The Case of the Glamorous Ghost by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: mystery; courtroom
ISBN: 0345437861
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 2000-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The Titterington Apartments turned out to be a narrow-fronted, three-story, brick building, more than a hundred feet deep, with no clerk on duty. The names of the tenants of the apartments were listed in a long directory to the right of the locked front door. There was a speaking tube by each name and a call button.

“Old-fashioned joint,” Paul Drake said. “What do we do?”

Mason found the name of Frank Ormsby Newberg listed opposite apartment 220, and pressed the button.

There was no answer.

Mason waited a while, then pressed the button the second time.

Mason turned to Della Street.

Wordlessly she handed him the set of four keys.

Mason tried the first one in the front door. Nothing happened.

The second one fitted smoothly in the lock and clicked back the bolt.

Mason held the key between his thumb and forefinger, said, “This looks like the key. Let’s go.”

Drake said, “Are we apt to get into trouble over this, Perry?”

“Of course,” Mason said, “but all I’m doing at the moment is trying to find out if the keys fit.”

“Are you going into the apartment?”

“That,” Mason said, “depends.”

There was a little cubbyhole lobby in the front of the building and a sign reading “Manager—Apt. 101,” with an arrow pointing to the apartment.

Mason led the way down the corridor to the lighted elevator shaft. The automatic elevator wheezed upward to the second floor. Apartment 220 was designated by a number on the door in a poorly lit corridor. There was a fairly good-sized crack at the bottom of the door and no light came through from this crack although other apartment doors on the same floor showed well-defined ribbons of light.

There was a doorbell to the right of the door. Mason pressed this and could hear a buzzer sounding on the inside of the apartment.

Drake said, “Perry, this thing gives me the creeps. Let’s go talk with the manager. Let’s keep our noses clean.”

“Before I talk with the manager,” Mason said, “I want to be sure what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t want to go in,” Drake said.

“You don’t mind if we demonstrate that the key fits, do you?”

“I don’t like any part of this,” Drake said.

“I don’t like it myself,” Mason told him, “but I’m trying to find evidence.”

They stood there waiting.

The corridor was poorly ventilated. There was a warm aroma of cooking odors mingled with the feel of human tenancy. Down the corridor someone was listening to a television show and the words were plainly audible through the thin door of the apartment.

“An old dump made over,” Drake said.

Mason nodded, then gently inserted the key which had opened the front door, and which he had been holding in his thumb and forefinger.

“I’m just going to try this,” he said.

The lawyer twisted the key. Nothing happened.

He moved the key slightly back and forth in the lock, exerted pressure, but the key refused to turn.

Della Street said, “How about the file, Chief? The locksmith said perhaps we’d have to dress off a high spot.”

Mason withdrew the key, looked at it for a moment, then tried another key on the key container.

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