Mason studied her with hard, watchful eyes. “You were wearing gloves?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Mason nodded toward the telephone. “Call the police. Tell them you had a date with Louie Conway at his apartment, that he was to wait for you there, that you pounded and hammered on the door, and he didn’t answer, that you know it isn’t a stand-up because he was going to marry you, and you were going away together.”
“If I just tell them that,” she said, “they’ll think I’m crazy.”
Mason said, “That’s what you want. Act crazy. Be hysterical over the telephone. Ask them to please send someone out to the apartment to make sure he’s all right. Tell them you’ve been trying to sleep, and couldn’t, that you knew he was afraid of something, that he’d been gambling, and he was afraid men were going to kidnap him. And don’t, under any circumstances, mention the name of Milicant.”
“But that won’t do any good,” she said.
“Don’t you see?” Mason told her. “They’ll make a record of that call and of your name and address. They’ll hand you a line and tell you they’ll have a radio car drop by for an inspection, that if you don’t hear from them, it’ll be all right.”
“And they won’t go?”
“Of course not. They can’t go around hammering on the apartment doors of all the men in the city who have stood up trollops on dates. In the morning when the thing breaks, that call will get you as much in the clear as you can get. With that call, they’ll never think of trying to check up on the airports.”
Her tear-reddened eyes blinked as she digested the lawyer’s advice.