell her. She must never know about that."

Mason continued standing at the window. The tips of his fingers drummed thoughtfully on the narrow projection against which his elbows were propped. Suddenly, he whirled to face Freel. "You're lying," he charged.

"I am not, Mr. Mason. I swear to you that I'm telling the God's truth."

Mason said, "I see the whole business now. How much are you getting out of it?"

"Nothing, I'm simply giving my testimony in an attempt to right a wrong in which I feel I have unwittingly participated… Of course, I knew what was going on there at the Home, but then, I was just an accountant. I had charge of the books, and that was all."

"Where are those books?"

"I don't know. I was discharged."

"But you remember a lot of details?"

"Yes."

Mason, watching him with level – lidded intensity, said, "Your testimony wouldn't be worth a damn, Freel. It's too long ago. No jury would trust your memory."

"I made notes," Freel said. "I made a complete set of notes of certain cases that impressed me as being well, being apt to come up again."