The Case of the Lazy Lover by Erle Stanley Gardner Page A

order to get courtesy from the employees?"
    The night clerk smiled dubiously, said, "The telephone booth is over there, in the corner."
    Mason went over and phoned Paul Drake's office.
    "Where's Paul?" he asked the night operator.
    "He went home and went to bed, said not to disturb him for anything short of murder."
    Mason grinned. "Okay, ring him up. Tell him that you're following his instructions to the letter."
    "What do you mean?"
    Mason said, "I mean that Bertrand C. Allred was murdered up on the mountain grade above Springfield. Then he was locked up in Mrs. Allred's car, the car put in low gear and driven down over a steep grade. Drake has a man in Springfield. Tell him to get that man on the phone and have him start up there in a hurry. I want information, I want photographs and I want Fleetwood. You get that all down?"
    "Yes, Mr. Mason. Do you want to talk with Mr. Drake?"
    "Not now," Mason said. "I'm working on another angle of the case and I don't want to be tied up in a telephone booth when the time comes for action."
    He hung up, left the telephone booth, strolled to the door of the lobby, and looked out.
    It was getting daylight. The sun was not up as yet, and the street outside showed cold and gray in the colorless light of dawn.
    A police car with red spotlight and siren was parked at the curb. The radio antenna was stretched to its full capacity. The plain-clothes officer who had taken the message to Lieutenant Tragg was seated behind the wheel. The motes was running, and little puffs of white smoke put-put-put-put-put-putted from the end of the exhaust.
    Mason stood there looking out of the door for a matter of some five minutes. The light strengthened. The objects on the street began to show color.
    Mason glanced at his wrist watch, stretched, yawned, and strolled over to glance at the indicator of the automatic elevator. It was still on the eighth floor.
    The lawyer pressed the button which brought the elevator back down to the ground floor. He opened the door just far enough to break the electrical contact and kept the door from closing by inserting a pencil between the door and the door jamb. He then took a seat in the lobby, near the elevator.
    Another ten minutes, and Mason heard a faint buzzing from the interior of the elevator, indicating that someone was trying to put it in service.
    He walked over, removed the pencil from the door, opened the door, got in the elevator and let the spring on the door pull the door shut. As soon as the door snapped into position, the mechanism of the elevator gave a sharp, metallic click, and the cage started rumbling upward.
    Mason stood over in the corner where he would be out of sight to anyone opening the door.
    The cage lumbered up to the eighth floor, came to a stop.
    The doors were opened. Inman pushed Mrs. Allred and Patricia into the elevator, followed them in. Tragg entered the elevator and closed the door. Inman said, "And if your lawyer is waiting in the lobby; don't try to talk with him. You get me?"
    They turned to face the door, and Mrs. Allred gasped as she saw Mason.
    Inman jerked his head at the sound of the gasp. His hand started streaking for his gun. Then he stopped the motion midway to his holster.
    "Ground floor?" Mason asked, and promptly pressed the button.
    The cage started rumbling down to the ground floor.
    Tragg said drily to human, "I told you he was smart."
    "What have you told them?" Mason asked Mrs. Allred.
    "Shut up," Inman said.
    "Nothing at all," Mrs. Allred said "I followed instructions."
    "Keep on following them," Mason said. "They'll try everything in their power to make you talk. Simply tell them that your silence is a protest against their highhanded methods and that you want to have an interview with your attorney before you say anything. Remember that you were making a full and frank statement of everything that had happened until they became arbitrary and started pushing me around"
    Imnan said, "It's a big temptation to