Cast of characters

FLORENCE GENTRIE — Mrs. Arthur Gentrie, mother of three with an executive’s eye for detail

HESTER — her maid, who may or may not be stupid

REBECCA GENTRIE — her sister-in-law, an old maid with a fondness for crossword puzzles

ARTHUR GENTRIE — her husband, who owns a hardware store and can sleep through anything

JUNIOR — her son, 19, who won’t tell all he knows

PERRY MASON — criminal lawyer who is not averse to compounding a felony to solve a murder

DELLA STREET — his attractive secretary whose gun moll activities cause complications

RODNEY WENSTON — tall, handsome playboy pilot with an odd lisp and loquacious charm

GOW LOONG — inscrutable, soft-spoken, quick-moving Number One boy of

ELSTON A. KARR — rugged individualist with an Oriental angle of approach and secrets to keep

JOHNS BLAINE — who’s always in the background and calls himself “a sort of nurse”

LIEUTENANT TRAGG — quiet, efficient member of the Homicide Squad who knows Mason of old

DELMAN STEELE — the Gentries’ boarder who has made himself a member of the family

PAUL DRAKE — detective with a lot of explanations to make and sleep to catch up on

OPAL SUNLEY — a pretty young stenographer who wants to stay out of the papers

MRS. SARAH PERLIN — housekeeper, whose disappearance helps start it all

DORIS WICKFORD — exotic ex-actress who reads the “Personal” columns and has a claim to make

L. O. SAWDEY — a busy doctor who holds an important key to the solution of the murders

Chapter 1

Mrs. Arthur Gentrie managed her household with that meticulous attention to detail which marks any good executive. Her mind was an encyclopedic storehouse of various household data. Seemingly without any mental effort, she knew when the holes which showed up in Junior’s socks were sufficiently premature to indicate a poor quality in the yarn. When her husband had to travel on business, she knew just which of his shirts had already been sent to the laundry, and could, therefore, be packed in his grip. His other shirts were scrupulously hand-laundered at home.

In her forties, Mrs. Gentrie prided herself on the fact that she “didn’t have a nerve in her body.” She neither ate so much that she bulged with fat, nor had she ever starved herself so as to become neurotic. Her hips weren’t what they had been twenty years ago, but she accepted that with the calm philosophy of a realist. After all, a person couldn’t keep house for a husband, three children, an old-maid sister-in-law, rent out a room, keep household expenses down, and still retain the slim silhouette of a bride. As Mrs. Gentrie herself expressed it, she was “strong as an ox.”

Her husband’s sister wasn’t much help. Rebecca obviously was not a bachelor woman, nor could she be described as an “unmarried relative.” She was very definitely and decidedly an old-fashioned maiden lady, a thin, tea-drinking, cat-loving, gossip-spreading, talkative, critical, yet withal a good-looking old maid.

Mrs. Gentrie didn’t rely on Rebecca for much help around the house. She was too slight physically to be of assistance with the work, and too scatterbrained to help with responsibilities. She had, moreover, frequent spells of “ailing,” during which there seemed to be nothing particularly wrong save a psychic maladjustment seeking a physical manifestation.

Rebecca did, however, keep the room which Mrs. Gentrie rented in order. At present this room was occupied by a Mr. Delman Steele, an architect. Rebecca had two hobbies to which she gave herself with that enthusiasm which characterizes one whose emotions are otherwise repressed. She was an ardent crossword-puzzle fan and an amateur photographer. A darkroom in the basement was equipped with printers, enlargers, and developing tanks, most of which had been built by Arthur Gentrie, who had a distinct flair for tinkering and loved to indulge the whims of his sister.

There were times when Mrs. Gentrie bitterly resented Rebecca, although she tried to fight against that resentment and always managed to keep from showing it. For one thing, Rebecca didn’t get along well with the children. In place of sympathizing with their youthful indiscretions, Rebecca sought to hold them to the standards by which one would judge a grown-up. This, coupled with the fact that she had an uncanny ability to mimic voices and enjoyed nothing better than watching the children squirm while she re-enacted some bit of their conversation over the telephone, introduced a certain element of friction into the household which Mrs. Gentrie found highly annoying.

Nor would Rebecca, who did excellent photographic work, ever take the trouble to get good pictures of the children.

On Junior’s nineteenth birthday, she had condescended to take a picture at Mrs. Gentrie’s urgent request. The ordeal had been as distasteful to Junior as it had been to Rebecca, and Junior’s picture showed it, which would have been bad enough, had it not happened that Rebecca, who was experimenting with some of the new photographic wrinkles, had made an enlargement on a sheet of paper which had been held on an angle. The result had been a picture which was similar to the distorted reflections shown in the curved mirrors of penny arcades.

There was nothing slow about Rebecca’s mental processes when dealing with anything that interested her. Nothing ever went on around the house which she didn’t ferret out. Her curiosity was insatiable, and the manner in which she ferreted out secrets from an inadvertent remark or some casual clue would have done credit to a really good detective. Mrs. Gentrie knew that Rebecca had consented to take care of Delman Steele’s room largely because she enjoyed snooping around through his things, but there was nothing Mrs. Gentrie could do about this, and, inasmuch as the cleaning was always done while Steele was away at the office, there wasn’t much chance he would ever discover Rebecca’s surreptitious activities.

Hester, the maid, who came in by the day, was a strong, stalwart, taciturn, childless woman who lived in the neighborhood. Her husband was an intermittent sufferer from asthma, but was able to get around, and had a job as night watchman in one of the laboratories where new-model planes were given wind-tunnel tests.

Mrs. Gentrie paused to make a mental survey of the house. The breakfast things had been cleared away. Arthur and Junior had gone to the store. The children were off at school. Hester was running small table napkins through the electric mangle, and Rebecca, at her perennial crossword puzzle, was struggling with the daily offering from the newspaper, a pencil in her hand, her dark, deep-set eyes staring in frowning concentration. Mephisto, the black cat to which she was so attached, was curled up in the chair, where a shaft of windowed sunlight furnished a spot of welcome warmth.

The morning fire was still going in the wood stove. The big tea kettle was singing away reassuringly. There was a pile of mending to be done in the basket and... Mrs. Gentrie thought of the preserved fruit in the cellar. It simply had to be gone over. Hester was always inclined to reach for the most accessible tin, and Mrs. Gentrie strongly suspected that over in the dark corner of the cellar there were some cans which went back to 1939.

She paused for a moment, trying to remember the location of a flashlight. The children were always picking them up. There was a candle in the pantry, but... She remembered there was a flashlight in Junior’s bedroom that had a clip which enabled it to be fastened to the belt She’d borrow it for a few moments.

The flashlight in her hand, she descended the cellar stairs. The big gas furnace with its automatic controls had been on earlier in the morning, heating the house. Mrs. Gentrie had cut it off as soon as the family had got out of the way, but the cellar was still slightly warm from the heat which had been given off. She noticed cobwebs on the pipes in the back. Hester would have to get down here for a little cleaning. There was a neat array of canned goods and glass jars on the long shelves which stretched across the full length of the cellar. Mrs. Gentrie gave only a casual glance to the section near the window which marked this year’s canning. She passed up the first part of last year’s canning, and back in the dark corner used Junior’s flashlight to inspect the remnants.

She knew at once Hester had been neglecting this corner. There were cobwebs which showed as much, and the beam of Junior’s flashlight picked up two cans of 1939 pears almost at once. There were some jars of strawberry jam, cans of homemade apple butter — 1939...

Mrs. Gentrie stood perfectly still in puzzled perplexity. The white circle of illumination thrown by the flashlight was centered upon the glistening sides of an unlabeled tin which certainly looked as though it was fresh from the store.

Mrs. Gentrie couldn’t understand how an unlabeled tin could possibly have intruded itself upon her systematic classification of preserves. She used adhesive tape for labels so there would be no trouble with them dropping off. There was, moreover, something about the appearance of the tin itself which made it seem an intruder. The sides were so new and shiny. Not even a cobweb or a smudge on it.

Mrs. Gentrie reached out with her left hand. Unconsciously she measured the muscular effort in terms of a full quart, and, as a result, the light tin seemed to fairly jump off the shelf before she realized that it weighed no more than an empty can.

She looked at it with the frowning displeasure of a systematic individual finding something definitely at variance with an established system.

Holding the tin in her hand, she turned it around, looking at it from all angles. The top was crimped on, sealed carefully in place as though it had been filled with fruit and syrup. But the smooth glistening, somewhat oily surface of the tin indicated that it was just as it had come from the store — except that it had been so carefully sealed.

Mrs. Gentrie frowned at the offending object as she would have regarded evidences that a mouse had been in the shelf which held the spare bedding. She walked back to the cellar stairs, raised her voice, and called, “Hester! Oh, Hester!”

After a few moments she heard the heavy thud of Hester’s steps across the kitchen floor, then the stolid, “Yes, ma’am.”

“How did this tin get here?”

Hester advanced a tentative step or two down the cellar stairs, looked at the can in Mrs. Gentrie’s hand. The vacancy of her expression was sufficient answer to the question.

Mrs. Gentrie said, “It was right over in that corner. And I notice, Hester, you haven’t been cleaning up the 1939 preserves. We had 1940 pears last night, but there are still several cans of ’39 pears.”

“I didn’t know that,” Hester said.

“And this tin,” Mrs. Gentrie observed, “was in with the ’39 preserves.”

Hester shook her head. Long experience as a domestic had taught her that nothing was ever gained by argument. When the lady of the house took a notion to blame you for some slip, you stood there, let her speak her piece, and then went back to work. As it was, Hester was losing just this much time from the mangle, and her mind was half occupied with the unfinished ironing which remained in the kitchen.

There was a big wooden box over by the furnace where Arthur threw odds and ends of scraps, bits of old tin, pieces of wood, and an occasional can. Mrs. Gentrie tossed the offending can into this box.

“It doesn’t seem,” she said as she started upstairs, “that it would have been possible for anyone to have put an empty can on that shelf. I can’t imagine you doing anything like that, Hester.”

Hester walked back up the three or four stairs she had descended, and returned to the mangle without a word.

Rebecca looked up from her crossword puzzle. “What is it?” she asked. “... No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I’m timing myself on this puzzle. The newspaper gives the time it should take a person of average intelligence. What in the world, Florence, could be the name of a young salmon with only four letters and the last three a-r-r?”

Mrs. Gentrie shook her head. “Too deep for me,” she said, her manner indicating that she was interested only in dismissing the question. She went over to the basket of mending.

The shaft of sunlight which had been falling on Mephisto had moved over to the edge of the chair. The cat stretched, yawned, moved over a few inches, and squirmed over half on its back.

Rebecca frowningly studied the crossword puzzle.

Mrs. Gentrie said to Hester, “I can’t understand why anyone would seal up an empty can in the first place.”

“No, ma’am.”

Rebecca said, “If I could get the five-letter word meaning the side of a ditch next the parapet, I’d have the first letter of that word for the young salmon.”

“Why not look up parapet?”

“I have. It says, ‘a wall, rampart, or elevation to protect soldiers; a breastwork.’ ”

“Perhaps that dictionary isn’t complete enough to give it”

“Oh, but it is. It’s the Fifth Edition of Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. It’s got everything in it you need for these newspaper puzzles.”

Rebecca once more regarded the crossword puzzle, then looked at her watch. The exclamation which left her lips was one of definite annoyance.

She put down the pencil. “It’s no use. I just can’t keep my mind on it, and I’m running behind. What is all this talk about a can?”

“Nothing,” Mrs. Gentrie said, “except that I found a new empty can had been put in with the preserves over in the 1939 corner. I notice that when Junior put the new preserves up on the shelf, he shoved the old ones back over into that dark corner. Next year I’m going to have him do it just the opposite so that we naturally have to use up the old stuff first.”

“But why would anyone put an empty tin in with the full ones?” Rebecca asked.

“I don’t know. That’s what bothers me.”

“Wasn’t there any label on it?”

“No.”

“Where is it?”

“I threw it in the scrap box down in the cellar.”

Rebecca frowned and said, “I wish you hadn’t told me about it.”

Mrs. Gentrie laughed. “You asked me. Haven’t you any of the letters in your parapet word?”

Rebecca said, “The second two are c-a.”

Mrs. Gentrie held up her fingers. “Five letters?”

“Five letters.”

She checked off letters on her fingers, suddenly said, “I have it, Rebecca. It’s...”

“No, no, don’t help me! I want to get it by myself. I want to see if I can’t beat this ‘average intelligence’ time. Don’t interrupt me, Florence.”

Mrs. Gentrie smiled, picked up the box of mending, carried it over to the breakfast nook, picked out one of Junior’s socks, thrust the darning egg in it, and picked up her needle.

Rebecca said sharply, “Well, I don’t know how you could have found any five-letter word so soon.”

Mrs. Gentrie said soothingly, “Isn’t there a clue in the fact that the second two letters are c-a, Rebecca? Not many letters would go with c-a. You have some of the vowels which would hardly fit. Then in the consonants, I would say that s is about the only one that would go with c. That gives you s-c-a.”

“Oh, I have it,” Rebecca said. “S-c-a-r-p... but whoever heard of a young salmon being called a parr?”

“You might look it up.”

Rebecca turned the pages of the dictionary. “Yes. Here it is. P-a-r-r.”

She worked quickly with her pencil, then looked at the watch again. For a moment there was silence, then she threw down the pencil. “I don’t know what good it does a body to try and concentrate when you keep thinking about empty tins being found on the shelves. Why would an empty tin be put on a shelf, anyway?”

Mrs. Gentrie smiled indulgently. “I’m sure I can’t tell you. Go back to your puzzle, Rebecca. I’m certain you’ll have much better than average intelligence. What else are you having trouble with?”

“A four-letter word meaning ‘an East Indian tree used for masts.’ ”

“Do you have any of the letters?”

“Yes. I’ve got the first two letters. — P-o.”

“What other words would give you a clue?”

“A four-letter word meaning ‘of domestic animals, vehicles, etc., on the left.’ Now what in the world would that mean?”

Mrs. Gentrie puckered her forehead. “Don’t they talk about the ‘near’ side and the ‘off’ side of an animal? Wait a minute. It’s ‘nigh.’ Would that fit in?’

Rebecca moved her pencil tentatively, then faster. Abruptly, she reversed the ends of the pencil to make an erasure and said, “That’s right. It’s nigh. That makes that tree p-o- something -n.”

“Why don’t you take the dictionary and look under p-o? There certainly wouldn’t be so terribly many words.”

Rebecca’s fingers moved with a fluttering rapidity. “Oh, I’ve got it — poon. Now I’ve got the whole thing. Saber-toothed and poon were the two words that were sticking me, and I’ve got a high intelligence rating. I’m way ahead of the average. Isn’t that splendid?”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “That’s really fine. Don’t you think you’d better straighten up Mr. Steele’s room?”

“Oh, it isn’t time for that.”

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Good heavens, how time flies. Yes, I suppose I should. Sometimes he comes home at noon. Do you know, Florence, I wonder if he’s really an architect. He left some sketches in his room yesterday, and they looked very crude and amateurish to me.”

“I don’t think we should bother about his sketches, Rebecca.”

“Well, good heavens, they were right where a body would notice them. They were right in his upper bureau drawer, right where I couldn’t help seeing them.”

“Did he leave the bureau drawer open?”

“Well, no; but you know how the dust collects on those handles, and when I was dusting, it pulled the drawer open just a little, so I peeked.”

“An architect doesn’t necessarily have to be an artist.”

“Well, perhaps not, but he certainly should be able to draw the floor plans of this house so it would look — well, professional.”

“The floor plans of this house!”

“That’s what I’m telling you. There was a complete sketch of the basement floor plan with the garages, my darkroom, the shelves, window, stairs, and everything.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Well, I should think that would prove he was an architect and was interested in this old architecture.”

Rebecca sniffed. “Like as not he’ll turn out to be snooping for some of these agencies, and a building inspector will show up to tell us that our foundations are defective and that we’re going to have to do a lot of expensive repair work.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, run along in and clean up the room, Rebecca.”

Mrs. Gentrie had utilized an outside entrance two years ago to create a room and bath which could be rented. Delman Steele was a very recent tenant. He had moved in within the last ten days. Yet in that short time he had made himself quite one of the family. In the evening he frequently sat with Rebecca, helping her solve crossword puzzles or assisting her in the darkroom.

The huge, rambling, old-fashioned house had its defects. It was hard enough to heat and to keep clean, but there was lots of space, and the rental from the room more than made up for a lot of the inconveniences due to the size of the house.

Moreover, because the house was on a slope, two garages had been cut out of the basement. One of these garages was rented to R. E Hocksley, who lived in one of the flats next door. Mrs. Gentrie had never seen Hocksley himself, but his secretary, who came in by the day, Opal Sunley, was always on hand to pay the garage rent promptly in advance. That started Mrs. Gentrie thinking about Junior. Junior had been evidencing quite an interest in Opal Sunley lately. Junior was only nineteen. In a way, he was old enough to take care of himself; but lately there had been a smug expression about Opal’s eyes that Mrs. Gentrie didn’t like. Opal was four or five years older than Junior, and Mrs. Gentrie felt certain she’d been married and was separated from her husband. It would be a lot better if Junior would spend more time with some of the girls in his own set. Suppose Opal was twenty-three or twenty-four. Those few years made a big difference.

Mrs. Gentrie sighed with the realization that the years, of late, had begun to flit by with smooth, streamlined speed.

Chapter 2

Mrs. Gentrie awakened sometime during the night with the vague feeling that she had heard a door open and close, and steps on the stairs — the cautious steps of someone trying to be quiet and succeeding only in being furtive.

It was that time of the night when weary muscles and tired nerves wrap themselves in the mantle of slumber as in a protective cloak, drugging the senses into an oblivion so deep that sounds, penetrating through to the consciousness, are robbed of significance.

Mrs. Gentrie felt no apprehension, only a mild irritation. Her sleep-numbed senses struggled with her uneasiness and won the argument. As soon as the sounds themselves ceased to register, she slipped tranquilly back into a deeper slumber, from which she was aroused abruptly by some sound so sinister that she found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, trying to call back a noise which had already become an echo in her ears.

At her side, Arthur Gentrie said sleepily, “Whatsmatter?”

“I thought I heard something, Arthur.”

“Goschleep.”

“Arthur it sounded like — like a door banging or — or — or a shot.”

Arthur Gentrie rolled over, said, “ ’Sall right,” and almost immediately settled down into a rhythm of breathing which soon deepened into a gentle snore.

Mrs. Gentrie could hear sounds on the stairs again, the steps of someone trying to be quiet, yet someone who was in a hurry. A board creaked.

Mrs. Gentrie switched on the light over her bed. She looked at the sleeping form of her husband; then realized that before she could waken him to a realization of the emergency, it would be too late to do anything about it. She slid out of bed, flung her robe around her, kicked her feet into slippers, and opened the door which led to the hallway.

Down at the far end of the corridor, by the bathroom door, a dim night light furnished a vague sort of illumination which was hardly brilliant enough to penetrate the shadows near the doorways.

Mrs. Gentrie rubbed sleep from her eyes, walked over toward the head of the stairs. She paused to listen, and could hear nothing. The insidious chill of the night air stole the warmth from her body, and Mrs. Gentrie wrapped the robe more tightly around her. She shivered nervously. She knew that an ominous noise had wakened her yet her mind could conjure up only an uncertain memory of that sound. It might have been a slamming door. It might have been that someone had fallen over a chair, or... well, it might have been the sound of a backfire from a truck somewhere. Mrs. Gentrie, sufficiently wide awake now to be more matter-of-fact, refused to consider the possibility of a shot.

Then from the dark bowels of the house there came another sound, a dull, muffled, thudding noise as though someone had struck against something in the dark, or knocked something down. This noise came very definitely from the lower floor. That called for activity on the part of her husband.

Mrs. Gentrie hurried back to the bedroom. She was shivering now, and abruptly conscious of the fact that a night wind was blowing the lace curtains, billowing them into miniature balloons that remained distended for a while, then collapsed, letting the curtains fall against the screen with an audible slapping noise.

Mrs. Gentrie had been the first to bed. Her husband had been puttering around with painting in the cellar. That was what came of trusting Arthur to open the windows. He’d neglected to pull back the curtains. There might be an intruder on the lower floor, but Mrs. Gentrie considered the curtains to be the matter of paramount importance just then. Slapping against that dusty screen, they’d get themselves filled with dirt... “Arthur,” she called as she crossed the room and looped back the curtains.

Her husband failed to respond. She had to shake him awake, impressing upon him the fact that there’d been a series of noises.

“Junior coming in,” he said.

Mrs. Gentrie looked at the clock. It was thirty-five minutes past midnight. “He’ll have been in long before this,” she said.

“Look in his room?”

“No. I tell you it was someone running, stumbling over something.”

“It was Junior coming in and the wind blowing a door shut.”

“But I heard some other noises from down on the lower floor.”

“Wind,” he said, then as her very silence became sufficiently pronounced to constitute a contradiction, “Well, I’ll go take a look.”

She knew that Arthur’s look would be perfunctory. She could hear him moving around on the lower floor, switching on lights. She wondered about Junior. Once more she walked down the corridor toward the head of the stairs. Junior’s room was the first on the right as you came up the stairs. His door was closed. She opened it gently, looked inside.

“Junior.”

There was no answer.

Somehow, the dark interior of the room indicated that it was empty. She clicked on a light switch. Junior wasn’t in his room. The unwrinkled, smooth, white counterpane seemed to Mrs. Gentrie a fresh cause for alarm. But the plodding steps of her husband, climbing wearily back up the staircase, seemed, somehow, reassuring in a matter-of-fact sort of way. And suddenly, she wanted to shield Junior — didn’t want her husband to know he wasn’t in.

“Was anyone down there?” she asked, moving away from the door of Junior’s room.

“Of course not,” he said. “You heard the cellar door bang shut. The wind blew it shut, and Mephisto jumped...”

“The cellar door!”

“Yes, going down from the kitchen.”

“Why, it’s always kept closed. It...”

“No. I left it open tonight. I did some painting down there, and wanted to let the air circulate. The wind blew it shut, that’s all.”

Mrs. Gentrie felt sheepish. The very weariness in her husband’s voice, the dejected slump of his shoulders as he walked down the corridor, carried conviction to her mind. She had become nervous, permitted herself to magnify and distort noises of the night. Arthur, plodding down the corridor, had the attitude of a man who has learned from twenty-one years of married life that women will get those ideas and send men prowling around on nocturnal investigations. Nothing can be done about it, so there’s no need to remonstrate after it’s all over; just get back into bed, try to get warm again, and back to sleep.

Mrs. Gentrie, feeling apologetic, followed her husband to bed. She snuggled close to him, heard once more the gentle rhythm of his breathing, felt the delicious warmth of drowsiness stealing over her like some powerful drug dragging her into the welcome oblivion of sleep.

The alarm wakened her in the morning. She shut it off and pulled down the window. Putting on her robe, she moved around the upper floor, pressing the controls which turned on the gas furnace in the cellar. In the dim light of early morning, her fears of the night before seemed rather ludicrous. But she couldn’t resist looking into Junior’s room.

His clothes were piled in a careless heap on a chair by the window. He lay wrapped in the blankets, deep in slumber.

It was only after she had seen him that Mrs. Gentrie realized how much she had feared that when she opened the door the unwrinkled counterpane and smooth white of the pillowcases would greet her once more, just as they had done at thirty-five minutes past midnight.

Mrs. Gentrie closed the door quietly. Junior didn’t need to get up for an hour yet.

So the big house took up once more the burden of its daily routine — a routine which differed no whit from that of any other day until the sound of screaming sirens tore the silence of the neighborhood into shreds, and completely disrupted the smooth functioning of Mrs. Gentrie’s domestic machinery.

Chapter 3

Perry Mason was standing at the cigar counter buying a package of cigarettes when Della Street came through the doorway, carried along by the stream of people pouring in from the street. Several masculine eyes looked at her with approval as she swung to the outer edge of the file of in-pouring office workers. From the straight seams of her stockings to the tilt of her chin, she represented a feminine bundle of neat efficiency which was remarkably easy on the eyes.

Perry Mason, tossing a quarter on the glass counter and turning back toward the elevators, encountered Della Street’s smiling eyes looking up at him. “What is the rush?” she asked.

Mason gripped her elbows with his hand. “Surprise!” he said.

“I’ll say it’s a surprise. What’s bringing you down this early? Is there a murder in the air that I haven’t sniffed? I didn’t expect to see you before eleven, not after the way you were working last night when I went home. I suppose the office is a litter.”

“Your supposition is entirely correct,” he said, “and don’t try putting away the books in the law library. I’ve worked out a new theory in that Consolidated case. The books are all lying face open, piled one on top of the other in the exact order that I want to follow in dictating an office brief.”

They walked together into one of the crowded elevators, stood back from the door, being pushed into the intimacy of a close proximity by the packed humanity. Mason’s hand, still on Della Street’s arm, tightened into that little gesture of friendship and understanding which was the keynote of their relationship.

“Going to win that case?” she asked.

He nodded, smiled at her, but said nothing until the elevator stopped to let them out, then as they walked down the long corridor, he said, “It’s a cinch now. I always thought it should have been presented on the doctrine of ‘last clear chance,’ but I couldn’t find the authorities to support that contention. Last night about eleven o’clock I uncovered just the line of decisions I wanted.”

“Nice going,” she said.

Della Street unlocked the door of Mason’s private office, said, “I’ll take a peek at the outer office and see what’s doing. I suppose you’ll want the mail?”

Mason grinned. “Not all the mail. High-grade it for checks. Throw the bills away, and put the other correspondence in the deferred file.”

“Where it will duly repose for a week or two, and then get transferred to the dead file,” she said.

“Oh, well, if there’s anything important, you’ll know what to do about it.”

Mason, who hated all letters with the aversion a man of action feels for routine work, hung up his hat in the cloak closet, walked over to the window, looked down for a moment at the confusion of tangled traffic, then turned back to his desk. Picking up a law book which lay open on his blotter, he started studying the decision. As he followed an obscure legal principle through an intricate maze of legal reasoning, the corners of his eyes puckered with the enjoyment of concentration. Slowly, as though hardly aware of what he was doing, he pulled out the swivel chair and settled down at his desk without interrupting his reading.

Several minutes later the door opened and his confidential secretary, easing her way into the room, waited for him to look up. It was almost five minutes before, turning a page, he saw her standing there. “What is it?” he asked.

“An aviator who wants to see you on behalf of his stepfather,” Della Street said. “He’s in the outer office.”

“Not interested,” Mason said. “I have this Consolidated case on my mind and don’t want to be disturbed.”

“He’s a tall, handsome devil,” she said, “and knows it. He says that his stepfather is a cripple and can’t come himself, that he has a most important legal matter to take up with you, that because there was a shooting affair last night in the flat below, he’s afraid the situation may be complicated.”

Mason put down the law book somewhat wistfully. “The gunshot does it,” he announced with a grin. “I never can concentrate on a brief when there’s shooting going on. What’s his name, Della?”

“Rodney Wenston. He’s one of these playboy aviation enthusiasts; living, I gather, largely on funds inherited from his mother. I doubt if his stepfather entirely approves of him, and I also doubt if he entirely approves of his stepfather — refers to him as the guv’nor.”

“How old?” Mason asked.

“Somewhere around thirty-five. Tall, straight, and has that slow-moving assurance of a man who’s accustomed to the best in life. He has a lisp when he’s embarrassed or self-conscious and you can see it annoys him.”

“He’s not flying for a living, just as a sport?”

“A hobby, he calls it.”

“You seem to have found out a good deal about him.”

“What it takes to get information I have,” she told him coolly. “But this time I didn’t even have to work. The man really loosened up. Perhaps that’s why I’m prejudiced in his favor. He doesn’t regard a secretary as a wall to be jumped over or detoured but as a necessary part of a business organization. As soon as I told him I was your secretary and asked him about his business, he opened right up.”

Mason said, “With that in his favor and the gunshot as a lure, we’ll certainly give him an audience. What about the lisp, Della?”

“Oh, it isn’t bad. He’s really very distinguished looking, tall, straight, blue eyes, blond hair and lots of it, a nice profile, probably more than a little spoiled, but quite definitely a personality. The lisp embarrasses him a lot but he gets over it somewhat after he’s warmed up to his conversation.”

“All right, let’s talk with him,” Mason said.

Della Street picked up the telephone, said, “Send Mr. Wenston in, Gertie.” She dropped the telephone receiver, said to Mason, “Now, don’t start reading that law book again.”

“I won’t,” Mason promised.

“Your mind is just about half focused on that book right now.”

Reluctantly, Mason turned the book face down on his desk. The door of his private office opened, and Rodney Wenston bowed deferentially. “Good morning, Mr. Mason. I hope you’ll pardon this early intrusion but the fact ith the guv’nor is all worked up. Apparently, there’s been a shooting in the lower flat, and he’s afraid officers will be thwarming all over the place to interfere with what he wants to see you about. He says it’s dreadfully important and I’m commissioned to get a habeas corpus, mandamus, or whatever you lawyers call it, to see that you get there at once. My stepfather promises to pay you anything you want if you’ll come immediately.”

“Can you tell me the nature of the business?” Mason asked.

Wenston smiled. “Frankly, I can’t. My stepfather ith one of those rugged individualists. I was to act as intermediary. He’s...”

The telephone rang. Della Street picked it up, said, “Hello,” then, shielding the mouthpiece with her hand, said to Mason, “This is he on the phone now. Elston A. Karr. Says he sent his stepson to explain matters, and he’d like to talk with you personally.”

Mason nodded acquiescence to Della Street, took the telephone from her, and said, “Hello.” He heard a thin, high-pitched voice saying in a crisp, meticulous accuracy of enunciation, “Mr. Mason, this is Elston A. Karr. I have given my address to your secretary. I presume she has made a note of it. Apparently a murder was committed in the flat below mine sometime last night. The place is crawling with police. For certain reasons which I cannot explain at the present time or over the telephone, I want to talk with an attorney. It’s about a matter about which I’ve been thinking for several days. I want to get it disposed of before police start messing into my private affairs. Can you come out here immediately? I am confined to a wheelchair and am unable to get to your office.”

“Who was murdered?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. That matter is highly immaterial except as it will interfere with what I want to do.”

Mason, conducting a psychological experiment, asked, “Do you think you’ll be suspected of complicity in this murder?”

The man’s close-lipped accents said scornfully, “Certainly not.”

“Then why all this hurry about seeing me?”

“It’s a matter I’ll explain when you get here. It’s highly important. I am willing to pay any fee within reason. I want you personally, Mr. Mason. I would not be satisfied with any other attorney. But you’ll have to make up your mind quickly.”

Mason turned to Della Street. “Tell Gertie not to touch those books on the library table. Okay, Mr. Karr, I’ll be right out. Just a minute. Della, you have the address?”

“Yes.”

Mason dropped the receiver into place. “Come on, Della. We’re going places.”

Wenston smiled. “Glad you talked with him, Mr. Mason. He’th a card. I’ll not be going out with you. Sometimes we don’t get along too well. I fly him around and do errands for him, but we’re not too thick. Just a tip — don’t let him dominate you. He’ll try fast enough — and lose all respect for you as soon as he does it.

“And, if you want another tip, remember he’s a deep one. He may seem simple enough, but he has an oriental angle of approach. You know, when he wants to go north, he starts to the east and circles back. He’s rented the flat in my name. You’ll see Wenston on the door.

“Well, I’ll be on my way. Thank you for your courtesy in seeing me. Good morning.”

Mason was putting on his hat as Wenston went out. He and Della caught the next elevator down, and crossed to the garage where Mason’s car was parked. The lawyer drove swiftly through the congestion of morning traffic, parking the car half a block from the address his client had given Della Street. Four or five cars were already parked in front of the two-flat stucco house, its cream-colored sides and red-tiled roof contrasting in architecture with the old-fashioned rambling frame house on the comer where the Gentries lived.

As they walked rapidly along toward the flat, Della said, “That corner house certainly goes back.”

Mason looked at it curiously. “A lot of those houses were put up around 1900. They were then the last word in luxurious mansions. Of course they seem hopelessly antiquated now. That’s because this section of the country is so young and styles have changed with such bewildering rapidity. Take some of the older parts of the country and old houses don’t look so much out of place. You’ll find lots of houses seventy-five to a hundred years old which don’t seem nearly as old as this place. This flat is the one we want, isn’t it?”

“Yes. We ring the bell on the left. This one on the right says Robindale E. Hocksley.”

Mason said, “Hope he doesn’t keep us standing here. It would be just our luck to have Lieutenant Tragg pop his head out of the door and...”

Abruptly the door of the left-hand flat opened. A tall Chinese, clad in somber, dark clothes, said, “How-do? Mistah Mason? You please come in, velly quick please.”

Mason and Della walked through the door the Chinese was holding open and climbed the stairs. The door was swung quietly shut behind them by the swift-moving Chinese.

Nearing the head of the stairs Mason heard the sound of rubber-tired wheels rolling rapidly along the hardwood floor. The same high-pitched, reedy voice he had heard over the telephone said, “It’s all right, Johns. Don’t bother. I’ll make it.” Then a wheelchair shot through a curtained doorway. An emaciated hand applied a brake, and Mason found himself scrutinized by a pair of piercing gray eyes, deep-set beneath shaggy brows, in a face which seemed all skin and bones.

The man in the wheelchair gave the impression of boundless nervous energy. It was as though the strength which had been denied the body had gone into nervous vitality. So intense was the concentration in those gray eyes that the man seemed to entirely forget the amenities of the situation. Della Street he ignored, utterly and completely, devoting all of his attention to a study of the lawyer.

It was a man who came hurrying from the room behind the curtained doorway who broke the tension. “Mr. Mason?”

The lawyer nodded.

The man came forward, smiling. Powerful shoulders pushed out a short, muscular arm. Thick, strong fingers grasped Mason’s hand. “I’m Blaine,” he said. “Johns Blaine.”

Karr lowered the lids of his eyes. In that moment, so transparent and waxlike was his skin that he seemed almost as a corpse. Then his eyes slowly opened. The look of intense concentration had departed. There was a smile on his lips, and a kindly twinkle in his eyes. “Forgive me, Mr. Mason,” he said. “I need a good lawyer. I’ve heard a lot about you. I wanted to see if you measured up.”

He raised his hand from the arm of the wheelchair and extended it. Mason folded gentle fingers about the hand, noticing that the skin was cold, that the bones seemed delicately fragile.

“My secretary, Miss Street,” Mason introduced.

The others acknowledged the introduction, then Karr said, “And my number one boy, Gow Loong.”

Mason regarded the Chinese with undisguised interest. He had, somehow, more the air of a companion or partner than of a servant. His high forehead, the calm placidity of his countenance, the steady inscrutability of his dark eyes gave him a distinguished appearance.

“Don’t get interested in him,” Karr warned, in his quick, nervous voice. “He’s too much like the Orient. You want to understand him, but can’t. A perpetual mystery. Arouses your curiosity and then slams the door in your face. We’ve got too confounded much to think about — too much to talk about. Glad you brought your secretary. She can take notes, and I won’t have to go over the thing twice. Makes me terribly impatient when I have to repeat things. What are you standing there for? Come on, let’s go in where we can sit down and be comfortable, and get this over with.”

He grasped the big rubber tires of the wheelchair, spun it in a quick turn, lunged forward with his thin shoulders, and, mustering surprising strength, sent the chair shooting back through the curtained doorway at such speed that the others, following along behind, were hopelessly in the rear.

The room beyond the curtained doorway was a well-furnished drawing room with hardwood floors, sumptuous Chinese rugs and furniture which had quite evidently been brought from the Orient. The dark wood of this furniture had been cunningly carved with a design in which the dragon motif predominated.

Karr spun the wheelchair into a quick turn and stopped it instantly. He handled his chair with the deft, expert skill born of long practice. “Sit down. Sit down,” he said in his high-pitched, piping voice. “Don’t stand on formality, please. There isn’t any time. Mason, sit over here. Miss Street, if you’ll use that table for your writing. No! Wait a minute. There’s some nested tables over there. You can get one just the right height. Gow Loong, put that table over by her elbow. All set? Sit down, Johns. Damn it, you make me nervous, hovering around over me. I’m not going to break in two.”

“What has happened?” Mason asked.

Karr said, “Listen attentively, please. You got your notebook there, Miss Street? That’s fine. I’m right in the middle of a delicate matter. I won’t go into details right now, but I had a partner in China. A rough partnership it was, too. We were running guns up the Yangtze. Slice you up in fine pieces if they caught you. Death of a thousand cuts, they called it.

“Well, anyway, my partner and I kept ’em supplied with guns. There was excitement in it, and money. I won’t go into that, though, not now. I’ll only say I’m doing something in connection with that old partnership — and I’ve got to keep under cover until it’s done. I can’t stand any notoriety — don’t want anyone to know of me. Far as anyone knows, Elston A. Karr was killed up the river.

“I rented this apartment in the name of my stepson, Rodney Wenston. He signs all the checks, pays the rent, and all that. I don’t enter into the picture at all.

“However, there are some of the boys who aren’t fooled easily. Don’t ever underestimate the Oriental. They’re slow but sure. Sometimes they aren’t so slow, either. Well, as I said, I’ve got to avoid any publicity. No one must see me here. I can’t be questioned.

“Well, this matter I want to talk to you about has to do with the old partnership. I didn’t start the ball rolling until I was certain any interest which might have been aroused by my having moved in here had quieted down. So I picked this particular time to go ahead, and then that murder happened downstairs. Puts me in the devil of a predicament. I suppose the newspapermen will describe the house and the tenants. Worst possible time it could have happened.”

Mason asked, “Why not let this other matter wait?”

“Because I’ve already started it,” Karr exclaimed irritably. “Dammit, Mason, I told you that already. I’ve started the ball rolling. I can’t stop it now. And the more of a mystery they make of that murder downstairs, the longer the thing drags out, the more notoriety I’ll get, and the more dangerous it is for me.”

“Have the police been here yet?” Mason asked.

“No. That’s why I was in such a hurry to get you. I want you to help me handle them.”

Mason frowned. “How does it happen they haven’t been here before this?”

Karr said, “Talked them out of it. Sent Johns and Gow Loong down to find out what it was all about. The police questioned them. Some lieutenant from the Homicide Squad down there. What’s his name, Johns?”

“Tragg.”

“That’s right, Tragg. Lieutenant Tragg. Know him, Mason?”

“Yes.”

Karr said, “They told Tragg I was sick, that he’d have to come up to interview me, that I didn’t know anything, anyway. That’s not true. I heard the shot, but that’s all I know about it.”

Mason said, “Perhaps if you’d tell me why you felt it necessary to call me, we’d have a more satisfactory starting point.”

Karr jerked his head into a sharp turn. His eyes were blazing now with the fire of that devastating, nervous energy which seemed to be too much for his frail body to hold. “How about this secretary of yours? All right?”

“All right.”

“You can vouch for her?”

“Yes.”

“This is important — important as the devil.”

“She’s all right.”

Karr said, “I don’t know what happened downstairs. I don’t give a damn. I’m confined to my wheelchair. I can’t get around. Have to be lifted in and out. Don’t have any opportunity to be neighborly. Don’t want to be neighborly. All I ask is to be left alone. Now this confounded murder comes along, and I suppose the newspaper reporters will start snooping around. One thing I can’t stand, Mason, is publicity. Don’t want any of it. Can’t have it.”

“Why did you send for me?” Mason asked.

“I’m coming to it. Don’t interrupt me. When I get started, let me go. And don’t make me repeat. It makes me nervous to have to repeat. Where was I? Oh, yes, publicity. I’ll tell you why I can’t stand any publicity. I’m hiding. They’re trying to murder me. Wouldn’t be surprised if this murder downstairs was because some hired assassin got his numbers mixed. I used the greatest care getting this flat. It’s an ideal location for what I want. But I made one mistake. I should have rented the lower flat as well, and put Gow Loong in there. But when I moved in, the lower flat was untenanted and had been for over a year. Neighborhood’s gone to hell, but they still want too much money for their rentals. I rented this place, moved in at night...”

“Why didn’t you take the lower apartment for yourself?” Mason asked. “The stairs must make a difference.”

“Don’t make any difference at all,” Karr said. “Can’t go any place except in a wheelchair. Have no desire to go out of doors except to get a little sunlight. There’s a fine balcony here on the south and west side. I can get out there and get the sunlight. That’s why I like the place. No buildings over on the south side to shut off the sunlight. That big old-fashioned mansion over on the north literally blankets the north side, shuts off any cold north winds. I want it warm. My blood’s thin. Too long in the tropics. Too much dysentery. Too much malaria. Too much other stuff. Never mind. Don’t need to go into that now. How’d I get talking about stairs? Oh, yes, you asked me.”

He raised his hand and pointed a long, bony finger at Mason. “I told you not to interrupt me. Let me talk.”

Mason smiled. “There are certain things I have to know.”

“All right, I’ll come to them. Wait until I’ve finished, and then ask me for anything I haven’t covered. What was I talking about?”

“Publicity,” Johns Blaine said in the half second of silence which followed Karr’s request.

“Murder,” corrected Gow Loong.

Mason’s eyes shifted to the face of the Chinese, regarding him with keen interest. The one word which he had spoken had been without emphasis, without accent, and without hesitation. It was the one word of prompting which Karr needed.

“That’s right,” Karr said. “It’s murder. I’m a wanted man, Mr. Mason. There are people who want to know where I am. If they find out, I’m finished. In my condition, I can’t move around rapidly. I took a lot of trouble getting into this place unobserved. Johns Blaine rented it, and moved in. He and Gow Loong smuggled me in under cover of darkness. No one has ever seen me. That’s the beauty of the place. That balcony out there gets the sunlight, but it can’t be seen from any direction. There isn’t any other house which can command a view. That’s the advantage of that deep gully along there — ‘barranca’ they call it in this country. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t think they’d ever rent the lower part of the house. Too many people are afraid there’s going to be an earthquake, and the whole thing will slide down into the gully — barranca.

“There may be better places out here in Hollywood, but we didn’t have time to look around too much. They were after me. They were pretty hot on my trail, if you want to know the truth. A man who has to move around in a wheelchair isn’t exactly what you’d call inconspicuous. Johns did a good job in the limited time he had. It’s a satisfactory place. But I can’t stand any investigation. I don’t want to talk with the police. I don’t want them to talk with me. I can’t see any newspaper reporters.”

“What do you know,” Mason asked, “and what happened?”

“A man moved in down in the lower flat about a week after I’d rented this place,” Karr said. “I haven’t ever seen him. He’s never seen me. His name’s Hocksley. Guess you saw it on the mailbox — didn’t you?”

Mason nodded.

“I don’t know what he does. I think he’s connected with the studios, some sort of a writer. Damned irregular habits. I can hear him dictating sometimes at night. Always seems to dictate at night. Don’t know what he does during the daytime. Guess he sleeps.”

“Does he dictate to a stenographer?” Mason asked.

“No. To a dictating machine. That’s the way it sounds, and I think that’s right. Has a girl who comes in every day and pounds the typewriter. He seems to keep her busy. She’s the one who discovered the murder.”

“She comes in each day?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“He lives down there alone?”

“No, he doesn’t. He has a housekeeper. What’s her name, Gow Loong?”

“Salah Pahlin.”

“That’s right, Sarah Perlin. Never can remember names. That’s an odd name, anyway. I’ve never seen her. Johns has seen her. Tell him what she looks like, Johns.”

