The Case of the Velvet Claws   ::   Гарднер Эрл Стенли

Mason passed over the twenty dollars.

“The man’s name,” he told her, “is Locke. I’ll call in in about two minutes, and have him paged. Now the conversation will be this. Locke will call a party and ask if it’s all right to pay four hundred dollars for information about the name of a woman. The party will tell him it’s all right.”

The girl nodded her head, slowly.

“Do incoming calls come in through you?” asked Mason.

“No,” she said, “not unless you ask for station thirteen.”

“All right, I’ll ask for station thirteen.”

He grinned at her, and went out.

He found a drug store in the next block which had a public telephone. He called the number of the hotel, and asked for station thirteen.

“Okay,” he said, when he heard the girl’s voice. “I’m calling for Frank Locke. Have him paged and be sure that you tell him to come to your station for the call. He probably won’t come now, but I’ll hold the line. He’s in the barber shop. But don’t tell the bellboy that I said he was. Simply tell him to look in the barber shop.”

“I getcha,” said the girl.

He held the line for some two minutes, and then the girl’s voice said, “He said to leave your number, and he’d call you back.”

“That’s fine,” said Mason, “the number isHarrison 23850. But tell the bellboy to be sure that he goes to your station to get the call.”

“Sure, don’t worry about that.”

“All right,” said Mason, “tell him to ask for Mr. Smith at that number.”

“Any initials?”

“No, just Smith, and the number. That’s all.”

“Okay,” she said. “I gotcha.”

Mason hung up.

He waited approximately ten minutes, and then the telephone rang.

He answered it in a highpitched, querulous voice, and heard Locke’s voice speaking cautiously at the other end of the wire.

“Listen,” said Mason, using the highpitched voice, “let’s not have any misunderstanding about this. You’re Frank Locke from Spicy Bits?”

“Yes,” said Locke. “Who are you, and how did you know where to reach me?”

“I got into the office about two minutes after you’d left, and they told me that I could reach you in a speakeasy out onWebster Street, or later on, here in the hotel.”

“How the devil did they know that?” asked Locke.

“I don’t know,” said Mason. “That’s what they told me. That’s all.