The Case of the

  Silent Partner

  by

  Erle Stanley Gardner

  Copyright © 1940 Erle Stanley Gardner.

  Renewed 1968.

  Electronic Book: Copyright © 2012 by The Erle Stanley Gardner Literary Trust

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  About the Author

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  MILDRETH FAULKNER—A dynamic young lady executive, whose independent spirit started the fire-works

  HARRY PEAVIS—Her steam-roller competitor, who believed in getting what he wanted, no holds barred

  LOIS CARLING—Mildreth’s clerk, beautiful and bitterly jealous

  DELLA STREET—Perry Mason’s secretary, co-conspirator, and generally a good gal in a pinch

  ROBERT LAWLEY—Carlotta’s gambling husband, wh© didn’t know the stakes meant murder

  CARLOTTA LAWLEY—Mildreth’s sister, a heart case with death staring at her from more than one direction

  ESTHER DILMEYER—A glamorous gambling lure. Dis satisfied, she accepted orchids and a box of poison

  PERRY MASON—An easy-mannered but granite-eyed, rapier-minded lawyer who said, “Legality be damned,” and turned up a murderer

  LIEUTENANT TRAGG—A keen-witted, rough-and-ready cop who almost outguessed Perry Mason

  SINDLER COLL—A handsome and very frightened young man, of shady and nebulous profession

  HARVEY LYNK—A night-club owner and gambler. The ante was too rich for his blood

  DR. WILLMONT—Who kept two witnesses alive for Perry Mason

  CLINT MAGARD—Lynk’s partner, a fat and slippery character who had an alibi

  Chapter 1

  Mildreth Faulkner, seated at her desk in the glass-enclosed office of the Faulkner Flower Shops, selected a blue crayon of exactly the right shade. Clever at sketching, she used crayons to help her visualize just how flower groupings would appear. Now, with a rough sketch of the Ellsworth dining room at her left, she was trying to get something that would go nicely with the dull green candles Mrs. Ellsworth intended to use for illumination.

  Someone tapped on the glass, and she looked up to see Harry Peavis.

  She pushed her sketches to one side and nodded for him to come in.

  Peavis accepted the invitation as he did everything else, without any outward indication of what his thoughts might be, without any change in pace. A big-boned man of hard muscle, his shoulders and hands showed the effects of hard toil on a farm in his early youth. Now that he had achieved wealth and a virtual monopoly on the city’s retail flower business, he went to great pains to fit into the rôle of successful businessman. His suits were well tailored, and his nails carefully manicured and polished, striking a note of incongruity with the labor-twisted fingers.

  “Workin’ kinda late?” he asked Mildreth.

  She smiled. “I nearly always work late. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Reports on the payroll, income tax, estimates, and a hundred things. Anyhow, it’s only seven o’clock.”

  “You’ve been having it pretty hard since your sister’s heart went bad, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, I’m getting along all right.”

  “How is she?”

  “Carlotta?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s a lot better.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “She’s still in bed most of the time, but she’s improving every day.”

  “You have three stores, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, knowing that he was thoroughly familiar, not only with the stores and their locations but generally with the amount of business they did.

  “Uh huh,” Peavis said. “Well, I sort of thought it might be a good plan to invest a little money with you girls.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some stock in your corporation.”

  Mildreth Faulkner smiled and shook her head. “Thanks, Mr. Peavis, but we’re getting along all right. This is a very small, very close corporation.”

  “Perhaps it ain’t as close as you think it is.”

  “Close enough,” she smiled. “Carlotta and I have all of the stock between us.”

  His grayish-green eyes twinkled out at her from under shaggy brows. “You’ll have to think again.”

  She frowned for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, that’s right. There’s a certificate of five shares which was given Corinne Dell when we incorporated—we needed three on the board of directors. That stock was just to qualify her as a director.”

  “Uh huh,” Peavis said, pulling a folded stock certificate from his pocket. “Well, Corinne Dell married one of my men, you know, and—well, I took over the stock. You can transfer this certificate on the books, and issue me a new one.”

  Mildreth Faulkner frowned as she turned the certificate over in her hands.

  “Reckon you’ll find it all in order,” Peavis said, “endorsement all okay an’ everything.”

  She put the stock certificate down on the desk, looked up at him frankly. “Look here, Mr. Peavis, I don’t like this. It isn’t fair. I don’t know just what you have in mind. You’re a competitor. We don’t want you snooping in our business. Corinne shouldn’t have sold that stock. I suppose she couldn’t very well have helped herself under the circumstances, but I just want you to know where we stand.”

  Peavis said, “I know—business is business. You overlooked a bet on that stock, and I didn’t. I like you. I want you to like me. But any time you make a business mistake an’ I can cash in on it, I aim to do it. That’s business. You know we could work out a deal on the rest of that stock. You could stay on here and manage the business. I’d take fifty-one per cent and …”

  She shook her head.

  “You could make just as much money as you’re doing now,” he said, “and have unlimited capital back of you for expansion. I’d make a good partner.”