Blaine said very tersely, “Fifty-five, tall, angular, dark eyes, thin gray hair, keeps it combed tightly back, flat-footed, doesn’t try to make herself look attractive. She lives in the place, has the back bedroom, I think. About five-foot-four or five, weighs a hundred ten or a hundred and fifteen. Is there to work, and that’s all, closemouthed, does the cooking, takes care of the place, doesn’t do washing, evidently a good cook. There’s lots of baking. You can smell it up here. Doesn’t seem to do much frying.”

Karr held up his hand. “That’s enough,” he said. “Gives Mason the picture. He doesn’t have to know too much about her. Just wants a description — doesn’t want to know what brand of toothpaste she uses. She’s disappeared.”

Abruptly, the sound of the buzzer on the door interrupted Karr’s speech.

Mason said, “That’ll be the police.”

Karr said, “Keep me out of it, Mason. You’ve got to keep me out of it.”

Mason said impatiently, “You’ve spouted out a lot of rapid conversation, but you haven’t got anywhere. That’s because you wouldn’t let me interrupt you and ask questions. Gow Loong, go to the door. If that’s Tragg, keep him down there for a minute or two. Karr, tell me exactly what happened.”

Karr frowned irritably. “Don’t interrupt me. I...”

“Shut up,” Mason said. “Answer my question. What happened?”

Johns Blaine stared at Mason in sudden consternation, said, “Mr. Karr gets nervous when he’s interrupted, Mr. Mason. He...”

“Shut up,” Karr said to Blaine, and to Mason, “Last night about half past twelve, a shot. After that, some moving around downstairs. I didn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t. I could have yelled, that’s all. I didn’t try yelling. Wouldn’t have done any good, anyway.”

“How about these other people?” Mason asked. “Where were they?”

“I was here alone,” Karr said. “I don’t ordinarily stay alone. I...”

Mason said to Gow Loong, “If that’s Tragg, stall him along as much as you can, but let him in. Go ahead and open the door. All right, Karr, let’s hear the rest of it.”

“Heard someone running, heard a door slam,” Karr said. “Then I didn’t hear anything more for ten or fifteen minutes. Then I heard someone moving around cautiously. I heard a man’s voice talking. Might have been telephoning.”

“Then what?” Mason asked.

“Nothing more for an hour. Then things moving again, a sound of something being dragged across the floor, and out the side door. It sounded like a body being dragged by someone who couldn’t lift it. There were two people, I think. I was in bed. I couldn’t even get to the window or the telephone. Never have a telephone by my bed. Makes me too nervous if it rings at night.”

“The side door?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. The side door is right opposite the garage over at the other house — that one on the north. Hocksley rents that garage, keeps his car there. His stenographer uses it sometimes.”

“Hear anything else?” Mason asked.

“Voices. I think one of them was a woman. I heard a car start and drive out. It was gone about an hour, came back to that garage. Gow Loong was back by that time.”

“And Mr. Blaine?” Mason asked as he heard steps on the stairs.

Blaine said, “I got in about two o’clock.”

The steps on the stairs were louder. Gow Loong said, “You come topside upstairs, please. Solly no come sooner. No savvy policee man. Massah in here, please.”

Lieutenant Tragg, standing in the doorway, surveyed the group for a minute before his eyes segregated Perry Mason from the others. As he recognized the lawyer, a slight flush deepened his color, but there was no other indication of surprise or annoyance. “Well, well,” he said, “fancy seeing you here! May I ask what’s the occasion of the visit?”

Mason said, “My client, Mr. Karr, is nervous. You understand how it is when a man of law-abiding habits is suddenly brought into contact with lawlessness. He naturally becomes apprehensive. Mr. Karr has been intending to make a will for some time, and the unfortunate occurrence downstairs tended to emphasize the uncertainties of life. He sent for me to... to come on a legal matter.”

“So you’re drawing a will?” Tragg asked skeptically.

Mason started to say something, then apparently caught himself, and said, “Well, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by discussing Mr. Karr’s private business. You may draw your own conclusions, Lieutenant.”

“I’m drawing them,” Tragg said significantly.

Mason performed the introductions. “Mr. Karr,” he said, “Mr. Johns Blaine, and Gow Loong, the number one boy.”

Lieutenant Tragg said, “I’ve met the others. Mr. Karr’s the one I want to talk with.”

Mason said, “I’m afraid Mr. Karr can’t help you very much. I’ve been asking him generally about the murder. Just the natural questions that one would ask out of curiosity, you know.”

“Yes,” Tragg said, and added, after a duly significant pause, “just out of curiosity.”

Mason grinned. “Certainly, Tragg. I hope you don’t think that if I were interested in what had gone on downstairs, I’d be approaching it in this roundabout method.”

Tragg said, “Experience has taught me that your methods of approach are sometimes oblique, but always deadly.”

Mason laughed. “Come on over and sit down. I’m afraid Mr. Karr can’t help you very much. You see, he heard two shots in the wee small hours of the morning, but thought they were from the exhaust of a truck, and...”

“Two shots!” Tragg interrupted.

Mason regarded him with wide-open, innocent eyes. “Why, yes. Weren’t there two?”

Tragg said, “What time was this?”

“Oh, perhaps one or two in the morning. He didn’t look at his clock. But he thinks it was right around in there.”

“Why does he place the time as being around in there if he didn’t look at the clock?”

“Well, he’d awakened about twelve-thirty, and he was just getting back to sleep again,” Mason said.

Tragg frowned. “That doesn’t agree with statements made by some of the other witnesses.”

“The deuce it doesn’t,” Mason said in apparent surprise. “Well, Mr. Karr can’t be very certain about any of it, Tragg. There is, of course, a chance he actually did hear a truck backfiring, and didn’t hear the actual shots, which may have been fired earlier in the night.”

“Shot,” Tragg said. “There was only one.”

Mason gave a low whistle.

Tragg looked at Karr. “You’re certain there were two?”

Karr said, “I don’t think I can add anything to what Mr. Mason has said.”

“I’ve been talking it over with him,” Mason observed easily, “and he isn’t certain of a thing, Tragg. That’s why I told you I didn’t think he could help you much.”

Tragg said to Karr, “What do you know about this man, Hocksley, who lived in the flat below you?”

“Not a thing,” Karr said. “I’ve never so much as set eyes on the man. You see, I’m confined to my wheelchair and bed. I’m not interested in the neighbors, and I don’t particularly care about having them interested in me. Even if Hocksley had lived a completely normal, ordinary life, I probably would never have seen him; but he didn’t.”

“In what way didn’t he?”

“I think,” Karr said, “the man must have slept most of the day, because I’d heard him up at all hours of the night. He did a lot of talking down there. It sounded as though it was dictation he was pouring into a dictating machine...”

“Why not to a stenographer?” Tragg asked.

“It may have been,” Karr said, “but it sounded more like a dictating machine, a steady, even monotone of fast dictation with virtually no pauses. I’ve noticed that when people dictate to stenographers, they pause every little while — that is, most of them do. Then they’ll have intervals of real long pauses while they’re waiting for ideas. Something about a dictating machine which speeds up a man’s concentration. He feeds the stuff right into it. Anyway, that’s the way I’ve always thought about it.”

Tragg frowned and looked down at the toes of his shoes. After a while he said, “Humph,” then turned to regard Mason thoughtfully.

“Oh, well,” Mason said cheerfully, “it’ll probably work out all right. It’s been my experience there are always these little discrepancies in a case. What happened, Tragg?”

Tragg said, “Hocksley had that flat downstairs. He had a housekeeper, a Mrs. Sarah Perlin. A stenographer, Opal Sunley, came in and transcribed records. You’re right, Mr. Karr. The man dictated to a machine. In any event, that’s what Opal Sunley says, and I was glad to get your corroboration on that.”

“What was his line of business?” Mason asked.

Tragg said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!” Mason exclaimed. “Haven’t you talked with his stenographer?”

“That’s just it,” Tragg said. “His stenographer tells an absolutely impossible story.”

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently, Hocksley was engaged in some sort of exporting business. He wrote a great many letters giving detailed specifications about bills of lading, shipments, shipping directions, and all that sort of stuff. He wrote to a manufacturer’s agent about buying merchandise. He wrote to steamship companies about deliveries. And every damn letter in the outfit was a phoney.”

“What do you mean?” Mason asked.

Tragg said, “The letters were some sort of code stuff. Because from what the Sunley woman tells me, I know darn well that, with shipments in the condition they are today, the letters weren’t what they seemed to be on their face.”

“Did she know it?” Mason asked.

“No. She’s one of the slow, plugging kind that sticks a head clamp over her head, turns on the dictating machine, transcribes the letters, and forgets about them.”

“How about carbon copies?” Mason asked.

“That’s just it. Hocksley would have her make carbon copies, but she didn’t do any filing. She doesn’t know where the carbon copies are, or what became of them, and we can’t find any.”

“Hocksley was killed?”

“Hocksley or his housekeeper or both. They’re both missing, and there’s evidences of a shooting. We’d been acting on the theory that either Hocksley killed his housekeeper, or the housekeeper killed Hocksley, because we’d only been able to account for one shot. But if there were two shots, that might make the situation entirely different.”

Mason said, “If there’s anything we can do, don’t hesitate to call, Tragg. But Mr. Karr is intensely nervous. He’s had a nervous breakdown, and his doctors have told him to live in seclusion where he wouldn’t meet strangers, not to cultivate acquaintances, or form any new friendships. It would be a lot better if you’d limit his contacts as much as possible.”

Tragg pushed back his chair, got to his feet, shoved his hands down deep in his trousers pockets, and looked down at Karr. “You won’t think I’m getting too nosey if I ask you why the wheelchair?” he inquired.

Karr said tersely, “Arthritis. In my knees and ankles. Can’t stand any weight on them at all. Have to be lifted. Get in one position and I’m fairly comfortable. Make any moves with my legs, and there’s intense pain. Doctors recommended diathermy. I tried it for a while and came to the conclusion I could do the same thing by keeping a blanket over my legs and keeping them warm all the time. I drink lots of water and fruit juices. I’m getting better.”

“You haven’t a doctor now?”

“No, sir. Got tired of paying them so much money, and having them do me so little good. Man gets something acute wrong with him, and a doctor can help cure him. When it’s something chronic, doctors can’t help. They know it. They try to kid the patient along so he keeps cheerful. To hell with that stuff. I don’t want it. I never have been kidded along, and I don’t want to start in now. Put it up cold turkey to the last doctor. He got mad and told me I never would get any better, that in the course of time, I’d probably get worse. They’ve looked me all over for bad teeth and focal infections. I’m getting along all right. Last few months I’ve been better than ever before. Keep my legs warm all the time.”

Tragg regarded him with an air of detached interest, as though he were looking at some specimen in a glass case. Then he turned to regard Mason thoughtfully. Abruptly, he said, “Well, I’m sorry I disturbed you, Mr. Karr. I just had to complete my checkup. Just a matter of routine, you know. It probably won’t be necessary to bother you again. Sorry you’ve been having your troubles and hope I didn’t aggravate them too much.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Karr said. “Like to talk with a man who has intelligence. Afraid some square-toed, brow-beating cop was going to come messing around here, asking a lot of damnfool questions. You’re all right. Come in any time.”

“Thanks,” Tragg said. “I’ll try and handle this end of it myself, so you won’t be meeting new people.”

“I’ll certainly appreciate that,” Karr said. “I will for a fact.”

“Now then,” Tragg went on in a deliberately casual manner, “how about Rodney Wenston? Does he...”

“Just a blind,” Karr interrupted. “He’s my stepson. Lives down toward the beach somewhere. I have the telephone in his name, and his name on the door. In fact, he rents the flat. I’ve done that deliberately so as to let myself stay in the background. When peddlers come here and ask for Mr. Wenston, we can tell them quite truthfully he’s out and we don’t know when he’ll be back. I don’t want to be annoyed with people. I use Wenston as a sort of buffer.”

Tragg appeared quite favorably impressed with the explanation. He nodded his head sympathetically and said, “I understand perfectly. Is there any particular reason why you are avoiding people, Mr. Karr?”

“There certainly is,” Karr snapped. “I’m a nervous man — irritable — highly irritable. The doctors tell me to conserve my nervous energy. I can’t do it when I meet people, particularly strangers. Strangers ask too damn many questions. Strangers get sympathetic. Strangers talk too damn much. Strangers come to visit and stay too long. I don’t like them.”

Tragg laughed good-naturedly, and said, “And, I take it, the fewer questions I ask and the shorter I make my stay, the more popular I’ll be?”

“Poppycock,” Karr exploded. “I didn’t mean you, didn’t mean you at all. You’re here on business.”

“In any event, I’ll be going,” Tragg said. “I trust it won’t be necessary to bother you again, Mr. Karr.”

Mason watched him out of the room, then frowned and lit a cigarette. He was still frowning at the cigarette smoke when the sound of the lower door closing seemed to ease the tension.

Karr said, “What was the idea telling him about two shots, and making the time later, Mason?”

Mason said, “It would have been a good gag if it had worked.”

“Don’t you think it did?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why was it a good gag?”

“Because when an officer’s working up a case, he talks with a lot of witnesses. From them he gets a pretty good idea of what happened and when it happened. Naturally, an officer likes to get newspaper publicity, so he stands in pretty well with the newspaper reporters. Otherwise he doesn’t stay on the force. The newspapers see to that. So when you tell a man like Lieutenant Tragg to keep your name out of the newspapers, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. But if you give him testimony which is at variance with the facts in the case he’s working up, then he’s certain to see your name is kept out of the newspapers.”

“Why?”

“Because if the newspapers state you don’t recollect things just as the other witnesses do, or that your testimony is at sharp variance with theirs, it means that the person who actually committed the murder, and whom the police are after, is encouraged. It means that when that person is arrested, the lawyer he retains will know immediately where to go to find a witness who will contradict the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses.”

Karr’s face lit up into a smile. “Clever,” he said. “Damned clever. That’s what I wanted you for, Mason. Fast thinking...”

“Well, don’t be too happy about it,” Mason warned, “because I don’t think it worked.”

“Why not?”

Mason said, “Tragg’s too damned intelligent. That man’s just nobody’s damn fool.”

“You think he saw through what you were doing?”

“I’m practically certain of it,” Mason said, “but that isn’t what’s worrying me.”

“What is?”

Mason said, “The way he suddenly started getting sympathetic, and telling you that he’d keep the reporters from annoying you.”

“Well, isn’t that just what we want?”

“It is except for one thing,” Mason said.

“What’s that?”

Mason looked down at the blanket thrown over Karr’s knees. “If any of this invalid business is part of the buildup you’re using to give yourself an alibi, and if your legs are in such shape you can walk, you’re going to find yourself Lieutenant Tragg’s very favorite suspect — leading the rest of the field by about a dozen lengths.”

Karr’s face, which had twisted with some emotional reflex as Mason expounded his theory of Tragg’s reactions, suddenly broke into a relieved smile. “Well, as far as that’s concerned,” he said, “I can give you absolutely definite assurance, Mr. Mason. I can’t walk. I can’t put any weight on my legs. I can’t even move from a chair to a bed or a bed to a chair. I have to be lifted. I can’t even get to a telephone without help.”

“If that’s the case,” Mason said, “it might simplify matters to have me suggest to Lieutenant Tragg that he call in his own doctor and make an examination.”

“Wouldn’t that indicate that I had something on my mind? Wouldn’t it be going out of my way to make it appear that I thought he was considering me as a suspect?”

“Sure it would,” Mason said. “After all, you’re a man of average intelligence. You were in the house. You were alone when the shot was fired. You’ve surrounded yourself with a good deal of mystery. Your Chinese servant isn’t going to help any. Blaine here could very well be considered a bodyguard. The way he described that housekeeper, you know at once he’s been a cop. Lieutenant Tragg comes up here to find what you know about what happened. Your story is at variance with that of everyone else. He finds you talking to me. In fact, by this time, it’s doubtless occurred to him that I was the one who furnished just about all the information. in other words, I did most of the talking.”

“Well?”

“Unless Lieutenant Tragg has uncovered some clues pointing to the person who actually did commit the murder, he’s getting ready to pin the blue ribbon right on your chest.”

Karr said, “That would be unfortunate.”

“I gathered as much,” Mason said, “and may I remind you that Tragg’s inopportune arrival prevented you from telling me just why it was you wished to consult me?”

Karr sighed. “It’s about that old partnership,” he said, “but I don’t feel up to going into it now. Tell me, Mr. Mason, what’s the legal position of a surviving partner with reference to partnership business?”

Mason said, “The death of a partner dissolves the partnership. It’s the duty of the surviving partner to wind up the affairs of the partnership and make an accounting to the executor or administrator of the dead partner.”

“What do you mean by winding up the affairs of the partnership?”

“Reduce them to cash.”

“Suppose there isn’t any executor or administrator? What happens to the property?”

“It goes to the heirs.”

“I’m not positive there are any heirs.”

“You should have an administrator appointed, anyway, to protect yourself.”

Karr shook his head emphatically.

“Why not?” Mason asked.

“That would have to go through court, wouldn’t it?” “Yes.”

“Suppose the business was something you couldn’t take to court?”

“Why not?”

“Too dangerous.”

“For whom?”

“Me.”

Mason said, “Then you could absolve yourself from responsibility by paying the dead partner’s share of the funds to his heirs. But under those circumstances, you would have to take all the responsibility of seeing that you got all of the heirs and met the...”

“You mean,” Karr interrupted, “that if I paid money to someone who wasn’t the nearest relative, I might have to pay it all over again?”

“That’s right. Moreover, the nearest relative isn’t always the heir. Suppose a partner left a son, for instance, and sometime later on it appeared that he had been secretly married or he might have left a will which might not have been offered for probate.”

Karr fastened Mason with his alert, intense eyes, and said, “I understand. It’s better to take that risk than to have the court asking a lot of questions.”

“Was that the matter that you wanted me to handle?” Mason asked.

Karr leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. After a few moments he said, “That was it — at first. I wanted you to investigate the possibility of my late partner having left an heir. Now this other matter has come up.”

“You mean the murder?”

“Yes.”

“And you want me to do something in connection with the murder?”

“Yes, I think I do. I think I’d like to have you see that it’s cleared up just as quickly as possible. I can’t afford to have that develop into one of those mysteries that they spread all over the front pages of the newspapers. How soon do you think Tragg will solve it?”

“It shouldn’t take him long. He’s a good man.”

“Tell you what you do. You’re a good man. Give him a hand. See that the thing gets cleaned up and cleaned up fast.”

“You want me to find out who committed the murder?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

Mason said, “Make a note of that, Della.”

Her pen still poised over the notebook, Della said, “I did.”

“Why do you want a note of that?” Karr asked.

Mason said, “Because if you’re guilty, and I uncover the evidence that sticks your neck in the noose, I want to be in a position to send your estate a bill for doing it.”

Karr laughed. “You’re a great one! You really are. You measure up to expectations. Salty character. Individuality. All right, Mason, go ahead. Start working. Get that detective agency of yours on the job. Uncover everything you can. Help Tragg find out what actually happened. Turn over any evidence you find to him. Gow Loong, go massah’s bedroom. Drawer, on right-hand topside. Ketchum money. You savvy? You bring’m money. This lawyer man wants cash money now.”

“Can do,” Gow Loong said, and started for the bedroom.

Johns Blaine said easily, “Don’t let that idea of having Karr as a suspect cramp your style any, Mason. Just go right ahead. Karr’s absolutely in the clear, and I’d say the best way to get Lieutenant Tragg off his neck was to help him get some evidence.”

Mason said, “It’s all right, but I just wanted to have all the cards on the table. In this business, we find that a person who has anything to conceal wants to cover it up. You take a witness who’s lying on the witness stand, and he almost invariably starts stroking his cheeks with the tips of his fingers, then slides his hand around so that he’s concealing his mouth as much as possible while he talks. We know those signs and get to look for them. Mr. Karr’s idea about keeping his legs warm may be all to the good, but as far as Lieutenant Tragg is concerned, that heavy robe over his legs gave him the idea Mr. Karr was covering them up because he had something to conceal.”

Karr threw back his head and laughed. “And gave you the same idea, Mason?” he asked. “Come on, now, be frank. Didn’t it?”

Mason looked down at the heavy blanket.

“Yes.”

Gow Loong returned from the bedroom, carrying a tin cash box. He placed it gently on Karr’s lap. Karr threw back the lid of the box, reached in, picked up a sheaf of currency, and said to Mason, “How much do you charge in these cases, Counselor?”

Mason regarded the bundle of currency. “Usually all the traffic will bear,” he said.

Once more Karr threw back his head and laughed. “I like you, Mason. I mean I really do! You don’t beat around the bush.”

“No,” Mason said. “I don’t beat around the bush.

“And may I ask whether you want to retain me to solve that murder or to advise you in connection with your old partnership?”

“Both,” Karr said, “but we’ll do one thing at a time, Mason. I want that murder case off my neck. That’s a nightmare. Couldn’t possibly have happened at a more inopportune time. As I see it, the only way to keep it from becoming a mystery is to clean it up — only way to clean it up is to solve the damn case. Perhaps you can solve it by this afternoon. That’ll give me a chance to do what I have to do. Personally, I don’t see why the devil this man What’s-his-name couldn’t have picked a more opportune time to get himself killed. Damned inconsiderate, I call it.”

Chapter 4

Mrs. Gentrie seemed somewhat overawed by the importance of her visitor. Aunt Rebecca and Delman Steele, sitting together at the dining-room table working a crossword puzzle, looked up as Mason introduced himself to Mrs. Gentrie. They stood up as Mrs. Gentrie escorted Mason toward them.

Mrs. Gentrie performed the introductions. “Mr. Mason, the lawyer you’ve read about,” she announced. “This is my husband’s sister, Miss Gentrie.” It was always necessary to emphasize the “Miss” in introducing Aunt Rebecca. So many people were inclined to call her Mrs. if they hadn’t been paying attention when the introduction was performed, and that led to a correction later which, somehow, always seemed like an embarrassing explanation. “And Mr. Steele, a roomer, who is also a crossword addict,” Mrs. Gentrie added.

Aunt Rebecca was by no means overawed. She looked Mason over critically, said, “Humph! You don’t look so formidable. Reading about you, I’d always imagined you bristled with hostility like a battleship.”

Mason laughed, sized up Delman Steele, a young man in the twenties, who met his eye steadily enough, yet who seemed, somehow, on the defensive. He was good looking, and there was plenty of character in his face, but something about the tight line of his lips indicated that he might, perhaps, have something to conceal.

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Mr. Steele is usually at his work by this time, but after what happened next door, the police insisted on holding everyone here — except they did let the two younger children go to school. Junior, that’s the oldest, is around somewhere. Here he is coming up from the basement now. Junior, come and meet Mr. Mason, the lawyer. He’s here because he — well, what are you doing here, Mr. Mason?” she asked as Junior shook hands with the lawyer.

“Just investigating the case,” Mason said.

“You have a client who’s interested in it?”

“Well, only indirectly. Not the person who’s charged with murder.”

“Have they charged anyone yet?”

“No,” Mason said and laughed. “That’s why I can speak with assurance when I say I’m not representing the person who’s charged with the murder.”

He turned to study Junior, a lad of about nineteen, who had a high, sensitive forehead which seemed at odd variance with the thickness of his lips. However, his nose was straight and well proportioned, and Mason realized that while the young man would never be considered as a matinee idol, he was, nevertheless, sufficiently good looking to get by nicely with the opposite sex.

Junior looked at the dictionary on the table in front of Aunt Rebecca. “No wonder that’s never in my room,” he said. “Every time I have to use it, I put in half an hour looking for it.”

Aunt Rebecca rattled into quick reproach. “Now, Junior, don’t be selfish with your things. After all, it doesn’t wear your dictionary out to look up a word once in a while. You should learn...”

“And my flashlight,” Junior interrupted. “Somebody’s always taking that and running the batteries down.”

“Why, Junior,” Mrs. Gentrie said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I only borrowed it for a few minutes yesterday when I was looking at the preserves on the shelf in the cellar. I didn’t have it on for as much as a minute or a minute and a half altogether.”

“Well, somebody must have left the switch on for a while,” Junior said. “The batteries were all run down this morning.”

“Perhaps you used it last night.”

He said, “That’s the point. I couldn’t find it last night.”

“Why, I put it back in your room. I...” Her voice suddenly lost its assurance, and Junior, wise in the ways of family life, said, “You mean you intended to put it back in my room, but I suppose you left it hanging around some place.”

“I... well, perhaps I did leave it down here. I had that basket of mending, and I put it... Where did you find it, Junior?”

“In my bedroom this morning.”

“Wasn’t it there last night?”

He shook his head.

Mrs. Gentrie laughed and said, “Well, Mr. Mason isn’t interested in all of our domestic troubles. That’s the way it is with a large family, Mr. Mason. Someone’s always feeling that his rights are being infringed upon.”

Aunt Rebecca said, “Well, I suppose Mr. Mason wants to ask us a lot of questions, but before he does, I’m certainly going to take advantage of his being here to find out about that thing that was bothering us in the crossword puzzle.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Oh, Rebecca, don’t intrude your silly...”

“If I can help, I’ll be only too glad to,” Mason said. “Fire away.”

“It’s a five-letter word, and the second two letters are u-a. It’s a legal term, meaning — what is it, Delman? How did they express it?”

Steele ran his finger down a list of numbers and then said, reading, “A legal term meaning ‘as if; as though; as it were.’ ”

“Five letters?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

The lawyer frowned a moment, then said, “Why not try quasi?”

Rebecca grabbed up the pencil, lettered in the word, moved her head back, and perked it on one side as though she had been a bird critically examining a dubious bug. “Yes,” she said abruptly, “that’s right! That’s absolutely right! That’s exactly what it is. Quasi. I never heard of it before.”

“It’s a term used extensively by lawyers,” Mason said.

“Well,” Rebecca announced, “that is going to get us over the hump, Delman. I suppose Mr. Mason wants to know everything — just as the police did...”

“Please be seated, Mr. Mason,” Mrs. Gentrie invited.

As Mason sat down, Rebecca said, “I certainly hope you don’t start asking a lot of questions, Mr. Mason. I’m all on edge. I started this crossword puzzle to try and quiet my nerves. Mr. Steele’s been kind enough to help me on quite a few of them. Do you do crossword puzzles, Mr. Mason?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much time for them.”

“Well, perhaps I should be doing something else — and yet I don’t know what else to do. I think it’s a lot better to do crossword puzzles than just fritter away your time. After all, Mr. Mason, it does do wonders for your vocabulary.”

“I assume it does,” Mason said.

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Come, Rebecca. Mr. Mason’s time is valuable. He didn’t come here just to talk about crossword puzzles.”

“Well, I don’t want to start talking about that murder again. It all happened yesterday when you upset me with that story about the empty can. I haven’t been able to concentrate since.”

“Empty can?” Mason asked.

Mrs. Gentrie said indulgently, “That’s just a household mystery. You mustn’t mind Rebecca. She’s always digging up little household mysteries.”

“ I’m interested in mysteries,” Mason said, his eyes twinkling. “I collect mysteries the way your sister-in-law collects crossword puzzles.”

“Well,” Rebecca said, “I wish you’d solve this one, Mr. Mason. I just can’t get it off my mind.”

“Rebecca!” Mrs. Gentrie rebuked.

“No, go ahead. I’d like to hear it,” Mason said. “I really would.”

Mrs. Gentrie, evidently quite embarrassed, said, “It was nothing, Mr. Mason. I went down in the cellar yesterday to check over the tins and jars of preserved fruit, I found an empty tin on the shelf.”

“Just an empty tin?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“No. That isn’t all of it,” Rebecca interpolated. “It was an absolutely brand new tin, Mr. Mason. It had been put up on that shelf with the preserves. There wasn’t any label on that tin, and it had been sealed up — you know, crimped over, the way you seal preserves in a can.”

“You have one of those sealing machines here?” Mason asked.

“Yes. We put up a good deal of fruit and vegetables. Some we put up in jars, and some we put up in tins. We have a sealing machine which crimps the top on.”

“And this can was empty?”

“Just exactly as it came from the store,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

Rebecca said, “It wasn’t any such thing, Florence. The more I think of it, the more I realize there was something strange about that can. A can isn’t hermetically sealed when it comes from a store.”

“What did you do with the tin?” Mason asked.

“Tossed it in the box of old tins,” Mrs. Gentrie said, laughing.

“You didn’t open it to look inside?”

“Gracious, no. It was too light to have had anything in it. It was just an empty can.”

“But you didn’t look inside to make certain it was empty?”

Rebecca said, “Arthur did that. That’s Florence’s husband, Mr. Gentrie, you know.”

“Was he here when you found it?”

“No. He was looking around for a tin to mix some paint in last night. He found this tin down in the box.”

“It was empty?” Mason asked.

“That’s what he said.”

Delman Steele said, “I saw the can, Mr. Mason. I went down in the basement last night to ask Mr. Gentrie a question. He was painting around the woodwork of the windows, and the door which leads to the garage. I asked him if he’d seen the tin...”

Rebecca interrupted, “ I’m the one that asked Mr. Steele to go down and dig that tin up. I just couldn’t get it off my mind.”

Steele laughed and said, “And thereby almost got me in bad with this lieutenant who’s investigating the shooting next door.”

“How did that happen?” Mason inquired.

“He was checking up on all of the persons who had been down in the basement last night,” Steele said. “I sometimes go down to chat with Arthur Gentrie or look in on Miss Gentrie when she’s in her darkroom. But I don’t think I’d have gone down last night if it hadn’t been for Miss Gentrie asking me about the can.”

“What’s being in the basement got to do with the murder?” Mason asked.

Steele said, “It’s beyond me. Tragg was down there prowling here and there, then came back and asked a lot of questions.”

Rebecca said, “I’m going to put a lock on my darkroom door. They pulled the door open and flung the dark curtain to one side, let daylight stream in, and fogged half a dozen films for me. Personally, I think the police should be more considerate.”

Mason said, “I find myself getting interested in that can. You say that Mr. Gentrie had used it to mix paint in, Mr. Steele?”

“That’s right. I guess it’s still down there.”

“How did he open it?”

“Oh, there’s a can-opening machine down there in the cellar.”

Rebecca said, “I’m certain you’ll agree with me, Mr. Mason, that it’s something that should be looked into. That tin didn’t grow on the shelf. It was a brand new tin. It hadn’t been there long — and why should anyone hermetically seal up an empty can?”

“I’m certain I don’t know,” Mason said.

“Well, neither do I, but someone did.”

“You mentioned a garage door,” Mason said to Steele. “That’s a door which communicates with the garage where Mr. Hocksley keeps his car?”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “There’s a double garage with one door leading to the cellar. You see, the house is built on a sloping lot, and the ground is so steep they made the cellar in two levels. I presume the house was built before the days of automobiles — or at least before people appreciated the importance of having a garage in connection with the house. Then, later on, someone remodeled that end of the basement so as to include a two-car garage. We keep our machine in one of them, so we have the other one for rent. The side that has the door to the cellar is a little the more desirable, so we rent that, and, of course, use that door to the cellar to come in and out of our house, particularly when it’s rainy.”

Mason said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at the garage.”

“You can come right down the cellar stairs, Mr. Mason, and open the door — or you can walk around the sidewalk and come in through the garage door.”

“I think I’d prefer to go in through the cellar.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “If you’ll just come this way, Mr. Mason.”

Rebecca firmly pushed the dictionary and the crossword puzzle to one side, got to her feet, and smoothed down her skirts. “If you think you’re going down in that cellar with Mr. Mason and talk about that empty can, and have me sitting up here where I can’t hear what you’re saying, Florence Gentrie, you’re very much mistaken. The more I think of it, the more I think that empty tin may just as well as not be a clue to what happened.”

“How could it be a clue?” Mrs. Gentrie asked, her eyes twinkling.

“I don’t know,” Rebecca said firmly, “but it might just as well be. Don’t you think so, Delman?”

Steele’s laugh was magnetic. “Don’t involve me in a family argument,” he said. “I just room here. They take me in as one of the family — but I’m not a charter member. I am not entitled to take part in the discussions.”

Mrs. Gentrie laughed. “I’ve never drawn the line there, Delman. When you rented that room and asked if you could move in as one of the family, I told you there was only one thing that was absolutely forbidden — and that was the privilege of the telephone.”

She turned to Mr. Mason, smiling, and said, “We should have three lines in here. What with three children all making dates and scrambling for the phone every time it rings, I sometimes think I’ll smash it — and I can never get to it in the morning or evening to place my orders at the grocer’s or call up my own friends.”

Rebecca said, “We were talking about the tin, Florence.”

Junior said, “Your clutch is slipping, Aunt Rebecca. How the heck could an empty tin have anything to do...”

“Junior!” Mrs. Gentrie broke in. “No one asked you for your opinion. Come on, Mr. Mason, down this way.”

They all trooped after the lawyer down to the cellar. Mason looked the place over. Mrs. Gentrie pointed out where she had found the tin. Junior showed him the door leading to the garage. Mason tested the paint with his finger. “This what Mr. Gentrie painted last night?” he asked.

“A quick-drying enamel of some sort,” Steele said by way of explanation. “Mr. Gentrie runs a hardware store, you know. This was a sample of a new brand of paint one of the salesmen for a paint company had given him. He wanted him to try it out. He was telling me about it last night.”

“It’s necessary to mix it?”

“Half and half with some thinner,” Steele explained. “Gentrie seemed to think it was a distinct improvement over any other of the brands he’d been handling. It comes in two cans. One of them has the color; and the other is some sort of a quick-drying thinner. You mix the two together, half and half, and apply. It’s supposed to dry within six hours.”

Mason indicated a spot near the garage door. “Someone evidently didn’t know it had been freshly painted. It looks very much as if someone, groping for the doorknob in the dark, got his hands on the paint.”

“It does for a fact,” Steele said.

“Let me see,” Junior insisted, pushing forward with an eager curiosity.

Steele said, “That’s odd. I hadn’t noticed that before. I was down here with the police, too. It’s just a little smear.”

Mason said, “The paint’s dry now. You say it dries in six hours?”

“Yes, four to six hours. That’s what Mr. Gentrie told me. Of course, that’s the only way I have of knowing.”

“Let’s look for that tin,” Rebecca said, moving along the workbench, sniffing and peering at the assortment of tools. “Here’s a can with paint brushes in it. Could this be it, Delman?”

“That’s it,” Delman said. “You can always tell the way Mr. Gentrie opens a can. He never runs the opener all the way around. He stops just before he cuts the lid entirely free. He always leaves a strip of tin of about a sixteenth of an inch, then twists the lid off.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Gentrie confirmed. “He says that if you go farther than that, the top of the can falls down on the inside. I always hold up the lid and then finish cutting. Arthur twists. You can see where the top of this can was twisted off.”

Mason thoughtfully regarded the tin. “Let’s take a look at the top of the can just to make our investigation complete,” he said.

“At the top of the can!” Mrs. Gentrie asked.

Mason nodded.

“Well, probably we can find it if we look through this box of scraps, but, for the life of me, I can’t see what...”

Steele said, “I noticed it lying here on the bench last night. There it is, over there near the corner. He used it to set a paint can on.”

Mason picked up the circular tin top and examined the distinctive place where it had been twisted off.

“This the one?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Steele said. “I remember that little distinctive twist on the tin. You can see where it was turned...”

Mason’s eyes showed keen interest. “Wait a minute,” he said. “This isn’t right.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Mason said, “The lid that was on the tin was twisted off to the left. This one is twisted off to the right.”

Steele bent forward and regarded the circular piece of tin, then went over to look at the can. “Well, I’ll be darned,” he said. “I saw that piece of tin lying here on the counter last night and naturally supposed it had come off this can. Why in the world would Mr. Gentrie have opened the can, thrown the top away, then taken the top from another tin out of that box of scraps? But Gentrie is left-handed. You’re right about that top — but, why...?”

“I don’t know why,” Mason said, “but that’s very evidently what he did. Let’s take a look over here in this box of scraps.”

Rebecca said tartly to Mrs. Gentrie, “I told you it had something to do with what happened over there. You can see what happens when a trained mind starts working on the problem.”

Mrs. Gentrie sighed. “I’m afraid I’d make a poor detective,” she said. “It certainly seemed trivial enough.”

Mason smiled. “I’m afraid I’m like your sister-in-law Mrs. Gentrie. Whenever there’s anything the least bit out of the ordinary, I start making a mystery out of it. After all, you know, it is rather a peculiar place for an empty tin, and I can’t imagine why anyone would seal up an entirely empty tin. There must have been something in it.”

“Well, I shook it and didn’t hear anything. And goodness knows the can was light enough to be empty. It couldn’t have had anything in it. Of course, now that I see everyone making so much of a point of it, it...”

“And unless I’m mistaken,” Mason, who had been leaning over the scrap box, interposed, “this is the top which came off the can.” He reached down into the tangled mass of tin.

“Watch out you don’t cut your hand in there,” Mrs. Gentrie warned sharply.

Junior laughed and said, “Mr. Mason doesn’t need to be a detective to tell you’re the mother of three children, Ma. ‘Don’t do this, and don’t do that.’ ”

Mason straightened up with a piece of tin in his hand, walked over to the can in which the paint brushes were deposited, and held the circular piece of tin over the top so that the little twisted nipple of tin which had been left on the can was placed against the corresponding point on the circular piece.

“That’s it all right,” Steele said.

Junior reached out eagerly. “Gee, Mr. Mason, let me take a...”

“Junior,” Mrs. Gentrie rebuked, “don’t interfere with what Mr. Mason is doing.”

Mason said, “The underside seems to be all scratched up. It feels rough to the touch. Let’s just examine those scratches. We’ll tilt it over here near the window so that the light comes across it from the side, and...”

“It’s a code,” Rebecca shrilled excitedly. “Something written on there... scratched on the tin! I knew it! I just knew it! I told you so, Florence. You wouldn’t listen to me, but...”

Mason whipped a pencil from his pocket and tore a sheet of paper from his notebook. “Will someone write these letters as I read them off?” he asked.

Rebecca said eagerly, “I will.”

Mason handed her the paper and pencil, tilting the lid, so that he could get a side lighting on the letters as he read.

“CKDACK CJIAJ DLACC HEDBCE CEIADD GIKADC CLDGBD KFBCH CLGGBJ.”

Mason took the piece of paper from Rebecca and carefully checked the letters she had written with the original.

“I don’t see how this could have had anything to do with what happened across the street,” Mrs. Gentrie said, frankly puzzled.

Mason slipped the sharp-edged circle of tin into the side pocket of his coat. “It may be just a coincidence,” he agreed. “Rather peculiar, that’s all. How many of you heard the shot?”

“I did,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

Steele said, “I was sleeping soundly, and was wakened by the noise. I suppose it was all over when I woke up, but I tried to reconstruct what had wakened me, and somehow had the impression there were two shots.”

“Did you mention that to Lieutenant Tragg — the head of the Homicide Squad?” Mason asked.

“I don’t think I did,” Steele said. “He seemed quite positive there was only one shot, and I didn’t contradict him. Of course, my impressions were very vague, just trying to recall a noise which has wakened you from a sound sleep. It’s just a vague feeling, anyhow — an echo in the back of the consciousness, if you know what I mean.”

Mason said, “I know exactly what you mean, and you express it very well indeed. It might be a good plan for you to get in touch with Lieutenant Tragg and tell him that, after thinking it over, you believe it’s very possible there were two shots.”

“There weren’t,” Rebecca said positively. “Only one. I was wide awake at the time. I thought it might have been a backfire from an automobile or truck. I know there was only one shot.”

Mason turned to Junior, raised his eyebrows.

Junior shook his head. “I can’t help you at all. I slept right through the whole commotion. I couldn’t have been in bed very long when it happened either, probably not more than fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“What time was the shot?”

“Around twelve-thirty, I believe.”

“What time did you get to bed?”

“Ten or fifteen minutes after midnight. I just shed my clothes all over the room and dove into bed. I’d been out with a young lady, and had taken her home. I thought I was going to have to work today, and — well, I just can’t seem to get enough sleep.”

Mrs. Gentrie said solicitously, “Junior, don’t you think you should tell Mr. Mason with whom you spent the evening?”

Junior colored. “No,” he said shortly.

“I noticed that you avoided mentioning her name to that Lieutenant— What’s his name?”

“Tragg,” Mason prompted.

“No need of dragging a woman into this,” Junior said hotly.

“Junior, was it...” Mrs. Gentrie started to ask.

“Don’t you mention any names,” he interrupted with intense feeling. “I don’t want you snooping around in my affairs. It’s bad enough to have Rebecca always camping on my trail. My gosh, I’m grown up and big enough to take care of myself. I don’t go around snooping into your...”

“Junior!”

“All right, I’m sorry, but don’t you mention any names. I mean that. This is stuff that gets in the papers, and I don’t see that it makes a particle of difference who I was with.”

Rebecca said, “Well, what are we going to do about that code message on the can? Here we are, standing talking and letting the murderer slip through the fingers of the police.”

Mason said, “Let’s be certain about that can before we do anything. You feel quite positive you didn’t put it up on that shelf with the preserves, Mrs. Gentrie?”

“I know I didn’t, and I don’t think Hester did either. She’s stupid at times, but certainly not that stupid. Furthermore, I don’t think that can had been there for more than a day or two at the most. I don’t see how it could have... well...”

Mason said, “Well, let’s notify Lieutenant Tragg of exactly what happened, and he can draw his own conclusions. After all, that’s his business.”

Chapter 5

Seated in his private office, tilted back in the big swivel chair, Mason propped his heels on the corner of his desk, held his interlocked fingers behind his head, and regarded Della Street with a lazy smile.

“Well,” he said, “this is one case where I have a free hand. Carr says I’m to do everything I can to uncover the truth. It makes no difference who gets hurt.”

“Even if it’s Karr himself?” she asked, studying him searchingly.

Mason nodded. His eyes, preoccupied now, were gazing through Della Street out past the walls of the office.

“You certainly did make that plain enough to him,” she said. “What were you trying to do, frighten him, or make him mad?”

“Neither. I just didn’t want any misunderstanding — and I wanted to know where I stood. Lieutenant Tragg is no one’s fool. One of the big things which keeps Karr from being rated as a likely suspect is the condition of his legs. Tragg isn’t going to take anyone’s word for that. He’s going to check up on it.”

“Ask permission to make an examination?”

“Oh, he won’t be that crude, not unless he gets something else to work on. After all, he’s not in a position to go around offending prominent taxpayers. He’ll go about it in a roundabout way, but he’ll be very thorough. Don’t worry about that.”

“You think he’ll be suspicious of Karr’s legs?”

“I would if I were in his place.”

She laughed. “Well, in a way, you are.”

Mason took his hands from behind his head, stretched out his left wrist, and consulted his strap watch. “Paul Drake’s late. He said he’d be in here ten minutes ago, and make a preliminary report. He... here he is now.”

Della Street was up out of her chair as soon as Paul Drake’s distinctive knock sounded on the door of the private office. She crossed over and opened it.

Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, tall, thin, and with a look of perpetual, puzzled perplexity on his face, said, “Hello, gang.”

“Come in and sit,” Mason invited.

Della Street picked up her notebook, settled herself at a small secretarial table, and held her pen poised. Paul Drake slid into the big leather chair, squirmed around so that he was seated crosswise, took a notebook from his pocket, and said, “Well, it looks like one of those things.”

“How so?”

“The reason Lieutenant Tragg wasn’t particularly communicative,” Drake said, “is that he’s running around in circles. He doesn’t want to talk with anyone until he knows more what he has to talk about.”

