The Case of the Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner Read Free Book Online Page B

anticipated."
    She nodded, then after a moment said, "Chief, do you notice something peculiar about that?"
    "What?" 'The way Adelle Hastings sticks up for Robert Peltham. After all, you know, Tidings has disappeared. That bloodstained coat could well be a blind to throw police off the track. Peltham has skipped out. Parker Stell is available and doing everything he can. Yet she accuses him of credulity and inefficiency."
    "Keep it up," Mason encouraged. "You're doing fine, Della. If you can think this thing out, won't have to work up a headache wrestling with a lot of confusing facts."
    She said, "Miss Hastings apparently had some pretty definite information as to what was going on, something on which she could base definite accusations."
    Mason nodded.
    "She went to the bat and blew the lid off," Della Street said. "Now according to all outward indications, Peltham is just as deep in the mud as Tidings is in the mire, but Adelle Hastings sticks up for him. Parker Stell, judging from newspaper accounts, is the only one who is doing the logical, reasonable, manly thing. Yet Miss Hastings doesn't hesitate to accuse him of inefficiency."
    "You mean," Mason asked, "that you think Adelle Hastings got her inside information as to what was going on from Robert Peltham?"
    She said, "Goosy, wake up. I mean that Adelle Hastings holds the other half of the ten – thousand – dollar bill which we have in the safe."
    Mason sat bolt upright in his chair. "Now," he said, "you have got something."
    "Well," she went on, "it's just guesswork, but I can't figure Miss Hastings on any other basis. As one woman judging another woman, I'd say she was in love with Peltham… At any rate, she has a faith in him which doesn't seem entirely justified by the circumstances, and she's taking pains to make that faith public.
    "The rest of it all fits in. You can see what would happen if it should appear that Peltham, as one of the trustees, had been carrying on a surreptitious intimacy with Adelle Hastings."
    "But why should it be surreptitious?" Mason asked. "Why couldn't he have courted the girl or gone out and married her? Assuming, of course, he wasn't already married."
    Della Street said, "Probably because of things we'll find out later on. I'm just offering to bet that that Hastings girl holds the other half of your ten – thousand – dollar bill."
    Mason was reaching for a cigarette when Paul Drake's knock sounded on the door which opened from Mason's private office to the corridor.
    "That'll be Paul, Della," he said. "Let him in… By George, the more I think of it, the more I believe you're right. That, of course, would mean that there'd be no objection on Peltham's part to our taking that Gailord case… But I have ideas about Mrs. Tump."
    "What sort of ideas?" she asked, opening the door to Paul Drake.
    "I'll tell you later," Mason said. "Hello, Paul."
    Paul Drake was tall and languid. He spoke with a drawl, walked with a long, slow – paced stride. He was thinner than Mason, seldom stood fully erect, but had a habit of slouching against a desk, a filing cabinet, or slumping to a languid seat on the arm of a chair. He gave the impression of having but little energy to waste and wishing to conserve that which he had.
    "Hi, Perry. Hi, Della," Drake said, and walked over to the big leather chair. He dropped down with a contented sigh into the deep cushions, then after a moment raised his feet and twisted around so that his back was propped against one arm of the chair while his knees dangled over the other. "Well, Perry," he said, "I've got to hand it to you."
    "What is it this time?" Mason asked.
    "You sure can pick goofy cases. Did you know all this business about Tidings was going to break?" Mason glanced at Della Street, then shook his head. Drake said, "How'd you like to get some dope on Tidings' love – life, Perry?"
    "On the trail of something?" Mason asked.
    "Uh huh. May be on the trail of Tidings himself. If he's missing, I think I