  “No, thank you. We’re doing fine as it is.”

  “Well, just enter the stock transfer of those five shares.”

  “Just what are you trying to do?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, with a guilelessness which was patently assumed. “I won’t interfere with your work. I’ll be sort of a silent partner. Go ahead and make a lot of money. Now that I have an interest, I like to see the executives workin’ late.”

  He chuckled and raised his gaunt frame from the chair. Mildreth, watching him lumber down the aisle of the flower shop, knew that his keen eyes, under those shaggy brows, missed no detail.

  For some minutes she sat in deep thought, then, putting away her sketches, said to Lois Carling, who was on duty at the front of the shop, “Close up at nine-thirty, Lois. I won’t be back.”

  She paused for a moment to survey herself in the full-length mirror near the front of the store. At thirty-two, she had the figure of twenty-two, and the experience acquired through seven years of building up a remunerative business had made her alert mentally and physically, given her a certain aura of dynamic efficiency which kept her muscles hard, firm, and free of excess flesh. Only a worker could have had her alert efficiency and trim lines.

  Lois Carling watched her out of the door, her eyes somewhat bitter and slightly wistful. Lois Carling represented dynamic youth, the explosive forces of new wine. Mildreth Faulkner had the mature individuality of a vintage wine. It was, perhaps, only natural that Lois Carling, possessed only of beauty, impatient of the “slow-but-sure” recipe for success, should ask herself the question, “What’s she got that I haven’t?”—only Lois asked it not as a query which carried its own answer, but as a groping attempt to define personality. But because matters philosophical were far removed from Lois Carling’s mental environment, she opened a drawer in the counter, took out a box of candy which had been slipped her by Harry Peavis as he came in, and bit into a chocolate.

  There was a telephone booth in the front of the garage where Mildreth Faulkner kept her car. While she was waiting for an attendant to bring it down, she acted on an impulse, and looked up the number of Perry Mason the lawyer.

  There was an office number, and below it a notation, “After office hours, call Glenwood 6-8345.”

  Mildreth Faulkner dialed the number, found that it was a telephone service which made a specialty of handling and sorting telephone calls for professional men. She explained that she wished to make an appointment with Mr. Mason on a matter of important business, and asked if it would be possible to see him that evening. The woman who was taking the call asked Mildreth for the number of the phone from which she was calling, told her to hang up, and she’d be called back within a couple of minutes.

  Mildreth saw the attendant bringing her car up, opened the door of the telephone booth to motion him that she would be out in a minute. He nodded, swung the car off to the left by the gasoline pumps, and Mildreth stepped back into the booth just as the phone rang. She picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

  “Is this Miss Faulkner?”

  “Yes.�
�

  “This is Della Street, Miss Faulkner, Mr. Mason’s secretary. Could you tell me something of the nature of your business?”

  “Yes. I have the Faulkner Flower Shops. It’s a corporation. I have a business competitor who’s managed to buy a few shares of stock, the only ones not controlled by my family. I think he’s going to make trouble. I want to know what to do about it.”

  “Won’t an appointment tomorrow be all right?”

  “I presume so. I—well, to tell you the truth, I acted on impulse in calling just now. I’ve been worried ever since I learned about the transaction a few minutes ago.”

  “Will ten-thirty tomorrow morning be convenient?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well, Mr. Mason will see you then. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Mildreth Faulkner said, and, feeling somewhat relieved, got into her car, and drove at once to Carlotta’s house out on Chervis Road.

  Chervis Road wound around the contours near the summit of the mountains which looked down on Hollywood from the north. Carlotta and Bob lived in a stucco hillside house which gleamed white by day, but now appeared as a grayish oblong of mysterious shadows, silhouetted against the twinkling cluster of city lights which lay far below.

  Mildreth inserted her latchkey, clicked back the lock, and entered the living room where Bob Lawley was sprawled out in a chair reading a newspaper. A small, leather-backed memorandum book was in his left hand. A pencil was behind his right ear. He looked up, frowning at the interruption, then, as he saw Mildreth, managed a smile of welcome. She noticed that he hastily shoved the notebook into the side pocket of his coat. “Hello, Millie. I didn’t hear you drive up.”

  “Where’s Carla?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Asleep?”

  “No. She’s lying there reading.”

  “I’ll go up for a few minutes,” Mildreth said. “You aren’t going out, are you, Bob?”

  “No. Gosh, no. What gave you that idea?”

  “I want to see you.”

  “Okay.”

  She paused in the doorway, turned, and said, “When you’re figuring the race horses, Bob, don’t think you have to fall all over yourself putting things out of sight just because I happen to walk in unannounced.”

  For a moment he flushed, then laughed, and said, somewhat sheepishly, “You startled me, that’s all.”

  Mildreth climbed the stairs to where her sister lay in bed. Pillows propped against her back elevated her shoulders to a comfortable position. A rose-shaded reading lamp was fastened to the head of the bed, threw light over her left shoulder to the pages of the book she was reading.