“Let’s have it,” Mason said.

“I’m somewhat the same way myself, Perry. I’ve picked up as much as I can of what the police know and done a little snooping on my own.”

“What did you find out?”

“This man Hocksley is a mystery. I think Opal Sunley, that stenographer who comes in to transcribe the cylinders he dictates, knows more than she’s admitting. I think Mrs. Perlin, the housekeeper, knew a whole lot more than was good for her.”

“Just what did Hocksley do?”

“No one knows. Apparently he slept most of the day and spent the nights dictating. He’d use a dictating machine. The girl would come in and find anywhere from two to fifteen records waiting to be transcribed. Sometimes she’d have an easy day. Sometimes she’d have a hard day. Occasionally she wouldn’t be able to even finish the work that was laid out for her. She says it was virtually all correspondence, and that she didn’t pay much attention to the contents of the letters, simply typed them out, made sure there were no typographical errors, and left them for Hocksley to sign. She also made one carbon copy. She left that for Hocksley. She doesn’t know what he did with them. The point is there aren’t any files in the house, just a dictating machine, a cylinder-shaving machine, a transcribing machine, cylinders, a big stock of stationery, envelopes, postage stamps, a pair of scales, and that’s about all in the line of office equipment — except the safe.”

“What about the safe?”

“The safe is apparently the key to the whole situation,” Drake said.

“Tragg seemed very evasive about that safe when I talked with him,” Mason said.

“He would be. It’s a safe that cost money. It stands in the corner of Hocksley’s bedroom. It isn’t the sort of safe you’d pick up second hand somewhere and use to keep the ordinary bunch of office junk. It’s a safe that has individuality and distinction.”

“What was in the safe?” Mason asked.

“That’s another thing,” Drake said. “When the police got there, there were fifty dollars in cash, about a hundred dollars in postage stamps, and not another damned thing in the safe.”

“Was it locked?”

“It was locked. Opal Sunley gave Tragg the combination.”

“Then if a burglar had been working on it, he hadn’t done himself any good.”

“Perhaps not... He could have closed and locked it again.”

“Well, a hundred and fifty dollars is a hundred and fifty dollars,” Mason said.

“Uh huh. But the point is, the man who bought that safe didn’t buy it just for postage stamps and chicken-feed currency.”

“Okay, what about the shooting?”

“The shooting took place in that room where the safe is,” Drake said. “There’s some chance Hocksley surprised someone trying to get in the safe. It may have been the housekeeper.”

“How do they know the safe figured in it?” Mason asked.

“There’s blood on the floor in front of it, quite a little pool. That might indicate that it was a burglar who was shot. But Hocksley is missing, and the housekeeper is missing. There’s a trail of blood drops around through several rooms in the house, and more to the point, there’s blood in Hocksley’s automobile. So you pay your money and take your choice. Either a burglar killed Hocksley and the housekeeper and carted away the bodies, or Hocksley shot a burglar, then put him in the automobile and took him away. The blood in the automobile indicates that the person who had been shot was stretched out on the back seat of the car. That brings us to what seems to be the most logical explanation.”

“What’s that?”

“The housekeeper was the one who was trying to get in the safe. Hocksley shot her, wounded her, put her in the automobile, and took her away. Hocksley was a big, strong man who could have picked up the housekeeper and carried her out to the automobile. She was a slender woman in the fifties. She couldn’t have carried him. There were some burnt matches lying on the floor in the corridor of Hocksley’s flat — about half a dozen of them.”

“How much have you found out about Hocksley?” Mason asked.

“Not much. Hocksley’s a big, powerful man who walks with a decided limp. He’s very eccentric, and apparently interested primarily in being left absolutely alone.”

“That makes two of them,” Mason said.

“What?”

“Tenants in the same building who didn’t want to have anything to do with neighbors.”

“I gather it was a different situation with Hocksley, from what it was with Karr. Karr is a neurotic old crab. Hocksley was engaged in doing something he wanted kept an absolute secret. Hocksley worked at night, and slept during the daytime. The people who sold him the safe, the agent who rented him the house, the company that sold him his automobile all remember him more or less vaguely. But by putting the descriptions together, we have a pretty good picture of the man, about forty-eight or fifty with very broad shoulders and flaming red hair. His limp was quite noticeable — not the sort of limp you’d get from a stiffness in a leg, but the kind where one leg is shorter than the other.”

Mason asked, “Any connection between Hocksley or his housekeeper and anyone over in the Gentrie house?”

“No. The connection there is between Opal Sunley and Arthur Gentrie, Jr. That’s also something.”

“What?”

“Arthur Gentrie, the boy’s father, had been painting that night down in the cellar. I believe you’re the one who first noticed that someone who evidently didn’t know about that fresh paint had been groping for the garage door and had smeared paint on his fingertips. After you pointed this out to Tragg, he had the police look the automobiles over pretty carefully to see if they couldn’t find some trace of paint on the handles of the doors or on the steering wheels. They couldn’t find a thing, but over in Hocksley’s flat they found two fingerprints outlined in paint of exactly the same color as that used on the garage door.”

“Where were those paint fingerprints?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “On the desk telephone, and the desk telephone was on Hocksley’s desk, and Hocksley’s desk was in the room where the safe was located, and the telephone was right near the door of that room. Moreover, there’s a side door on the garage that Hocksley used to get in and out. That door opens into a little yard between the flat and the Gentrie house. It’s right near a side door leading to the Hocksley flat.”

“Were the fingerprints clear enough so the police could do anything with them?”

“Very clear. I think Tragg’s getting ready to do something there. He’s just waiting for the right time to strike.”

“Meaning he...” Mason broke off as the door from the outer office opened, and the girl who had charge of the switchboard timidly entered.

“I didn’t know whether to disturb you, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I told this woman you were in conference on an important matter, but she says that she wants to see you about the matter you’re talking over.”

“Who is she?” Mason asked.

“Her name is Gentrie, and there’s a young man with her, her son.”

Mason glanced at Drake.

Drake, consulting his notebook again, quoted: “He was in bed and asleep when the shot was fired. He came in, however, just about fifteen or twenty minutes before the shooting. He’d been out with Opal Sunley, the stenographer who handled Hocksley’s work.”

“You’re certain?” Mason asked.

“Uh huh.”

“I understood he was refusing to divulge the name of the woman...”

“Oh, sure,” Drake interrupted. “Some of that kid gallantry stuff, but Opal Sunley didn’t make any secret of it. She told the police right at the start. Young Gentrie didn’t rate the use of the family automobile, not for her, anyway. They were using streetcars. He took her to a movie, bought her a chocolate sundae afterwards, did a little mild necking in the park, and took her home about eleven-thirty. They said good night on the stairs for half an hour, and young Gentrie left about midnight. Evidently, he went right home and upstairs to bed.”

“He must have moved pretty fast if he left her home at midnight and was in bed at quarter past,” Mason said. “How far from Hocksley’s place does she live?”

“About twelve blocks. You can walk it in fifteen minutes if you’re young — and have just spent half an hour saying good night to your best girl.”

Mason said to the girl in the doorway, “Show them in. I have an idea something is weighing on that young man’s mind.”

Chapter 6

Mrs. Gentrie entered Mason’s private office with Junior trailing along behind her, very much as though he were being led.

Mrs. Gentrie’s attitude was one of parental indignation.

“Mr. Mason,” she said, “you’ll have to help us. It’s about Junior.”

Mason looked at the young man’s sullen features, and said, “Don’t tell me anything in confidence, Mrs. Gentrie, because, in a way, I’m not a free agent. It’s quite possible I won’t be able to help you.”

“Well, I’ve got to talk with someone, and I don’t know anyone else to whom I can turn. This thing has been preying on my mind ever since I heard what Junior said to the police. I thought at first my duty was to back up my son in a chivalrous attempt to protect some young woman’s good name. Then, when I began to think of how serious it might be because — well, because perhaps that murder is linked with — well, I can’t keep quiet any longer.”

“What’s eating you?” Junior demanded. “What’s got into you, Ma?”

She kept looking anxiously at the lawyer. “Don’t you think I’m doing the right thing, Mr. Mason?”

“Go ahead,” Mason said. “I’ve warned you.”

Young Gentrie spoke up to say, “You folks go ahead and talk about me all you please, but nothing anyone can do is going to change my position, or make me change my story. I want that definitely and finally understood.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “I wish you’d try to impress on my son the importance of telling the truth, Mr. Mason.”

“Have you,” Mason asked the young man, “been taking liberties with the truth, Junior? Perhaps just fudging the least little bit?”

“No, I haven’t,” Gentrie said sullenly.

“Arthur, I know that you have. I tell you I heard that shot and got up. I looked in your room. You weren’t in your bed. You hadn’t been in your room.”

“Then you looked in before midnight. I got into my room at midnight, or just ten or fifteen minutes after.”

“I looked at the clock. It was thirty-five minutes past twelve.”

“You read it wrong. It was thirty-five minutes past eleven, and you thought it was thirty-five minutes past twelve. You didn’t have your glasses on, did you?”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “I didn’t have my glasses on, but I didn’t make a mistake in the time. I’m certain I didn’t. And everybody else says that was when the shot was fired.”

“What do you mean, everybody else?”

“Well, the other people in the house, all of them.”

Junior said, “Well, if you ask me, that fellow Steele is a phoney. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw a loaded truck. Look at the way he’s always hanging around Rebecca, helping her with her crossword puzzles, stringing her along. What’s he really want, anyway? He isn’t supposed to be one of the family. He’s supposed to have a room rented, and that’s all. You know as well as I do Aunt Rebecca’s full of prunes, and she keeps her tongue rattling against the roof of her mouth all the time. It’s impossible to have any secrets around her. She spills everything she knows.”

“Junior, that’s not a nice way to talk about your Aunt Rebecca.”

Junior went on hotly, “The other night I was looking for my dictionary and couldn’t find it, and came downstairs to see if she had it, and she was telling him a whole lot of stuff about me. She hasn’t any right to do that.”

“You’re altogether too sensitive,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “She probably wasn’t talking about you at all.”

“The heck she wasn’t. I heard the whole business, all about how you were worried about me having an infatuation for an older woman. She said...” Junior’s voice suddenly choked up. His face changed color. “She said altogether too darn much,” he finished.

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Mr. Mason isn’t interested in our family squabbles, Junior. I came here because...”

“I’m old enough now to get out and get a job. I don’t need to work in Dad’s store. I’m worth the wages I’m getting from him and more. I can support myself. I’m a man now.”

Mrs. Gentrie turned to the lawyer, “I’m so worried,” she said. “Junior wasn’t in his room when that shot was fired. He keeps insisting that he was, but I know he wasn’t. Now, I understand that the police have found some fingerprints over in Hocksley’s flat, and I... well, I just wish Junior would tell the truth. That’s all. So I’d know what to expect.”

“You mean the fingerprints which were outlined in the paint?” Mason asked.

She nodded.

Junior said, “I tell you I was in bed.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, by way of explanation, “He’d been out with that stenographer, Opal Sunley, and he swears he took her home about midnight. I’m afraid, Mr. Mason, that he’s just doing it to — well, to give her sort of an alibi. Now you look here, Junior. You were just coming up the stairs to your room when that shot was fired, weren’t you? You took your flashlight and went sneaking down the stairs.”

Junior said, “I thought you said I wasn’t in my room.”

“You weren’t when I looked in there. The bed wasn’t even so much as wrinkled. But I’d heard someone sneaking along the corridor and on the stairs.”

“I tell you, you didn’t have your glasses on, and you made a mistake in the time.”

“But everybody says the shot was at twelve-thirty-five.”

“Phooey,” Junior said. “Because you didn’t have your glasses on and...”

“Then you think the shot was fired at eleven- thirty-five?” Mrs. Gentrie interrupted.

“Why, sure, if I wasn’t in my room... no, wait a minute... Yes, sure, that’s right. The shot was fired at eleven -thirty-five.”

She said, “Arthur, you’re stalling for time. You’re trying to think whether you can give her a good alibi for eleven-thirty-five.”

Arthur jumped to his feet. “Oh, let me alone,” he cried. “You make me tired! You’re always twisting everything I do so as to make it seem I’m trying to think of Opal. Can’t you leave her out of it ever?”

Mrs. Gentrie glanced at Mason.

Mason, without raising his voice, but putting the timbre of authority into his command, said, “Sit down, Arthur. I want to talk with you.”

Arthur’s eyes met the lawyer’s. The young man hesitated for a moment, then seated himself somewhat tentatively on the edge of a chair.

Mason said, “This is your first murder case. I’ve seen dozens of them. I don’t know very much about Miss Sunley. I’ve seen enough to know that you’re trying to protect her. Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that the most certain way to turn the limelight of pitiless, hostile publicity on her would be to twist the truth to try to keep her out of it.”

Arthur Gentrie was interested despite himself. “I don’t get you,” he said.

“You start suppressing or distorting facts to keep Opal Sunley out of that case,” Mason said, “and you’ll find that you’ve not only dragged her in, but have painted her with a crimson brush doing it.”

“What’s that crimson-brush crack?” Arthur Gentrie asked, suddenly belligerent.

Mason said, “Nice young men don’t tell lies in murder cases for nice young women. Do you get me?”

“I’m not certain that I do.”

“You make a good impression. The public would look on you as a nice young man. They would consider that the motivation which would cause you to lie to protect a woman would have to be more powerful and more compelling and, frankly, a little more sinister than the ordinary attraction which a nice young woman would or should have for you.

“Now, I’m not going to argue with you. I’m not going to plead with you. I’ve told you facts. If you want to drag Opal Sunley into this thing, if you want to smear her reputation, if you want the newspapers to treat her as an older woman who was leading a young boy around by the nose...”

Gentrie came up out of the chair as though he had been a fighter springing for an antagonist at the sound of the gong. “No, you don’t,” he shouted. “You can’t...”

Mason held up his hand, palm outward. Aside from that, he made no move. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said. “It hurts because you know it’s the truth. Now, what have you to tell me?”

“Nothing.”

Mason said, “All right, go on home. Get out. I told you I wasn’t going to argue with you, and I wasn’t going to plead with you. I’ve told you. There’s truth in what I’ve told you, and truth is an acid which burns through every falsehood. The only thing it won’t touch is the pure gold of unvarnished truth. My words are going to eat into your consciousness until they’ve cut through the falsehood and got down to the real truth. Then you’re going to make a clean breast of things, either to your mother or to me. And after that you’re going to feel better. Now, I’m busy. I haven’t time to discuss things further. Good-by.”

Gentrie, who had quite evidently braced himself when he was taken to the lawyer’s office for resistance against cajoleries and blandishments, appeared somewhat dazed by this abrupt dismissal. He said, “Why, I haven’t told any...”

Mason said, “I’m sorry, Gentrie. I haven’t the time to waste. Don’t bother to say anything more until you’ve had a chance to think over what I’ve said. Good afternoon, Mrs. Gentrie. Let me know if you want to see me again.”

Her eyes were troubled but grateful. “Thank you, Mr. Mason. Come, Arthur.”

Arthur hung back at the door, then suddenly squared his shoulders, pushed up his chin, and marched out, jerking the door behind him. He would have slammed it violently had it not been for the automatic door check.

Mason grinned across at Della Street. “Hot-headed youth on the rampage.”

Della Street said, “I thought he was going to hit you when you said what you did about Opal Sunley.”

“He was trying to make himself think so, too. At his age, it was what he considered the manly thing. Sometimes, Della, I don’t know but what hot-blooded, impetuous youth which has no time for weighing disadvantages against advantages, or consequences against acts, is a darn sight better than what we are pleased to call the mature outlook.”

Her eyes smiled at him. “Obey that impulse, eh?”

“Exactly,” he said.

She was laughing now. “Well, it’s a good idea. More the philosophy one would expect to hear in a taxicab driving home than in a law office. How about that code message?”

Mason said, “You would bring my nose back to the grindstone. Well, I’ll bite. What about the code?”

“Given it any thought?”

“Lots of thought, probably too much.”

“Look, Chief, if it’s a cipher, couldn’t you read it? There are nine words in the message, and I’ve always understood any cipher can be solved if there’s a long enough message.”

Mason said, “I guess that’s right, but I don’t think it’s an ordinary cipher in which letters are transposed.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s analyze this. There are nine words. Five of them begin with the letter c. The letter c is in every single word at least once.”

“Wouldn’t that indicate it was either e or a?”

“I’m afraid you’re missing the most significant thing about the whole message, Della.”

She studied the typewritten copy of the message which Mason pushed across to her. After an interval of silence, she said, “I’m afraid I don’t get it.”

“Look again. It’s relatively simple.”

“You mean that there are no short words in it?”

“That’s one thing,” Mason said. “The shortest word in there has five letters. The longest has six. That’s an interesting peculiarity of the message. Nine words. Three of them have five letters, and the other six have six letters. But there’s something that’s far more significant than that.”

“What?”

“Give up?” he asked banteringly.

She nodded.

“The last fourteen letters of the alphabet aren’t represented there at all,” he said. “The entire message is composed of words made up from the first twelve letters of the alphabet.”

Della Street frowned, stared down at the typewriting, then said thoughtfully, “That’s right. What does it mean?”

Mason said, “I’ll tell you one other significant thing. Every word contains either the letter a or the letter b.”

“I don’t see that that’s as important as the frequency with which the letter c occurs.”

“Perhaps not, unless we also consider positions. Every word has either a or b in it, but neither a nor b appears at the first of the word or at the ending. They’re always either the second or third letter from the end of the word.”

There followed an interval while she checked his conclusions, then nodded again.

Mason said, “That empty can is significant in a good many ways. I’m wondering whether Tragg has overlooked some of those things, or is just sitting tight and awaiting developments.”

“What, for instance?” Della asked.

“That can conveyed a message to some person,” Mason said. “That means two persons were concerned in the crime. That, in turn, means that the someone who put the can there must have had easy access to the basement. It also means that the person for whom the message was intended must have had easy access to the basement. Yet it also means that those two persons didn’t have access to each other. ”

“I don’t get you,” Della Street said.

“It’s simple,” Mason pointed out. “If the two persons could have met and talked with each other, there would have been no necessity for going to all that elaborate trouble of scratching a message in the top of the can, sealing the can, and placing it in the cellar.”

“Yes. That’s true.”

“The fact that the cellar was chosen as the place where the message was to be left means that both parties must have had access to the cellar.”

She nodded.

“Therefore,” Mason said, “we have a peculiar situation. Two persons have access to the same place, yet those persons don’t have contact with each other, and that place is highly unusual — the cellar of a big, rambling, frame residence.”

Della Street said excitedly, “Now that you analyze it, it’s plain as day. One of the persons had to have access to the cellar through the garage that Hocksley rented, and the other one because he lived in Gentrie’s house.”

Mason said, “That’s one of the possibilities.”

“But, Chief,” Della Street said, “that brings up all sorts of complications.”

“That’s just the point.”

“Then you think Junior is mixed up with it — and Opal?”

Mason said, “The evidence seems to point the other way.”

“What do you mean?”

He said, “Then the message in the can becomes perfectly meaningless... so far as the murder is concerned.”

“Why? Oh, I get it. Because he and she were together. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

Della Street said with a smile, “Once that message is deciphered, it may turn out to be ‘I love you, darling, no matter what happens.’ Persons in love are inclined to do things like that, you know — or do you?”

Mason nodded, said, “Frankly, Della, if it had been a simple cipher where letters had been transposed in order to make a message, I would have been very much surprised if it had had anything to do with the murder. But as it is, I’m inclined to attach more importance to it. But the perfectly obvious and logical point seems to have escaped everyone.”

“What’s that?”

“The one real clue as to the identity of the person for whom the message was intended.”

“What’s the clue?”

Mason said, “The fact that only one person got it, of course.”

“You mean...?”

“Arthur Gentrie.”

“Junior? I thought you said he...”

“No, the father. He’s the one who went down in the cellar. He says he found the can lying in the box and opened it in order to mix up paint in it. Then he threw the top away, but you notice that when Steele became interested in the top, Gentrie saw that the tops were substituted. The one with the code message on it remained in the box, and one that had no message was put on the workbench.”

Della Street said, “My gosh, Chief, it’s perfectly obvious, now that you mention it. The way you sum it up, it sounds rather damning.”

Mason pulled the sheet of typewritten paper over to him, started studying it. Abruptly, he laughed.

“What is it?” she asked.

“That code,” he said. “It’s absolutely simple.”

“You mean you can read the message?” Della Street asked.

Mason nodded. “It’s absurdly simple when you approach the problem from the right angle.”

“What’s the right angle?”

“Notice,” Mason said, “that only the first twelve letters in the alphabet are employed. Notice that every word contains either a or b, and that a or b, whenever it appears, is either the second or the third letter from the end of the word. That, coupled with the fact that the words have either five or six letters, is absolutely determinative of the whole business. I wonder if Tragg has got it by this time.”

Della Street said, “I don’t get it.”

“Twelve letters,” Mason said. “Good Lord, Della, it fairly hits you in the face.”

“It doesn’t hit me in the face,” Della Street laughed. “It doesn’t hit me anywhere. I miss it altogether.”

Mason pushed back his chair. “I’m going out for fifteen or twenty minutes, Della. Think it over while I’m gone.”

She said, “Ordinarily, I’m a peaceful woman. I’m not given to homicidal mania, but if you arouse my curiosity this way and then try to go out of that door without telling me what the message says, I’m very apt to assault you with a deadly weapon before you get as far as the elevator.”

Mason said, “I don’t know what the message says.”

“I thought you said you did.”

“No. I said the solution was simple. Good Lord, Della, I can’t give you any more clues than that. I’ve virtually told you the whole thing now.”

“You’ll be back in twenty minutes?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll tell me what the message says then?”

“Shortly afterwards, yes.”

“But I’m supposed to get the secret of this while you’re gone?”

“You should.”

“What does twelve letters have to do with it?”

“How much is twelve?” Mason asked.

She frowned. “You mean six and six?”

“That’s not it.”

“You don’t mean that since two and two make four, six and six make twelve?”

“No, not that way.”

“You mean it’s eleven and one?”

Mason smiled. “Try ten and two,” he said, “and you’ll be on the right track. And if you can’t get it from that, you’re going to have to buy me the drinks.”

Mason took his hat out of the coat closet, grinned at her, and started for the elevator.

Chapter 7

Della Street was sitting at her desk frantically scribbling with a pencil when Mason returned, an oblong package under his arm.

“Get it?” he asked.

“Uh huh. That ten plus two crack did it.”

“Got it deciphered?”

She said, “I’ve got it figured both ways. Either the figures start with a and end with j, or they start with c and end with l. ”

“They start with c and end with l, ” Mason said. “The a and b are true letters.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the a and b are always either the second or third letter from the end of the word.”

“Well, I’ve got it worked out that way,” she said.

“How does it check out?”

She said, “Well, if c represents one; d represents two; e, three; f, four; g, five; h, six; i, seven; j, eight; k, nine; and l a cipher, the message breaks down into 192A19 187A8 20A11 632B13 137A22 579A21 1025B2 94B16 1055B8.”

“I think we can safely rely on that,” Mason said.

“But that’s a code within a code,” she said. “It still doesn’t give us the message.”

“No,” Mason said, untying the string around the oblong package, “but I think this will.”

“What is it?”

“There are two books that might have been used as keys, two books that would naturally have large vocabularies, and in which the pages would be divided into an A column and a B column. They’re the Bible and the dictionary.”

“And because Junior mentioned his dictionary, you think...”

“There’s been a lot of talk about a dictionary,” Mason agreed, taking the wrappings off the package. “No one’s said very much about a Bible. Junior has his dictionary, and he isn’t able to keep his hands on it because his Aunt Rebecca is constantly borrowing it. She says that her interest in it is due to crossword puzzles, but that might not be true. In any event, the dictionary looks like a good lead.”

“How do you know which dictionary?”

“I happened to notice the dictionary on the table when I was out at Gentries’. It’s a Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition.”

“Then the numbers refer to pages?”

“That’s right. For instance, the first word in the code message would be the nineteenth word from the top in the A column on page 192.”

“And the A column would be the first one?”

“That’s right. The one on the left.”

Della Street said, “Gosh, Chief, I’m so excited. I’m trembling. Let’s see what it is.”

Mason turned the pages in the dictionary, then counted down the column.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Coast,” Mason said.

“Coast.” She frowned. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Well, let’s try the next one. What is it?”

“The eighth word in the left-hand column on page 187.”

Mason turned back a few pages in the dictionary, then announced, “That word’s ‘clear.’ What’s the next one?”

Della Street’s voice showed her excitement. “Gosh, Chief, that makes it ‘Coast clear.’ Let’s see. The next one’s the eleventh word in the A column on page 20.”

Mason made a brief search, then announced, “That’s ‘after.’ What comes next?”

“The thirteenth word in the B column on page 632.”

When Mason found that word, he whistled.

“What is it?” she demanded impatiently.

“Midnight,” Mason said. “Get it? ‘Coast clear after midnight.’ ”

“We’ve got it. We’ve got it,” she said. “And the crime was committed after midnight. It ties up. This is the solution of the whole business.”

“Don’t be too certain,” Mason warned. “What’s our next word?”

“The twenty-second word in the A column on page 137.”

“But,” Mason announced after a moment. “What’s next?”

“The twenty-first word in the A column on page 579.”

Mason turned pages. “Lift,” he said. “What’s next?”

“The second word in the B column on page 1025. Gosh, Chief, hurry.”

Mason turned the pages. Once more he gave a low whistle.

“What is it?”

“Telephone receiver,” Mason said.

Della Street regarded him with startled eyes. “ ‘Coast clear after midnight but lift telephone receiver.’ And the police found fingerprints on the telephone receiver!”

“That’s right. What’s next?”

“The sixteenth word in the B column on page 94.”

“Before,” Mason announced. “What’s the last word?”

“The eighth word in the B column on page 1055.”

Mason turned the pages and said, “That’s ‘touching.’ That gives us the message, Della. ‘Coast clear after midnight, but lift telephone receiver before touching.’ ”

“Before touching what?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Obviously not the telephone receiver. You can’t lift a telephone receiver without touching it.”

“What are you going to do about this, Chief?”

“Darned if I know.”

“Going to tell Tragg?”

“I think not — not yet.”

“And you think this implicates Rebecca?”

He said, “I don’t know. After all, Arthur Gentrie was the one who got the message, and apparently the only one. That tin was left there for a purpose. It contained a message. The person who left it knew it contained a message, and the person who was to have received the message knew that it contained a message. Apparently, the only one who made any attempt to open the can was Arthur Gentrie.”

“But he was in bed at the time the shot was fired.”

“Exactly.”

The telephone, which was connected with Mason’s private unlisted line — a number which less than half a dozen people had — buzzed into activity. Mason picked up the receiver, said, “Let’s have it.”

Paul Drake’s voice said. “Giving you a hot tip right off the bat, Perry.”

“What is it?”

“Remember I told you there were fingerprints on the telephone receiver?”

“Yes.”

“Tragg isn’t saying anything just yet, but he’s found out whose prints they are.”

“Whose?”

“Arthur Gentrie’s.”

“The old man,” Mason said triumphantly. “I was just telling Della that...”

“No,” Drake interrupted. “The young chap — the one they call Junior.”

Mason frowned. “Darn it, Paul. You kick the props out from under me just when I’m showing off to my secretary. Why the hell couldn’t you have waited a half hour with that information?”

“Well,” Drake said cheerfully, “that’s the way with theories. You form them, and they get upset.”

“But everything in this pointed absolutely to one logical conclusion,” Mason said. “It just doesn’t fit in to have those fingerprints belong to young Gentrie.”

“Well, they’re his prints all right. Keep it under your hat. I got a straight tip from one of the newspaper boys. Tragg isn’t saying anything. The newspaper guys got it straight from the fingerprint man in the D.A.’s office, but had to promise not to use it until he got a release. Apparently, Tragg’s going to give the boy a little rope and see if he’ll get himself tangled up.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “keep me posted, Paul.” He dropped the receiver into place, looked at Della Street, and shook his head. “The darn thing just doesn’t fit.”

“They’re Junior’s fingerprints?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Then the message must have been for him.”

Mason pushed his hands down deep in his pockets. “That is what comes of sticking my neck out,” he announced.

Chapter 8

The strident bell summoned Perry Mason from the depths of slumber. While his drugged senses were still trying to adjust themselves, his hand automatically reached for the telephone. He said thickly, “Hello.”

Only Della Street and Paul Drake had the number of that telephone which was by Mason’s bedside, a telephone which rang only in cases of grave emergency.

Paul Drake was on the line. “Hello, Perry,” he said. “Sorry to bust in on your slumbers, but snap awake, because this is important.”

“All right,” Mason said, “I can take it. What is it?”

“Remember,” Drake said, “the evening paper mentioned that you were working on the case and that you had employed the Drake Detective Agency to make an investigation?”

“Yes,” Mason said, switching on a light.

“Well, she read the paper and called me up.”

“Who did?”

“I’m coming to that in a minute. I want to make certain you’re awake before I give you this.”

Mason said impatiently, “I’m awake all right. I’ve got the light on. What is it?”

“Mrs. Sarah Perlin, Hocksley’s housekeeper, telephoned the office and said that if she could talk with Mr. Mason personally, she’d make a complete confession. She wanted to know where she could reach you. What do I do?”

“A complete confession?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

“Waiting on one of the other trunk lines.”

“Trace the call?” Mason asked.

“Yes. It’s from a public pay station. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I’d get in touch with you and let you be the goat. If we don’t relay the information on to the police and try to hold her there until a radio car can get on the job, we’re sticking our necks out. But, on the other hand...”

“Tell her to call this number,” Mason said. “Tell her she can talk with me here.”

“And how about the police?”

“Forget ’em.”

“Okay,” Drake said, “I’m stalling her along on the other line. Hold the phone, Perry, until I see if she’s still on the line.”

Mason held the telephone, hearing only the slight buzzing sound of the wire. Then he heard Drake’s voice once more. “Okay, Perry, she says she’ll call you in twenty minutes. She thinks I was having the call traced and notifying the police. She says she’ll go to another pay station. She says if I’ve notified the police, it won’t do a bit of good, that you’re the only one she’ll talk with.”

“Said she’d call in about twenty minutes?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

“Okay, Paul. What are you doing up at the office this time of night?”

“No rest for the wicked,” Drake said wearily. “A lot of stuff has been coming in. I’m up here sifting the reports, and juggling the men around on new assignments. I was just ready to quit.”

“What time is it?”

“About one o’clock.”

“How did that woman sound on the telephone, Paul?”

“She didn’t seem particularly excited. She has a good speaking voice.”

“But she said she was going to make a confession?”

“That’s right. I guess that’ll crack the whole case. The way the police figured it out, there was only one shot. Two people had disappeared. That meant Hocksley had killed his housekeeper, removed the body, and was in hiding, or that she had killed him.”

Mason said, “In that latter event, I think there was an accomplice. She didn’t give you any inkling of who it was, did she?”

“No, not a thing. Just said that if she could talk with Mr. Mason personally, she’d make a complete confession. Otherwise, there was no dice.”

“Better stick around,” Mason said, “in case I need you.”

“For how long?”

“Oh, until I tell you to quit.”

Drake said, “Okay, there’s a couch here in the office. I’ll bed down on that, and the night operator will call me in case you phone in.”

“Hate to bust up your sleep,” Mason apologized.

“Oh, it’s all right. I’m used to that.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “I’ll give you a ring.”

He hung up the telephone, stretched, yawned, got out of bed, closed the windows in the room, dressed, and was smoking a cigarette when his telephone rang.

Mason picked up the receiver, said, “This is Perry Mason talking,” and heard a low voice saying in a tone of calm finality, “This is Mrs. Perlin. It’s all over. I’ve decided to confess.”

“Yes, Mrs. Perlin.”

“Don’t try to have this call traced.”

“I won’t.”

“It won’t do you any good if you do try.”

“I tell you I won’t try.”

“I want to talk with you. I must talk with you.”

“Go ahead. You’re talking with me now,” Mason said.

“Not this way. I want to be where our conversation can be absolutely confidential.”

Mason said, “Do you want to come here?”

“No. You’ll have to come to me.”

“Where are you?”

“You promise you won’t notify the police?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll come alone?”

“Yes.”

“How soon?”

“As soon as I can make it. That’s on the understanding that you’re going to play absolutely fair with me and will make a frank statement.”

She said, “Come to six-o-four East Hillgrade Avenue. Don’t park your car directly in front of the house. Leave it half a block down the hill. Don’t go to the front door. It will be locked, and I won’t answer the bell. Go around to the garage in the back of the house. Wait there until you see a light turned on in the house. When you see that light turned on, go in through the back door. It will be open and unlocked. Be certain you come alone and don’t try to tip the police off.”

Mason said, “It will take me fifteen or twenty minutes to get there.”

“That’s all right, only remember to do just as I told you.”

Mason said, “That’s all very well, Mrs. Perlin, but I certainly can’t go chasing around at night simply on the strength of a telephone conversation with a woman who says she has something confidential to tell me.”

“You understand who this is talking, don’t you?”

“Mr. Hocksley’s housekeeper?”

“Yes. I’m going to tell you the truth. I want someone in whom I can confide.”

Mason, trying to draw her out, said, “That’s all rather vague, Mrs. Perlin.”

She hesitated, then said slowly, “I shot him. I had a right to shoot him. I destroyed the body so it can never be found. And then I wondered if that was the wise thing to do. That made it look as though I were a criminal. That’s what I have to ask you about, whether I shouldn’t tell the whole truth. I was absolutely justified in what I did. No jury would ever convict me — not ever. Now, do you want to see me, or do I have to call some other lawyer?”

“I want to see you,” Mason said. “You’re at that address on Hillgrade Avenue?”

“I’ll meet you there — if you play fair. Otherwise you’ll never see me. Be sure you do just as I told you. Don’t come in as soon as you get there — and when you do come, come in through the back door. I have to do it that way so I can be certain you’re playing fair with me. You probably think I’m hard to get along with, but you’ll understand after I tell you the circumstances.”

Mason said, “All right, I’ll be out,” and hung up the telephone.

He looked at his watch to verify the time, then wrote the address 604 East Hillgrade Avenue on a sheet of paper, folded the paper, put it in an envelope, addressed the envelope to Lieutenant Tragg, sealed it, and placed it on the little table by the side of the bed, then he called the Drake Detective Agency. When he had Paul Drake on the line, he said, “Paul, I’m going places. It doesn’t sound any too good. There’s just a chance we’re dealing with a woman who is a homicidal paranoiac. In case you don’t hear from me within an hour, bust out to six-o-four East Hillgrade Avenue — and be damn sure you get in. Also be sure you have a gun in your hand when you go in, and you’d better have a couple of hard-boiled men with you.”

“Why not let me pick up a couple of tough operatives and go out there with you, Perry?”

“I don’t think it would do any good. She’s given me certain specific instructions. She’s evidently where she can check up on me to see if I’m following those instructions. I wouldn’t doubt if she’s planted right across the street waiting to see what I do.”

“Okay, Perry, I’ll crash the joint in exactly one hour if I don’t hear from you.”

Mason slid the receiver back into place, put on a light topcoat, pulled his hat down low over his eyes, and left his apartment. Walking to the garage where he kept his car, Mason was careful to avoid looking around, as though afraid someone might be shadowing him. He slid in behind the wheel of his car, warmed up the motor, nodded to the night attendant in the garage, and rolled out into the dark, all-but-deserted street.

Following instructions to the letter, he left his car in the five-hundred block on Hillgrade Avenue and walked up the steep incline toward the intersection.

Six hundred and four was the first house on the right, after he had passed the intersection. It was a typical Southern California bungalow, neat, cool, efficiently arranged, and without anything to differentiate it from thousands of other bungalows. The house seemed dark and deserted. Mason, however, had expected this. If Mrs. Perlin had decided to follow him, to make certain he wasn’t leading police to the place, it would normally take her some little time, after she had satisfied herself, to enter the house and turn on the lights. It was quite possible she’d deliberately keep him waiting. The fact that she had instructed him to wait until he saw the light and then go in through the back door convinced him that the woman herself would slip in through the front door, divest herself of hat and coat, and subsequently claim she had been in the house all the time.

Mason, keeping to the shadows, moved around toward the garage at the back of the house. A moon in the last quarter furnished a faint yellowish light which enabled him to find his way down the side street and into the driveway which led to the garage. Beneath the deep shadows of a spreading pepper tree, the lawyer found an empty box which he improvised as a chair, and waited.

He watched for a light to come on in the house. The luminous hands of Mason’s watch ticked through an interval of minutes without anything happening — fifteen minutes — twenty minutes.

Mason moved restlessly. He’d have to reach Paul Drake soon or there would be complications.

Mason eased himself off the box, tiptoed toward the house. A vague, disquieting thought intruded itself upon his mind. If this should be some elaborate hoax, some runaround by which Mason was to be placed on a spot, what could put him in a more embarrassing position than to be caught prowling around the back yard of a house at nearly two o’clock in the morning. After all, he’d been unusually credulous, too credulous in fact. It had been because of some quality in that voice, as well as because he’d been aroused out of sound slumber. Her voice had held a note of well-modulated poise which had, somehow, impressed Mason with its sincerity.

He looked at his watch again and reluctantly determined he’d have to go telephone Paul Drake, and call off his vigil. Quite evidently, she had anticipated he might do something like that, and had determined to keep him waiting until...

A light was switched on in the house.

Mason could see the beam pouring through an unshaded window. It splashed across a strip of lawn, and against an ornamental hedge. At the same time, Mason became acutely conscious that this all might be some clever trap. A voice on the telephone — Mason sent to the back yard of a strange house. Then they had only to put through a telephone call to the occupant of that house. When he switched on the light to answer the phone, Mason would come up to try the back door. Anyone would be legally justified in shooting him as a burglar.

There was a vast difference between making a rendezvous over the phone with a reassuringly calm voice and actually waiting in the midnight chill of a strange back yard.

Mason decided to let the back door determine the issue. If it turned out to be unlocked, he would go in, come what may. Otherwise, he’d return home and say nothing.

He tiptoed up the walk, paused for a moment as he encountered the back steps, then felt his way up, opened a screen door, winced inwardly at the creak of a rusty spring, stepped across a linoleum-covered surface, and tentatively tried the knob of the back door.

It opened readily enough.

Mason gently pushed the door. He could see the faint gleam of a reflected light trickling through from some room down a corridor. He took a cautious step forward — and the light was suddenly switched off, leaving the entire interior of the house in darkness. His eyes accustomed by now to this darkness, Mason could find no clue to indicate in which room the light had been turned on and then off again.

Standing in the midst of a darkness which had suddenly become a baffling barrier to further progress, smelling those peculiar homey smells which invariably attach themselves to a kitchen, Mason waited for some development that would give him a cue on which to proceed.

Abruptly the break he had been waiting for came. He heard the gasping intake of a sobbing breath, then the sound of light feet coming groping down a corridor. The steps were coming toward him. From the kitchen there might be a swinging door...

He heard hinges creak cautiously. A door was pushed back. For a fleeting instant, he had the feeling that someone was standing on the threshold of a swinging door, listening. Then the door swung back, and Mason realized someone was groping toward him, looking either for him or for the back door.

Mason moved back a cautious step, his left hand groping for the light switch which he realized must be on the wall in the vicinity of the back door. The person in the room was groping blindly. Mason heard this person stumble against a table, and took advantage of the noise to turn toward the back door so he could see more clearly the location of his objective. His foot kicked a chair. He heard a quick startled intake of breath, then a woman’s voice saying quickly, “Who’s there? Who is it? Speak up or I’ll shoot.”

Mason said, “I’ve come to keep my appointment.”

He realized then that she was no longer coming toward him, but was backing away under cover of the darkness, moving quickly, trying not to make any noise, yet he could distinctly hear the sound of groping motion. His fingers, sliding along the wall, found the button of the light switch. He pushed it.

It was a light on the screened porch, but the illumination from it, seeping through the open door and into the kitchen, gave sufficient light so that they could see each other.

She was evidently young. Her body held the lithe lines of resilient youth. It was impossible to see the expression on her face, but he could see the arm which was stretched out in front, and the ominous glint of metal in the hand, which was extended toward him.

Mason said, “Don’t be foolish. Put down the gun.”

The hand didn’t so much as waver. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“I’m here to keep an appointment.”

“With whom?”

“With the woman who made it. Are you she?”

“I most certainly am not. Stand to one side and let me out.”

“You don’t live here?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “No.”

Mason stood to one side. “Go ahead,” he said.

She came toward him cautiously. Light coming through the doorway struck her face. He could see deep brown eyes, a rather short, pert nose, light golden hair which fluffed out from under the rolled-up brim of a small hat perched jauntily on one side of her head. She was rather tall, and her short skirt disclosed legs which had a long graceful sweep from knee to ankle.

“Just keep back out of the way,” she warned, holding the gun on him as she came forward.

“Why the artillery?” Mason asked, trying to trap her into conversation.

She did not deign to answer his question, simply kept moving forward with that slow, wary approach as though she were stalking him.

“Don’t get nervous and pull the trigger on that gun,” Mason said apprehensively.

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Then look out for that chair in front of you,” he warned. “You’ll hit that, the gun will go off, and...”

She turned her head slightly in the direction indicated, and Mason’s long arms shot out. His left hand clamped down over her right wrist. He felt her muscles bunch into tension. His fingers squeezed the strength out of her wrist. When he felt her fingers grow limp, he took the revolver from her hand, and slipped it into the side pocket of his coat.

The realization that she was disarmed gave her the strength of panic. She jerked her arm, trying to free her hand. When Mason held tight, she raised her right leg high, and kicked out at him hard, driving the heel of her shoe toward the pit of his stomach.

Mason swung to one side, jerking on her wrist as he moved. He threw her off balance and toward him. Then as she lowered her leg to keep from falling, Mason grabbed her around the waist with his left hand, circled her shoulders with his right, pinning her arms to her sides. “Now let’s be sensible,” he said.

He could feel the resistance drain out of her. The slender body crushed up against his grew limp.

“No kicking now,” Mason warned, and relaxed his grip·

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name’s Mason. I’m a lawyer. You didn’t telephone me?”

“You’re — you’re Perry Mason?”

“Yes.”

She clung to his arm. There was something of desperation in that grip. He could feel the tremor of tortured nerves in the tips of her fingers. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“You’re the one who telephoned for me?” Mason asked.

“No.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I... I came here — to meet someone.”

“Whom?”

“It doesn’t make any difference. I think now it was a trap. I want to get out. Can’t we leave here?”

Mason said, “I was to meet someone here. Suppose you tell me who you are?”

“I’m Opal Sunley — the one who called the police yesterday morning.”

“Whom were you going to meet here?”

“Mrs. Perlin.”

“So was I,” Mason said. “Suppose we wait together? I think perhaps she wanted to see us both together. She told me she was going to make a confession.”

“She won’t make it now,” the girl said.

“Why not?”

Mason could feel her trembling. It was more than mere nervousness. It was trembling of one who’s in the grip of a fear which threatens momentarily to become blind panic.

“Go on,” Mason said. “Where is she?”

The girl’s fingers were digging into his arm. “She’s — she’s in the bedroom. She’s dead.”

Mason said, “Let’s look.”

“No, no! You go alone!”

“I’m not leaving you at the moment. You’ll have to come along.”

“I can’t. I can’t face it. I can’t go back there!”

Mason slid his arm around her waist. “Come on,” he said. “Buck up. It’s something you’ve got to do. The quicker you start, the easier it will be.”

He accompanied his words with a gentle pressure, urging her toward the door at the other end of the kitchen. He opened this door, and struck a match. The flickering flame showed him a light switch. He pushed it. The room blazed with a light which seemed dazzling. The furniture was of that nondescript variety which robbed the room of personality. He knew then that this was merely a house, cheaply furnished, and rented furnished.

“Where is she?” Mason asked.

“Down... the corridor.”

The dining room had two doors. One of them opened into a corridor, the other into a living room. The corridor then ran the length of the house to broaden into a reception room by the front door. Mason switched on a light in the hallway. On the right were two doors which apparently led to bedrooms with a bath in between. Mason moved cautiously along this hallway.

“Which bedroom?” he asked.

“The front.”

Mason kept gently urging her forward. He opened the door of the bedroom, pushed a light switch, and paused, surveying the interior. Opal Sunley jerked back away from the door.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t! I won’t! Don’t try to make me!”

“Okay,” Mason said, “take it easy.”

The woman who lay sprawled on the floor in front of the dressing table had quite evidently fallen from the padded bench. She was dressed for the street, even to her hat, which had been pushed to one side of her head when she fell. She was lying on her left side, her left arm stretching out, her left hand clutching at the carpet. The fingers were short, stubby, and competent. The nails were close-cut, uncolored. The right arm lay across the body. The fingers of the right hand still clutched the handle of a grim snub-nosed revolver. She had evidently been shot once, just slightly to one side of the left breast.

Mason walked across the room, bent over, and placed his forefinger on the woman’s left wrist.

The young woman in the doorway stood staring as though torn between a desire to run screaming from the house, and an urge to see every move that was made.

Mason straightened from his examination. “All right,” he said, “we’ll have to notify the police.”

“No, no, no!” she cried. “You mustn’t! You can’t!”

“Why not?”

“It... They wouldn’t understand. It...”

“Wouldn’t understand what?”

“How I happened to be here.”

“How did you happen to be here?”

“She telephoned me, and told me to come.”

“She telephoned me, and told me to come,” Mason said.

“She — she said she had something she wanted to confess.”

“When did she telephone you?” Mason asked.

“About an hour ago. Perhaps not quite that long.”

“What did she say?”

“Told me to come to the front door, walk in, switch on the lights, and wait for her in case she wasn’t here.”

“Did she say where she was, or what she was doing?”

“She was keeping an eye on someone. I didn’t get all there was to it. She didn’t talk with me herself.”

“She didn’t?”

“No... Let’s get out of here. I can’t talk here. I can’t...”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “Do you know this person?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“Who is it?”

“Mrs. Perlin, Hocksley’s housekeeper.”

“Did she live here?”

“No. She lived in the flat with Mr. Hocksley. I don’t know how she happened to come here.”

“Had you seen her at all today?”

“I’m not going to be questioned about this.”

Mason said. “That’s what you think. You’re going to be questioned about this until your eardrums get calloused. Who telephoned you?”

“I don’t know. It was a woman with a nice voice, who said Sarah had given her a message to pass on to me, that I was to leave my car about half a block beyond the house up the hill. I was to walk back to this house and come right in. In case Sarah wasn’t here, I was to switch on the lights and make myself at home. She said Sarah would be here within a very few minutes of the time I arrived. She said Sarah was keeping a watch on someone who might be trying to double-cross her, and she couldn’t break away long enough to talk with me herself.”

“Did you think it might be some sort of a trap?”

“Not then.”

“Did the one who spoke to you say anything about not telephoning the police?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think of this as being a trap of some sort to get you? In other words, didn’t you feel somewhat diffident about coming out into a residential neighborhood and simply walking into a strange house at two o’clock in the morning, switching on the lights, and making yourself at home?”

“I tell you, I didn’t at the time. I did later.”

“How much later?”

“When I got near the house and began to think over the things I was supposed to do. This woman told me the front door would be unlocked. I decided that I’d see if the front door actually was open. If it was, I’d go in. Otherwise, I wasn’t even going to try to ring the bell or do anything about it.”

“So you tried the front door and it was open.”

“Yes. I came in. No one seemed to be home. I thought I’d find the bathroom...”

“What did Mrs. Perlin want to confess?”

“She didn’t say. That is, the one who was talking with me didn’t have anything to say about that. She simply said that Sarah had told her to tell me she wanted to make a confession, and ask my forgiveness.”

“Ask your forgiveness!”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t know who this person was?”

“No. She said she was simply passing on the message, that Sarah was busy, and...”

“Yes. You’ve gone over all that, but did this person give you any idea of who she was?”

“No. Somehow, I got the impression she was a waitress in some restaurant where Sarah had established headquarters. You know, where Sarah could stand by the door to wait and watch. She said Sarah was over at the window, watching to see if a man to whom she’d telephoned was double-crossing her.”

“You have your own car?”

“Yes. That is, it isn’t mine. It’s a car I can borrow when I need one.”

“And you parked it a half a block beyond the house up the hill?”

“Yes.”

“She distinctly told you a half block beyond the house, and up the hill, did she?”

“That’s right.”

Mason said, “That shot was instantly fatal. She’s dead. There isn’t the faintest trace of pulse. You can tell from the location of the wound and the direction of the bullet that death was virtually instantaneous. Now then, why should she have committed suicide?”

“I tell you I don’t know.”

“And why can’t you tell your story to the police?”

“Because — because I’m afraid I’m in an awful jam, Mr. Mason. Sarah was the only one who could have vouched for me in case — well, in case the police turn up certain things.”

“And you want me to suppress all of this,” and Mason included the room and the body with a sweeping gesture of his hands, “simply in order to save you from being questioned by the police?”

“It isn’t going to hurt anything if you do this for me,” she said. “There’s nothing you can do to help solve this.”

Mason studied her thoughtfully. Abruptly, he asked, “This Mrs. Perlin, was she a woman who had had much experience as a housekeeper, or had she perhaps had money at one time, run into hard luck, and had to get work as a housekeeper...?”

“No. She’d been a housekeeper for years. I remember checking on her agency card when Mr. Hocksley hired her.”

Mason strolled down the corridor toward the dining room. His hands were pushed down in his pockets, his head thrust forward. She followed him, apprehensive, silently pleading. Abruptly, Mason whirled to face her. “You know what you’re asking?” he demanded.

She said nothing as he paused, her eyes pleading eloquently, her lips motionless.

“You’re asking me to square a murder,” Mason said, “to get my neck in a noose, and you’re doing it as casually as though you were wanting to know if I wouldn’t buy you an ice cream, or sign my name in your autograph album.”

She kept looking at him, pleading with her eyes. Her hand came out to touch his arm.

Mason said, “Once I walk out of this house without calling the police, I’ve put myself in the middle of a great big spot. I’ve given you a stranglehold on me. How deeply are you mixed in this business?”

She shook her head.

“Come on. Speak up.”

“I’m not in it at all.”

Mason said, “That’s what you think. You called the police yesterday morning, didn’t you?”

“Do we have to talk here?”

“We have to do some talking here.”

“It’s dangerous just being here.”

“It’s dangerous just walking away.”

“I came to work yesterday. No one was in the house. Usually Mrs. Perlin is there, and nearly always there are some records for me.”

“Records?” Mason asked.

“You know, the wax records that have been dictated on a dictating machine.”

“Oh.”

“This morning there weren’t any records. Mrs. Perlin wasn’t there.”

“How about Hocksley?”

“I very seldom see him. He sleeps most of the day. He works rather late at night.”

“But you have seen him?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Go ahead.”

“I couldn’t understand there not being any work laid out for me or any message. Then I started looking around, and I saw the door to Mr. Hocksley’s room was open. Then I saw spots of blood. I went in and saw the safe with a great pool of blood in front of it, and then I went out to the garage where we keep the car.”

“That’s in the house next door?”

“Yes. The Gentries rent Mr. Hocksley a garage.”

“And the car was there?”

“Yes; but there were bloodstains in it, all over the back seat. Really, Mr. Mason, that’s all I know. Then I called the police.”

“Why not call them now?”

“I can’t explain my being here. I can’t explain — lots of things.”

“What, for instance?”

“Things — complications that would be brought about by what’s happened here. Don’t you see. They’d think that Mrs. Perlin and I had worked together to get Mr. Hocksley out of the way.”

“Why should you want him out of the way?”

“I don’t know. I only know that’s what they’d say. It looks as though I must have had some connection with Mrs. Perlin, as though she’d communicated with me sometime today, and I hadn’t told the police.”

“She did communicate with you, didn’t she?”

“Well, in a way, yes.”

“And you didn’t tell the police?”

“She told me not to.”

Mason looked at his watch, hesitated a moment, then said, “If I do this for you, what’ll you do for me?”

She met his eyes without flinching. “What do you want?” she asked.

Mason said, “I don’t want you to run out on me if the going gets tough.”

“All right.”

“You’ll stick?”

“Yes — only — only don’t kid me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me that you’re going to give me a break, and then as soon as I’ve left, call the police.”

Mason said, “As far as that’s concerned, I’ll go you one better. I know a roadhouse that’s still open. I’ll buy you a drink, and a sandwich, and you can watch me to make certain I don’t even go near a telephone.”

She hugged his arm. “You don’t know what this means to me! It — it means everything!”

Mason said, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t we — turn the lights off?”

“No,” Mason said. “Leave things just as they are.”

“But I’m the one who turned the lights on. ”

“All right, leave them that way.”

“How about locking the doors?”

“No. Leave them just the way they are.”

“Why?”

“Suppose something happens. Suppose we’re picked up within a block by a prowl car. Suppose someone sees us leaving. We tell our story, and police find the doors locked.”

“I see. Look here, we have two cars. We can’t...”

Mason said, “You get in my car. I drive you up to your car. You get in, turn it around, and follow me for four or five blocks, park your car, get out, and go to the nightclub with me. I bring you back to where your car is parked. In that way, you’ll know I’m not doing any telephoning.”

Looking up, she said, “I think you’re wonderful. I can’t imagine why you’re doing this for me.”

Mason said, “Neither can I.”

Chapter 9

Paul Drake, his face gray with fatigue and worry, looked across the desk at Perry Mason, and said, “Some day when you play me for a sucker, I’m going to wriggle off the hook.”

The lawyer raised his eyebrows. “Why, Paul, what’s the idea?”

“You know darn well what the idea is,” Drake said.

“You mean piling so much work on you I kept you up all night?” Mason asked. “Shucks, think of me. I was pulled out of bed around one o’clock in the morning to go out on a wild-goose chase.”

Drake said, “And I suppose you haven’t heard anything at all about the wild goose?”

Mason said, “Spill it. What’s on your mind, Paul?”

Drake said sarcastically, “Oh, no, you don’t know what it’s all about. You haven’t the faintest idea. You wouldn’t have got me in a jam for worlds.”

“What the devil are you talking about, Paul?”

“Why didn’t you telephone me?”

“When?”

“When! When you said you were going to.”

“Why, did I say...”

“How about that date to go out and save your bacon at Hillgrade Avenue if you didn’t call inside of an hour?”

Mason said, “I had some trouble, Paul. I was talking with a witness. I couldn’t break away to get to a telephone without jeopardizing the whole thing. And after all, it only meant a trip out to Hillgrade Avenue for you. That was only a matter of twenty minutes, and it was better to send you on a wild-goose chase than to jeopardize what I was working on.”

“Oh, yes, a wild-goose chase,” Drake said. “I see.”

“Well,” Mason said, “that was the way it looked to me. House standing there, gloomy and sedate, with a light or two in it, but no one to answer the doorbell.”

“And the doors all unlocked and waiting for you to go right on in?” Drake asked.

Mason shook his head. “Not me.”

“Why not?”

“Be your age, Paul. Somebody rings you up at one o’clock, tells you to go to a certain address, and walk right into a house you’ve never seen before. You go blundering on in. Someone comes out with a double-barreled shotgun, says, ‘Burglars, eh,’ and lets you have both loads of buckshot right in the middle of your stomach. No, thank you. None of that in mine. They answer bells or I don’t open doors.”

“You mean to say you didn’t go in?”

“I mean to say I don’t make a practice of having strangers tell me to go out to some residence and walk right in. But what are you crabbing about? You had a wild-goose chase out there, and that was all. You got back in twenty or thirty minutes. You found out that I wasn’t there. You knew I’d either been kidnaped, or was working on some new angle of the case.”

Drake said sarcastically, “Oh, yes. It’s nothing to me, just the few minutes necessary to run out there and back.”

“Well, what are you beefing about?” Mason asked, letting a note of impatience creep into his voice.

Drake said, “I don’t suppose you went inside. I don’t suppose you found the body and didn’t want to take the responsibility of telephoning the police and trying to explain to them how it happened you were out there. I don’t suppose you decided you’d discovered enough bodies and that it would be a smart idea to let Paul Drake take the rap on this one. You knew damn well I’d have some hard-boiled detectives on my staff who would bust right on into that house. You knew damn well I’d find the corpse, and when I found it, I’d have to telephone the police.”

Mason said, “What body?”

“Oh, I don’t suppose you knew there was a body in the house?”

“What about the body? Who was it?”

“Apparently,” Drake said, “it’s the body of Mrs. Sarah Perlin, the housekeeper for Hocksley. She may have committed suicide, and she may have been shot.”

Mason said excitedly, “You mean she was actually in that house?”

“Of course, she was in that house, in a bedroom in front of her dressing table. After the shot had been fired, she’d slumped down on the floor. Her own gun did the job.”

Mason’s face held an expression of puzzled surprise. “Paul, you’re not kidding me about this? You mean she was there?”

“Of course, she was there.”

“And that’s who it was? What I mean is, the body’s been identified?”

Drake nodded.

“Then she must have been killed after she telephoned me and... Gosh, Paul, she said she wanted to confess. She must have telephoned me then started getting ready to meet me. The thought of what she’d done began preying on her mind, and she decided on suicide. What is there that indicates it wasn’t a suicide?”

“The course of the bullet, and position of the body,” Drake said.

“Tell me what happened, Paul.”

“I waited for you to telephone. At first I didn’t think very much of it. Just a matter of routine. Then when about forty-five minutes had gone by and you hadn’t phoned, I began to worry. After all, it could pretty easily have been a trap. You work on a case in an unorthodox manner. You keep two or three jumps ahead of the police. You’re usually pretty close to the murderer. A man who was being crowded could bump you off, and, by shutting your lips, might save himself a one-way trip to the gas chamber at San Quentin. One o’clock in the morning was a hell of a time to be calling a lawyer out of bed. The more I thought of it, the less I liked it. I rounded up a couple of tough operatives and sat here with my eye glued on the clock. Somehow, I had a feeling in my bones you weren’t going to call. I wanted to get started. I felt that seconds were precious, but you’d said an hour, so I decided to give you the full hour.

“Believe me, boy, when the second hand on that electric clock swung around to the sixtieth minute, I was on my way. And maybe you don’t think we burnt up the roads getting out to Hillgrade.”

“Good boy,” Mason said. “I knew I could count on you. Then what happened?”

Drake said, “I didn’t even bother to waste any time sizing up the lay of the land. I got to six-o-four East Hillgrade and saw lights in the house. I slammed the car to a stop right in front of the house, jumped out, and the three of us ran up the steps to the front porch and started jabbing the bell button. I could hear the doorbell jangling on the inside of the house, but nothing happened. So I pushed the door open. It was unlocked. We went in. You know what I found.”

Mason shook his head. “What did you find, Paul?”

Drake said, “There was a reception corridor with an arched entrance into a living room, and back of that a dining room and kitchen. Over on the other side was a door which led to a hallway. A light was on in the hallway, and the bedroom door was open. I was the one who walked down the hallway while the other boys took the living room and dining room. Believe me, I had my gun where I could reach it right quick. Okay, I get down to the second bedroom door. It’s open. I take a look inside. I see the top of a woman’s head, gray hair sprawled out over the floor. I see a left arm stretched out, and a right hand holding a gun. I let out a yell for the other boys, then I go over and make sure she’s dead. Then we go through the house looking for you. By that time, my gun’s out, and I’m having the jitters.

“We can’t find any trace of you anywhere, so I find a telephone and call the police and tell them to rush me out some radio officers and also to notify Homicide.”

“Mention my name?”

“No. I didn’t see where that would do any good. I knew they’d look things over pretty thoroughly. At the time, I thought it was suicide.”

“You don’t think so now?”

“I’m darned if I know what to think now. I’m beginning to swing over toward the murder theory.”

“What did the police say?”

“They wanted to know how I happened to go walking into the house at that time in the morning, and how I happened to find the body.”

“What did you tell them?”

Drake said apologetically, “I only had four or five minutes after I telephoned headquarters before the radio officers showed up. I didn’t have time to think up an absolutely iron-clad story. I could have improved it if I’d had a little more time. I...”

“What was it?” Mason asked.

“I couldn’t be absolutely certain who she was. Looking at things fast, it looked like an open-and-shut case of suicide. So I told the cops that I’d got a telephone message from a woman who said she wanted to tell me something before it was too late, that if I’d jump in my car and get out to that address fast, I’d find out something in connection with the Hocksley murder that would interest me.”

Mason grinned. “You couldn’t have done any better than that if you’d tried all night, Paul.”

Drake shook his head. “You overlook the weak point in it”

“What?”

“I didn’t see how I could tell them I’d stalled around very long after getting that telephone call. I didn’t know just when she’d pulled the trigger, but I surmised it had to be after she’d talked with you on the telephone. That would mean a medical examination would show she’d been dead for perhaps as much as an hour before I’d notified the cops. That wouldn’t look so well. So I told the cops I was working on something at the time which kept me from leaving the office, that I’d told her I’d be right out, but had put my car in the garage and there’d be a little delay. I felt that that way I could stall her along. That’s what I told the cops.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“They wanted to know how long it was after the telephone conversation before I got there. I told them it might have been an hour, and I could see they didn’t believe that. They said that if I’d been on the track of something as important as that sounded, I’d have got out there sooner.”

“So then what?” Mason asked.

“So I told them that I hadn’t paid too much attention to time, that it had seemed quite a long while to me because I had so much to do, but that it might have been less than an hour; perhaps forty-five minutes, or perhaps even half an hour. And then I got myself in a jack pot. The times were all wet.”

Mason frowned. “You mean,” he said, “that she had been dead for more than...”

“She’d been dead ever since midnight,” Drake said, “and probably before.”

“How do they know?”

“Taking the temperature of the room and the temperature of the body and estimating how long it takes a body to lose a degree of heat, and all that stuff,” Drake said.

Mason frowned. “It couldn’t have been midnight. She talked with me over the telephone.”

“That’s what I thought,” Drake said, “but I wasn’t in a position to do any arguing.”

Mason said, “I guess that’s it, Paul.”

“What?”

“She was killed around midnight. That makes it murder.”

“But she talked with you and...”

“No,” Mason said. “A woman talked with me, a woman who had a rather well-bred voice. That is, the tones were smoothly harmonious, but there was something wrong with the way she spoke, as though she had a marble in her mouth. That explains it.”

“Explains what?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “It was a woman who talked with me. This woman said she was Mrs. Perlin. It was a cinch to pull that on me because I’d never heard Mrs. Perlin speak and didn’t know her voice. But the one who called the other person was one who said she was speaking for Mrs. Perlin because she was unable to come to the phone.”

“What other person?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “Right at the moment, Paul, that’s neither here nor there.”

The detective looked at him, sighed, and said, “It’s probably there, but it sure as hell ain’t here.”

Mason said, “When I looked down at the body, it didn’t seem to me that she’d been a woman who would have had a voice such as the one I’d heard on the telephone. So I asked — this other party — if the housekeeper had been up in the world at one time, and then had some bad luck. Had to go to housekeeping. That would have accounted for the well-bred voice, you know.”

“What was the answer?”

“Negative.”

Drake lit a cigarette. “That means,” he said, “that the party who was with you was someone who knew the housekeeper pretty well, someone who knew the housekeeper’s past, someone who was interested in the Hocksley case because a message brought that person out there. Probably a girl. Give me one guess, Perry.”

“Don’t take it,” Mason warned.

Drake removed the cigarette from his mouth, blew smoke at the smoldering end. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you, Perry, but there’s just a chance you and some feminine accomplice could be nominated for a murder rap. You might even be elected.”

“If the woman died before midnight?” Mason asked.

“That’s what you say.”

“I ought to know.”

Drake said, “If you’re going to keep messing around in murder cases, you’d better get married — so you’ll have some corroboration when it comes to bedtime alibis.”

“What the deuce are you talking about?” Mason said irritably. “Why the devil should I need an alibi?”

“Darned if I know,” Drake said, “but I have a hunch Lieutenant Tragg is going to become very inquisitive about what you were doing last night.”

“Tragg doesn’t even know I was anywhere within a mile of Hillgrade Avenue.”

Drake said, “Tragg gets around.”

Mason pushed back his chair. “You’ve been up all night, Paul. It gives you a pessimistic outlook.”

Drake regarded him moodily. He said, “You’re always pulling fast ones, and then expecting me to back your plays without telling me what it’s all about. I’m warning you that if Lieutenant Tragg finds out you were out at Hillgrade Avenue last night, or if he finds out the real reason why you didn’t call me back inside of an hour·, you’re going to have trouble.”

“What is the real reason I didn’t call you back inside of an hour?” Mason asked.

Drake regarded the lawyer thoughtfully. “If it’s what I think it is, I hope I’m not right.”

Mason laughed. “Come on. Out with it.”

Drake held up his left hand with the fingers extended. With the forefinger of his right hand, he checked off the points as he made them. “First,” he said, “you aren’t kidding me a bit. The reason you didn’t call me was because something very important did turn up. Two, that something important was of a nature which would interfere with a telephone call. Three, you didn’t discover anything from that contact which was particularly new. Otherwise, you’d have passed along the information, so I’d have something to work on. Four, it was a contact which knew a lot about the housekeeper, but one you had to keep absolutely dark. Five, it put you in such a spot that you don’t dare to confide even in me. You’re trying to kid me out of it. Now then, what’s the answer to those five points?”

Mason said, “I’ll bite, Mr. Bones. What is the answer to those five points?”

“Opal Sunley,” Drake said.

Mason got up. “I warned you not to make that guess, Paul. I try to keep you out in the clear and you jump right into the middle of the fire.”

Drake grinned. “I was in the frying pan, anyway,” he said.

Chapter 10

Della Street, humming a little tune as she opened the door to Mason’s private office, carrying the morning mail under her arm, stopped short with surprise, said, “Well, well, is this getting to be a habit?”

Mason grinned at her. “Come on over and sit down.”

She went back to close the door to the outer office. “What’s the idea?” she asked. “Been up all night?”

“No,” Mason said. “I got a few hours’ sleep. I guess that’s more than Drake did.”

“What happened?”

“A woman telephoned me about one o’clock in the morning, said she was Sarah Perlin, and she wanted to confess to the murder of R. E. Hocksley, wanted me to come at once to six-o-four East Hillgrade Avenue, said if she wasn’t there to wait until I saw a light, then open the back door and walk in. I took the precaution of telling Paul Drake to follow up in an hour if I didn’t telephone him everything was okay.”

“How did she get in touch with you?” Della Street asked.

“She called Paul Drake, and Paul held her on the line while he got in touch with me. I told Paul to give her my private number.”

“This was Mrs. Perlin, Hocksley’s housekeeper?”

“The voice said it was Mrs. Perlin. I don’t think it was.”

“Why not?”

“I think Mrs. Perlin was dead at the time. When I got out to the house on Hillgrade, I found her lying on the floor with a gun in her right hand and a bullet through her heart. It could have been suicide.”

“Did you report to the police?”

“Not directly,” Mason said. “I had other fish to fry. Opal Sunley came wandering in with a story that was just about as wild as mine. I didn’t realize how utterly incredible my story would sound to Lieutenant Tragg until I heard Opal Sunley telling me her version of about the same thing.”

“What did you do?”

Mason grinned. “I let Paul Drake hold the sack,” he said. “The hour was about up. Opal Sunley offered to play square if I wouldn’t notify the police, but give her a chance for a getaway.”

“Isn’t that compounding a felony?”

“It most certainly is — if she was guilty of a felony.”

“And how about not reporting the finding of the body?”

“I can get by with that in a pinch because I knew that Drake was on his way up. It only made a difference of a few minutes. The thing that bothers me is this Sunley woman.”

“What did you do with her?”

“Took her to a night spot and tried to get her tight.”

“Do any good?”

Mason shook his head. “She is a very bright young woman, or else I telegraphed my punch pretty badly. She started taking defensive measures even before I’d ordered the first drink.”

“What were the defensive measures?” Della Street asked. “I might have occasion to use them sometime.”

“Crackers and butter,” Mason said, “and lots of butter. She’d eaten about five squares before I got the first cocktail into her. After that, I knew it wouldn’t be much use.”

“Evidently the young woman knows her way around,” Della Street said.

Mason nodded. “I got her telephone number — Acton one-one-one-one-o.”

“What did she tell you about young Gentrie?”

“Not a great deal. Young Arthur Gentrie is madly in love with her. She’s older than he is and considers it a case of puppy love, but doesn’t want to destroy his illusions. She says that it’s very, very serious when a young man starts putting an older woman on a pedestal and becomes really infatuated for the first time in his life.”

“Is it the first time with Junior Gentrie?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “He told her it was.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“He said there’d been puppy loves in his life before, but nothing that could approach the devastating effect of this feeling that he has for her.”

“And so she keeps on going out with him and encouraging him?”

“She says she isn’t encouraging him. She’s trying to be an older sister to him, but Junior won’t, as she expresses it, cool off. She said she had been trying to find some younger woman who would be sufficiently attractive to Junior to get his mind into what she calls a more normal state. The hell of it is, Della, she’s got a boy friend — some chap she’s crazy over — and she’s keeping all this about young Gentrie away from her regular boy friend because he’s insanely jealous. Of course, she’s also keeping all news of the boy friend from Gentrie because she doesn’t want to destroy his illusions.”

Della Street said, “It’s nice business if you can get it. How old is she?”

“Around twenty-two or twenty-three according to her looks, but something she said made me place her at about twenty-five.”

“What did Opal Sunley tell you about what happened in Hocksley’s flat?”

“According to her story, she arrived for work at the usual time in the morning, saw bloodstains, went out to look at the automobiles, saw that someone had been riding in the back of Hocksley’s automobile, and spilling blood. She couldn’t find either Hocksley or Mrs. Perlin. So she notified the police.”

“That’s all she told you?”

“Just about. I had to worm it out of her about her boy friend. I think that was the main reason she didn’t want the police to report her as having been in that bungalow at one-forty-five in the morning. Yet she was driving a borrowed car. I got the license number, of course.”

“The boy friend’s car?”

“No. Strangely enough it’s not. It belongs to a girl by the name of Ethel Prentice who is evidently a close friend of Opal’s — lets her take a jalopy in times of need.”

“Anything else?”

“Oh, she told a few things about her job over there. This man Hocksley was very much of a man of mystery, and so is Karr who lives in the flat above him. Somehow, that’s taxing credulity just a little bit too much. Two men of mystery drifting into an apartment house. They arrive within a week of each other, and, before that, the flats have been vacant for five months.”

“You think Karr and Hocksley have some connection?”

Mason shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s rather a coincidence. Have you seen Karr’s ad in the paper?”

“No. What is it?”

“Opal Sunley told me about it — and said she noticed it because she’d seen Wenston’s name on the door of the other flat. It’s been running two days.”

Mason took the morning paper from the desk, opened it to the classified ad section, turned to the personals, and said, “Listen to this. ‘Personal. Wanted information concerning the daughter of the man who was a partner in a gun-running expedition up the Yangtze River in nineteen-twenty-one. Detailed information is purposely withheld from this advertisement, but the right party will know who I am, who her father was, and will be able to give proof of our association in the expedition in the fall of 1920, and the first part of 1921. I do not wish to be pestered, and, therefore, give warning that any imposter will be prosecuted to the limit of the law. On the other hand, the young woman who is the genuine daughter will be given a considerable sum of partnership assets which I have held for her in trust because I did not know until recently, and by accident, that my partner left any heirs at law. Do not seek to obtain an interview until after first writing Rodney Wenston, 787 East Dorchester Boulevard or telephoning Graybar 8-9351.’ ”

Mason finished reading the ad, pushed the newspaper to one side. Della Street pursed her lips. “Whew! And Opal Sunley told you about the ad?”

Mason nodded.

“I’d say that was rather significant, wouldn’t you?”

“Uh huh. Karr mentioned he started the ball rolling to clean up his partnership, but he didn’t mention this ad.”

“How did Opal happen to tell you about it?”

“Just talking.”

“What did she tell you about Hocksley?”

“Nothing much I didn’t know already. She got all of her work from wax cylinders. Hocksley dictated at night, and spent most of the day in bed.”

“Sleeping all day?”

“No. He’d be in his room. He’d get up along in the afternoon and read the papers, have coffee and toast, and sometimes do a little dictation.”

“To the machine?”

“Yes. Mrs. Perlin, the housekeeper, was the only one to go in and out of Hocksley’s room. She’d wait on him as soon as he wakened, bringing him the work Opal Sunley had typed, bringing out cylinders for Opal to transcribe, taking him his meals — the newspapers — sometimes sitting in there and talking with him. Opal could hear the hum of low-pitched conversation.”

“Any heart throbs between Hocksley and the housekeeper?” Della Street asked.

“Opal says she doesn’t know.”

“She considers it’s a possibility then?” Della Street asked.

“Apparently a very definite possibility.”

Della Street thought that over for a few seconds, then shook her head and said, “That isn’t right, Chief.”

“What isn’t?”

“That story of hers. No girl on earth would go on working for a man under those conditions without making it a point to learn more about him. In the first place, there’d be legitimate questions she’d have to ask about the work. In the second place, all that attempt to be secretive would simply arouse her curiosity.”

“Then you think she was lying to me?” Mason asked.

“I know darn well she was lying.”

Mason smiled reminiscently. “She did it most convincingly,” he said.

Della’s eyes were twinkling. “The hussy!”

Mason said, “Well, there’s no percentage in sitting around waiting for something to break. Why wouldn’t this be a fine time to communicate with the murderer?”

“Fine — but how are you going about it?”

“You could go down to a hardware store, Della, and buy a sealing machine for cans. Also get a new tin. We’ll scratch a message on the lid, seal it up, make certain there are no fingerprints on it, and plant it on the shelf at the Gentrie residence.”

“Think the murderer would get it?”

“It would be interesting to find out.”

“What sort of a message?”

“Oh, something that would tend to keep things moving,” Mason said. “We don’t want the case to get static. It would give the police too much of a chance to catch up on us.”

Della Street picked up the dictionary from Mason’s desk. “Think up a nice message, and I’ll put it in code for you.”

Mason said, “Well now, let’s see, Della. We want something that will get some action. Suppose we left the murderer a message. Let’s see. It will have to be dictionary words. We can’t use participles or plurals. We want something that will get swift action. Suppose we did this: ‘Lawyer Mason has fingerprint photograph his wallet fatal unless recovered.’ No, let’s see. We couldn’t use recovered. That’s past tense. The word in the dictionary would be recover.”

Della Street, frowning down at her shorthand notebook, said, “We could use recovery, Chief. That would be a noun, and would be listed. We could use the words recovery made instead of recovered.”

“Okay, let’s try putting it in code.”

“I don’t like the idea.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too much risk.”

“It’ll bring me into contact with the murderer.”

“That’s just it. The murderer will choose the time and the place of making the contact. He may even shoot first, and look in your wallet afterwards.”

“There’s always the chance,” Mason admitted, “but he’d be more apt to make a stick-up of it. And I’ll be careful.”

She said, “Yes, I’ve got a picture of you being careful — and when the murderer finds your wallet without a fingerprint in it, what...”

Mason walked across the office to a bookcase. On the top of this bookcase was a choice example of Japanese pigeon-blood cloisonne. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, polished the vase, ran his right hand through his hair several times, then pressed three of his fingertips against the surface. He said to Della, “Take that down to Paul Drake’s office. Have him develop the latent fingerprints on it, and photograph them. Don’t tell him why we want them. I’ll carry a copy of that photograph in my wallet. Then in case anything slips, the murderer won’t get suspicious.”

“Chief, I wish you wouldn’t do it. There’s no need for you to take the risk personally. Why not say that you have them in your office safe?”

“No. We can’t guard the office without letting someone else in on it. I want to handle this myself.”

“Why?”

“Because it won’t look like a trap then. But if I try to decoy the murderer into some office and have that office guarded, it’s going to look very much like a trap. The person with whom we’re dealing is far too intelligent to walk into so obvious a trap.”

Della Street reached for the dictionary. “Well,” she said, “I’ll put it in code. Only I do wish you wouldn’t do it, Chief.”

Mason said, “Here. Give me the dictionary. I’ll help you... ‘Lawyer.’ That’s in column a on page 569, the seventh word.”

Della Street spelled out the code word. “GHKAI.”

Mason turned through the pages again, said, “Isn’t it nice I have a name that’s listed in the dictionary?”

“You might wish it on Paul Drake,” she said. “We could use ‘Detective Drake’ just as well as ‘Lawyer Mason.’ ”

“No,” Mason said with a grin. “Paul isn’t feeling too friendly right now. He might object to being selected as the victim of a hold-up. At that, it’s a tempting thought. Detective Drake has an alliteration which is lacking in Lawyer Mason.”

“Shall we use it?” Della Street asked eagerly.

“No, absolutely not. Get thee behind me, Satan. Let’s get back to our knitting. Here’s Mason on the a part of page 615, the sixth word from the top.”

Della Street said, “Six-fifteen-A-six. That’ll be HCGAH. What’s next?”

Mason said, “I’ll look up ‘has.’ Let’s see. That’s the second word in column b on page 455.”

“That’s FGGBD.”

“Fine,” Mason said. “Now, ‘fingerprint.’ That’s page 377, the seventh word on the page.”

Della Street said, “Three-seven-seven-A-seven. That’ll be EIIAI.” Abruptly, she looked down at what she had written and began to laugh.

“What?” Mason asked.

“I was just wondering what would happen if Lieutenant Tragg got hold of this message,” she said. “Has it occurred to you, Chief, that out of four words, two of them have ended in AI?”

Mason frowned, scratched his head. “That isn’t so good,” he said. “It’ll give Tragg too much of a clue. He’ll know darn well then it isn’t just an ordinary cipher, but some sort of a code.”

“You don’t think he’ll get hold of this, do you?”

“He may.”

“I don’t see just what you’re planning to do. Won’t the man who gets the message know it’s a trap?”

“Not if my idea is correct. The persons who are using this means of communication both have access to that place in the cellar; but for some reason, they don’t dare to be seen talking together. Now if that’s the case, they won’t have any opportunity to clarify an ambiguity in the case. In other words, the person who gets the message can’t pick up a telephone and say, ‘Hello, Bill. I got your message. What do you mean, a fingerprint? Your fingerprint or my fingerprint. Or...’ ” Mason broke off suddenly to stare at Della Street. “Do you realize,” he demanded, “what I have just said?”

“About the telephone?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Why the devil should anyone resort to the complicated means of putting a code in the top of a can if he could get to a telephone? After all, you know, Della, my idea has been that the code idea was necessary because we had two persons who needed to communicate with each other, couldn’t see each other, and so had to leave messages in a can at a certain place.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?”

“But why the devil couldn’t they telephone to each other? There wouldn’t be any danger in that. A person can go into a telephone booth anywhere, drop a nickel, dial a number, and talk with any person he wants. In that way, a man could give another complete instructions without the possibility of having them garbled, or, as happened in this case, having the woman of the house find the can and toss it into the discard.”

She frowned. “Well, why not?”

“That’s just it. There’s only one explanation. The person can’t use a telephone.”

“Why?”

Mason said, “Either because they can’t get to a telephone, or because they couldn’t use it if they did.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, a deaf person couldn’t use a telephone.”

“Oh, I see.”

“And,” Mason said slowly, “a crippled person might not be able to get to a telephone.”

Della Street said, “Wouldn’t a crippled person have a telephone by the side of his bed? After all, a person who could put a can on a shelf, could certainly get to a telephone.”

Mason said, “There’s one person who doesn’t have a phone by his bed, yet is crippled. Remember Karr said he got so nervous at the sound of a bell he wouldn’t have a phone by his bed?”

Della said, “You’ve put your finger on something there.”

Mason stroked the angle of his jaw. “This begins to look like something,” he admitted. “But why should Karr communicate in code with anyone in the Gentrie house?”

“He’s the only one in the case who really couldn’t get to a telephone when he wanted one,” Della said.

Mason pursed his lips. “He is, for a fact. We’ll have to keep our eye on Mr. Elston A. Karr. It’s beginning to look very much as though he engineered the burglary of Hocksley’s flat. Of course, that doesn’t mean he suggested the murder of Hocksley.”

“Wouldn’t it make him legally responsible for it though — if he engineered the burglary?” Della Street asked.

“It would,” Mason agreed, a slight twinkle in his eyes, “on one condition.”

“What’s the condition?”

“That they can prove it on him.”

Della said, “You’ve just about done that by cold, remorseless logic.”

“I have, but that doesn’t mean Tragg’s going to. He may overlook that angle entirely.”

“Bosh! He pretends to be just dawdling along, and then— Wham!”

Mason abruptly walked over to the hat closet. “Be sure to get that can and the sealing machine, Della. Take that vase down to Paul Drake’s office. I’m going out to get a shave, a face massage, a manicure, and a quart of coffee.”

“I will,” Della Street said, then added, “and don’t you let that Sunley girl mix any more sex, simpers, and sweetness to kid you along.”

“You could have added pseudo-sincerity,” Mason grinned. “That also is alliterative.”

Della said, “Damn! I knew we shouldn’t have bought that dictionary.”

Chapter 11

Lieutenant Tragg rang the front doorbell, then raised his hat as Mrs. Gentrie opened the door.

“I’m sorry to keep on disturbing you,” he said, “but there are one or two minor matters on which I have to get more information.”

She seemed apprehensive for a moment, then smiled and said, “Come right on in, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not inconveniencing you?”

“Not at all, but now those other officers just came bursting in here without so much as a by-your-leave or without taking their hats off. You’re always a perfect gentleman.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then added after a moment, “but let me put in a good word for the hard-boiled officers. They’re overworked and have so many things to do, they simply don’t have time to think of people as human beings. They regard them as witnesses, suspects, possible victims, and accomplices — if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, I see,” Mrs. Gentrie said, ushering Tragg into the living room.

Rebecca looked up with a quick smile, a smile that was almost a simper. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”

Tragg came across to stand before her. “And how are you today?” he asked.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“Well, you’re certainly looking well.”

“Isn’t she,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “I believe murder cases agree with her. She’s perked up no end.”

“Now, Florence,” Rebecca said, “you’re talking as though I had been an invalid.”

“Don’t be silly. But you must know you’re looking a lot better, and I think you’re feeling a lot better. Now that you have something to interest you.” She turned to Lieutenant Tragg, and said, “Rebecca spends too much time in her darkroom, and she stays in the house too much of the time. I keep trying to persuade her to get out, and take more exercise, but I don’t have much luck.”

“Well, sakes alive, what’s a body going to do?” Rebecca demanded. “I never stand a chance at getting the family car — even if I knew how to drive, which I don’t. And as far as walking is concerned, it isn’t any pleasure to get up and pound your feet to pieces on the cement sidewalk while automobiles go whizzing by and spewing a lot of poison gas into the atmosphere. I don’t see why they allow automobiles on residential streets, Lieutenant. I think it’s an outrage and a menace to health.”

“It may be at that,” Tragg agreed. “Are there any new developments?”

Mrs. Gentrie shook her head.

Rebecca, having started to talk, rambled on. She said, “Mr. Mason was out here just about an hour ago. He was making what he called a final check-up.”

Tragg’s finely chiseled features lost some of their boyish look. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Mr. Mason. He’s been out here several times, hasn’t he?”

“Well, off and on,” Rebecca said.

Lieutenant Tragg was looking at Mrs. Gentrie. “I wonder just what Mason’s interest is in the case,” he said.

“Why, what do you mean?”

Tragg said, “Mason is a lawyer. He doesn’t go around solving mysteries. He isn’t particularly interested in apprehending murderers. He’s interested in making fees, and he makes fees because he represents some one client. I haven’t been able to find out whom he’s representing in this case. He hasn’t said anything, has he?”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Well... no. I can’t say that he has.”

He frowned. “Rather strange. Mrs. Gentrie, I am going to have to talk frankly with you about rather a disagreeable matter.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s about your oldest son.”

“Yes.”

“I’m wondering if you’ve found him always truthful?”

Mrs. Gentrie said somewhat defiantly, “Junior is a good boy.”

“Of course he is,” Tragg said. “But I am asking you if you have found him entirely truthful.”

Rebecca, who had been squirming uneasily on her chair, anxious for an excuse to enter the conversation, said, “Of course, Florence, you must admit that since he’s started going...”

Florence turned to her. “Please, Rebecca,” she said.

Tragg was apologetic, but insistent. “This is rather embarrassing to me,” he said, “but I think your sister-in-law was commenting on the exact phase that I wanted to bring up, Mrs. Gentrie.” He turned to Rebecca. “You were going to say that since he became interested in that stenographer next door, he’s been a little secretive, weren’t you?”

Rebecca sniffed. “Secretive’s no name for it. There’s no good going to come of it, if you ask me. A young boy like him running around with a woman that’s so much older. They certainly didn’t do anything like that when I was a girl.”

Mrs. Gentrie said doggedly, “Rebecca, I think it would be better if you left Junior out of it.”

Rebecca said, “It isn’t anything against Junior as much as it is against that little minx. She has that butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth manner of looking at you. And she says” — and here Rebecca’s voice changed entirely to assume a startling likeness to that of Opal Sunley — “ ‘Good mo ahning, Miss Gentrie — ahnd how’s all the fahmily today?’ I feel like up and giving her a piece of my mind, just coming right out and saying, ‘They’d be very well, thank you, if you’d just leave your painted finger hooks out of Junior and let him grow up as a normal boy should.’ ”

Mrs. Gentrie said sternly, “Rebecca! Stop it!”

Tragg flashed Mrs. Gentrie his best smile. “I’m sorry. I’m quite certain it was my fault. I led her into it, and, as you probably realize, I did it with a purpose. Mrs. Gentrie, are you absolutely certain that your son was in bed when that shot was heard next door?”

Mrs. Gentrie said slowly, “No. I’m not certain he was in bed.”

“Are you perhaps certain that he wasn’t?” Tragg asked, his voice quietly insistent.

“I don’t know. What makes you say that?” she asked.

“I’m not certain that I know myself,” Tragg observed, still smiling, “only it impresses me that you’re a very efficient mother, that you keep an eye on your children, that in the event you heard something you thought might be a shot, your first idea would be to look for the safety of your children. And, as I understand it, Junior’s bedroom is between your room and the head of the stairs.”

Mrs. Gentrie met his eyes steadily, and asked, “Is there some particular reason why you’re trying to drag Junior into this?”

“I’m not trying to drag him into it, Mrs. Gentrie, but I think it’s only fair to tell you that the two fingerprints on the telephone in Mr. Hocksley’s house are those of your son.”

Mrs. Gentrie started to say something, then changed her mind and was silent.