  She turned the shade of the light down so that the room was filled with a soft, rosy glow, and said, “I’d about given you up, Millie.”

  “I was detained. How’s everything today?”

  “Getting better day by day, in every way,” Carlotta said with a smile.

  She was older than Mildreth, and her flesh had a bluish-white appearance. While she wasn’t fat, the tissues seemed soft and flaccid.

  “How’s the heart?”

  “Fine. The doctor said today that I can drive my car within a couple of weeks. It certainly will seem good to get out. I’ll bet my little coupe has forgotten how to run.”

  “Don’t be in a hurry,” Mildreth cautioned. “Take it easy, particularly when you start moving around.”

  “That’s what the doctor said.”

  “What’s the book?”

  “One of the new ones that’s supposed to have a deep social significance. I can’t see it.”

  “Why not try something lighter?”

  “No. I like these. The other stories get me excited, and I have difficulty sleeping. Another ten pages of this, and I’ll drop off to sleep without having to take a hypnotic.”

  Mildreth laughed, a low, rippling laugh. “Well, I’m sorry I was late. I just ran in to see how you were getting along. I’ll run down and talk to Bob for a little while and be on my way.”

  “Poor Bob,” Carlotta said softly. “I’m afraid it’s been pretty hard for him, having an invalid for a wife. He’s been just simply splendid, Millie.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “You don’t … you never have really warmed up to Bob, have you, Millie?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Let’s not talk about that now. We’ll get along all right.”

  Carlotta’s eyes were wistful. “He feels it, Millie. I wish you’d try and get better acquainted with him.”

  “I will,” Millie promised, her lips smiling but her eyes purposeful. “I’ll go down and begin right now. You take it easy, Carla, and be sure not to overdo as you start getting better.”

  Carlotta watched Mildreth through the door. “It must be splendid to be so vibrantly healthy. I wish you could give me some of your health for about an hour.”

  “I wish I could give it to you for longer than that, Carla, but you’ll be all right now. You’re over the worst of it.”

  “I think so. I know I’m lots better now than I was.”

  Carlotta picked up her book. Mildreth gently closed the door and walked quietly down the stairs.

  Bob Lawley folded the newspaper. The pencil was no longer behind his ear. “Drink, Millie?” he asked.

  “No, thanks.” She sat down in the chair opposite him, accepted one of his cigarettes, leaned forward for his match, sat back, and looked at him steadily. “Don’t you think it might be a good plan if we all three sat down and had a business chat?”

  “Not yet, Millie.”

  “Why?”

  “Carla shouldn’t be bothered with business right now. I’ve talked with the doctor about it, and he says she’s doing fine, but it’s largely because she’s accustomed herself to washing her hands of business. Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Harry Peavis was in tonight.”

  “That big clod! What does he want?”

  “He wants to buy the business—a controlling interest in it.”

  “He would. Tell him to go peddle his papers.”

  “I did, but it seems he’s a stockholder now.”

  “A stockholder!” Bob exclaimed, and she saw swift alarm on his face. “Why, how the devil could he …” He hastily averted his eyes.

  “Corinne Dell. You remember she married a man who works for Peavis. I suppose her husband got her to turn over the stock. I should have picked up that stock before she left. To tell you the truth, I’d entirely forgotten about it. It’s such a small block and …”

  Bob seemed positively relieved. He laughed. “What can he do with that? It’s only five shares. That’s a drop in the bucket. Tell him to go to hell—put on assessments and freeze him out.”

  She shook her head. “Harry Peavis won’t be pushed around. He wants something.… I’m just a little afraid of him. He may be entitled to look over our books. Perhaps that’s what he wants. I don’t know. I’m going to see a lawyer in the morning.”

  “Good idea. Whom are you going to see?”

  “Perry Mason.”

  “He doesn’t handle that stuff. It takes a murder case to get him even interested.”

  She said, “If he gets enough for it, he’ll be interested. This needs someone who can do more than just look in a law book and tell you what the law is. It needs a lot of legal ingenuity.”

  “Well, he’s the bird to handle Peavis all right if you can get him to handle it,” Bob Lawley admitted, “but you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “I thought it would be a good plan to take up all of the stock certificates and the stock book. He’ll want to see them.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Bob said hastily.

  “Well, he might ask for them.”

  Bob’s voice was harsh with nervous impatience. “Gosh, Millie, I’ve got an important appointment in the morning and that stock’s in the safety deposit box. Tell you what you do. If he wants to see the stock, I can take it in to him later on. I don’t think he’ll want to. I have an appointment with an insurance company adjuster in the morning—confounded nuisance. I could cancel it, of course, if I had to, but I’ve had a lot of trouble getting him on the job.”

  “What was the accident, Bob? You never did tell me anything about it. I learned of it from Carla.”

  “Oh, just one of those cases of where some guy comes down the street, crocked to the eyebrows. I wasn’t even in the car. I had it parked at the curb. I don’t know how in the world he managed to smash it up the way he did. He must have skidded into it from the side.”