“The paint-smear fingerprints on the telephone were made by someone who had touched the paint your husband had placed on the garage door. He didn’t finish that painting until around nine-thirty at night as I understand it. Obviously then, your son, who was out at the time, returned home sometime after that, entered this house, probably in the dark, went down to the cellar for some purpose. Without realizing that the garage door had been painted, he came groping his way toward it. I think you follow me, Mrs. Gentrie. If he’d been using a light, or if a light had been on in the cellar, he’d have seen the fresh paint on the door, and, moreover, wouldn’t have been groping along with his hands outstretched.”

Rebecca said, “I think you’re quite right, Lieutenant. Personally, I thought I heard someone moving around here in the corridor just about the time the noise of the shot wakened me.”

“Someone moving around in the house?” Tragg asked her.

“Yes.”

“And you said you thought you heard someone moving, Mrs. Gentrie?”

“No. I heard Mephisto, the cat.”

“Yet you got up and got your husband to go downstairs?”

“Well, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I was worried.”

“About what?”

“I thought that noise might have been a shot.”

“You didn’t think it came from this house?”

“Well, no — that is, I didn’t think very much about it.”

“You got your husband to get up and investigate things here in this house?”

“Yes.”

Tragg remained silent for several seconds, letting the significance of those questions and replies soak into Mrs. Gentrie’s mind; then he went on smoothly, “Your son went downstairs in the dark. He groped for the garage door, opened it, and went into the garage. Then he opened the other door and went across to Hocksley’s flat. In groping for the garage door in the dark, he got paint on the fingers of his left hand. After he got over to Hocksley’s flat, he struck matches to light his way. Your husband is left-handed. Your son, however, is right-handed. He was taking matches from his pocket with his right hand and striking them with his right hand. So he didn’t touch anything with the fingers of his left hand until he picked up the telephone over in Hocksley’s flat. The paint on his fingers was still wet. It’s obvious that must have been within a very few minutes of the time he got his fingers in the paint on the garage door. When he came back, he...”

Rebecca suddenly sucked in her breath as though she had been about to make some exclamatory statement.

Tragg turned to her. “Well?” he asked after a moment as she failed to speak.

Rebecca said, “I was just wondering if...”

“I don’t think Lieutenant Tragg is interested in any of your wild theories, Rebecca,” Mrs. Gentrie cautioned.

Tragg kept smiling affably. “What were you thinking, Miss Gentrie?”

“Well,” Rebecca said, “I suppose it’s nothing, but my darkroom door opens into the basement, and there’s a curtain hanging just inside that door, so that when you open the door to come into the darkroom, you don’t let light in.”

“You mean the curtain is far enough behind the door so you can open and close the door before you go through the curtain?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right.”

Tragg said, “It’s a very nice darkroom you have.”

Rebecca beamed with pride. “It has the finest equipment! And we’ve made it ourselves. I have a daylight enlarger, so I can use diffused daylight in enlarging my pictures and...”

“But there was something about the darkroom itself you were going to tell me?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right, there was.”

“What was it?”

“Well,” she said, “I had some cut film lying in a box on the darkroom shelf. I hadn’t developed some exposed film in the other plate holders, and I was going to put this new film in...”

Mrs. Gentrie interposed to say to Lieutenant Tragg, “She thinks that the officers were careless. They opened the door of her darkroom, and then pulled the curtain all the way back. That let light into the darkroom, and fogged...”

“No, that isn’t what I was going to say,” Rebecca said. “I’m quite capable of doing my own talking, thank you, Florence.”

“What were you going to say, Miss Gentrie?”

“Simply that those films might not have been fogged during the daytime by the police, but might have been fogged the night before by someone who struck a match. I found a burnt match stub on the floor of my darkroom. I thought at the time one of the officers had lit a cigarette, but I’m just wondering now if it mightn’t have been someone who was looking for something in my darkroom and struck a match. Lots and lots of people don’t realize that striking a match in a darkroom is just the same as turning on a light. It can cause just as much damage as though you’d switched on an electric light.”

Tragg said, “That’s very interesting. You keep a pretty fair stock of materials in your darkroom, Miss Gentrie?”

“Well, no, I don’t. I don’t have the money to buy them.”

“It’s rather an expensive pastime,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

“Well, you don’t need to talk. It pays its own way.”

“You do work for others?”

Rebecca said, “Occasionally.”

“A few of the neighbors,” Mrs. Gentrie supplemented.

“Not much developing and printing,” Rebecca said. “There’s no money in that, but I do do enlargements occasionally. I do wish I had enough money so I wasn’t always worrying about expense. I could really turn out marvelous work if I had enough money to get myself a little car so I could get out and...”

“She does very fine work,” Mrs. Gentrie explained to Tragg. “I’ve often told her that if she’d specialize in taking pictures of children and...”

“Children!” Rebecca flared. “That’s the mother complex of yours. You want pictures of the little darlings taken on their birthdays, pictures when they first put on long pants, pictures in their new suits. Those sort of pictures clutter up the house and don’t mean a blessed thing.”

“They mean a lot to Arthur and me,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

“Well, they mean nothing to me. They simply are a waste of good photographic material. You find family albums filled up with that sort of junk.” She turned to Lieutenant Tragg and said, “What I want are pictures of unusual cloud effects, of trees against the sky, of flowers. I could win prizes if I just had enough money to get myself a car and didn’t always have to use photographic material which had expired.”

“What do you mean by material that has expired?” Tragg asked.

“Oh, you know, films are only good while they’re fresh. They’ll keep for a certain length of time. You must have noticed that whenever you buy film, there’s an emulsion date on it.”

“You mean the little rubber-stamped date which says develop before a certain date?”

“That’s right,” Rebecca said.

“But you can use it after that date?”

“Oh, yes. It depends on the sort of care the film has had, the place where it’s been stored. You can use it very nicely for as much as six months after the expiration date, and if it’s been in a cool, dry place, you can use it for years afterwards.”

“And you buy this film and paper which has expired?” Tragg asked.

“That’s right. You can get it at certain places at a very great discount.”

Tragg thought that over for several moments, then said, “What happens, however, when it finally gets too old?”

“Well, then, of course, it does different things. Usually it fogs.”

Tragg said, “Then these films which were in the box were old films — that is, the expiration date had passed?”

“Yes.”

“And couldn’t the fact that the films had fogged been due to the age of the emulsion?”

“Well, I guess it could,” Rebecca said hesitatingly, “but I’ve never had any trouble before with films I’ve got from this particular source. This person handles only the best.”

“But they were fogged?”

“Oh, yes, very definitely.”

Tragg said, “That’s very interesting. But it’s rather a definite change of subject from the thing I was trying to impress upon Mrs. Gentrie. That is the fact that her son is in a very dangerous position. He’s seen fit to try and confuse the issues in a murder case. It’s quite possible that he’s protecting the guilty party.”

“I don’t know what makes you say things like that,” Mrs. Gentrie said indignantly. “Junior’s a good boy. He...”

“The reason I’m saying that,” Tragg interrupted firmly, “is that I’m satisfied your son is a good boy. I’m satisfied, however, that he’s very young, very romantic, and inclined to carry gallantry altogether too far. He’s trying to protect someone in a murder case, and that’s a particularly dangerous thing to do. Now I think your boy’s a mighty good kid, Mrs. Gentrie, but I think Opal Sunley is a woman who is older, more experienced, and knows her way around. I’m not satisfied the companionship would have been a good thing under any circumstances. And now that a murder has been perpetrated, I’m absolutely satisfied something about that companionship is causing your son to withhold information from us, and put himself in a very questionable position with the law.”

Mrs. Gentrie averted her eyes, said almost under her breath, her voice choking in a sob, “He wouldn’t do anything wrong.”

Tragg said, “That’s not it. If he doesn’t tell the truth, we’re going to take steps to get the truth. I felt I should come to you and talk frankly, since you’re so deeply concerned and so fond of him.”

Rebecca said, “You see how it is, Florence. You wouldn’t listen to me. I hope you’ll listen to the lieutenant. When a boy starts trying to conceal things from his own mother...”

“What did Junior ever try to conceal?” Mrs. Gentrie demanded angrily.

“Plenty,” Rebecca said with a disdainful sniff. “He and that girl started making all kinds of surreptitious dates. You know as well as I do they didn’t make them over the telephone. He never called her — at least not from here, and yet they were having their dates, dates he never told you about. I tried to warn you about it and...”

“I think,” Mrs. Gentrie said, “it’s going to be better if you wait until we’re alone to go into this, Rebecca. You always make it a point to listen when the children are making dates on the telephone, and then you ask them questions. Junior’s getting to the age where he resents that. He isn’t a boy any more. He’s growing into real manhood.”

“Well, this creature has got him mixed up in a murder case,” Rebecca said with self-righteous approval, “and I’m trying to help Lieutenant Tragg, that’s all. It’s just as distasteful to me as it can be. I consider Junior just as much a part of me as though he were my own boy, but after all, when a young man starts gallivanting around — and now, the evidence of those fingerprints makes it just as plain as the nose on your face. He’s been sneaking over there at night...”

“Stop it!” Mrs. Gentrie commanded indignantly. “You don’t know that he’s been sneaking over there, and as far as that’s concerned, Opal Sunley doesn’t stay over there nights.”

“How do you know she doesn’t?”

“Well, she comes in and works by the day.”

“But she’s over there quite frequently at night.”

“Only when she has to work.”

Rebecca sniffed.

Lieutenant Tragg, who had been keenly observing the trend of the conversation and the facial expressions of the two women, interposed soothingly, “I’m sorry I gave the wrong impression, Mrs. Gentrie. All I’m interested in is finding out just how it happened your son left those fingerprints on the telephone.”

“You’re absolutely certain they’re his?”

“Absolutely.”

“Couldn’t he have been using that paint — well, later?”

Tragg raised his eyebrows. “You mean after the shot was fired?” he asked.

Mrs. Gentrie thought that over. “Well, no. I mean before — before his father started to paint.”

“I believe his father mixed up the paint from some he’d brought home from the hardware store.”

“I guess so,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

Hester came through from the kitchen, stood silently in the doorway.

“What is it, Hester?” Mrs. Gentrie asked.

“You want me to get some more preserves from the pantry shelves?”

“Yes...” Mrs. Gentrie looked at Lieutenant Tragg and said, “I wonder if you could pardon me for just a moment, Lieutenant. It seems as though I haven’t been able to keep abreast of my work all day, and...”

“Certainly,” Tragg interposed. “I can understand just how it is, Mrs. Gentrie. Go right ahead.”

Mrs. Gentrie said to Hester, “Clean out all of those ’39 and ’40 tins and jars over on the left side of the shelf, Hester. Bring them up and put them on the pantry shelves. We’ll start serving them until we’ve used them all up.”

Lieutenant Tragg said, “If you’re going down in the cellar, I’ll take a look around after you are finished.”

“Certainly,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

Hester opened the cellar door. The heavy, flat-footed pound of her springless steps sounded on the stairs.

Rebecca said, “Well, if you ask me, I think that can had a lot to do with what happened over there across the street. Don’t you think that message was intended for someone who...”

Mrs. Gentrie interrupted firmly, “Now, Rebecca, Lieutenant Tragg isn’t interested in your theories, and I certainly am not going to have you make any veiled insinuation that it was a code communication between Opal Sunley and Junior. Thought your crossword-puzzle club was having a meeting today.”

Rebecca sniffed. “I’m quite capable of arranging my own affairs, Florence. I don’t have to leave for an hour yet, and the way you’re trying to get rid of me only makes Lieutenant Tragg all the more suspicious of Junior. You know just as well as I do that these messages in the can may as well as not be the way they made their dates. They never dared to do it over the telephone. Land sakes, you’d have thought she was a married woman from the way Junior was acting! She might have...”

From the cellar came Hester’s voice, calling out without emotion, “Mrs. Gentrie, here’s another one.”

Mrs. Gentrie walked toward the cellar door, looking back over her shoulder, conscious of the fact she was leaving Rebecca and Lieutenant Tragg alone, conscious also that this might well be what Lieutenant Tragg wanted. It was certainly what Rebecca wanted.

“What is it, Hester?” she called.

“Another one.”

“Another what?”

“Another empty tin on the shelf,” she said.

Mrs. Gentrie turned to where Lieutenant Tragg was drawing up a chair close to Rebecca, preparatory to the intimacy of a low-voiced conversation.

Tragg looked up.

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Hester says there’s another empty tin on the shelf in the basement, Lieutenant.”

Tragg came up out of the chair and reached the cellar door with long, quick strides. He pushed past Mrs. Gentrie and took the cellar stairs two at a time.

“Where is it?” Tragg asked Hester.

“Here. I...”

“Good Lord, don’t touch it!” Tragg shouted.

There was the sound of an empty tin clattering to the cement floor.

“I didn’t mean for you to drop it.”

“You said not to touch it,” Hester said stolidly.

Tragg carefully picked up the tin, holding it in such a way that his fingers touched it only in one place. He placed it on the workbench and took from his pocket a small leather case across the top of which was a zipper, a case not much larger than a flexible spectacle case.

The two women who had dashed down the cellar stairs after him, watched him in silent fascination as he slid open the catch on the zipper, took out a camel’s-hair brush, and three small containers. Selecting one of the containers, he removed the top to disclose a fine powder. With the camel’s-hair brush he dusted the powder evenly over the surface of the can.

Carefully, Tragg examined the fingerprints which the powder brought to light.

“Let me see your hands,” he said to Hester, and when she had extended her hands for his inspection, he opened one of the other small tins to disclose a sticky black ink which he placed upon the tips of her fingers. He recorded her inked impressions on paper in his notebook.

“What’s the matter?” Hester asked sullenly. “I didn’t do nothing.”

Lieutenant Tragg had nothing of the bulldozing, arrogant manner of the detective who has graduated from pavement-pounding to the Homicide Squad. He was, instead, suavely courteous and never more so than when he was hot on the trail of a significant clue. “I’m sorry,” he said with a reassuring smile. “I thought you’d understand. I am trying to find the fingerprints of the person who placed the tin on the shelf. In order to do that, I have to eliminate your fingerprints.”

Mrs. Gentrie knew that Hester didn’t quite know what Tragg meant by eliminate, so she added by way of explanation, “He just wants to find out which fingerprints are yours, so he can rub them off, and get them out of the way, Hester.”

Hester said, “Oh.”

But Tragg didn’t rub off any of the fingerprints. He did, however, check them off one at a time, after comparing them, with the aid of a magnifying glass, with the prints Hester’s fingers had left on the paper. During the time he was doing this, he was exceedingly careful not to get any of his own fingerprints on the surface of the can.

“Where was that tin?” Rebecca asked.

Lieutenant Tragg seemed to feel it was unnecessary to answer the question. Rebecca turned to Hester. “Where did you find it, Hester?” she demanded.

Hester mutely pointed toward the shelf.

“Humph,” Rebecca said. “The exact place where that other can was!”

Mrs. Gentrie nodded.

Rebecca said, “There was something written on the top of that other tin on the inside. Mr. Mason discovered that.”

“I overlooked a bet there,” Tragg said, laughing. “Don’t ever underestimate the ability of Mr. Perry Mason. He’s a very shrewd, very adroit attorney. And is there a can opener here I can use, Mrs. Gentrie?”

“Yes. How about fingerprints?”

He shook his head. “Everyone of them that we can use seems to have been made by Hester. Apparently, whoever placed the tin there had first taken the precaution of wiping it free of fingerprints.”

“Well, a person couldn’t have put it up there without leaving some prints,” Rebecca said.

“Not unless he’d deliberately tried to avoid doing so,” Tragg said.

Mrs. Gentrie showed him the location of the can opener. Lieutenant Tragg fed the can into the holder, rolled the rotating blade around the edges, and then shook out the detached circle of tin which was the top of the can.

Hester remained sullenly aloof, but Mrs. Gentrie and Rebecca crowded close to look over his shoulder as Tragg tilted the circle of tin so that the light would enable him to examine the surface closely.

“Well,” he said, “we’ve got something here. Looks like another code message.”

“You don’t say!” Rebecca said, her voice quivering with excitement. “Now, don’t tell me there’s going to be another murder, Lieutenant.”

Tragg turned to Mrs. Gentrie. “Can you read these letters off for me while I copy them into my notebook?”

Mrs. Gentrie squinted at the top of the can. “I haven’t my reading glasses and this print is pretty fine...”

“I can,” Rebecca volunteered.

“Her eyes are sharp as needles,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

Tragg said, “Hold it by the edges so you don’t get your fingerprints on it. After I’ve seen what the words are, I’m going to try dusting it for fingerprints.”

Slowly Rebecca spelled off the code words while Tragg made a note of them in his notebook. Then Tragg stood behind Rebecca so that he could look over her shoulder and compare what he had written with the message which appeared on the tin.

“Right,” he said at length. “Now let’s just try dusting it. I don’t think we’ll find any fingerprints, but we’ll go through the motions just the same.”

When he had found no fingerprints, Tragg said, “Well, that’s that.”

Rebecca sniffed. “If you ask me,” she said pointedly to Mrs. Gentrie, “it’s a lovers’ post office, and that stenographer is getting Junior to pull some more chestnuts out of the fire.”

“Where is Junior?” Tragg asked Mrs. Gentrie.

“At the hardware store with his father.”

“I think it might be a good idea to call him on the telephone and ask if he can come home at once,” Tragg said.

Mrs. Gentrie obediently moved toward the stairs, but halfway up she paused to inquire, “Am I to tell him why you want him?”

“No. Just that I’m here and want him to come at once.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “As far as that tin is concerned, Junior wouldn’t...”

“I understand,” Tragg interrupted, “but wouldn’t it be better to let Junior speak for himself?”

Mrs. Gentrie resumed her climbing up the stairs, closed the kitchen door behind her. Tragg turned to Rebecca, said, “We’ll try...”

“Look,” Rebecca exclaimed, her eyes bright with excitement, “I’ve just thought of a way to find out if it’s Junior.”

“Yes?” Tragg’s tone was only politely courteous.

Rebecca said, “We can seal this tin again and put it back on the shelf.” She was plainly trying to make an impression on Tragg, smiling coquettishly.

Tragg’s eyes narrowed. “You might have something there,” he said. “Provided, of course, we could get that top back into the can without it appearing the tin had been opened.”

Rebecca countered that objection with the rapid-fire retort of an enthusiast upholding a pet idea. “We could copy the message on to the top of another can and seal that one up and put it up there on the shelf. After all, the person who’s going to get that message couldn’t tell one tin from the other.”

Tragg regarded Rebecca with a certain respect appearing in his eyes. “That might be an excellent thing to do,” he admitted.

Rebecca, conscious of the impression she had made, modestly lowered her eyes. Her skirt swung slightly as she moved her bony hips from side to side. “Somehow, you really inspire a person to get ideas, Lieutenant.”

Tragg hesitated for only a moment, then he was running up the cellar stairs two at a time, calling Mrs. Gentrie away from the telephone.

“Now look,” he said when he had the three women gathered around him in the basement, “I’m going to take this tin for evidence. But I’m going to copy this message in another new tin, seal it, and place it on the shelf. I don’t want anyone to know anything about what I’ve done. That means anyone. None of you women are to communicate to a soul what has happened. Do you understand, Hester?”

She looked at Mrs. Gentrie. “If Mrs. Gentrie says so...”

“I do, Hester,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “You mustn’t tell a soul.”

“And you?” Tragg asked Rebecca.

The spinster clamped her lips together tightly and nodded with vehemence.

Tragg shifted his glance to Mrs. Gentrie. She said, “I can’t understand the fact that my cellar is being used for...”

“But you do appreciate the necessity of keeping this matter absolutely to ourselves?” Tragg asked.

Slowly, Mrs. Gentrie nodded.

“That means that you mustn’t tell even your husband about it,” Tragg said.

“I don’t keep secrets from Arthur. I...”

“But this is a secret you must keep. Everyone must maintain absolute and complete silence about this. Do you understand?”

“Well, if you say so.”

“I do say so, and that means particularly that Junior isn’t to know anything about it.”

Mrs. Gentrie glanced resentfully at Rebecca. “I suppose I have you to thank...”

“Do I have your promise?” Tragg interrupted.

“Yes,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “I guess so — yes, if you say so. But you’ll see Junior isn’t the one who will walk into your trap.”

Tragg said, “Now let’s go some place where we can get a can. I’ll etch these letters in the top of the can with the point of my jackknife.”

Rebecca beamed at Tragg with the smile an unattached woman in the forties bestows upon an attractive male. “I’ll get the can for you and show you how to seal it.”

“Thanks,” Tragg said. “First, however, I want to use the telephone. Is it where I can have absolute privacy?”

“Well,” Mrs. Gentrie said apologetically, “it isn’t in a phone booth, if that’s what you mean. It’s in the living room, but...”

“I guess that will do,” Tragg said.

“We won’t listen,” Rebecca assured him.

“And to make certain we don’t,” Mrs. Gentrie said with the ghost of a smile twitching the corners of her lips, “we’ll all go out in the kitchen.”

Rebecca said indignantly, “Well, I don’t see any reason for us being herded around like...”

“We’ll all go out in the kitchen,” Mrs. Gentrie interrupted firmly.

Rebecca, her lips compressed into a thin line of indignation, marched up the cellar stairs and followed Mrs. Gentrie into the kitchen while Hester tagged along behind her. Tragg turned toward the living room. Carefully closing the doors behind him, he surreptitiously twisted the key. To his discomfiture, the lock clicked noisily. But there was nothing to do about it now. Tragg picked up the telephone, took out his notebook, called for Detective Texman, and when he had him on the line, said in a low voice, “This is Tragg, Tex. Get that dictionary and look up these words. Got a pencil?... Okay. The seventh word in the first column on page 569. The sixth word in the first column on page 615. The second word in the second column on page 455. Seventh word in the first column, page 377. Twelfth word in the first column, page 748. Seventeenth word in the second column, 472. Eleventh word in the second column, page 1131. Sixth word, second column, page 364. Twenty-second word, second column, page 1094. Fourth word, first column, page 832, and the twenty-sixth word in the second column on page 600. When you have that list of words, call me back at the residence of Arthur Gentrie. I’ll be sticking around here, stalling along until I get your call. It shouldn’t take long. Read me those words in that order. And keep absolutely mum about this message. I don’t want a word of it to get out to the newspapers — not even to anyone else on the force. Keep this as the most closely guarded secret in the office. Got it? All right, good-by.”

Tragg hung up, and went back to the kitchen where Hester was matter-of-factly engaged in peeling potatoes, where Mrs. Gentrie was rubbing a tin can with a rag and watching her sister-in-law with tolerant good humor.

Rebecca, sitting in the straight-backed kitchen chair, was tapping the floor with her toe. Her thin, rigid form fairly quivered with indignation. She got to her feet to face the officer.

“Was it necessary to lock that door?” she snapped.

Tragg regarded her with candid surprise in his blue eyes. “Good heavens,” he exclaimed. “Did I do that? That’s what the force of habit does for a man who’s detecting murders for a living. Miss Gentrie, I apologize. No hard feelings, I hope.”

He extended his hand, and as Rebecca hesitantly placed her thin, bony hand in his, Tragg put his left hand over hers, and stood for a moment smiling down at her.

The indignation vanished from her face. Her smile became coy and arch. “No one could withhold forgiveness from so attractive a penitent,” she said.

Mrs. Gentrie said matter-of-factly, “Forget it, Rebecca. The lieutenant’s a busy man. He doesn’t have time to think of all the little things. After all, he isn’t a suitor.”

Rebecca turned to her sister-in-law, started to say something, then changed her mind. The anger in her face gave way once more to a smile as she turned back to Lieutenant Tragg. “Do be seated, Lieutenant.”

He bowed, holding her chair gallantly. “After you, Miss Gentrie,” he said.

Rebecca sighed with satisfaction. She settled down into the straight-backed kitchen chair as though she had been the star in a movie receiving a penitent but ardent swain. “Do you ever do crossword puzzles — on your days off, Lieutenant?” she asked invitingly.

Chapter 12

Mason left the elevator and came walking down the long corridor of his office building. His hat was tilted back on his head at a jaunty angle, and his hands were thrust deep in his pockets. He was whistling the catchy chorus of one of the popular tunes and his manner was that of a man who was very well pleased with himself and the world.

The door of Paul Drake’s office opened, and Della Street, thrusting out her head, came running after him down the corridor.

Mason turned and looked down at her with smiling eyes. “Hi, Della,” he said. “What’s the rush?”

“I was waiting for you,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get you.”

“What’s the excitement?”

She looked up and down the corridor, slipped her hand through his arm, said, “Come on into Paul Drake’s office.”

Slowly the smile faded from Mason’s eyes. He walked back the half dozen steps which took him to Drake’s office, and Della Street piloted him past the girl at the switchboard, down the glassed-in partition to Paul Drake’s private office.

Drake looked up as Mason entered, said to Della Street, “See you got him.”

She nodded.

Mason perched a casual hip on the edge of Paul Drake’s desk. “What is the excitement?” he asked.

Drake said, “They found out something about that telephone, Perry.”

“Which one?”

“The one in Hocksley’s flat.”

“You mean the fingerprints on it?”

“No. Something else.”

“What?”

“The thing had been rigged up into an ingenious burglar alarm. There was a small hole in the base which looked as though it might have been a place for a wire. In reality, it was a little lens. A beam of invisible light ran through it, and when anyone stepped across that beam, it worked the alarm. Lifting the telephone receiver disconnected the whole thing. Then you had only to walk over to a switch by the safe, throw that, turn back, and put the telephone receiver back in place. Because it was a dial phone, the thing didn’t interfere with the operation of the telephone.”

Mason said, “Oh-oh.”

Della Street and Paul Drake were watching him anxiously.

“See where that leaves young Gentrie?” Drake asked after a while.

Mason nodded.

“And,” Della Street said, “it all ties in with the message in the tin. Tragg can really go to town on that.”

Mason lit a cigarette. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “that would account for it. The tin itself was a signal. Whenever the can was placed on the shelf, it meant the time had come to rob the safe. If any unforeseen developments necessitated a minor change in plans, that would be noted in code on the inside of the tin top.”

“It was noted,” Drake said, “and the person for whom the message was intended got it all right.”

“And acted on it,” Della Street supplemented with a meaning glance at Mason.

“And,” Drake added, “they’re Junior’s fingerprints on the telephone. Now just suppose, for the sake of the argument, Perry, that message has something to do with the telephone. You could see where that would leave young Gentrie.

“Of course,” Drake went on, “they may never decipher that code. But they have some pretty clever cipher men knocking around these days. Whatever that message is, it’s an even money bet Tragg will have it all worked out within a week or two, perhaps a lot sooner than that.”

Mason lit a cigarette, blew out twin streams of smoke through his nostrils. “Just as a gambling proposition, Paul, what would you say the percentage of chances was?”

“Percentage on what?”

“That the message has anything to do with the telephone.”

“I’d say it was even money,” Drake said.

“Well,” Mason told him, avoiding Della Street’s eyes, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anything else new?”

“Yes,” Della said. “Rodney Wenston’s waiting in the office. There’s a woman with him who claims to be the daughter of Karr’s partner. Wenston thinks she’s an impostor, and wants you to trap her.”

“Has she seen Karr?”

“No. Karr arranged with Wenston to answer the phone and handle all calls that came in on that ad. Wenston says that unless she can really produce some evidence, he’s not even going to let her talk with Karr. He said he was against Karr’s putting that ad in the paper. He says it’s certain to attract swindlers. He thought that if Karr wanted to do anything, he should quietly engage a firm of private detectives to find out what had happened to the daughter. Karr got impatient and said he couldn’t wait.”

“Where is this woman now?” Mason asked.

“Waiting in the office with Wenston. He hasn’t let her tell her story. He wants you to be with him the first time she tells it.”

Drake said, “There’s one other thing, Perry.”

“What?”

“Wenston acts the part of the wealthy playboy. He has quite a place down between Culver City and Santa Monica. There’s a hangar and a swell little private landing field. He flies back and forth to San Francisco quite a lot. Guess who he has for a passenger on nearly all of the trips?”

“Karr?” Mason asked.

Drake nodded.

“Anything else?”

“Yes. When Karr’s taking the plane, a big limousine comes to Wenston’s place. The driver opens a locked gate in the fence around the estate, follows the driveway around back of the house to the hangar, then past the hangar out to the far end of the flying field. Wenston has his plane all warmed up. He taxies out there, and turns around; then a door opens, a couple of men get out — that Chinese servant and Johns Blaine, who apparently is a bodyguard. Then Karr gets out and...”

“Wait a minute,” Mason interrupted. “You say gets out?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You mean he walks?”

“Uh huh. Not very well, but he walks.”

Mason said excitedly, “How did you get that, Paul?”

Drake said, “Talking with a queer old hobo who lives in a scrap house down on the edge of the railroad right of way near where Wenston has his landing field. You know the sort. They squat down on waste land that no one cares anything about and build houses out of flattened-out coal-oil tins, old pieces of corrugated iron, and a few boards here and there.”

Mason nodded.

“This chap’s seen Wenston take off and come back from trips. Occasionally a passenger gets aboard or gets out down at the far end of the landing field. A heavy-set man who’s probably Johns Blaine is always on hand. Also there’s a Chinese. The passenger usually walks the few steps from the plane to the automobile, and gets in. He walks rather slowly, but he walks. From the description, it has to be Karr.”

“Is that hobo on the level?” Mason asked.

“I can’t guarantee him,” Drake said. “I think he’s okay, but he’s a queer cuss. I spotted his shack and thought it might be worth while trying to pump him for information. You told me to get a line on Wenston. I don’t think any amount of money would have bribed the old codger, but I got some old clothes and a roll of blankets and came walking along the railroad. I stopped to pass the time of day with him, and had a bottle of cheap liquor in my blanket roll. We got pretty well plastered. I’ve still got a headache from it. But he loosened up and told me a lot of stuff.”

Mason grinned. “Perhaps I’d better go out and talk with him.”

Drake said, “You! Hell’s bells, Perry, if you’d had to go through what I did, you’d have died. That booze was awful. My head feels like a toy balloon just before it busts.”

Mason slid off of Drake’s desk, said, “Why don’t you get better booze when you want to get plastered, Paul? It’s on the expense account. First time I ever knew you to economize on it.”

Drake said grimly, “Yeah. A nice time I’d have hitting the rails as a hobo, and then pulling a bottle of bonded hooch out of my blanket roll. Here I sit up most of the night finding bodies for you, grab a couple of hours’ sleep, go out and get drunk on cheap rotgut, and this is all the thanks I get.”

Mason started for the door. “It’s lack of imagination, Paul. You should have told him you were a hijacker, or poured some bonded stuff in a bottle with a cheap label.”

Drake snorted. “Let’s see you try that stunt on this coot. Go right ahead, my lad. Hop to it.”

Out in the hallway, Mason asked, “These people waiting, Della?”

“Yes. I told them you were in conference in another lawyer’s office, and I couldn’t reach you on the telephone, as you’d left word you weren’t to be disturbed, but I thought I could go over, explain the situation, and get you to come back with me. How about it? Did you plant that tin?”

“Nothing to it,” Mason said. “I walked in with a bulging brief case and wearing gloves, said I wanted to look the premises over again, and particularly wanted to see the smudges of paint on the garage door. They sent Hester, the stolid servant who certainly seems none too intelligent, down to show me around. I waited until her back was turned and slipped the tin up on the shelf.”

“You don’t think she spotted it?”

“She didn’t even so much as look back when I started upstairs. She’s either just an ox, or she’s trying to keep out of the mess by seeming to be one. So now we’ve baited the trap, and we’ll wait to see what walks in.”

“I don’t like the bait,” Della said. “Be careful someone doesn’t steal it.”

“I’ll do that little thing,” Mason promised.

He unlocked the door of his private office, and pushed it open. Della Street said, “I’ll go and bring them in. Mr. Wenston wants to talk with you before you see this girl.”

“All right, get him in. Let’s see what’s on his mind.”

Wenston, looking very trim and military, entered Mason’s private office. He had a courteous bow for Della Street, a handclasp for Mason. “This ith a complication,” he said. “This girl ith an imposter. I have refused even to listen to her. I want you to hear her story the first time she tells it. I don’t want to take her to the guv’nor until after you’ve talked with her. After that, I won’t have to. You can trap her, and expose her as an impothtor.”

“What makes you think she’s an impostor if you haven’t talked with her?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know,” Wenston said, “unless it’s some sort of a telepathic intuition. She doesn’t theem genuine. There’s something phoney about her whole approach.”

“And you want me to talk with her?” Mason asked.

“I want you to cross-examine her — give her the works.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do that in front of Mr. Karr?”

“No. I know most of the facts. I want to see if she’s telling the truth. If she isn’t, I’m not going to let her even get near Karr.”

“And you want me to cross-examine?” Mason asked.

Wenston nodded.

Mason said, “Well, let’s have her in here and see what she looks like.”

Doris Wickford followed Della Street into the office. She was between twenty-seven and thirty, Mason judged, with very dark hair, dark, thin eyebrows, long lashes, slate-colored eyes, and a pale skin which, coupled with a poker-faced immobility of countenance, gave her a peculiarly detached manner. She said, “Good afternoon. You’re Mr. Mason, aren’t you?” and came over to give him her hand. The slate-gray eyes gave him a long, steady scrutiny. She said, “I presume Mr. Wenston has told you I’m an imposter.”

Mason laughed.

Wenston said with dignity, “I told him to give you a croth-examination.”

“I expected that,” she said. “The reason I didn’t tell Mr. Wenston all the details is that I don’t want to keep going over them again and again. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Mason, that I know Mr. Wenston isn’t the one who put that ad in the paper. For one thing, it’s very apparent that Mr. Wenston is rather young to have been in partnership with my father in 1920. I also know it because I know something about the persons with whom my father had that partnership. One of them was a man by the name of Karr, and I presume that he’s the one who’s really back of this ad in the paper. I’ve asked Mr. Wenston if that wasn’t a fact, and he refused to answer. I’ve asked him if he isn’t related to a Mr. Karr or employed by him, and he told me we’d go over that when we got to your office. Well, the way I look at it, if Mr. Karr is the one who’s really interested, why can’t we go to see him and then have it settled one way or the other?”

Wenston shook his head firmly. “I won’t subject the guv’nor to the strain of such an interview unleth I know it’s justified. You’ve got to convince me before you can ever see him.”

“How much convincing are you going to require?” Miss Wickford asked, her eyes surveying Wenston in a head-to-toe glance, which was something less than cordial.

“ I’m going to need lots of convincing.”

“All right, here goes,” Miss Wickford said cheerfully, drawing up a chair and unfastening the snap on a large purse which she had carried under her arm.

“Tell me the name of your father,” Wenston said, glancing at Mason meaningly. “It might save time.”

Her glance was scornful. “His name was Wickford. He had trouble with creditors, so he went to the Orient. While he was in Shanghai, he took the name of Tucker.”

Wenston frowningly studied her. “He had rather an unusual firtht name. Perhaps you can tell us what that was.”

“I can tell you what it was,” she said, “and I can tell you how he happened to take it. The name was D-O-W, and it consists of the initials of my name. Doris Octavia Wickford. Octavia was my mother’s name, and when my father wanted some distinctive first name, he coined the word Dow from those initials.”

This time Wenston managed to keep his face more of a mask. “What else?” he asked. “Have you any proof?”

She took a somewhat dog-eared envelope from her purse. The envelope had a Chinese stamp and postmark. She said, “This letter was sent from Shanghai, January 8, 1921.”

Wenston and Mason both moved over to take a look at the envelope. Wenston reached for it. She pushed his hand back with a quick gesture and said, “Naughty, naughty! You can look, and that’s all.”

“Your father wrote that?” Wenston asked.

“That’s right, and you’ll notice the name, Doris O. Wickford, written on the envelope.”

“The return address in the upper left-hand comer,” Mason said, “is that of George A. Wickford at Shanghai.”

“That’s right. That was his real name. Here’s a photostatic copy of his marriage license to my mother. September, 1912, and here’s a copy of my birth certificate, November, 1913. You’ll notice my mother’s name was Octavia, and you’ll note that I was christened Doris Octavia Wickford.”

Mason examined the photostatic copies of the documents, then raised his eyes to meet Wenston’s perplexed gaze.

She said, “Now I’ll read you some of the excerpts from this letter. After all, remember I was a child of eight at the time, and he’s written to me the way a father would write to a girl of that age.”

She took some folded sheets of paper from the envelope. They were written in pencil. The paper was a thin, limp rice paper characteristic of Chinese manufacture. She read, “ ‘My dear daughter: It seems like a very long time since your daddy has seen you. I miss you very much and hope you are being a good girl. I don’t know just when daddy is coming back to you, but I hope it won’t be long. Over here, I am doing some good business and expect to return and clean up all of the debts I owe. You must remember not to mention to anyone where daddy is because some of those people who made so much trouble for me would try to keep me from getting enough together to pay off what I owe. If they will only leave me alone for a little while longer, I can not only pay off everything, but have money left. Then I will come back to you, and we will be together for a long time. You can have nice dresses and a pony if you still want one.’ ”

She looked up and said, “I had written him saying that I wanted a pony for Christmas.”

“Your mother?” Mason asked.

“She died when I was six, just before Dad went to China.”

“Go ahead.”

She turned back to the letter and read, “ ‘I have a very fine business here now, but I can’t tell you what it is. I have a partner. His name is Karr. Don’t you think that is a funny way for a man to spell his name? But he is a good partner, and he has lots of courage. Three weeks ago we were on a trip up the Yangtze River, and the boat he was in tipped over. Some of the Chinese boatmen clung to the overturned boat, but one of them was swept away. The current was very swift. This man couldn’t swim. He was only a Chinese, and over here the life of a laborer is not very valuable. I doubt if any one of the Chinese would have tried to rescue him, even if they had been strong swimmers. But my partner, Karr, swam out to the aid of this Chinaboy and brought him back to the boat. By that time my boat had come alongside, and the coolies managed to get it turned right side up. But we lost a lot of things in the river which we never recovered.

“ ‘The water of this river is very yellow. It is filled with a kind of mud. Even after it flows out into the ocean, it stains the whole region around the mouth of the river. It is a very big river, and Shanghai is on a branch of it called the Whangpoo.

“ ‘Shanghai is a very big city. You would never dream of the noise and bustle of one of these Chinese cities. It seems as though everyone is always screaming something at the top of his voice. You wouldn’t believe people could make that much noise.

“ ‘Now daddy wants Doris to be a good little girl, and study hard in school. Your daddy is sorry he couldn’t send you that pony for Christmas, because there is no way of sending a pony from China to the United States, but some day soon when your daddy comes back, you shall have your pony. Lots of love from a lonely father to his little girl. Your loving DAD. P.S. When you write me over here, you can write the letter addressed to me, but be sure you put it care of Dow Tucker and send it care of the American Express Company. I will get it all right.’ ”

She folded the letter, held it for a moment in her fingers as though contemplating whether she should pass it over to Mason for his inspection. Then abruptly she pushed it back into the envelope, and said simply, “I saved that one because it was the last letter I ever received. There were other letters, and I lost them. This one I kept. I never heard any more from him. I didn’t know what had happened to him.”

Wenston tried to keep from seeming impressed. “You have something else? Some better proof, perhaps?”

She looked at him with the impersonal appraisal one would give an insect impaled on a pin and said, “I’ve got lots of proof. Here’s a picture — a family group taken the year my mother died. I was six at the time, almost seven.”

She extracted a somewhat faded photograph from her purse. It was of the peculiar muddy tone which characterized the matte-surface prints of that period. It was a square picture three and a half inches by three and a half inches, and showed a man and a woman seated on what was apparently the upper step of a front porch. The man was holding a girl on his knee. Despite the pigtails and extreme youth of the girl in the picture, the resemblance to Doris Wickford was very pronounced.

Wenston pursed his lips, caught Mason’s eye, and almost imperceptibly nodded.

“You remember your father?” Mason asked.

“Naturally. Of course, it’s the memory of a girl of seven years of age. I was seven the last time I saw him. I suppose there are some things on which my memory is distorted, and you’ll have to make allowances for youth, but aside from that, I remember him quite distinctly, numerous little things about him, his tolerance, his unfailing consideration of the rights of others, and, what didn’t impress me as being particularly remarkable at the time but what does now that I’ve seen more of the world, is that I never knew him to lose his temper over anything, or say a sharp word to anyone. And yet the man must have been beset by worries.”

“Where did you live?”

“The address is on this letter,” she said. “It was in Denver, Colorado.”

“You lived there all the time until your father disappeared?”

“He didn’t disappear. He simply went away. There weren’t any jobs in Denver, and...”

“All right, have it your own way,” Mason interposed. “Had you lived there long? I notice that your birth certificate says that you were born in California.”

“That’s right. We lived in California for a while, then went to Nevada, and then to Denver. My father had work in the mines. Conditions got so bad Dad made complaints and eventually started organizing the men. Unions had never gotten a hold in that locality, and the company fired him. Dad opened up a little store, and the miners all started buying their things from him. Then the company simply ruined him. They forced him into disastrous competition. They wanted to get him out of the country. They said his cracker-box socialism was going to ruin the country. That’s when he incurred all those debts. He...”

Wenston said, “I guess, Mr. Mason, we’re going to have to see the guv’nor, after all.”

Mason said, “We can check the incident of that upset boat in the Yangtze River before going any farther.”

“We don’t have to,” Wenston said. “I’ve heard the guv’nor speak of it half a dozen times.”

Mason sat at his desk for a moment drumming thoughtfully with his fingers on the edge of the desk. Abruptly, he asked Miss Wickford, “And you saw this ad in the paper this morning?”

“No. The one that appeared yesterday morning.”

“Why didn’t you answer it at once?”

“I was working, and I — well,” she said with a little smile, “I arranged with my relief to have today off. I went to a hairdresser and then called the number mentioned in the ad. I asked for Mr. Karr. Mr. Wenston answered, said he was handling the preliminary interviews, and made an appointment. I never did have a chance to tell him any of my story. He rushed me right up here. Now, if that ad is on the level, I want to see Mr. Karr. It’s a matter of money with me. I’m not going to kid you, Mr. Mason, and I’m not going to kid myself. If there’s any money coming to me from my father, I need it.”

“You’re employed?” Mason asked.

“Yes. I’m an actress, and I can’t get a part. I had some bits in New York. A man promised he could get me a part in pictures if I came to Hollywood. He lied. Right at present I’m working as cashier in a cafeteria. And I don’t like it. It would be worth a good deal to be able to slap the boss’s face and walk out.”

“With whom were you living while you were going to school?”

“An aunt. She died about three years ago. Really, Mr. Mason, all of this can be verified. If there’s really anything back of this ad in the paper, we’re wasting a lot of time.”

“I think the guv’nor would want to see her,” Wenston said to Mason and then added, “Right away.”

Mason reached for his hat. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”

Chapter 13

The people in the room were grouped in a tense-faced circle around the wheelchair occupied by Elston A. Karr. The day had been warm, yet the blanket covered his legs. His skin was no longer wax-like but was flushed. As his hand touched Mason’s, the lawyer noticed that the skin was dry and hot. Karr turned over the photograph and the letter, looked first at Johns Blaine, then at Gow Loong, the number one boy.

“Well?” he asked.

Blaine said nothing.

Rodney Wenston said, “When I brought her to Mason, I thought she wath a damned imposter, but this proof is pretty convincing.”

Doris Wickford said indignantly, “I’m not an impostor, and I’m tired of being treated like one. After all, this was your idea. I didn’t advertise to try and get in touch with you. You advertised to try and get in touch with me. If my father left any money, it isn’t yours, and there’s no reason why you should act as though giving it to me would be an act of generosity or charity on your part. After all, we have courts to protect the rights of people in cases like this.”

Karr didn’t so much as glance at her. He kept his eyes on Gow Loong.

Gow Loong extended his forefinger. The nail protruded a good half inch from the end of the finger. He placed this long nail on the face in the photograph. “Alla same Dow Tucker,” he said.

Karr nodded.

Gow Loong turned to Karr. “Maybe-so you tired. Too much work. Too much tlouble. Maybe-so you go sleep. Maybe one two hours. Wake up, feel more better. Too many people. Too much talk. Velly much no good.”

Karr turned to Johns Blaine. “I see no reason for prolonging the matter. This girl seems to be it. We’ll have to make an additional check, but that’s Dow Tucker’s picture all right. What she says about how he came to adopt the name of Dow sounds logical. Get me that album of pictures out of the desk in my bedroom.”

Gow Loong became merely a part of the scenery. He effaced himself beyond a point of silence. It seemed that even his personality had retired behind the expressionless composure of a calmly indifferent face. Johns Blaine hurried toward the bedroom.

Mason asked casually, “Keep those pictures in your bedroom all the time?”

“Prints,” Karr said. “The negatives are in a safe place. Wouldn’t take a million dollars for those negatives. Adventures in China that would curl your hair. I’ve seen things that white men aren’t permitted to see, things that no person should ever see. The Temple of the Passionate Buddha under the walls of the Forbidden City — the living dead man called up out of the grave to make obeisance to a Lama god. You might think it’s hypnotism, might think it’s superstition, might think it’s imagination, but I’ve seen things you can’t explain, things you can’t understand, things you don’t even dare to talk about. Take a look through that album, Johns. Get some of those pictures taken at Shanghai in the fall of ’20 and the spring of ’21.”

Blaine turned the pages of the photograph album. “Here’s a picture taken on a junk on the Whangpoo,” he said. “That shows him pretty well.”

“Show it to Mason,” Karr said. “Want him to see it.”

Mason looked at the picture of three men seated on the high stern deck of a big junk. The camera had been focused upon the faces. Back of them was a hazy sheet of water, the dim line of a bank, and the fuzzy outlines of an out-of-focus pagoda rising against the sky. The men were smiling affably at the camera with that peculiarly inane expression with which one obeys the command to “look pleasant.” On a table before them was a huge teapot. Three Chinese cups were nestled into the distinctive hole-in-the-center saucers which furnish a sturdy resting place for Chinese soup-bowl cups. Behind the group, standing a little to one side, looking solicitously down at the man in the center, was a Chinese who was undoubtedly Gow Loong. The man in the center was Elston A. Karr, more robust, twenty years younger, but still with that same cold-eyed concentration glittering from his eyes, that ruthless, indomitable purpose stamped upon his face. There had been change in the twenty years. He had lost weight. His skin had stretched taut across his cheekbones, and there were puffs under his eyes; but there could be no mistaking Elston Karr.

The man on his right was the man shown in the photograph produced by Doris Wickford. There could be no doubt of that, and the two photographs must have been taken at about the same time. The partially bald head, the snub nose, the long lower lip with the deep calipers stretching down from the nostrils, the cleft chin, the bushy eyebrows, the protruding batlike ears were unmistakable.

The third man in the photograph caught Mason’s eye. He was a thick-chested, heavy-necked individual with thick lips that were twisted into a smile, but even in the photograph it was apparent that the eyes were not smiling. They were the sort of eyes that wouldn’t smile. They were staring in sullen contemplation at the lens of the camera. It was as though the man had been brooding so long upon some sinister scheme that his thoughts had stamped themselves indelibly upon his face.

“Who’s this man?” Mason asked.

Karr said, “A Judas — a dirty traitor — sold us out for his pieces of silver — almost brought about my death.” He looked up at Doris Wickford and said, “He was responsible for the death of your father. I shan’t forget him — ever.”

There was something in the way he said that last that was as whisperingly ominous as the sound of a carving knife being sharpened on a steel.

Mason compared the photograph in the book with that produced by Doris Wickford. Slowly he nodded his head, then asked, “Got any more pictures of Tucker?”

Karr jerked his head to Johns Blaine, and Blaine, turning the leaves of the photograph album, paused four times more to show Mason photographs. Always there were the photographs of the same four men: Karr; his partner, Tucker; Gow Loong; and this heavy-set, sullen-faced man who had apparently betrayed them.

Abruptly Karr said to Miss Wickford, “I want to check up on you. Where you lived, what you did, whom you knew.”

“Of course. You realize I was rather a child when Dad left, but I have rather distinct memories. I can tell you the houses we lived in — some of them, at any rate. Would you mind telling me whether my father left any considerable amount of property?”

“We had a partnership venture,” Karr said. “I didn’t know your father had any heirs. There was a partnership. We made some profit. He was killed. I didn’t make any formal accounting of his share. It wasn’t the sort of business you could offer for probate. We’d have been beheaded or hung if we’d been caught at it. Most dangerous, most risky business in the world, and the most fascinating. Betrayed by a damned Judas. But I got out of there with the money. I invested that money. The investments turned out well. Recently, Gow Loong mentioned that one night when Dow Tucker had been standing by the rail of the junk looking down at some little girls dancing on the landing in a Chinese village, he’d pointed out one little Chinese girl about seven or eight years old, and said that he had a daughter at home just about her age. He never spoke to me about it — very reticent about his private and family affairs. Gow Loong never realized the significance of it until later, when I was talking with him about the night Tucker was captured and killed. I’m tired. I’ll think it over. I’ll follow Gow Loong’s advice and rest. Give Mr. Blaine all the data you can think of, where you live, for whom you’ve worked, where you went to school, all the rest of it. Answer all questions Mr. Mason may ask.”

She nodded.

“One more thing,” Karr said abruptly. “You lived with an aunt?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps there are more letters from your father in your aunt’s things.”

“I never thought of that.”

“Know where they are?”

“No.”

“Try and find them. He might have written to her. See me again. No, don’t see me again. Keep in touch with Mr. Mason. He’s my lawyer. Don’t let Rodney Wenston’s hostility impress you much. He has nothing whatever to say about it. I told him to be skeptical in dealing with claimants. If you’re my partner’s daughter, I want to be friendly with you. If you’re an impostor, I want to send you to jail. I don’t want to waste too much time finding out which it’s going to be.”

Mason heard a quick intake of breath as though Gow Loong had been about to say something. Then the number one boy changed his mind. By the time Mason had raised his eyes, Gow Loong was standing absolutely motionless. Apparently he hadn’t even been listening to the conversation.

“Something you wanted to say, Gow Loong?” Karr asked.

“Maskee,” the Chinese number one boy said.

The girl looked questioningly at Karr. “Is that Chinese?” she asked innocently enough.

Karr’s frosty eyes twinkled into a half smile. “Near enough to Chinese,” he said. “The pigeon English of the treaty port. The greatest word of all, ‘maskee.’ It means never mind, no matter. And now run along, my dear. I think I’ll have some very important news for you soon, but let Mr. Mason check up on you and...”

The harsh sound of the door buzzer interrupted him. He looked quickly at Gow Loong. “See who it is,” he said. “I don’t want to see anyone.”

But as it turned out, Gow Loong had nothing to say on that score. They heard him descend the stairs, heard the door open, and then the crisp tones of an authoritative voice, and the feet of the two men on the stairs.

Lieutenant Tragg preceded the Chinese houseboy up the stairs. “Good afternoon, everyone,” he said. “Good afternoon. Ah, Mason again. And a young woman. Hope I’m not intruding. Your houseboy said you were busy, Karr, but just as I put my duties ahead of my own personal convenience, I have to adopt that attitude elsewhere. I trust you’ll understand.” Tragg ceased speaking and looked inquiringly at Doris Wickford.

“Miss Wickford,” Mason introduced. “Lieutenant Tragg of the Homicide Squad.”

“Homicide!” Miss Wickford said with a little startled exclamation.

“That’s right,” Tragg explained. “You probably aren’t interested in murder cases, Miss Wickford, but if you’d been reading the papers, you’d know that a man and his housekeeper were...”

“But are you working on that?” she asked.

Tragg eyed her narrowly. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, his voice suddenly noncommittal. “They lived in the flat below here.”

“Lived below here?” she asked, her eyes widening, and seeming suddenly to take on a darker hue.

“In the flat right below here,” Tragg repeated. “Didn’t you know it?”

There was no flicker in her glance, no waver in her eyes. “No,” she said.

“Sorry,” Tragg said, “but I’ve got to ask a few questions. Let’s go back to the night of the murder, gentle-men. Now, Gow Loong where were you?”

“Down China city. I visit my cousin.”

“How many cousins?” Tragg asked.

There was just the bare suggestion of a flicker of triumph in Gow Loong’s eyes. “Twenty-one.”

It was Miss Wickford who broke the silence with a little laugh. “Twenty-one cousins!” she exclaimed.

Karr said to Lieutenant Tragg, “Chinese cousins are different from ours. In China they properly have only one hundred names. Everyone who has the same surname is supposed to be related. It’s a vague relationship. There’s nothing to compare with it in this country. That’s why a Chinaboy will say of another Chinese, ‘He allee same my cousin.’ ”

“I see,” Tragg said. “Most interesting. And your name is Loong?”

“That’s not really his family name,” Karr interposed again. “Gow Loong he calls himself. Literally translated, it means ‘nine dragons’ — Cantonese. So don’t try looking it up in the official Mandarin dictionaries. Cantonese is a different language. Sort of a Chinese nickname. Means he has the strength, wisdom, daring, and courage of nine dragons. Each one of them furnishes some attribute: Loyalty, courage, perspicacity, endurance, shrewdness in money matters, ability to study — let’s see. How many’s that? Seven. I’ve forgotten the other two. Virtue and filial respect, probably. No matter. It illustrates the point. Anyway, he’s got twenty-one witnesses. He wasn’t here. I know he wasn’t here. If you want to check up on him, that’s easy. Who else do you want?”

Tragg turned to Blaine.

Blaine said, “I believe I’ve explained that at the same time the murder was committed I was flying down from San Francisco with Mr. Wenston here. We left San Francisco at eleven o’clock. I had some friends come down to the plane to see me off.”

“Good thing you did too,” Wenston interposed. “Otherwise I couldn’t have prethented any alibi myself.”

Tragg suddenly whirled to Karr. “You,” he said.

Karr met his eyes with cold defiance. “I was here — alone.”

“That’s rather unusual, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“In your wheelchair?”

“No. In bed. I believe I’ve gone over all that with you before, Lieutenant.”

“You haven’t,” Tragg said meaningly. “Mason has.”

“What do you mean?” Karr asked.

Karr kept staring at the detective with the cold concentration of one who is completely the master of his own soul, and resents uninvited familiarities. “Do you have any fault to find with what Mr. Mason answered?” he asked.

“I may have,” Tragg said.

“Under those circumstances,” Karr announced with cold dignity, “I am afraid it will be necessary for me to ask Mr. Mason to speak for me again. I am not feeling well, Lieutenant, and this interview has wearied me.”

Tragg said affably, “Let’s not get off to a bad start, Mr. Karr. I’m trying to save you future trouble.”

“Thank you for your consideration. You don’t need to try to save me anything. I’m quite capable of looking after myself.”

“Despite the fact that you are unable to walk?” Tragg asked.

“Despite the fact that I am unable to walk.”

“I don’t want to have any misunderstanding about that,” Tragg observed.

Karr said, “You don’t need to have any. I can’t walk.”

“You were here alone in this flat,” Tragg said. “So far as is known, you, the housekeeper, and Hocksley were the only three persons under this roof.”

“Hocksley!” Miss Wickford exclaimed.

Tragg turned to look at her. “Hocksley,” he said.

“Why...!”

“The name mean anything to you?” Tragg asked.

She smiled and shook her head somewhat dubiously.

Tragg kept his eyes boring into hers. “But,” he asked affably in the manner of one making small talk, “you’ve known a Hocksley somewhere, I take it, Miss Wickford?”

She said, “No.”

“The name has some association for you? Come now, let’s not beat around the bush.”

She said, “My father mentioned a Hocksley in one of his letters.”

“How long ago?”

“Oh, perhaps twenty years.”

Karr laughed mirthlessly. “Hardly the same Hocksley,” he said.

Tragg didn’t shift his eyes. “You were a child at the time?”

“Yes.”

“How old?”

“Seven.”

“Where was your father?”

“China.”

“What did he say about Hocksley?”

She shifted her eyes to Karr as though looking for some signal. Tragg said insistently, “This is just between you and me, Miss Wickford. What did your father say about Hocksley?”

“My father was in a partnership in China. I believe Hocksley was one of the partners.”

Tragg thought that over for a few seconds, then asked abruptly, “When did you meet Mr. Mason?”

“About an hour and a half ago.”

“Karr?”

“About forty minutes.”

“Known anyone here longer than that?”

“I met Mr. Wenston before I met Mr. Mason.”

“How much before?”

“A few minutes before.”

“What are you doing here?”

Wenston interposed hastily, “She’s calling on a matter of business. It’s highly confidential. I don’t want anything thaid about it.”

Tragg pursed his lips. “Well, well, well,” he said. “Now let’s see. Wasn’t there an ad in this morning’s paper, an ad by someone who wanted to find the daughter of his dead partner?”

There was no sound in the room, save the rasping breathing of Elston A. Karr. As by common consent they turned to look at him.

“Your father’s name was Wickford?” Tragg asked the girl, whirling abruptly back toward her.

“In China he went under the name of Dow Tucker.”

“Wrote you about the partnership?”

“Yes.”

“When? Exactly what date?”

“In the latter part of 1920.”

“What happened after that?”

Karr said, “I can tell you. He...”

“Shut up, Karr,” Tragg said without taking his eyes from the girl’s face.

“I didn’t hear anything more from my father after a letter written in the first part of 1921. I heard later on that he had died.”

“How did he die?”

“I understood he was murdered.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“His body was never shipped home?”

“No.”

“Ever get any property from his estate?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Any other relatives living?”

“No.”

“When did your mother die?”

“Around eighteen months before Dad went to China.”

“With whom did you live after that? After your father left?”

“An aunt.”

“Mother’s sister or father’s?”

“Mother’s.”

“Where’s she?”

“Dead.”

“How long?”

“Three years.”

“And your father wrote about having a partnership arrangement with a man named Hocksley?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t mention his first name?”

“I...”

“You didn’t save that letter?”

“No.”

“Mention the name of the other partner?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Well... yes.”

“A man named Karr?”

“Yes.”

“Remember the first name?”

After she had been silent for several seconds, Tragg said abruptly, “I asked you if you knew his first name?”

“I was trying to remember.”

“Well, think fast.”

She turned to Karr. “Your first name is Elston, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She said, “I have a haunting memory in the back of my mind that Karr’s first name was Elston. I can’t remember. Perhaps it’s just the association of ideas, having met Mr. Elston Karr this afternoon. I... I may have confused his first name.”

“With what?”

“With the name of my father’s partner.”

“What other Karrs do you know?”

“None who spell their names this way.”

Tragg looked up at Karr. “Well?” he asked.

Karr said, “In the fall of 1920 and the spring of 1921 I was in partnership with three men in Shanghai. One of them was named Dow Tucker. I think he’s this girl’s father. The other one was a man named Hocksley.”

“Indeed!” Lieutenant Tragg said, his voice showing only a courteous interest. “And what became of Hocksley?”

Karr said, choosing his words carefully, “Hocksley disappeared. He disappeared under suspicious circumstances. He carried away with him a very large sum of money in partnership funds. Fortunately, not all of the partnership funds, but a large amount.”

“So,” Tragg said, “naturally, you felt quite bitter toward Hocksley.”

A gleam showed in Karr’s eyes despite his attempt to control his expression. He said, “The man was beneath contempt.”

“And he took with him a large amount of partnership funds?”

“Yes.”

“In other words, some of your money?”

“Yes.”

“Naturally, you wanted that back.”

“Yes.”

“And naturally you made some attempt to trace him.”

“That’s right.”

“And, in short, Karr, your efforts finally were successful. You located Hocksley in this flat below you. You took the flat above him and...”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Karr interrupted. “I took this flat because I desired privacy. I believe the records will show that some ten days or two weeks after I moved in, the lower flat was rented to a man by the name of Hocksley. I can assure you that I didn’t even know his name until this matter came up. I am confined to my house. I don’t get out. I...”

“Your Chinaboy gets out?”

“He does the shopping.”

Tragg pursed his lips, turned toward Gow Loong, then swung back toward Karr. “Well, let’s finish this phase of the matter first. What was the first name of your partner in China?”

Karr hesitated.

“Come on,” Tragg said. “Let’s have it. Stalling around isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

Karr said, “We called him Red. I don’t think I ever did know his first name... If I did know it, I’ve forgotten it.”

Miss Wickford said, “Perhaps I can help you there a little, Lieutenant. His name was Robindale E. Hocksley. I remember my father writing about him. I was just a child at the time, but names have always stuck in my memory. I was going to tell you this before, but you interrupted me with another question.”

Tragg said, without looking around, “You’re not helping me a damn bit, Miss Wickford. I know what his name was. I knew all about that partnership before I came up here. I wasn’t asking questions because I wanted information, but to find out who’s trying to co-operate and who’s trying to cover up. Karr, why didn’t you tell me your partner had the same name as that of the man who was murdered?”

“I didn’t know it until after the murder. Then it just didn’t occur to me it was other than a similarity of surnames. I never knew Red Hocksley’s first name was Robindale.”

“How about you?” Tragg asked Gow Loong.

“What’samalla me?” Gow Loong demanded with the shrill rapidity of an excited Chinese.

“How long you been with Mr. Karr?”

“Maybe-so long time.”

“In China?”

“Sure, in China.”

“You remember the three men in the partnership Mr. Karr’s spoken about?”

“Red Hocksley I heap savvy,” Gow Loong said. “Him velly bad man. Heap no good. Alla time no can tlust.”

Tragg said, “You’ve seen this man who lived downstairs?”

Gow Loong shook his head. “No see.”

“You read his name on the door?”

“No read.”

Tragg turned to Blaine. “How about you?”

Blaine said affably, “I have only been with Mr. Karr for a year.”

“What’s your job?”

“Well, I act as sort of nurse. You see, Mr. Karr is...”

“Ever do any nursing before?”

“Well...”

“Got a permit to carry that gun you’re lugging around?” Tragg interrupted.

Blaine’s hand moved automatically to his pocket. “Sure, I got a permit. I...” He stopped as he caught the triumphant gleam in Tragg’s eye.

Tragg laughed. “What did you do before you became Karr’s bodyguard?”

“I had a detective agency in Denver Colorado,” Blaine blurted, red-faced. “I wasn’t making very much money at it, and when I had this opportunity to draw steady wages and good wages, I jumped at it.”

Tragg said, “That’s better. If you want to keep that permit to carry that gun and if ever you want to go back into the detective business, you’ll be wise to co-operate a little. Now what do you know about Hocksley?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Ever see the man?”

Blaine said, “Look here, Lieutenant, I’m going to be frank with you. I was hired to act as Karr’s bodyguard. I gathered that, because of some old feud in China, his life might be in danger. I’ve never heard him mention the name of Hocksley, and today is the first time I ever knew about that Shanghai partnership. Karr never told me what specific danger he feared. I had an idea he was still doing a little gun-running — getting stuff past the Japs. I won’t go into details, but I think Karr’s the brains of the works. I think it would raise the devil, not only with Karr, but with an underground grapevine by which munitions are being smuggled in, if Karr got any publicity. I don’t know how the government would feel about it, but I presume that, at least unofficially, they’d have some interest in the matter. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been keeping my mouth shut. I can’t tell you a lot about methods, but, as I get the picture, there’s quite a fleet of Chinese fishing junks that put out from all the coast villages. Those people have to five, and in order to live, they have to fish. The Japanese realize that. Occasionally, they search these junks. Some of them are considered above suspicion. Some aren’t. They can’t search them all. Therefore, you can see it’s pretty important for Karr to keep under cover, and — well, that’s been my job. I’ve been keeping him sewed up and out of circulation.”

Tragg took a deep breath, looked across at Karr.

Karr said somewhat scornfully to Blaine, “You can keep your gossip to yourself. Your ideas of what I’m doing are crazy.”

Blaine shrugged his shoulders, said, “I’m hired by you. I do a good job for you. I want to keep on doing a good job for you, but I know which side of the bread has the butter. I’m not going to tangle up with the police department.”

“Where, may I ask, did you get your information?” Karr asked coldly. “Been snooping?”

Blaine said indignantly, “I haven’t been snooping. I got it from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“From little things you did, little hints you let drop, the expression on your face,” Blaine said impatiently. “After all, I’ve been a private detective, and I was a cop before that. What the hell do you think? That I’m going to associate with someone for a year and then not know what I’m hired to protect him against? Nuts!”

Tragg got up, walked over to the window, stood looking out, his hands pushed down into his pockets; then he whirled to regard Perry Mason. “Personally, Mason, I think it’s a runaround. I’m not saying anything — not yet. It’s getting so that whenever we’re working on a case and you come into the picture, the hot trail we’re following develops a habit of running back to the starting point so that we’re tearing around in circles. It’s nothing except coincidence, yet — but it’s a hell of a lot of coincidence.”

“Speaking of running around in circles,” Mason said, “did you come up here to pay this visit simply because you thought Miss Wickford was here and could give you some information on Karr’s past connections?”

Miss Wickford said, “Don’t be silly. Lieutenant Tragg couldn’t have known I was going to be here, because I didn’t know it myself until the moment I picked up the paper and...”

“I came up here to ask questions,” Tragg interrupted.

“Exactly,” Mason said, “and, I take it, they were rather important questions; and since this interesting information which has been uncovered about Karr’s former partner has been purely fortuitous, I naturally am wondering just what really caused this visit. Or is Miss Wickford an undercover associate?”

Tragg said, “Well, I’ll relieve your curiosity on that, Mason. I came up here to find out about a telephone.”

“What telephone?” Mason asked.

“A telephone which seems to have been something more than a telephone, one in which I thought Karr might have some interest.”

Karr said wearily, “I’m not interested in telephones. I’m a sick man, and the experiences of the afternoon haven’t done me any good.”

Gow Loong said, “Massah should have gone bed long time ago. Maybe-so go now.”

Karr said, “All right, Gow Loong.”

“Just a moment,” Tragg ordered. “I want to ask a couple more questions.”

“Massah sick,” Gow Loong said. “No can talk.”

“About that telephone,” Tragg insisted, putting a hand on Karr’s wheelchair.

“What about the telephone?” Karr asked, his voice gone flat with weariness.

Tragg said, “We have reason to believe that the person who committed that murder had a very definite reason for lifting the telephone receiver.”

Mason avoided Tragg’s eyes.

Karr said, “I suppose he wanted to call someone. You have to lift the receiver to do that, you know.”

“When we first examined that telephone,” Tragg went on, ignoring Karr’s sarcasm, “we noticed only an ordinary desk telephone with two fingerprints which had been outlined in paint on the receiver. Then we made a more detailed investigation and found something which is very peculiar, to say the least.”

Karr said, “Don’t beat around the bush. If you’re trying to accuse me of something, come out and say so.”

Mason said, “He’s just trying to surprise you into an admission of something, Mr. Karr. It’s the way the police work. Apparently a person’s poor health doesn’t change their methods.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Tragg said, ignoring Mason’s interpolation, “but I’m telling you what we found.”

“Well, what did you find?”

“Concealed in the base of that telephone in such a way that it would hardly be noticeable on a superficial examination was a small hole. The telephone was bolted to the desk, which was unusual. We further found that the desk was screwed to the floor so that the telephone and desk were held in one position. That aroused our suspicions. We made a careful examination and found that the base of the telephone contained a very ingenious burglar alarm, a ray of invisible light which could be switched on so that it played across the door of that room. The only way the connection could be broken was by throwing a switch which was on the far side of the light beam, or by picking up the telephone receiver and lifting it from its cradle, which automatically had the effect of cutting off the beam of light.”

Karr said, “It doesn’t mean a damned thing to me. I fail to see why you are telling me about it.”

“Because,” Tragg went on patiently, “when any person walked across this beam of light without first lifting the telephone receiver, it caused a buzzer on the screen porch of the lower flat to sound. And that buzzer, Mr. Karr, was fastened to the side of the house so that it was directly below your bedroom window! ”

Karr placed his thin, wasted hand on the arm of the chair, gripped it so that the cords stood out plainly under the skin of the back of his hand. “Buzzer — under my window. Then that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“That must have been what wakened me first, before I heard anything. I heard a peculiarly insistent sound which was like the buzzing of mosquitoes. It was high-pitched, distinctly audible, very irritating to a man of my nervous temperament. I kept listening, thinking at first it was a mosquito in the room, then realized that the sound was coming from outside of my window.”

“How long did it continue?” Tragg asked.

“Some little time. I don’t know how long it had been going before I woke up.”

“How long before you heard the shots?”

Karr said firmly, “There was only one shot.”

Tragg sighed. “I take it,” he said, “I am indebted for the other shot to the versatile mind of Mr. Mason.”

Karr said testily, “You are indebted for the extra shot to what I told Mr. Mason. At the time, I thought there might have been two shots. Since then, and on thinking it over, I have come to the conclusion that there was only one shot, and perhaps an echo from the side of the adjoining house.”

“And how about the buzzing?” Tragg asked.

“The buzzing,” Karr said, “continued for a few minutes after the sound of the shot, and then ceased.”

“Think carefully. Did you hear it again?”

“No,” Karr said positively. “I didn’t hear it after that.”

Tragg studied him for a moment, then said, “It would have simplified matters if you’d told me this stuff when I first questioned you.”

Karr, staring right back at him, said, “And it would have simplified matters if you’d told me about the telephone receiver.”

“I didn’t know about the burglar alarm then.”

“And I didn’t know that the buzzing of a mosquito was important.”

“Then there was only one shot?”

“I’ve come to the conclusion now there was only one shot.”

“Do you know what time it was?”

“I can’t tell you exactly, no. It was sometime after midnight, and I would say before one o’clock. And now if you’ll excuse me, Lieutenant, I’m going to retire. I’m not going to drive myself past the danger point for anyone. I’ve already put up with more than I should.”

Without another word, Karr lowered his hands to the rubber tires of the wheelchair. But quick as he was, Gow Loong was the first to apply the pressure against the wheelchair which sent it into motion toward the rear of the house.

Doris Wickford said to Mason, “Apparently I’m to camp on your doorstep until this is cleaned up.”

Rodney Wenston shook his head. “I know the guv’nor pretty well,” he said. “Don’t rush him. He won’t do a thing if you crowd him.”

Lieutenant Tragg said to Mason without any more expression in his voice than if he had been commenting on an unusual spell of weather, “Certainly is strange the number of coincidences there are in this case. And every time I come here I find you here.”

Mason laughed. “I think of it as being the other way around. Every time I come to talk with my client, you manage to drop in. I was thinking that perhaps I was being followed.”

“It might not be a bad idea at that.”

Tragg started toward the stairway, then paused as he was near the first step, and beckoned Mason over to him.

“I see nothing for it but to arrest young Arthur Gentrie and charge him with murder.”

“Whose murder?” Mason asked.

Tragg smiled amicably. “Thought you’d catch me on that one, didn’t you? Well, just to put your mind at rest, when we discovered the body of Mrs. Perlin, we made a complete search of the premises. We went through everything, even cleaning out the ashes in the furnace, and in those ashes we found some interesting things, a few bits of charred cloth, some buttons, the remnants of a pair of shoes. On the portions that hadn’t been completely destroyed by fire, we found dark stains. An analysis shows they were made by human blood. You might think that over, Mason. And now if you’ll pardon me, I’ll run along. I want to talk with young Gentrie as soon as he gets back from the hardware store.”

Chapter 14

Mason got Della Street on the telephone a few minutes after five o’clock.

“Closing up?” he asked.

“I was waiting for you. How’s everything going?”

“Oh, so-so. Want to take a trip?”

“Where?”

“San Francisco.”

“How?”

“Reservations on the six o’clock plane. I’ll meet you at the airport.”

Della Street said, “A dab of powder on my nose, and I’m headed for the elevator.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “make it snappy. I’ll be aboard the plane. There’ll be a ticket for you at the ticket window. Just pick it up and climb aboard.”

“Be seeing you,” she promised, and hung up.

The late afternoon rush was on at the airport. Speeding cars came dashing in or went roaring out. People milled around in little groups, saying farewells or greeting arriving passengers. The loud speaker blared forth the fact that the six P.M. plane for San Francisco was ready for departure, and Mason, giving one last look around, was starting for the gate when Della Street came sprinting through the door. She gave him a friendly wave of her hand, then ran over to the ticket window to pick up her transportation. She joined him as he was getting on the plane.

“Skin of my eyeteeth,” she said. “A lot of traffic. Been here long?”

“Ten or fifteen minutes. Anything new at the office?”

“No. Drake’s got a lot of men out and is picking up a few details. That must have been vile whiskey. He was taking his third Bromo-Seltzer when I ran in to tell him I was checking out for the night.”

“Didn’t tell him where you were going?”

“No.”

They settled themselves in the comfortable reclining seats of the plane. A few moments later the sign flashed on requesting that passengers cease smoking, that seat belts be fastened, and then the motors, which had been clicking away at idling speed, roared into a deep-throated song of power. The plane taxied down the field, turned into the wind. The pilot applied brakes, tested first the port, then the starboard motor, then sent the plane skimming along the smooth runway.

“Always like to watch them take off,” Mason said, looking out of the window at the ground speeding past.

“They do it so smoothly now you hardly know you’ve left the ground,” she said.

Mason made no reply. He was watching the ground as it suddenly seemed to drop away. The plane was up in the air, smoothly gliding over the roofs of houses, across a railroad track, over a busy street congested with thousands of automobiles fighting their way foot by foot through the rush hour of traffic.

The sun had just set, turning a few streamers of western cloud into long bars of ruddy gold. Down below, lights on automobiles were being turned on. Neon signs began to gleam. Then suddenly all traces of civilization dropped behind. The plane was flying over mountains covered with chaparral and mesquite. The dark shadows of the valleys and canyons were in sharp contrast with the diffused gleam of sunset light which clung to the tops of the high mountains.

Far below, an automobile road wound and twisted its devious way up the mountains. Abruptly it drifted behind. There was a stretch of sagebrush-covered mesa, then more high mountains, this time crested with great pines. Slowly, twilight drew a curtain over the landscape, and lights within the plane blotted out what little view remained.

Mason settled back in his seat, said to Della, “I always like this trip.”

“What’s it all about?” she asked.

Mason said, “After I left you, I ran into Tragg. We had a talk, and then I went out and bought some San Francisco papers.”

“What happened up at Karr’s place?” Della Street asked curiously. “Did the girl make a good impression?”

“Apparently so. At least, on everyone except the Chinese houseboy.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “You can’t exactly place him. Chinese are rather inscrutable at times.”

“Did you find out anything of what it was all about?”

Mason said, “Evidently this man who was going under the name of Dow Tucker and Elston Karr had a partnership sometime in 1920 and 1921. In the latter part of 1920 a third partner was taken in. He betrayed the outfit. Tucker was evidently captured, either executed or murdered. Karr managed to escape, and evidently he had a portion of the partnership funds with him.”

“Who was the third partner?” she asked. “Anyone important?”

“Robindale E. Hocksley.”

Della Street stared at Mason in surprise. “Surely Karr didn’t admit that, did he?”

“Yes.”

“But, good heavens, if that’s the case — why, Karr’s on the spot. They’ll make him logical suspect number one.”

“Don’t overlook those fingerprints on the telephone,” Mason said. “They’re young Gentrie’s fingerprints all right. Lieutenant Tragg’s in something of a quandary.”

“And this trip is to steal a march on him?” she asked.

Mason said, “Not exactly.”

“What is it for?”

“Oh, just to look up a certain party,” Mason said.

“I suppose that means I’m not to try to worm a more definite answer out of you?”

“Don’t crowd me,” he said, smiling. “If I’m right, I want to do something spectacular. If I’m wrong, I don’t want to lose my reputation.”

“How’s Lieutenant Tragg coming?”

“Right on my tail. I’m not certain but what he may even be a couple of jumps ahead of me by morning, unless I take a short cut.”

“And this is the short cut?”

“Yes.”

Mason settled his head back against the chair cushions and closed his eyes. Della Street studied his profile for a few moments. Then she, too, settled back in her chair. Mason’s hand came over to fold over hers. “Good girl,” he said, and drifted off into dozing slumber.

The plane settled swiftly down on the San Francisco field, gliding in just over the tops of coarse brush grass to settle on the runway and taxi up to the place where passengers were scheduled to disembark. A man in dark blue, wearing a chauffeur’s cap, touched two fingers to the celluloid visor and said, “Mr. Mason?”

Mason nodded.

“The car’s ready.”

Mason said, “We’ll get in it and wait right here. Be ready to start at any minute.”

The man held the door open for them to get in.

Mason said to Della Street, “Well, I guess we have a while to wait.”

“How long?”

“Perhaps an hour, perhaps longer.”

“I suppose,” she said, “this has something to do with our lisping aviator, Rodney Wenston.”

Mason nodded.

“Did you gather the impression that he was pretty much disconcerted when that girl began to produce proofs that she was the daughter of Karr’s former partner?”

“His expression didn’t indicate that he was exactly pleased,” Mason said with a grin.

“I was watching him closely. Would her showing up with the claim which she will probably make against Karr have some effect on Wenston?”

“It might affect the size of the estate he expects to inherit eventually. If there’s any estate, and if he expects to inherit it,” Mason said, smiling. “Come on, Della, let’s move down toward this end of the field. Wait a minute. We may as well be comfortable. Here, driver. How about moving your car down toward this end of the field away from the lights, where we can sit and be comfortable?”

“Okay,” the driver said, “I can move down as far as the edge of this fence.”

“All right, go ahead. Got a radio?”

“Yes, sir. Any particular station you’d like?”

“Just a little organ music, if you can find any.”

The driver moved the car. Mason settled back to the relaxation of a cigarette. The driver, after some dial twisting, found a program in which organ music was blended with that of a steel guitar. The furrows ironed themselves from Mason’s forehead as he sat back and gave himself up to the music.

Half an hour passed. The program changed. The driver looked back at Mason for instructions. Mason said, “Try and find more organ music or some Hawaiian music. Perhaps... hold it.”

A quick change came over the lawyer’s face. He moved forward, dropping to one knee so that he could study the plane which was coming in from the south, a compact monoplane with retractable landing gear.

“Start your motor,” Mason said to the driver as the lowered wheels of the plane slid smoothly on to the cement runway.

The driver obediently stepped on the starting switch. The motor purred into life.

“Switch off the radio,” Mason said.

Della Street turned to look at Mason, then back to the plane again. The relaxation had vanished from Mason’s face. He was as tense now as a runner awaiting the starting gun.

“Neat job that,” the driver said, noticing Mason’s interest in the plane.

The lawyer didn’t even hear him.

The plane taxied up to a point almost directly opposite the place where Mason was seated in the parked automobile. A gate opened. A long gray-colored automobile with a red spotlight slid through the gates.

“An ambulance,” Della Street said.

Mason, without taking his eyes from the ambulance, motioned her to silence.

The ambulance turned, backed up to the plane. The driver jumped out and opened the doors in the back. The body of the ambulance concealed what was taking place, and Mason frowned his annoyance.

“Get ready to go,” he said to the driver, “and you’re going to have to go fast. Never mind the speed laws. I’ll stand good for fines.”

The driver said dubiously, “You want that ambulance followed?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll use a siren and spotlight and go right through all the signals.”

“Follow right along behind,” Mason said.

“I’ll get pinched.”

“Not if you’re close enough. Cops will think it’s a member of the family rushing to the bedside of a dying relative.”

“What’ll the driver of the ambulance think?”

“I don’t give a damn what he thinks, just so we find out where he goes. Okay, here we go.”

The doors of the ambulance slammed shut. The driver ran around, jumped in behind the steering wheel, and the gates swung open once more as the big machine gathered momentum.

The driver of Mason’s car started out in low gear, turned to say over his shoulder, “It might not be just a fine. Up here they...”

“Get over,” Mason told him. “I’ll take the wheel.”

“I can’t let you do that. I...”

“Look,” Mason said. “If I threatened you with a monkey wrench, and made you get over, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I...”

“And then,” Mason said, “if anything happened, you could say that you had been in fear of your life, that you thought I’d gone crazy, and that I took the automobile away from you by force... Get over.”

The man stopped the car, slid over in the seat, said dubiously, “I don’t like this. You ain’t even got a monkey wrench.”

Mason swung his long legs over the back of the front seat, jackknifed his slim figure, slipped in behind the steering wheel, and snapped the car into second gear, easing back the clutch as he pressed the foot throttle. The car slid smoothly forward. Mason swung it into a sharp turn, snapped the gear shift into high, and fell in behind the ambulance.

The blood-red rays of the spotlight from the car ahead made a sinister pencil of light. A siren screamed. Mason, moving the wheel of the rented car with deft skill, kept the machine within a few feet of the rear of the ambulance, following through the traffic in the pathway cleared by the spotlight and siren.

The man who had been driving the car gripped the back of the front seat with his left hand, held to the edge of the door with his right. “Good Lord,” he moaned. “I didn’t know it would be like this! ” His face was strained with nervous tension. Several times he instinctively pressed down with his feet against the floorboards as though trying to put on the brakes. Once when collision seemed imminent, he reached for the ignition switch. Mason, batting his hand away, stepped on the throttle and avoided the oncoming car.

“Don’t be a fool,” Mason said without taking his eyes from the road. “No chance to stop on that one. Using the throttle was our only chance. If you hesitate, you’re licked.”

Della Street, in the back of the car, hanging on to the robe rail, her heels braced against the foot rest, watched the kaleidoscope of traffic which flashed past the windows of the speeding automobile. Her lips were half parted; her eyes sparkling. The driver of the car, looking back to her for moral support to back up his demand for less speed, abruptly changed his mind and concentrated simply on hanging on.

The ambulance cut its way through traffic, to slow down in front of the red brick structure of a rambling hospital.

Mason left the ambulance as it turned into the emergency entrance. He swung his car around to the front of the hospital, parked it, and said to the driver, “Here’s the monkey wrench I was holding over your head.”

He handed him three ten-dollar bills.

The driver put the money in his pocket wordlessly.

“Okay?” Mason asked.

The driver tried to speak. His voice came as a throaty squeak. He coughed, cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, but I wouldn’t go through it again for a thousand.”

Mason slid out of the car. “Come on, Della.”

She followed him into the hospital. Mason said to the girl at the information desk, “I know something about this ambulance case that’s just coming in the door now. I’m supposed to tell the doctor something about the patient.”

“Yes?”

“Uh huh.”

“What did you want to tell him?”

“Something he wants to know,” Mason said.

She flushed. “I didn’t mean it that way. Was it information about the patient?”

“Of course.”

“He won’t be able to see you right now. It may be an operative case. They telephoned the doctor from Los Angeles and again from the airport. He’d been waiting for the call.”

“What’s that doctor’s name?” Mason asked. “I wasn’t certain I caught it.”

“Dr. Sawdey.”

“His initials?”

“L. O.”

“I’ll be waiting here in the lobby. No. Perhaps I’d better go get in touch with the nurse. I think the information I have is something he wanted before he operated. Where will I find the patient?”

She said, “Just a moment,” plugged in a telephone, consulted a memo, said, “What room will Carr Luceman be in? It’s an ambulance case that just came in. Emergency operation. Dr. Sawdey. Oh, yes.”

She pulled out the line, said, “The patient will be in room three-o-four. Dr. Sawdey is preparing to operate. Go to the third floor, tell the nurse in charge who you are, and ask her to get in touch with Dr. Sawdey’s nurse.”

Mason nodded, said to Della Street, “Come on,” and walked across the lobby, down the corridor to the elevator.

“Third,” he said to the attendant.

Once on the third floor, Mason motioned to Della Street, led her down to the end of the corridor where there was a solarium. Now the room was darkened, and the wicker furniture, spaced with the rectangular efficiency of a hospital rather than the careless informality of a private home, seemed in its stiff silence to be occupied by white-clad ghosts.

Mason looked at the door of 304 as they walked past, said, “We’ll sit here for a while and watch.”

A nurse garbed in a spotless, stiffly starched uniform walked by on rubber heels, rustling her way efficiently down the linoleum-covered corridor. She vanished in the door of 304. A few moments later, a man in the middle fifties, clothed in a dark business suit, pushed open the door and walked in. Shortly after that, the man left the room again.

Mason waited until this man had left the room. A few moments later the nurse bustled out, then Mason touched Della Street on the arm. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”

They walked down the corridor, the faint smell of disinfectants in their nostrils. Mason paused before the door of 304, on which a sign said, “Dr. Sawdey,” and below that a printed placard reading, “No Visitors.”

Mason silently pushed open the door.

The man in the room lay in the hospital bed. The sheet-covered blankets were arranged with hospital efficiency over the thin figure. A dim night light made the shadows a backdrop against which the white, tired face on the pillow was sharply accented.

The man who lay motionless in the bed, his eyes closed, was Elston A. Karr.

In the hospital surroundings, with wax-like lids closed over the burning power of his hypnotic eyes, he seemed wasted, tired, as robbed of power as a burnt-out electric globe.

Mason stood in the doorway long enough to note that the bedclothes were rising and falling with the even respiration of a man who is sleeping under the quieting influence of a powerful narcotic. Then he closed the door, took Della Street’s arm, and tiptoed down the corridor.

“What does that mean?” she asked, as Mason pressed the button for the elevator.

“Don’t you know?” he asked.

She shook her head.

Mason said with a smile, “I’m still jealous of my reputation as a prophet. I don’t dare risk it, but I think perhaps we’ll drop around to Dr. Sawdey’s residence for a little chat.”

Chapter 15

Mason’s taxicab slid to a stop in front of one of the newspaper offices. A brightly lighted office on the ground floor marked the Want Ad Department. A separate doorway to the street made it easy for persons desiring to place want ads to approach the long counter where two quick-moving young women waited on the persons who came in with ads to be placed in the classified column, or with answers to be delivered to advertisers.

Mason paid off the cab, said, “Might as well come in, Della, and help me look.”

One of the young women behind the counter approached him. Alert eyes sized him up. She said, “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like back copies of your paper for the last week. I just want to look at them here.”

She reached under the counter, took out a hinged stick through which had been filed copies of newspapers.

“Do you have two of these?” Mason asked. “I’d like to have my secretary assist me.”

“You don’t wish to remove them from the office?”

“No.”

She walked down the counter a few feet, took out another file, and handed it to Della Street.

“What do we look for?” Della Street asked.

“We may not find it,” he said, “but I rather think we will. A small paragraph somewhere on an inside page, an account of a Mr. Luceman who was cleaning a revolver when it accidentally dropped and exploded. It will probably be written in a somewhat humorous vein. Dr. L. O. Sawdey will have been called in to give emergency treatment.”

Della Street, for the moment, did not look at the newspaper. Instead she looked at Mason, comprehension dawning on her face. “Then you mean that...?”

Mason interrupted her. “Once more I am not risking my reputation as a prophet. Let’s get the facts first, and make deductions afterwards.”

Mason plunged at once into the pages of the paper, but it was Della Street who found the notice first. “Here it is,” she said.

Mason moved over to look over her shoulder.

The article read:

“BURGLAR” DEMANDS MILK SHOOTS HOUSEHOLDER IN LEG

It was an unlucky day for Carr Luceman who resides at 1309 Delington Avenue. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when Luceman heard the noise made by a prowler trying to effect an entrance through the back screen door. Luceman sat up in bed to listen. The more he listened, the more certain he became that a prowler was cutting the screen. Luceman, who despite his sixty-five years is a rugged individualist given to direct action, disdained to summon the police. He decided to teach the burglar a lesson he would not soon forget. As Luceman expressed it, “I didn’t intend to try to hit him, but I most certainly did intend to give him the scare of his life.” With this in mind, Luceman took a.38 caliber revolver from his bureau drawer, put on a pair of felt-soled bedroom slippers, and noiselessly tiptoed to the kitchen. As he opened the door from the dining room, he could distinctly hear the sounds of someone cutting through the screen on the back door. Luceman cocked his revolver. The doughty householder crept forward. Bearing in mind the admonition of a general who had exhorted his men to wait until the whites of the eyes were visible, Luceman tiptoed across the kitchen. He saw a dark form silhouetted against the screen of the back door — and promptly deposited his cocked revolver on the kitchen table — for the “burglar” was Luceman’s cat. Luceman had forgotten to give the animal its customary bowl of warm milk. The cat had sought to remind him by jumping to the screen. After hanging there for several seconds, it would drop back to the porch floor, then repeat the maneuver. Luceman opened the back door, unlatched the screen, let in the irate cat, and approached the icebox in the kitchen. He had opened the door and was in the act of taking out a bottle of milk when the cat, purring in expectation of its deferred repast, jumped to the kitchen table and, in true feline manner, rolled over in squirming abandon. The cocked revolver teetered on the edge of the table. Luceman dropped the milk bottle, and tried to catch the weapon before it hit the floor. He was too late. The gun eluded his grasp. The bullet crashed into Luceman’s right thigh, inflicting a painful wound. The cat, frightened by the noise of the explosion, dashed out of the back door, and Luceman, painfully wounded, tried to crawl to the telephone. The shock and pain, however, caused him to lose consciousness, and it was not until nearly four A.M. that he recovered sufficiently to call Dr. L. O. Sawdey who lives in the neighborhood. Luceman will be on the inactive list for several days, but, aside from that, need expect no bad effects, as the bullet missed the principal arteries and only grazed the bone. The “burglar” at latest accounts had not returned. Perhaps it has decided it is less trouble to prowl the alleys in search of nocturnal quadrupeds, and forego its milk diet.

Mason glanced at Della Street, smiled, walked over to the counter, and said, “Could you let me have one of these papers of the fourteenth? I’d like to answer some of the ads in it.” He deposited a nickel on the counter and after a few minutes the girl supplied him with a copy of the paper.

Mason thanked her and escorted Della Street back to the automobile. “We will now have a chat with Dr. Sawdey, who is doubtless back from the hospital by this time,” he said.

Mason rang the bell of Dr. Sawdey’s residence. After several moments, the man they had seen at the hospital opened the door.

“Dr. Sawdey?” Mason asked.

The doctor nodded, looking shrewdly from Mason to Della Street, then down to where the taxicab was waiting. He might have been making a diagnosis. “It’s late,” he said, “and except in matters of extreme emergency...”

Mason said, “I will detain you only a moment, Doctor. But I’m a friend of Carr Luceman. I knew him back East, and thought I’d look him up. I had his address, and drove down there as soon as I...”

Dr. Sawdey said, “He had an accident. He’s at the Parker Memorial Hospital. Unfortunately, he can have no visitors.”

Mason’s face showed his concern. “I heard he’d had an accident,” he said. “I want very much to see him, and I think he’d like to see me. I only expect to be here for another twenty-four hours. Would it be possible for me to see him in that time?”

“I’m afraid not. He has overtaxed himself. I warned him particularly against that very thing. As a result, he’s weakened his resistance, and complications have set in. It’s going to be necessary for him to be kept absolutely quiet for several days.”

Mason said, “I might wait over if by day after tomorrow...”

Dr. Sawdey said positively, “I am certain that it will be necessary to keep him quiet for at least three days.”

Mason said, “Gosh, that’s a shame. I’ll send him a card. I’m awfully sorry I missed him. Have you known him long, Doctor?”

“I’ve seen him on several occasions,” Dr. Sawdey said guardedly.

Mason said impulsively, “Well, I hope this doesn’t affect his other condition too much. How are his legs now, Doctor?”

The doctor said gravely, “In a man of his age, one may expect progressive... however, I think it will be better if you correspond directly with Mr. Luceman. You can address him at the Parker Memorial Hospital, and I see no reason why he can’t open mail within the next forty-eight hours. And now if you’ll excuse me — I’ve had rather a hard day, and I have some operations to perform in the morning.”

Mason bowed gravely. “I’m sorry I disturbed you, Doctor, but I was very much concerned. You see I was quite intimate with Mr. Luceman at one time.”

“If you’d leave your name,” the doctor said, “I might...”

Mason had already started down the stairs. “So sorry I disturbed you, Doctor. I can appreciate the demands that are made on your time.” And to keep the doctor from realizing that he had failed to follow his suggestion, Mason went on, “What time do you operate in the morning?”

“Eight-thirty,” Dr. Sawdey said and closed the door.

“Hungry, Della?” Mason asked as they approached the taxicab.

“I could use a little food,” she admitted.

Mason said, “ I don’t feel particularly hungry, and I want to keep an eye on Dr. Sawdey. I want to see if he goes out within the next ten or fifteen minutes. Suppose you take the cab and go to Locarno’s Grill. I’ll be along in twenty minutes or half an hour.”

She regarded him with that whimsical expression which a woman reserves for a man of whom she is very fond and who has been rather clumsy in seeking to outwit her.

“Something wrong with that?” Mason asked.

“Dr. Sawdey is a doctor. If he leaves, it will be on a call.”

Mason nodded.

“And it would be on an urgent call. Therefore, he’ll leave in an automobile. I suppose you’re going to run after him on foot?”

Mason said, “No. I just want to know if he goes, not where he goes.”

Della Street placed a hand on his arm. “Now, Perry, my lad, listen to me. You’ve got something up your sleeve. If there’s going to be any housebreaking, I’m going to be just as deep in the mud as you are in the mire.”

“What makes you think I’m going housebreaking?”

“Don’t be silly!”

Mason said, “It’s a felony. It’s dangerous. In case we get caught, we can’t very well make explanations.”

“All the more reason, then, why you should have an accomplice.”

“No. It’s too dangerous. You go to the restaurant, and...”

“Bosh! I’m going to stay with you. Do we take the cab or...”

Mason said, “We get rid of the cab right here.” He walked over to the driver, handed him a bill, and said, “The change is yours, buddy. We’re supposed to be back in ten minutes. The doc’s going to have a prescription ready by that time. So we’ll just walk around.”

“I could wait,” the cabby said, “if it’s only going to be ten minutes, and...”

“No, thanks. We’re visiting friends in the neighborhood after that, so it won’t pay to wait.”

The cabby touched his hat and drove off.

Della Street said, “Here we go! Embarking on a career of crime! If I’m going to be an accomplice, I may as well learn crook jargon and talk out of one side of my mouth. What am I, a steerer?”

Mason said, “No. You’re a moll. You’re going to case the lay.”

She walked with an exaggerated swing to her hips, said out of one side of her mouth, “Cripes, Chief, I’m the moll who can give you de office in case a harness bull tries to queer de act. I’ll stroll on past an’ give him de eye, an’...”

“And get yourself arrested for soliciting a self-respecting police officer on the street,” Mason interposed.

“Well, what of it? Ain’t you de mouthpiece that can spring me? Why should I take a rap when I got de swellest mouthpiece of ’em all on my string? Maybe you could slip the beak a grand an’ square the pinch. But right now we got a crib to crack. We can’t waste time...”

She stopped as she heard a distinctly startled gasp behind her. Looking up, she saw Mason grinning broadly, saw an elderly gentleman who had noiselessly approached from behind on rubber-soled shoes, regarding her with shocked consternation. Then, with a muttered, “Pardon me,” he had pushed on past, walking so rapidly that his feet seemed to be hardly touching the sidewalk.

Della Street muttered under her breath, “Good heavens, did he get an earful!”

“Did he get an earful!” Mason chuckled. “He acted as though he had two ears full.”

“Where did he come from?”

“I don’t know. I just happened to turn my head and caught a glimpse of him pussyfooting along behind. His face looked as though he’d suddenly received the bill for his new income tax.”

“You don’t think he could have been following us?”

Mason shook his head. “Not that chap. He’s some mousy retired bird who lives somewhere in the neighborhood. You certainly gave him something to think about. The way he whisked himself around that corner, you’d have thought he was a puppet someone was jerking on a string.”

Della Street said, “I thought I was putting on a swell act. My walk alone must have been enough to startle him. I felt like Fatima, the sideshow Turkish dancing girl.”

“Well,” Mason said, “he’s got something to tell his friends now. He’s really seen a moll in action. What’s the number of this house where Luceman lived?”

“Thirteen-o-nine Delington.”

“That’s in the next block. Now listen, when I go in, you stand out by the curb. The minute you see anyone coming along the sidewalk, no matter who it is, walk up to the front door and ring the bell once. Don’t seem to hurry. Don’t act self-conscious, and, above all, don’t look back over your shoulder. Simply walk up and ring the bell, making your action look as natural as possible.”

“Ring it once?” she asked.

“That’s right. Now, if that person should turn toward the house, ring the bell three times, three short, sharp rings. When you have done that, turn to walk back toward the street, and then apparently see this person for the first time. You can smile and say, ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone home.’ Then go to the next house and ring the bell. When someone comes to the door, ask them if they’re taking the Chronicle. Tell them you’re representing the newspaper and would like very much to take their subscription on a special introductory offer. Talk loudly enough so you can be heard across to the next house.”

“Suppose he doesn’t wait that long but goes right on in?”

“It’s all right,” Mason said, “just so you give me those three short, sharp rings on the doorbell the minute you see he’s heading toward the house. That’ll give me time to get out.”

“Not much time,” she said, “particularly if you’re on the second floor.”

“It’s all right,” he told her. “It’ll take a man a little while to get in, and it doesn’t make any difference if I don’t get out of the back door until he unlatches the front door — just so I get out. After all, there’s not very much chance it will happen. We’re just playing safe. That’s all. Be absolutely certain the minute anyone shows up anywhere on the street, to give me a signal on the bell. I’ll probably have to use the flashlight, and a person who happens to see the beam of light reflected against the window glass might call the police.”

“And that’s all I have to do?” she asked.

“That’s enough.”

“You’re not trying to make things easy for me just to keep me out of it?”

“No.”

“You take care of yourself?”

“I’ll try to.”

“How are you going to get in?”

“I’ll try the back door and actually cut through the screen just to make Luceman’s burglar come to life.”

She placed her hand on his arm. “Take care of yourself, Chief,” she said in a low voice.

“I intend to.”

“There’s no good telling you not to take any risks,” she said, “because you aren’t built that way. You could no more sit in your office, wait for business to come in, and handle it in an orthodox manner than a trout could live in stagnant water. But do keep an eye open.”

“Okay, I will, and if you have to start back to town, meet me at...”

“Locarno’s Grill,” she interrupted. “Over the biggest, thickest filet mignon in the place.”

Mason looked rapidly up and down the sidewalk, surveyed the dark outlines of the two-storied frame house, said, “Okay, Della, here we go. Keep your eyes open, and remember the signals.”

He started as though headed for the front steps, then suddenly detoured to pass around between the houses. A small flashlight hardly larger than a fountain pen gave him sufficient illumination to show the cement walk which led around to the back of the house.

An inspection of the back door showed Mason that entering the place was not going to be as easy as he had anticipated. The screen door was unhooked, but behind it was a wooden door equipped with a formidable lock, a lock which had cost much more than the average back-door lock. A casual inspection of the windows showed that they were locked tightly, and there was something in the unshaking rigidity of the window frames which indicated the locks were more efficient than those a nocturnal prowler would ordinarily expect to find.

Puzzled, as well as interested, Mason returned to the back door. His small flashlight once more explored the lock. He turned the knob and tentatively pushed against the door. It was anchored as firmly as though it had been embedded in concrete.

Mason raised the flashlight to inspect the small square glass panels in the upper part of the door, and then suddenly realized that someone had been there ahead of him.

The putty which held one of the panes of thick glass in place had been neatly cut away, so that a pane some eleven by fifteen inches was now held in place only by four small brads which had been driven into the wood at the corners of the panel.

It took Mason but a few moments to get these brads removed. Then with the blade of his penknife, he was able to pull the glass toward him, so that it dropped gently into his extended palm. Thereafter, it was a simple matter to reach through the opening, find the knurled brass knob on the inside of the spring lock, turn it, and open the door.

When Mason had the door opened, he took the precaution of putting the square of glass back into place and inserting the small brads so that it was once more held in position. In doing this, the realization that someone had anticipated him in his entire procedure was a disquieting thought.

This person, Mason realized, had gone about his work with the cunning skill of a good technician. The putty had been carefully removed with a knife. The dried particles had been gathered up so that there would be no telltale clue left on the threshold or on the wooden floor of the back porch. Replacing the pane of glass with the four brads so neatly and precisely driven into the corners of the supports had made the door seem quite all right to a casual observer.

Mason was just closing the door when he heard the sharp sound of a buzzer cutting through the fog-swept silence of the night.

So explosive was the sound, and so engrossed had he been in the problem which confronted him, that Mason gave a convulsive start as the warning signal sounded. Then, tense with the effort to listen for every sound, Mason stood waiting. When nothing happened, he turned the knurled knob of the lock, and threw the catch which left the bolt held back. He slipped out to the porch, gently closing the door behind him. He could hear no steps, but as he neared the front of the house, he saw a dark form drifting past on the sidewalk, walking so rapidly that it seemed he must almost be running. Mason realized that it was the man who had passed them a few minutes earlier. Probably some neighboring householder, he reassured himself, who had gone down to mail a letter at the mailbox, or to a corner drugstore to replenish some toilet articles.

Moving silently, Mason walked around the house to reassure Della. He gave a low whistle as he saw her standing on the front porch in the position of one ringing the bell.

She came over to the railing at the edge of the porch, and said in a hoarse whisper, “My same little man. He came around the corner as though he’d been shot out of a gun.”

Mason said, “He probably lives here in the neighborhood. I’ve got the back door open, Della. I’m going in.”

“Don’t you think we’d better call it off, Chief?”

“No. I only want to give the place a quick once-over. That old man has probably forgotten all about you by this time.”

She said in a whisper, “I don’t forget that easily.”

“Okay. Sit tight. You hadn’t better go back to the curb. Your friend might have another errand to run. If he saw you crossing from the curb to the door for the second time, he’d get suspicious. Just stand here in the shadows of the porch. If anyone comes along, be ringing the bell. Remember the signals. I want to know when anyone comes along the street. Don’t get rattled. I may even have to turn on the lights.”

“Just what are you looking for?” she asked.

Mason dismissed the question with a wave of his hand, and once more retraced his steps to the rear of the house. Back inside the kitchen, he debated whether to leave the back door unlocked, but finally decided to release the catch and let the spring lock remain in position.

His flashlight showed him a conventional kitchen. Stale smells of ancient cooking clung to the woodwork. The linoleum was worn almost through in front of the kitchen sink and in front of the stove, the places which would naturally receive the most wear.

The icebox was electric, and the modern freshness of its white enamel stood out against the darker finishings of the kitchen. It gave the impression of having been recently installed.

Mindful of the story of the nocturnal cat, Mason opened the icebox door. As he did so, an electric light flashed on, illuminating the immaculate white of the interior.

Here was food such as a lone bachelor might cook for a quick repast, a saucer containing what evidently represented the half of a can of beans which had not been eaten. There was a full quart of milk, and a bottle which was half emptied. A dish contained a quarter-pound square of butter, still in its original tissue wrapping, and a smaller piece of irregular shape. There was a small bottle of whipping cream, a jar of mustard, some sliced boiled ham which had evidently been picked up at a delicatessen store, and a small pasteboard container holding macaroni salad of the type featured by virtually every delicatessen counter.

There were other odds and ends in the icebox, but Mason didn’t stop to explore them. The quick inventory which he took told all he needed to know. He noticed that the milk and cream were still sweet. The temperature regulator on the icebox was set at a point which would hold the contents at a low temperature. The food smelled sweet and clean, but with an ice box of this efficiency, that meant absolutely nothing. The food might have been left there yesterday or last week.

Mason closed the door of the icebox, let his small flashlight cover the kitchen in a quick survey. Then he moved on into the dining room.

His flashlight gave him a general idea of the furniture, an old-fashioned assortment which had evidently been purchased years before. The dining-room rug was new and cheap. The surface of the table had been refinished. The chairs had evidently been gone over with furniture polish, but the incongruity of the new dining-room rug simply made it all the more apparent that someone, after having lived in the house for years, had decided to rent it furnished, and had made an attempt to replace only the things which had been the most worn.

Mason moved on through the dining room and into the living room.

Here were bookcases built in on each side of a fireplace, wide windows fronting on the porch. The drapes on these windows seemed relatively new, and Mason realized with some apprehension that while these drapes had been pulled so that they entirely covered the front windows, the material was not heavy enough to shut out all light. The beam of Mason’s flashlight would quite probably show through from the street, and the small rectangular windows placed high in the wall above the bookcases on each side of the fireplace were not curtained at all. Della Street could warn him of any approaching pedestrian, but persons in the adjoining houses would be apt to notice the traveling beam of the flashlight as it moved around the walls.

Mason’s problem was not that of an ordinary prowler. He needed his flashlight for more than mere illumination to enable him to avoid furniture. He wanted to make a detailed study of the things in that room, to segregate those things which had been furnished with the house, so that he could more fully appreciate the significance of those things which had been brought in by the tenant.

Mason hesitated only a moment. Then he walked across toward the front door and pressed the light switch.

Instantly the room was flooded with brilliance. Mason found several floor lamps, turned these on. He opened a book, placed it face down on the table. In case some curious neighbor might be peering in through those uncurtained windows above the fireplace, he removed his hat and slowed down his motions so that they would seem to be the casual moves of a legitimate tenant, rather than the hasty motions of a prowler.

An automobile driven at high speed slewed around the corner. Tires shrilled in protest as the car slid to an abrupt stop. The doorbell rang — once. Mason paused, motionless.

He heard the businesslike slam of a car door. The doorbell rang three short, sharp rings. Mason heard running steps as someone dashed past the living room, running along the cement walk toward the back of the house. Once more there were three rings, then the sound of heavy steps on the porch.

Mason, conscious of Della Street trapped on the front porch, reached an instant decision. He turned the brass knob which released the bolt on the front door, opened the door, said, “Good evening,” to his white-faced secretary who was standing on the threshold. “Was there something I could do for you?” he asked, and then, apparently for the first time, became conscious of the police car at the curb and the broad-shouldered plainclothes officer who was standing just behind Della Street.

“Good evening,” Mason said cheerfully. “Are you together?”

Della Street said quickly, “No. I am soliciting subscriptions for the Chronicle. We have a very attractive—”

“Just a minute, sister. Jus-s-s-s-t a minute!” growled the officer.

Della Street turned to survey him with hostile eyes. “Thank you,” she said acidly. “I’m trying to make a living at this, and I don’t want to see any etchings. Just because I’m unescorted doesn’t mean a thing — to you.”

Mason said, “Won’t you come in?” and to the officer, “And what can I do for you?”

The officer came pushing in on Della Street’s heels.

“Really,” Mason said with the polite indignation of an outraged householder, “My invitation was to...”

The officer threw back his coat, disclosing a badge. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

Mason let his face show startled surprise. “Why!.. That’s what I’d like to know.”

The officer said, “We’re in a radio car. A man who lives a block down the street telephoned that he heard a couple of crooks planning on cracking a joint.”

Mason looked at Della Street. “A couple,” he said. “Have you seen any couple, Miss...”

“Miss Garland.”

“Do sit down, Miss Garland. I take it you’re covering the entire block. Perhaps you’ve seen...”

“Not a couple,” she said. “But I did see a rather suspicious-looking woman. I thought she was just coming down off the porch. I was ringing the bell at the adjoining house, where there seems to be no one home, and I noticed her come up on this porch, pause for a moment, then turn around and go back down. There was a little old man walking past at the time, and I saw him looking at her as though he’d known her.”

“Up on this porch?” Mason asked.

“That’s right, but I don’t think she rang the bell. She walked up on the porch, stood there for a moment, then turned around and went back down the stairs and walked rapidly down toward the corner.”

“Which direction?” the officer asked.

“Down toward the cable car tracks,” Della Street said.

“Did you get a good look at her?”

“She was rather — well, she looked rather — well cheap,” Della Street said. “Something in the way she walked.”

The radio officer frowned, said, “Guess I’ll check up with my partner. How do you get through to the back of the house?”

“This way,” Mason said, walking toward the dining room. “Sit down if you will please, Miss Garland. I’ll be glad to talk with you.”

The officer said, “I can find my way okay.”

“I’ll switch on the lights for you,” Mason said, and added apologetically, “I’m batching here. Engaged in some research work. Afraid I’m not much of a housekeeper when it comes to dusting.”

The light Mason had switched on disclosed what his flashlight had failed to make plain — that the table and chairs were well covered with dust.

The officer, frowning at them, said, “You sure aren’t much on housekeeping. Don’t you eat here?”

Mason laughed. “I’m afraid I’m a typical scholar, the absentminded sort. As a matter of fact, I do most of my eating in the kitchen. And my eating is rather sketchy at that.”

The officer followed Mason on into the kitchen. As Mason switched on the lights, he could see the vague outlines of a burly figure standing on the back porch just outside the back door.

Mason said quite casually, apparently without noticing the man on the porch, “My diet is mostly milk, eggs, and things I can pick up at the delicatessen store. Incidentally, if you’d like a glass of milk, Officer, you’ll find a cold bottle in the icebox.” Mason laughed nervously and said, “I don’t know what the etiquette of the situation calls for, but in view of the fact that you’ve come to protect my property, I...”

The officer who had been looking around the kitchen, walked over to the door of the icebox, jerked it open, looked inside, took a quick mental inventory of the contents, closed the door, and said, “My partner’s out here,” and went to the back door. He opened it, said, “See anything, Jack?”

“No.”

“There was a jane up on the porch,” the first officer said, “soliciting subscriptions. She saw a girl come off this porch and walk around the corner down by the cable car tracks. Guess that was the one the fellow saw.”

“Get a description?”

“No. I’m going back to talk with her. Come on. This is my partner, Mr. — what’s your name?”

“Tragg,” Mason said. “George C. Tragg,” and then added somewhat hopefully, “I have a brother who’s on the police force in Los Angeles.”

“That so?” the officer asked, his manner undergoing a subtle change.

Mason nodded. “Lieutenant Tragg on Homicide,” he said. “You may have heard of him. He...”

“Sure I’ve heard of him,” the radio officer said. “So you’re Tragg’s brother. Well, well! Say, you know I ran onto Tragg at the convention here a couple of months ago. He gave us a talk on examining witnesses who were at the scene of a crime. Bright chap.”

Mason nodded eagerly. “Yes. He was up here a couple of months ago.” He added, somewhat ruefully, “But I didn’t see much of him. I had my work, and he was frightfully busy. I guess those police conventions are rather — well, I guess an officer has his time pretty well taken up.”

The radio men exchanged grins. “We do for a fact.”

Mason switched out the lights behind them. Della Street, making herself comfortable in a chair in the front room, unostentatiously glanced at her wristwatch as the trio entered the living room.

“What’d you say your name was?” the first officer asked.

“Miss Garland,” she said, with somewhat aloof dignity.

“Getting subscriptions for the Chronicle, ” the first officer explained. “Now, Miss Garland, let’s find out about this woman who went around the comer.”

Della Street raised her eyes, looking at a far comer of the ceiling. She placed her gloved finger against her chin, and said meditatively, “Well, let me see. I couldn’t tell how she was dressed, but there was something about her. Oh, yes, her walk. Rather an exaggerated swing to the... er... hips... I remember she had on a narrow-brimmed hat and... no, I don’t think she wore any coat other than a jacket. Her skirts were rather short, and she was — well, leggy.”

The radio officer laughed in high good humor. “Leggy,” he said. “That’s a good one. Damned if it doesn’t describe that breed of cat.”

“I don’t think you could miss her if you happened to see her walking along the street,” Della Street said.

The officers glanced at each other. “You didn’t see any man with her?”

“No. She was alone.”

“How close were you?”

“I was rather close,” she admitted, “just up on the porch of that other house. But you know how it is when you’re working. You have so many calls to make and such a limited time within which to make them. You don’t dare to start too early or you break in on a family right after dinner, usually with the woman of the house doing dishes in the kitchen. Then after it gets just so late, you feel rather conspicuous, even when you know people are still up. Lots of times the ringing of a doorbell will waken a child, and that makes for a bad reception. So there’s only a relatively short period of time in which you have to work.”

The officer looked at his watch. “Pretty late now, isn’t it?”

She nodded, bit her lip, lowered her eyes, and said in a halting voice, “But I had some emergencies — my kid sister — well, I just needed the extra money. I get paid so much a subscription, you see.”

The officer said, “Okay, Miss Garland. Come on, Jack, let’s take a run down the car track and see if we can’t pick up this moll. Not that we’ve got anything against her. You’re sure she wasn’t prowling around up here on the porch?”

Della Street grew thoughtful. “She just came up here for a few moments. I somehow had the impression that she might be just trying to avoid meeting the man who was walking along the street. That’s why I noticed him more than I did her. You know how it is. Unescorted girls who have work which keeps them out in the evening quite frequently have — oh, well, you know.”

“Guys make passes at you?” the officer asked, grinning.

“Uh huh,” Della said casually. “I don’t mind a nice clean pass at times, but it’s this street-mashing, smirking pick-up stuff that gets you. And then you never know when someone may get really violent. You get fed up on it after a while.”

The officers exchanged glances. “Well, we’ll be on our way. We’ll pick her up, and give her a shakedown. One thing’s certain, she can’t fool us if we once nab her. She talks tough... So you’re Lieutenant Tragg’s brother. Well, well. I didn’t know he had a brother here in San Francisco. He didn’t say anything about it.”

Mason beamed. “I’m very proud of him. I think he’s making a splendid record from all I can hear. Occasionally he sends me some newspaper clippings.”

“He’s a good man,” the officer agreed. “Well, so long. If you have any trouble, or see anybody prowling around, just give headquarters a ring. Probably nothing to it, but this guy said there was a couple talking about casing a lay in the neighborhood. He said he was trying to get past them on the sidewalk, and heard ’em distinctly. Well, good night, Tragg. Good night, Miss Garland.”

“Good night,” Della Street said graciously.

Perry Mason closed the front door, turned and bowed to Della Street. “It would be a pleasure to subscribe to a paper through such an attractive and poised young woman,” he announced. “I can appreciate how badly you need the money on account of your sister, but really, you know, if I were to subscribe just through sympathy...”

“Don’t mention it,” Della Street interrupted. “I know the approach already. We run into it so often. But I hardly expected that the brother of a police lieutenant would stoop to such a thing.”

They both laughed. Mason switched out the big indirect light, leaving the room illuminated only by the floor lamps. “That was a close squeak,” he announced.

“Are you telling me!” Della Street asked.

Mason got up from the chair, said, “Well, we’ll take a look around.”

“Think it’s safe?”

“Oh, sure. Those officers will go on down the car tracks for three or four blocks, find no trace of the woman they’re looking for, report to headquarters, and by that time have a call to investigate something else. But let’s not stick around here any longer than we have to.”

“Just what are you looking for?”

“I want to find out something about Karr’s San Francisco personality.”

“You think he’s had this place as Carr Luceman?”

“I think so. Notice the fact that Luceman’s first name is pronounced exactly the same as Karr’s last name, although it’s spelled differently. Notice that this place apparently hasn’t been lived in except for short periods of time. Evidently, Karr is a marked man, probably in connection with some of his Chinese arms-smuggling ventures, or it may be because of that old partnership feud which dates back to 1921. When he came to San Francisco, he didn’t want to stay at a hotel. Naturally, a person of his description is rather easy to spot.”

“And that trouble with his legs?” Della Street asked. “The wheelchair?”

Mason said, “Figure it out for yourself. He had a bullet hole through one leg. Naturally, he didn’t dare go to any doctor in Los Angeles, because a gunshot wound has to be satisfactorily explained. If Karr had given them his Los Angeles address and then the disappearance of Hocksley and his housekeeper had been duly noted...”

“I see,” Della Street interrupted. “He had this identity already established in San Francisco. No one was missing from this place, so he could come here and invent that story of the accident. But who shot him?”

Mason grinned. “He shot himself. His cat knocked the gun off the table when he was...”

Della Street made a little grimace. “Save it for your brother the Lieutenant,” she said.

Mason said, “We’ll look this place over before we start speculating. There are better places to talk.”

He started a slow circling survey of the living room, making comments out loud: “Pictures on the wall, regular stock stuff. Furniture the sort that would go with the house. Nothing very much to indicate a man’s individuality. Books in the bookcase. Oh-oh, we’ve got something here. The Struggle for the Pacific, Asia in Transition, The Economic Situation in Japan, The Strategic Effect on Singapore. Here are fifteen or twenty books dealing with the situation in the Orient sandwiched in with books of the type that unquestionably went with the house, old favorites in frayed bindings. Well, that gives us something. Let’s keep looking.”

Della Street, with a woman’s eye to the housekeeping end of things, said, “It looks as though someone comes in about once a week to do cleaning. Notice the ash tray over here.”

“What about it?” Mason asked.

“It has a trap,” she pointed out, “which opens into the bottom. Here’s the stuff that’s in the bottom, cigar bands, cigar butts, cigarette ends, matches, and...”

“Any lipstick on the cigarette ends?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

Mason said, “I’m going to take a quick look upstairs. I can probably tell more from the bedrooms and the stuff that’s in the bedroom closets than I can down here.”

“Just what are you looking for?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’m trying to get the sketch. Karr’s engaged in some peculiar activity. He’s tied in with the Chinese in some way. He has a lot of money. Probably he’s not a philanthropist. Hocksley was his partner, probably knows a good deal about his methods. Twenty years ago Hocksley betrayed him, and one of his partners met his death. Now Hocksley suddenly crops up again.”

“You suppose he’s trying to avenge the death of his partner and his old betrayal?” Della asked.

“That’s just the point,” Mason said, taking her elbow as he assisted her up the stairs, switching on a light in the hallway. “Twenty years is a long time to make an unsuccessful search for a man. The probabilities are that, following the episode in 1921, Karr didn’t think very much about Hocksley until the present situation in the Orient started a renewal of his activities. Well, we’ll take a look around and see what we can find. Take this bedroom on the left, Della. Switch on the lights, look through the bureau drawers. Find out everything you can about the person or persons who live here. I’ll take this bedroom on the right.”

Mason opened the door, switched on the lights, then suddenly stood stock still.

Della Street, looking back over her shoulder from the other bedroom, sensed the rigidity of his attitude. “What is it, Chief?” she asked.

Mason motioned her back. “Don’t come in.”

But she came to peer over his shoulder, then recoiled with a quick gasping intake of her breath.

A man’s body lay sprawled half on and half off the bed, his head dangling limply downward, his face the greenish livid hue of death. From a bullet hole in his chest, blood had welled out to soak the bedspread and form in a pool on the floor. It was the body of the Gentrie’s roomer, Delman Steele.

Chapter 16

Della Street gripped Mason’s arm. In her nervousness, she poured all of her strength into her fingers. “Don’t — don’t—”

Mason pried loose her cold fingers. “Stand there, Della. Don’t come in the room. Don’t touch anything.”

“Chief, keep out of this! Don’t. Please, don’t! I...”

“I have to,” he said. “We’re in it now — all the way. Keep your chin up.”

Mason moved cautiously into the room. He felt the blood on the bedspread, touched his finger to Steele’s wrist, lifted the arm slightly, turned and left the room. With his handkerchief, he scrubbed off the metal plate and button on the light switch, then pushed out the lights with a forefinger padded with his handkerchief.

“Don’t take chances on this,” she said. “Call the police. You’ve got to do it now.”

Mason’s laugh was sardonic. “Yes. We’re in a sweet position to call the police! I’ve told the radio squad that I live here, that my brother was Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide. You’ve taken the part of a young woman soliciting subscriptions for the San Francisco Chronicle. We can tell the police that we hadn’t been in the house long enough to have discovered the body, that we didn’t know the secret of this bedroom, that we stumbled onto the house as the result of some amateur detective work, that, as soon as we found the body, we decided we’d better cooperate and be good children. Then we’d have to tell it to a grand jury, and, perhaps even to a trial jury.”

“But it’s the only thing to do. We have to.”

He shook his head emphatically. “They’d have us exactly where they wanted us. We’d be on the defensive not only for the rest of this case, but for the rest of our lives.”

“It seems to me we will, anyway,” she muttered. “As soon as the body is discovered, police will start an investigation. They’ll ask Lieutenant Tragg about his brother. They’ll give him a complete description of the pair they found in the house, and — well, you know the answer to that.”

“Of course I know the answer to that,” Mason said. “That’s what I’m getting at.”

“I don’t get you.”

“There’s only one way to avoid being kept on the defensive. That’s to attack.”

“But how can we attack? We have no more hope of attacking than a rabbit that’s being chased by a pack of greyhounds.”

“That’s just the point,” Mason said. “Don’t you get it? They aren’t on our trail yet. They won’t get on it until they find this body. They won’t find it until some person comes to the house.”

“Who?”

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “it’ll be Rodney Wenston — although I hardly think so. Even if he does come here, he’s hardly in a better position to call the police than we are.”

“Why?”

“Because of the purpose for which this house was used, and the deception Karr practiced on the officers. Karr evidently fears the police as much as we do. And Rodney Wenston, unless he has an iron-clad alibi, is more apt to have pulled the trigger than anyone else — remember, Wenston’s been flying Karr back and forth to San Francisco, helping keep the secret of that wounded leg.”

Della nodded, then, indicating the bedroom with a slight inclination of her head, asked, “How did he get there, and why was he killed?”

Mason said, “Let’s get out of here. We’ll talk in Locarno’s Grill. Right now the big thing is a getaway.”

They switched out lights in the corridor, went down the stairs to the living room. Mason went around turning out lights. “No need to bother with fingerprints down here,” he said. “Once they suspect us, the two police officers can make an absolute identification.”

“Out the front door or the back?” she asked.

“The front door by all means. We stroll out arm in arm. Man-and-wife-going-to-the-movies stuff.”

“It’s late for a movie, and,” she added, “my stomach says man-and-wife-should-go-to-restaurant.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “man and wife go to restaurant. Wait here while I turn out the lights in the dining room.”

“Wait here nothing!” she protested. “What do you think I am? I stick to you like a foxtail to a dog’s ear until we get out of this place.”

Mason slipped his arm around her waist. “I know how you feel, Della,” he said sympathetically.

“D-d-darn it,” she said, his sympathy moving her almost to the point of tears. “Why couldn’t we let Paul D-d-drake keep on f-ff-finding our bodies for us?”

“We just led with our chins, that’s all,” Mason said. “Walked right into it, and, having walked right into it, we’re going to keep our chins up and walk right out of it.”

Della Street swung around to stand close to him. Her body pressed against his, her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t get the idea my chin’s down. I just got an awful jolt, that’s all.”

Mason finished switching out the lights. His small flashlight illuminated the way to the door. “All ready?” he asked.

“All ready,” she told him.

“A stiff upper lip,” he said, “and chin held high. We’re on our way.”

Mason flung the door open.

The fog-filled air stroked their faces with cool fingers. The street seemed deserted. Mason gave Della Street his arm. “The next few seconds are the bad ones,” he said. Together they walked down the stairs to the sidewalk. Halfway to the carline, Della Street said, “Lord, how I want to run. My feet seem to fly up at me. Do we take a car?”

“Yes. Remember, that radio patrol car is cruising around here, looking for two people who answer our description.”

“But if they stop us, they’ll recognize us.”

“That’s just the trouble. Seeing us together will make them realize how closely we check with the description given by the frightened party in the rubber-soled shoes.”

“Oh-oh,” Della Street said. “And even on the cable car we’ll be conspicuous. If there were only a phone handy so we could call a cab!”

Mason laughed. “In any event, you have to admit our lives don’t consist of a mere drab procession of uninteresting events.”

“No,” she admitted, chattering nervously to keep herself under control. “Life doesn’t bother us at all that way. Do we wait here for the car?”

Mason said, “We walk a couple of blocks, find some place — No, here comes a car now. We take it.”

The cable car which swung around the corner to the accompaniment of a jangling bell slowed at Mason’s signal.

“Got mad money?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“All right, get on by yourself. Sit in back. I’ll sit out in front. We’re just two people who happened to have taken the car at the same corner.”

The motorman pulled back on the big brake. Mason caught the hand grip and swung aboard a couple of seconds before the car came to a stop, permitting Della Street to board the enclosed section. The motorman released levers, pulled on a grip, and the car rattled forward.

After what seemed an interminable interval of twisting and turning, clanging across intersections, and being braked down steep hills, the cable car slowed in response to Mason’s signal. The lawyer slid from his seat, swung Ms long legs out to the ground, and walked rapidly away. Della Street followed demurely a half block behind. Abruptly Mason turned, started back, caught Della Street’s eye, and raised his hat “Well, well, well,” he exclaimed. “Fancy seeing you here!”

Her face lit in a glad smile. “Perry!” she exclaimed.

Two Marines who had been quite obviously interested in Della Street turned disappointedly away. Mason said, “This is indeed a pleasure. How about something to eat?”

“Do you know, that’s a peculiar coincidence. I was just thinking of going to a restaurant.”

“There’s a very nice café in the next block,” he told her. “Locarno’s — noted for its broiled steaks.”

“The way I feel right now, two cocktails and a steak would make a new woman of me.”

“Going to trade in the old model?” Mason asked.

“I’m thinking of it. What am I offered?”

“Two cocktails and a steak.”

“Sold.”

Laughing, she took his arm, and they started up the street together. She said, “My knees are wobbly. I’ve got the jitters. I need a drink, but I’m still hungry.”

“You’ll get accustomed to corpses after a while,” he told her.

“Yes. Working for a man who isn’t content to sit back and let a case develop, but has to go out and develop it, has its decided drawbacks.”

Mason said, “One of the first rules of secretarial efficiency is never to find fault with the boss when he’s about to buy a meal.”

“Isn’t a secretary entitled to her necessary traveling expenses?”

“Yes, but when she steps outside of her secretarial position and becomes an accessory, she loses her amateur status.”

“What’s an accessory?” she asked.

Mason said out of the corner of his mouth, “A moll who cases de joint.”

“Stop it,” she commanded. “I certainly led with my chin on that one. My face gets red every time I even think of it.”

Mason piloted her through the doors of the grill. “I’ve got some telephoning to do,” he said. “I’ll seat you, order some cocktails, and run.”

A headwaiter came smiling toward them. “Something near the...”

“A corner, somewhere far back,” Mason said.

The headwaiter’s smile became almost a smirk. “Yes, sir. I understand. This way, please.”

When they were seated and had ordered cocktails, Mason went to the telephone booth. He first called the airport, found that two seats were available on the midnight plane, and engaged them. Then he called Paul Drake’s office on long distance. Drake was not in, but Mason left instructions. “As nearly as possible,” he said, “I want to find out where Rodney Wenston was during every minute of the day. Tell Paul to get a line on Delman Steele, a roomer at the Gentrie house on East Dorchester. Got that?”

“Yes. Paul will be in in an hour or so.”

“Tell Paul to wait up for me,” Mason said. “I’ll be in his office about two-forty-five.” He hung up, returned to the table where two full cocktail glasses were waiting.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Getting formal and waiting for me?” he asked.

“I am not. This is my second. He just brought it. Here’s to crime.”

“Here’s to crime,” Mason said. They clicked glasses.

Chapter 17

Paul Drake, seated at his office desk, a cup of black coffee in front of him, an electric percolator plugged into a socket and bubbling away, said, “How do you two do it? I’ve got my eyes propped open with toothpicks.”

Mason said, “Excessive sleep is a habit, Paul. You must learn to control it. It will grow on you until you’ll find you’ll need two and three hours’ sleep a night if you aren’t careful.”

“Well,” Paul said, “I haven’t got to that point yet. An hour or an hour and a half would seem like a swell break. Two hours would leave me doped. I suppose you two have been skylarking around in night clubs and just couldn’t get here sooner because the orchestra didn’t quit.”

“That’s right,” Della Street said, holding out her arms straight from the shoulders and moving around the office in a waltz as she hummed a tune. “It was perfectly divine, Paul!”

Drake grinned and said, “Nuts to you. You’re not kidding me any. You’ve been out committing a murder somewhere. Whose body have you turned up now?”

Della Street ceased waltzing, said scornfully, “That’s the trouble with you, you have no romance. You’ve let life get you into a business rut, and just when I was beginning to tingle you start bringing up murders! Now the boss will talk shop — and we were having such a good time!”

Drake said, “I’ve been having a great time stalling Mrs. Gentrie for you folks. Tragg arrested her boy tonight. She’s frantic. She called me around midnight I told her you’d be in here around half past two or three o’clock. She said she’d wait up for you. I said I didn’t think you’d see her tonight, but she said she’d wait up anyway.”

Mason said, “I might see her, at that.”

“She doesn’t know anything new, Perry. She’s just a frantic mother, trying to save her boy.”

Mason slid over on the edge of Drake’s desk. “Got any more coffee cups, Paul?”

Drake opened a drawer, pulled out some agateware mugs and said, “I can give you a couple of these. It’s all I ever use.”

Della Street said, “Don’t talk so much. Just pour.”

Drake turned the spigot on the percolator, drew out two big cups of golden brown coffee. “If you want cream or sugar,” he said, “you get neither. This is a business office.” He grinned.

Mason said, “What about Rodney Wenston, Paul?”

“I was trying to get you to tell you that he went to San Francisco right after Lieutenant Tragg’s visit. This time they must have known my man was watching, because Karr’s feet never touched the ground. They lifted him out of a car and into the plane as though he’d been a baby.”

“What was Wenston doing before that?”

“He’s been around off and on all day.”

“Could he possibly have gone to San Francisco and back before he made that trip in the evening?” Mason asked.

Drake consulted his memo and said, “Not unless he went real early in the morning. Of course, we weren’t keeping him shadowed. We’ve made a general check-up. He started for town about noon. That is, the caretaker at his place said that’s when he left, and the man at the service station at the fork of the road, where he usually buys his gas, said he went past about one o’clock; but didn’t stop to buy any gas.”

“Driving his car?”

“Uh huh. Then he was in your office around three o’clock, I guess, wasn’t it?”

Mason nodded. “Somewhere around there.”

“Two-fifty-five he came in,” Della Street said.

Drake looked at her. “You keep a memo of the time everyone comes in?”

“And when they leave. How do you suppose I can see that Perry charges for his time?”

Drake said, “It’s a good idea. I guess I’ll have my switchboard operator start doing the same thing. I should get double wages for overtime, shouldn’t I, Perry?”

“You should,” Mason said, “but I don’t think you can make it stick. What about Delman Steele?”

“I don’t get that bird,” Drake said. “He’s supposed to have a job in an architect’s office, but when I checked up on him, it didn’t pan out.”

Mason gave Della a swift glance. “How do you mean?” he asked Paul.

“Well, he hangs around the office all right, but the architect says that Steele doesn’t actually have any connection with the business. He rents desk room and comes and goes as he pleases.”

“When was he in the office yesterday?” Mason asked.

“Came in about nine in the morning as usual, left about ten, and came back about two. He was in until around three o’clock, and then left for the evening. Funny thing, Perry. He has that room at Gentrie’s house. It has an outside entrance so he can come and go as he pleases, but he’s made himself one of the family and spends quite a bit of time there. Mrs. Gentrie thinks he’s lonely and...”

“I know all that,” Mason said. “What time did he get in last night?”

“I don’t know,” Drake said. “I got your call too late to ring him up on some excuse. In fact, she rather pointedly mentioned to one of my men that he didn’t have the privilege of using their telephone. I found out about the arrangement in the architect’s office more or less by chance. We didn’t want to seem to be investigating him because you said to handle it in such a way no one would get the least bit suspicious. So we’d always taken it for granted that he was an architect. His name’s on the door of the architect’s office down in the lower righthand corner, and he certainly gave the Gentries to understand he was an architect. But around cocktail time this afternoon one of my men got acquainted with the architect and started asking casual questions. That’s when he found out about Steele. Mrs. Gentrie may know something, in case you do go out there.”

Mason said, “Well, I guess there’s nothing to do tonight except sleep on it.”

“Tonight!” Drake said, looking at his watch. “It’s dam near daylight.”

“It’s always night until it’s daylight,” Mason said. “Go ahead. Finish your coffee, Della. Let’s go.”

Della Street tilted up her coffee cup. “Going to see Mrs. Gentrie?” she asked.

Mason nodded.

“How you folks do work,” Drake said. “Personally, I’m going to get some shuteye.”

Mason started for the door, then abruptly turned, stood with his hands pushed down in his pocket looking at Paul Drake with troubled eyes. “Paul,” he said, “you’ve got to do something.”

“Not until I get some sleep,” Drake protested.

Mason simply kept looking at him.

“What is it?” Drake asked, at length.

“You’ve got to get a confession from Karr.”

“A confession!” Drake exclaimed.

Mason nodded.

“I don’t get you.”

Mason said, “I’ll give you the high spots. Hocksley wasn’t killed. He was only wounded. I want to find out who shot him and why.”

“How do you know he was only wounded?”

“Because I’ve seen him.”

“You’ve seen him!” Drake echoed, startled.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the Parker Memorial Hospital in San Francisco.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. He had evidently been given a hypo. He’s going to live, but the doctor’s trying to keep him out of circulation.”

“How did he get to San Francisco?”

“Wenston flew him up.”

“Wenston! Then he’s double-crossing Karr...”

Mason interrupted Drake to say, “No, he isn’t. Karr and Hocksley are one and the same person.”

Drake pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Perhaps I’ve had too much coffee, Perry, or perhaps you have. One of us certainly is cockeyed. Hocksley is a red-headed man with a limp who...”

Mason said, “I’ll put it this way. The one who rented the apartment was Johns Blaine dressed up with a red wig and purposely walking with a limp. In renting the apartment, however, under the name of Hocksley, he was acting as Karr’s agent. Don’t think for a minute that a man of Karr’s shrewdness would establish a hide-out in a two-flat building without controlling the lower as well as the upper flat.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Drake admitted, “but what makes you think Karr’s flat is a hide-out?”

“Karr’s engaged in getting munitions over to China through a leak in the blockade. Naturally, he doesn’t want publicity.”

“Then the safe in the lower flat belongs to Karr?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t he keep that safe in the upper flat?”

“Probably because Johns Blaine keeps an eye on the safe, and sleeps in the lower flat.”

“Then this housekeeper, Sarah Perlin, must have known.”

“Of course.”

“And Opal Sunley.”

“Not necessarily,” Mason said. “She may or may not have known. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference. The housekeeper lived there. Opal Sunley came by the day.”

“But you say Hocksley was wounded. Then if Hocksley is Karr, Karr must have a bullet hole...”

“In his leg,” Mason interpolated. “That’s why he’s keeping his legs covered, so the bandage won’t show.”

“He doesn’t have arthritis?”

“Probably, but not as bad as he wants us to believe now.”

“Wait a minute, Perry,” Drake said. “A doctor wouldn’t treat a bullet wound unless he reported it to the police.”

“That’s right,” Mason agreed, smiling.

“I don’t get you.”

“Karr,” Mason said, “is a man of varied activities. He’s very resourceful. Evidently, he carries on most of his activities under other roofs and under other names. Here in Hollywood, he’s Robindale E. Hocksley when it comes to transacting business. Up in San Francisco, he’s Carr Luceman, residing at thirteen-o-nine Delington Avenue.”

“I don’t give a damn how many names he’s got, Perry. He still can’t get a gunshot wound treated without...”

“Without making some explanation which would satisfy the doctor and the police,” Mason said. “As Elston Karr who had the flat above a flat where a murder had been committed, he naturally couldn’t have made any explanation in Los Angeles; but as Carr Luceman, living in San Francisco in a neighborhood where there hadn’t been any murders, he had no difficulty in thinking up a story which would hold water with the police.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Make him admit the whole business. I’m hardly in a position to put the screws on him. You are.”

“Where is he now?”

“In a hospital.”

“Didn’t the doctor send him to a hospital the first time he saw him?”

“Apparently not. It was a wound that wasn’t particularly serious unless complications set in. The doctor probably advised him to keep quiet and call him in the event any unusual symptoms developed.”

“Just what do you want me to get?” Drake asked.

“Dig up any information you can, find out his version of what happened the night of the shooting.”

Drake said, “Won’t I get into trouble, keeping this information from the police?”

“You haven’t any information, have you?”

“You’ve told me a lot of stuff.”

Mason grinned. “You don’t think that it’s incumbent on you to run to the police every time some lawyer gives you a goofy theory of a case, do you?”

Drake hesitated for a moment, then said, “Well... well, no.”

Mason winked at him and said, “In all probability, it’s just a crazy theory I have, but here’s a newspaper clipping giving an account of how Carr Luceman happened to shoot himself in San Francisco. I’d like to have you make an investigation of the circumstances.”

Drake said, “When do I leave?”

“Charter a plane. You can grab forty winks on the plane.”

“Oh, not forty winks,” Drake protested sarcastically. “Twenty would be all I could possibly use. I don’t want to start getting too much sleep! Does Wenston know about this?”

“He must.”

“About the bullet wound?”

“Probably. He flew Karr up there this afternoon. Karr was beginning to run a fever when I saw him last. His skin was dry and parched, and his face flushed.”

“Who knows about what happened the night of the shooting?” Drake asked. “Anyone besides Karr?”

“Yes,” Mason said. “One person anyway.”

“Who?”

Mason grinned. “The one who pulled the trigger.”

Drake reached for the telephone, said to the switchboard operator, his voice low-pitched from sheer physical fatigue, “Get me the airport. I want to rent a good cabin plane for a rush trip to San Francisco.”

Mason nodded to Della Street. “Okay, Della, let’s go tackle the other end of this case.”

Driving out to Mrs. Gentrie’s, Mason said, “I should have had Steele spotted a long time ago.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Simple,” Mason said. “Remember when we were talking over the case, I said that the person in the house who was getting the messages must have been someone who had easy access to the dictionary, and who, for some reason, couldn’t very well be called to the telephone. Remember, Mrs. Gentrie told me right at the start that Steele had his room and was treated as one of the family, except that he didn’t have the privilege of using the telephone. There were too many people using it already. She has three children, all of whom are at the age of making dates of one kind or another. Whenever the phone rings, there’s a mad scramble to see which one gets there first. When anyone wants to call out, one of the children is nearly always using the phone. Remember what she said.”

Della nodded.

“Here I was,” Mason said whimsically, “looking for someone who couldn’t use the telephone, and I was thinking in terms of some physical handicap, such as a man who was deaf or crippled. It never occurred to me to consider the simplest possible solution — a man who was living at a place where he didn’t have the privilege of the telephone, yet who couldn’t put in a phone of his own without attracting too much attention.”

“But why was Steele killed, if he was the one for whom the messages were intended?”

Mason said, “We’re evidently dealing with the after-math of an old feud. There’s no other explanation which occurs to me at the moment. Of course, we haven’t all of the facts as yet.”

“Then Karr must have killed him.”

“Karr’s time’s too well accounted for,” Mason said. “And Wenston is out of it. Steele must have been killed at least two hours before we got there. There’s no question but what Karr’s been and still is a very sick man. That bullet hole in his leg, the loss of blood, the shot, and the general strain of events must have taken a lot out of him. He isn’t physically robust. Then, in addition, he’s had that arthritis in his legs. Evidently, he could walk, but it was a slow and painful process. We can leave him out so far as Steele is concerned.”

“You think Karr went downstairs the night of the shooting?”

Mason said, “That’s the only logical deduction. The burglar alarm was placed where he could hear it. He admits that he did hear it. He must have got up and walked slowly downstairs. He surprised someone at the safe, and got shot.”

“Do you suppose Steele got the message you left in the tin before — before he was killed?”

Mason said, “I don’t know. His death is going to complicate things somewhat.”

“How do you mean?”

“There are two persons involved. One of them is the person who sent the message, and the other the person who received it. Now, if we assume that Steele is the person who was receiving the messages, the question arises, Who was sending them? Let’s suppose, for the sake of the argument, that it was Sarah Perlin. Steele sees a can placed on the shelf after Sarah Perlin’s death. Therefore, he knows it must be a trap. For that reason, he won’t touch the can. On the other hand, if Sarah Perlin wasn’t the one who was sending the messages, Steele — conceding that he’s the person who was receiving them — would undoubtedly have grabbed that decoy can the first chance he had.”

Della said, “I’m getting all topsy-turvy. I thought the person who had sent the message, and the person for whom it had been intended were the murderers. It looks now as though they were the victims. Now, what are we going to do?”

Mason said, “While we’re at the Gentrie residence, I’ll make some excuse to get down in the cellar. If the can’s still there, it will be significant.”

Della Street’s voice was filled with conviction as she declared, “The can will still be there. It’s dead open and shut. Mrs. Perlin must have been the one who was sending the messages, and Steele the one who was receiving them. They’ve both been killed. Even if we didn’t have an iron-clad case against those two, their deaths would prove it. You can see what happened. Mrs. Perlin was a spy. She was reporting to Steele. That was the reason Karr’s attempt to trap the real Hocksley failed.

“Karr took the bullet in his leg, but that was all he needed to show him what was going on. With truly Oriental cunning, he tracked down the two persons who were responsible, and killed them.”

Mason said, “There’s another angle that puzzles me. What became of the real Hocksley?”

“The one who was in China?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you suppose he’s dead?”

“There’s nothing to indicate it. Karr must have had some reason for taking that lower apartment under the name of Hocksley. He could have used any one of a thousand fictitious names, but instead of doing so, he has Johns Blaine make himself up so he looks like Hocksley, and then takes the name of Hocksley. That must be significant.”

“Gosh, Chief, I wonder if Hocksley enters into the picture. After all, if he’s anywhere around and saw his name in the papers — well, you can see what would happen. Karr has managed to hide his identity by taking the flat under the name of Rodney Wenston, but this case is getting a lot of newspaper publicity. If Hocksley is anywhere in the country, he’ll see his name in the papers and — well, don’t you see? It makes sort of a sieve that sifts out everything except one particular-sized article. Karr has hidden himself from everyone except Hocksley, but Hocksley will read about what happened and come to that apartment just as certain as — but what am I doing, rattling along this way? Paul Drake’s coffee must have given me this talking jag.”

Mason was frowning thoughtfully. He said, “Go ahead, Della, keep on talking. You’re doing fine.”

She shook her head. “I absolutely refuse to solve cases for you. It’s a violation of my contract with the union.”

“You’re not trying to solve the cases,” Mason said. “You’re simply giving me ideas.”

“You don’t need anyone to give you ideas,” she said. “Or do you?”

They laughed.

Abruptly, she settled down against his shoulder with a little wriggling motion. “I’m getting my wires crossed,” she admitted. “In order to get anywhere in this world, a woman is supposed to be feminine and leave the thinking to the males. They like it better that way.”

“You must have been taking lessons,” Mason said.

She yawned sleepily. “I have. It’s a swell book. Sex Appeal for Secretaries, in two volumes. It says a well-trained secretary never argues with her boss.”

“Can’t a boss argue with his secretary?”

“It takes two to make an argument. Go ahead, Chief, and solve your mysteries. I’m supposed to stand by and hold your coat. Here I was, forgetting myself and trying to put it on, and — somehow, I don’t think it fits.”

The rambling frame structure of the Gentrie residence was dark and somber, save for the dining room and kitchen, which were ablaze with light. Mason parked his car and climbed the long flight of stairs which led up from the street to the porch level.

“Remember now,” he cautioned Della Street, “not to show too much interest in that can.”

He tapped gently on the door with his knuckles.

They heard the sound of quick steps from the inside of the house, then Mrs. Gentrie flung open the door. She pressed her finger to her lips for silence. “Please don’t make any more noise than possible,” she said. “I would prefer not to have my sister-in-law in on this. She’s never been very tolerant about the children.”

Mason nodded.

“Come in,” she invited.

They filed into the house, and Mrs. Gentrie escorted them through the living room into the dining room. “I hate to ask you to talk in here,” she said in a low whisper, “but the living room is right under Rebecca’s bedroom. She wants to know everything that’s going on, and very definitely she isn’t fair to Junior. What’s more, that police lieutenant has been flattering her with a little attention, and it’s turned her head. If we talked over anything where she could hear it, Lieutenant Tragg would know all about it before noon. He flatters her, and she thinks he’s simply wonderful.”

“What did she say when she knew Junior had been arrested?” Mason asked in a low voice.

“She doesn’t know yet. I just didn’t feel up to telling her. I didn’t know when you’d come, and I knew that she’d sit up and keep up an interminable chatter.”

“What happened?” Mason asked. “Tell me in exact detail.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “Well, of course, I expected it. Lieutenant Tragg dropped in about dinner time. And Junior wasn’t here. His father said Junior had complained of not feeling well about three o’clock in the afternoon, and he’d told the boy to go on home. Naturally, he was surprised and irritated to find Junior wasn’t here.”

Mason nodded.

“What did Tragg say to that?”

“I think Lieutenant Tragg was very angry — not with us exactly, but with himself. He thought he should have done something about Junior earlier. He put men on watch at the house, and instructed the telephone company to disconnect our telephone. We were held here during the evening as virtual prisoners. Of course, the other children had to learn about it.”

“Was Steele here?”

“No. He’s out several nights each week. I just can’t size that boy up. He seems lonely. He’s certainly attractive enough, but I don’t think he has any girl friends. He just seems to enjoy sitting around with the family.”

“How about Rebecca?” Mason asked.

“Fortunately, she didn’t come in until after Tragg had left. There is only one thing she really cares for besides crossword puzzles and photography, and that’s opera. She had a crossword-club dinner meeting, and it’s also her opera night.”

“What time did Junior finally arrive?”

“Almost eleven o’clock.”

“Did Tragg ask him any questions?”

“No. He took him into custody. Then he took away the men who had been watching the place, and a short time after that the telephone rang. It was the telephone company to say that our telephone had been temporarily out of order, that service was now restored. I called your office right away. Of course, no one answered. I didn’t think anyone would. Then I called Mr. Drake’s agency, and it must have been nearly midnight when I got in touch with him. He told me he thought he’d be in touch with you later on, and if I’d wait up he’d pass the message on.”

Mason said, “But if Tragg had men watching the house, Steele must have been stopped when he came in.”

She said, “Yes — that’s right, if he came in before Junior.”

Mason said, “I’d like to know just where Tragg had his men stationed, and whether those men knew Steele by sight. I wonder if we could wake Steele up to ask him a couple of questions.”

“Oh, I’d hesitate to do that,” Mrs. Gentrie said. “After all, you know, he’s a roomer.”

“There’s a door which leads to his room from here?”

She pointed toward a door which opened from the hallway leading from the dining room to the foot of the stairs. “He has his own private exit and his own bath,” she said. “We rent him the room, then, of course, he can come in here whenever he wants to. We try to treat our roomers as one of the family — except on telephone service. We have so many telephone calls, because of the children and...”

“I understand,” Mason said. “How about knocking on his door?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” Mrs. Gentrie said.

Mason said thoughtfully, “Well, after all, it’s rather important.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “I’d rather you’d just take a peek inside. I’d prefer almost anything than to have Rebecca come down now with all of her questions and — you know, if she got the idea I knew Junior wasn’t in his room when that shot was fired she’d tell lieutenant Tragg. Oh, Mr. Mason, please tell me that Junior didn’t do it. That’s the thing that’s been torturing me. You know how it is with a young boy, when he becomes infatuated with an older woman with more worldly experience. If she’s inclined to play him along, she can make a terrible fool of him. And all through this thing, Junior has acted so queerly. He just drew himself up very straight and erect and white-faced when Lieutenant Tragg placed him under arrest. He didn’t say a word.”

Mason said, “I want to see if Steele keeps his door locked. That may have some bearing on the whole thing.”

He crossed the dining room to the hallway, turned the knob of the door gently. It swung open on well-oiled, noiseless hinges. He looked inside, swung the door wider open so that light from the dining room illuminated the bedroom.

“There’s no one here,” he said.

Mrs. Gentrie got to her feet. “Why, good heavens, it’s well after three o’clock. Of course, he does stay out rather late at times, but I never knew him to be as late as this.”

Mason said, “However, because he has his own private exit and entrance, he could come and go very easily without you hearing him, couldn’t he?”

She said, “Yes, I suppose so.”

Mason swung the door tentatively back and forth. “These hinges,” he said, “seem to have been freshly oiled.”

“Well, I declare to goodness,” Mrs. Gentrie observed, examining the hinges. “They certainly have!”

“ You didn’t oil them?”

She shook her head.

“Could they have been oiled for some time without you noticing it?”

“Rebecca does the dusting and cleaning up in here. She certainly should have noticed — but she didn’t say anything. Hester cleans and dusts the outside. She might not have noticed. She isn’t particularly perceptive.”

Mason said, “Steele was in an admirable position then to leave this room, cross the kitchen, go down the cellar stairs, cross through the garage, and go over to the flat next door.”

“Why... why, I guess he could have if he’d wanted to.”

Mason went on, “There’s a door leading from the cellar into the garage, then a door from the garage leading into the yard, and a few feet beyond that a side door to Hocksley’s flat. Is that right?”

She nodded and said, “But I can’t understand... Surely, Mr. Mason...”

Mason said, “Let’s just step inside this room for a moment. I want to look around a bit.”

“I’m afraid he wouldn’t like it if he should come in.”

“I think I can take the responsibility for that,” Mason said. “It’s rather important to find out why Mr. Steele isn’t in now, why the hinges on his door have been oiled.”

“You mean that he...”

“I’m not making any accusations just yet. If we’re going to clear Junior, we must find out exactly what happened the night of the shooting.”

They entered Steele’s room, and Mason started a keen-eyed search.

Mrs. Gentrie said, “I thought I heard him come in about half-past two or three o’clock this afternoon. He seemed to be in very much of a hurry, rushing around. I’m quite sure it must have been Mr. Steele. He didn’t say anything to us, however. Usually he looks in on us just to pass the time of day when he comes home in the afternoon that way.”

“Does he come home frequently during the middle of the afternoon?”

“Sometimes. Very seldom during the morning, but occasionally he comes in the afternoon.”

Mason opened a closet door, looked inside at the array of clothes. “Do you know how he was dressed?” he asked.

Mrs. Gentrie indicated a light gray checked suit. “Why, that’s the suit he was wearing this morning.”

“Is it indeed?”

“Yes, he must have come and changed to a heavier suit. I notice his tweed is missing.”

Mason moved over to the light checked suit and calmly started going through the pockets.

“Oh,” Mrs. Gentrie said, “I... do you think it’s all right to do that?”

Mason said, “I think we’ve got to find out everything we can about him.”

“I know, but isn’t that rather — well...”

Mason said, “I think it will be all right.” He glanced significantly at Della Street and said, “Get Mrs. Gentrie to show you where he keeps his linen, Della.”

Della, distracting Mrs. Gentrie’s attention, said, “I suppose in this drawer...” She stopped at the expression on Mason’s face as the lawyer pulled a telegram from a side pocket of the coat Steele had discarded.

“Well, well, what’s this?” Mason said.

“Really,” Mrs. Gentrie protested as Mason unfolded the yellow oblong of paper. “I’d prefer that you didn’t read that.”

Mason, however, already had the telegram opened and was reading the message. “Well,” he said, “this is something. It’s a telegram sent to Steele at the office of the architect and says, ‘Man named Carr Luceman accidentally shot self when cat knocked gun off table. Luceman’s address thirteen-o-nine Delington Avenue, San Francisco. Grab plane investigate.’ And it’s signed K. Anamata.”

Mrs. Gentrie, visibly perturbed, said, “I wish, Mr. Mason, you could handle this without prying into Mr. Steele’s business.”

Mason said, “Don’t you see, Mrs. Gentrie? Steele got this room for a purpose. He must have made a habit of opening this door at night after you folks had retired, quietly sneaking down the cellar stairs, going through the garage door, and across to the flat next door. If he didn’t go inside the flat, he at least snooped around the windows and got a line on what was going on inside the place.”

“Why... why, I can’t believe it.”

“And,” Mason went on, with a significant glance at Della Street, “he’s very apt to be over there right now.”

“But why should he want to spy on the people over there?”

Mason said, “He’s evidently in the employ of some Japanese. I understand Lieutenant Tragg thinks some of the people over in that flat could tell something about the smuggling of arms into China.”

“You mean Mr. Hocksley?”

Mason said, “There’s evidence indicating that Hocksley has been engaged in Chinese gun-running for years.”

“Well, good heavens!”

“And Steele evidently secured this room because it gave him such an excellent opportunity to keep an eye on what was going on next door.”

“Well, I’ll declare! Why, then he must have been — he must — why, Mr. Mason, that would make him...”

“Exactly,” Mason said.

“Then don’t you think we’d better communicate with the police, Mr. Mason?”

“Not yet,” Mason said. “Just keep quiet so we don’t disturb anyone. We’ll do a little investigating on our own.”

Mason led the way to the cellar door, opened it silently, tiptoed down the cellar stairs. Mrs. Gentrie clicked a light switch which flooded the cellar with brilliance.

Mason inched his way over toward the shelf where the preserves were kept, keeping his eyes, however, on the garage door. “Now, as I understand it, this is the door which was painted. Your husband painted it the evening of the murder... Where is he, by the way?”

She said, “I made him go to bed. He couldn’t have done any good by sitting up, and he’s going to have a hard time at the store waiting on all of the customers without Junior to help him. That’s one thing about my husband. No matter what happens, he can sleep like a log. I don’t think he ever actually worries about anything. I don’t mean by that he isn’t concerned over the situation. He simply doesn’t worry about it. If he knew he was going to be executed tomorrow, I don’t think he’d lose a minute’s sleep. He’d simply say, ‘Well, if it’s going to be that way and there’s nothing I can do about it, there’s no reason for losing any sleep over it.’ ”

Mason turned then, casually, so he could look at the shelf on which he had placed the can. Apparently, the can had not been disturbed. He noticed that Della Street was also looking at it. She turned, caught his eye, then looked hastily away.

Mason said, “Now, is there any chance that your son could have got his fingers in that paint in some other way than off the garage door? Your husband must have brought this paint home when he came from the hardware store.”

“That’s right, but he didn’t mix it until after Junior had gone out.”

“Now, this door, I take it,” Mason said, “is not kept locked.”

“No. It isn’t. But the outer door to the garage is. There’s a spring lock on that, and Mr. Hocksley has the keys to it. I believe he has three or four duplicate keys.”

Mason said, “Let’s take a look in his garage.” He opened the door and stepped inside. “Is there a light in here?”

“Yes. There’s a drop light somewhere, and a string that turns it on. Here it is.”

She pulled the string and clicked a light on.

“There’s no automobile here in the garage,” Mason said.

“No. The police took the one that was here. There were bloodstains on the cushions, and they wanted to take fingerprints and things like that. They’ve never brought the car back.”

“I see. Now this door on the side opens into the yard which communicates with the flat.”

“That’s right. But you’ve been over this before, Mr. Mason.”

“I know,” Mason said, “but I want to be sure I’ve got the thing correctly fixed in my mind. There’s a spring lock on this door. It can be opened from the inside without a key. And by pressing that catch, the latch can be held back so the door isn’t locked. Just as it is now.”

Mrs. Gentrie looked at it and said, “Why, land sakes! That door is unlocked! We always keep that locked. I remember looking at it just this morning, and it was locked then. The latch was in position.”

“Then,” Mason said, “quite obviously, the lock must have been changed, either by someone who had a key, unlocked it from the outside and threw the catch into position, or by someone who entered the garage through the cellar of your home, Mrs. Gentrie. Now, of the people who live in the other house, Mr. Hocksley has either been killed, or has disappeared. His housekeeper has been murdered. Opal Sunley, who acted as stenographer, is the only one who remains. Was she there today, do you know?”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “I saw her going to the flat this morning — and I don’t know why, for the life of me. There certainly couldn’t have been any work for her to do.”

“Well, of the people in your house, who could have been down here? Mr. Steele?”

“Well, he might have been. He does have the run of the house like a member of the family. When Mr. Gentrie is down here, Steele will come down to talk with him for a While; but it’s in the same way he helps Rebecca with her crossword puzzles, just something to furnish an excuse for a visit.”

“The children were here after school?”

“Yes, the younger children.”

“Junior didn’t get home until quite late, as you’ve mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Rebecca was here?”

Mrs. Gentrie shook her head. “No. Rebecca had that crossword-club meeting this afternoon, and then went to the opera from there.”

“What time did she get in?”

“Around midnight. She was full of talk about the opera, and a lot of gossip that didn’t interest me in the least.”

“Now, she went upstairs to bed without coming down to the cellar?”

“Yes. She was all dressed up in her best bib and tucker. You couldn’t have got her near the cellar.”

“Who else was down here? Your husband?”

“Yes, Arthur was down here. He spends a good deal of time here in the evenings. But I’m quite sure Arthur would never have left that door unlocked. He’s very methodical about those things.”

Mason thought that over for several seconds. Abruptly, he turned away from the door. “I guess on second thought,” he said, “there’s no use making any further investigation at this end. Better lock that door now, hadn’t you?”

Mrs. Gentrie snapped the catch on the door. “Yes, we’ll leave it locked. I don’t like the idea of having that door left unlocked. Anyone could come into the house without our knowing it — just walk right in.”

Mason said, “That’s right. Why don’t you put a lock on that door that leads to the cellar? There’s no necessity for anyone who uses the garage to use the cellar, is there?”

“No. There really isn’t. I was telling Arthur sometime ago we should have a lock put on there, but after we’d rented it to Mr. Hocksley, it looked a little as though we might have been suspicious of him. Arthur said we should either have put it on at the time we first rented the garage to him, or else wait until after he’d moved out and we had another tenant.”

“Yes, that sounds logical,” Mason said, and yawned. “Well, it’s time for me to turn in.”

Della Street was watching him closely, her forehead puckered into a curious frown.

Mrs. Gentrie made no attempt to conceal her concern. She asked, “What am I going to do about Junior? I’ve got to do something for him. That’s what I wanted to see you about. Isn’t there something we can do? And what about Steele?”

“Let it go until noon,” Mason said. “By that time, I’ll have found out just what Tragg’s planning to do. In all probability, he just wanted to make the boy talk and used that method to do it.”

“Well, he won’t talk, not as far as that woman is concerned.”

Mason started for the cellar stairs. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do tonight.”

“You’ll find out about Junior in the morning?”

Mason nodded. “First thing,” he promised.

“Please be quiet going out,” she requested. “I don’t want anyone to know I was down in the cellar at this hour, or that I’ve been up so late.”

At the front door, Mason whispered, “Try and get some sleep if you can. There’s nothing you can do. I’ll get busy just as soon as things open up. Good night.”

He opened the car door for Della Street. She jumped in with a quick, lithe motion, then switched on the dome light and looked over behind the rear seat.

Mason laughed. “Why the precautions?”

She said, “I haven’t felt easy in my mind since you set that trap and used yourself as bait.”

“You noticed the can was still on the shelf?” Mason said.

“Uh huh. That must mean that it was Steele who was getting the messages.”

Mason started the car. “There are one or two other possibilities.”

“Such as what?”

“Tragg nabbed Junior before he had a chance to go down in the basement.”

She thought that over, said, “That’s right,” then remained silent. Just before Mason turned into her street, she said, “I guess I haven’t what you call a logical mind. The more I think of it, the dizzier I get.”

Mason said, “Go to sleep and forget it.”

She showed him that she was worried. “Look here, are you holding out on me?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because when the police find Steele’s body, we’ve got our necks in a noose, yet all of a sudden you’re acting as though there was no particular hurry.”

“There isn’t,” he said.

“Sometimes I could slap you!”

“Here’s my cheek,” he said. Then, after a moment, “If that’s a slap, I’ll turn the other cheek.”

Della laughed lightly as she jumped from the car. “Don’t forget to wipe off that lipstick. ’Night!”

“ ’Night,” Mason said, and stood watching her as she ran swiftly up the steps of her apartment house.

Chapter 18

Mason was drifting into that warm lethargy which comes just before sleep when the telephone by the side of his bed rang with shrill insistence.

He groped for the receiver, said, “Hello,” in a drowsy voice. “What is it?”

The voice which came over the wire was hysterical, the words intermingled with sobs. “This is Mrs. Gentrie. I could see that you knew all the time. I can’t last it out. Do what you can for Junior. I got into this for him. I suppose murder is never justified, but then a mother — that Opal Sunley was — Mr. Mason, I can’t — please don’t let Junior hold it too much against me. You’ve got my fingerprints. The message in the tin said so. Lieutenant Tragg switched tins. I had a pencil in my pocket and surreptitiously made a copy of the message. You were too clever for me. I knew there was no use fooling you. I know you’ll try to stop me, but you can’t do it. You’re clever, Mr. Mason — too clever. Good-by. I...”

Mason interrupted her, his voice thick with the accents of a man who has been drinking heavily. “Thash a’right, sister. Go right ahead. Have you li’l fun. Betcha you don’t know what I’ve been doin’. I’ve been shelebratin’ a weddin’ party. Rodney Wenshton got married. Li’l Doris Wickford. Nishe girl, too. Lotsh champagne! Ran onto ’em coupla blocks down street. Never dranksh sho much champagne ’n all my life. Now, don’t try talk no bus’ness with me now. Tomorrow — tomorrow — I tol’ you I’d try gettin’ Junior out tomorrow — hic, yesh, tomorrow — tomorrow I be a’right. Goo’-by!”

Mason dropped the receiver into place, flung off the covers, stripped off his pajamas, wrapped a robe around him, pushed his feet into slippers, and raced down the corridor to where a pay telephone was ensconced. Mason dropped a coin, dialed Operator, and said, “Get me police headquarters just as quickly as you can. This is an emergency. Rush that call.”

Almost at once, Mason heard a voice saying, “Yes, this is headquarters.”

“Perry Mason. Is Lieutenant Tragg where I can get in touch with him?”

“No, Lieutenant Tragg’s off duty. He... What’s that?... Just a minute... Oh, hello. They say he just came in from San Francisco. Want to talk with him?”

“Get him at once,” Mason said. “It’s important as the devil.”

“Hold the line.”

A few seconds elapsed, then Mason heard Tragg’s crisply hostile voice saying, “Yes, Mason, this is Tragg.”

“Lieutenant, don’t stop to argue. Throw out a call lor radio cars that are in the vicinity. Send them rushing to the Gentrie residence. No sirens. Handle it very quietly, but get into that house and hold every person there until you can get there. Don’t let anyone have a chance to kill anyone else or to commit suicide.”

“What’s the idea?” Tragg asked.

“Dammit,” Mason said irritably, “I told you not to argue. Do what I tell you to, and you’ll be having the congratulations of the chief tomorrow. Fall down on it, and you’ll be on the carpet right. I’ll meet you there.”

Mason didn’t stop to give Tragg any further opportunity to argue, but slammed up the telephone receiver; then sprinted back down the corridor to his room. He flung off the robe and dressed in frenzied haste. When he had his clothes on, he paused long enough to dial the number of Della Street’s apartment.

“Hello,” he heard Della Street’s sleep-drugged voice saying.

“Wake up,” he told her. “The lid’s blown off.”

“Who?... What?... Oh, yes,” she said, crisp wakefulness flowing into her voice. “Where are you?”

“Just leaving for the Gentrie house. Get a taxi and get up there as fast as you can. Bring a notebook. Better bring a portable typewriter. We might even get a confession out of it. You can’t tell. The criminal seems properly repentant; but every second counts now. I’ve got to rush up there. Be seeing you.”

Mason dropped the receiver, picked up his hat, and dashed out of the apartment without even taking time to switch off the light.

Through an arrangement with the garage attendant, Mason’s car was parked in a position where it was always ready to go, and Mason had only to fling open the door, jump into the seat, and step on the starter. The garage-man watched him careen around the corner of the driveway, shook his head dubiously; then looked at his watch. It was five minutes past five in the morning.

“That guy should join a union,” the attendant muttered to himself.

Two radio cars were already parked in front of the Gentrie residence when Mason arrived, and, as he was switching off the ignition to his car, Lieutenant Tragg, in one of the fast cars of the Homicide Squad, came skidding around the corner.

Mason paused at the foot of the front steps to beckon to Tragg. Tragg, running across to join him, said, “I certainly hope you’re not giving me a bum steer on this, Mason.”

“I hope so, too,” Mason said. “Let’s go.”

Tragg tried the front door. It was unlocked. The men pushed their way into a strange gathering. Four radio officers were guarding the members of the Gentrie household: The younger children, huddled and frightened; Rebecca, swathed in a heavy robe, her hair in curlers, her face without make-up, her eyes glittering with indignation; Mrs. Gentrie, trying to take things philosophically; Arthur Gentrie, clad in pajamas and bathrobe, managing a prodigious yawn as Mason and Lieutenant Tragg entered the room.

“Perhaps,” Rebecca snapped to Lieutenant Tragg, “you’ll be good enough to tell me what this is about.”

Tragg made a graceful little bow, turned to Mason, and said, “Perhaps, Counselor, you’ll be good enough to tell me what this is about.”

Mason grinned with relief as he saw the little household assembled under the eyes of the radio officers. “My telephone rang a few minutes ago,” he said, “and Mrs. Gentrie confessed to having committed the murders and said she was going to shoot herself.”

Mrs. Gentrie said promptly, “Why, I never did any such thing. I absolutely deny it. You’re crazy, Mr. Mason.”

Mason grinned at her. “It was your voice all right. By pretending to be so drunk that I couldn’t have been trusted to remember what happened or what was being said over the telephone, I threw the contemplated suicide out of schedule.”

“I tell you I didn’t telephone you,” Mrs. Gentrie said indignantly. “If you say that I did, you’re saying something that’s not so.”

“Of course,” Mason went on, “your voice sounded somewhat strained, which was only natural in view of the fact that you were hysterical, but there were certain little mannerisms of expression which were undoubtedly yours.”

“You’re crazy,” Mrs. Gentrie announced flatly.

“You also told me,” Mason said, “something which came as a very valuable piece of information — that Lieutenant Tragg had found the can I had planted on the shelf, and removed the top, that he had then placed another decoy can there. That explained a feature of the case which had hitherto puzzled me.”

Mrs. Gentrie said, “That’s true about lieutenant Tragg. He told me not to say anything about the tin; so I didn’t. I didn’t have any idea you’d put the tin there.”

Tragg turned to Mason. “You planted that?” he asked.

Mason nodded. “To help clear up the case. I could have had it solved earlier if it hadn’t been for your interference there.”

“But I put a tin back to take its place,” Tragg said, “and had the same code message copied and placed in the lid.”

Mason smiled. “But don’t you see that the person for whom the message was intended was present when you opened the tin, and so actually got the message without the necessity of having the can removed from the shelf. You crossed me up there, Lieutenant.”

Tragg frowned, looked at Mrs. Gentrie, and said, “Mrs. Gentrie, I’m going to ask you...”

“You don’t need to,” she flared. “I’ve put up with a lot of official stupidity and a lot of bungling in this case. I realize that people can’t be perfect, but I’ve never seen such utter ignorance as...”

Mason interrupted to say to Lieutenant Tragg, “Of course, she’ll make all sorts of denials — now. She wanted to lure me down here so that she could kill me — probably not here in the house, but maybe as I left my apartment. You see, she’d got that message and believed what it said. And, in case you haven’t as yet figured out the code...”

“I have,” Tragg interposed.

“Then you understand what I was trying to do?”

Tragg nodded slowly. “I didn’t realize it was a trap at the time,” he said. “I thought you were holding out on me, and I was planning to do something about that.”

Mason yawned, said, “Well, as soon as the telephone rang, I began to stall her along. I made her think I was pretty drunk. You see, Tragg, only two persons have the number of my private unlisted telephone. They are Paul Drake and Della Street; but, in an emergency the other night, we gave the number to the woman who was pretending to be Mrs. Sarah Perlin. That person must have murdered Mrs. Perlin. So when my telephone rang and it wasn’t either Della Street or Paul Drake, I knew I was talking to the murderer. I pretended that the champagne I’d taken at Rodney Wenston’s wedding had been too much for me.”

“Wenston’s wedding!” Tragg exclaimed in surprise. “Is he married?”

“You didn’t know?” Mason asked.

Tragg shook his head.

Mason said, “He married Doris Wickford. You can rest assured Wenston would never have permitted Doris Wickford to have made a claim against a full half of Elston Karr’s property without having seen to it that she couldn’t give him the horselaugh afterwards.”

“You mean Wenston was back of that?” Tragg asked.

“Of course, he was,” Mason said with an amused smile. “Karr had some money that would have belonged to Tucker’s heirs. He didn’t know, however, his dead partner had left an heir until he found it out by accident. He advertised to try and find her.

“That, of course, was too good an opportunity for Wenston to miss. He knew that he had only to fake a few letters, putting in facts which he already knew from his intimate association with Karr in order to make a pretty good claim. If he could have the claimant produce a picture of her father which would tally with that of Dow Tucker, it would make the case absolutely ironclad.

“The probabilities are that Wenston stumbled on to the person he planted as the daughter by accident, and before he got the idea of palming her off as the heiress. In all probability, Doris Wickford’s father actually did go to China, and wrote her a few letters. As a stamp collector, she had saved the envelopes. Wenston probably happened to be looking over her stamp album, and, seeing the entire envelope with its postmark and canceled stamp, got the idea. Well, Lieutenant, I’ll leave you with your case. If you’ll take Mrs. Gentrie into custody, I feel quite certain you’ll be able to work out a good case against her. And now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ll go back and try to get some sleep.”

Mason turned and started for the door.

“Look here,” Tragg said, coming after him, “you can’t walk out on me this way. I’m not certain you’ve even got a good case against Mrs. Gentrie. As far as that telephone business is concerned, it’s your word against hers.”

Mason said, “Well, I’ve given you enough stuff to work on, Lieutenant. The obvious facts are now in your command. You can let them all go now, except Mrs. Gentrie.”

One of the children began to cry. Mrs. Gentrie got slowly to her feet. “You’re not going to do this in front of my children. You’re not...”

One of the radio officers put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Sit down,” he said.

Arthur Gentrie pushed back his chair. “Now, you listen...”

Two officers held him.

Mason said, “That’s all there is to it, Lieutenant. Good night.”

He opened the door and ran rapidly down the steps.

Tragg shouted after him, “Hey, you! Mason! You’re not leaving now!” He jerked open the door and ran down the steps after the lawyer.

Perry Mason paused by the curb. Tragg came running up to him, his manner bristling with indignation. “You look here,” he said in a loud voice. “You’ve given me some ingenious theories, but...” He drew close to the lawyer, suddenly lowered his voice, said, “What is this, a trap?”

“Uh huh,” Mason said. “Come on, Tragg. We should be in at the finish.”

“Where?”

“This way.”

Mason ran lightly around the corner by the garages. “Give me a boost up the fence, Tragg,” he said, “and then I’ll pull you up.”

Tragg boosted Mason up the high board fence. Once on top, Mason reached down and gave Tragg a hand up. Together, the two men dropped silently into the dark yard between the Gentrie house and the two-flat building.

“Now what?” Tragg whispered.

“Wait,” Mason said.

They waited in the darkness for almost a minute. Then quietly the door in the garage opened, and a dark figure tiptoed silently across the yard to the side door of the Hocksley flat. A key clicked against the lock. The door was opened, and the figure slipped inside.

Mason and Tragg moved cautiously across the lot. The door was still ajar. Motioning for silence, Mason led the way into the warm darkness of the flat. Listening intently, they could hear the sound of the dial on a telephone; then, after a moment, a woman’s voice sharp with emotion said, “What kind of a game do you think you’re playing? What’s this I heard about you marrying that little devil, that... Yes, you did, too! You were married to her this morning. Well, last night then. Don’t lie to me! After all I’ve done for you, don’t think I’m going to let you get away with that. The minute you try anything like that, you’re all finished... Well, he said so... Mr. Mason... I don’t think it was a trap. No. I didn’t say a word... You wouldn’t lie to me? You dar ling No-o-o-o-o. I didn’t really believe it, not down in my heart, but I wanted to find out. I–I must get back. The officers are over there. Mason is getting awfully close to what actually happened. You’ll have to do something about him at once. Remember now, I’ve taken care of the others for you. You’ve got to do this for me. All right, lover.”

The receiver clicked. There was the sound of rustling garments as a figure approached them.

“Okay,” Mason said in a low whisper.

Lieutenant Tragg’s flashlight sent a pencil of white brilliance through the darkness, a pencil which stabbed the white, frightened face of Rebecca Gentrie, and held it in a pitiless glare.

Chapter 19

Morning sun was touching the tips of the tall buildings as Mason, emerging from the Gentrie residence, helped Della Street into his automobile and said, “Well, I guess we’re entitled to play hookey today. Putting you on a day and night schedule and then having you type a confession afterwards is a little too much of a strain, isn’t it?”

She said, “Wouldn’t it be swell to take a plane over to Catalina, put on bathing suits, and just lie around in the sun, sleeping and eating hot dogs?”

“Temptress!” Mason charged.

She said, “If you’d drive right to the beach, we could catch the first plane over.”

Mason turned the steering wheel of his automobile toward Wilmington. “I think,” he said, “this is the direction of the office, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, keep going straight ahead,” she said.

“I’m a little dopey this morning,” Mason confessed, “so I’ll have to rely on you. If we should get lost, we’d have to telephone the office and explain to Gertie.”

“Gertie’s a good sport. You don’t have to explain things to her. She’ll stall off any clients.”

“You’re acting as though we were going to get lost,” Mason said.

“No, indeed. You’re headed for the office right now. Listen, you’ve been holding out on me again.”

“No. Honest I haven’t.”

“On Rebecca?”

Mason laughed. “Believe it or not,” he said, “after having all of the factors for a solution in my hands, I couldn’t put them together.”

“What do you mean, all the factors of the solution?”

“Don’t you remember?” Mason said. “We talked it over and decided that the two people who were involved must be persons who couldn’t afford to be seen together, and who couldn’t communicate by telephone, but who both had access to that basement. We thought about a person being deaf or being so crippled he couldn’t get to a telephone, but the true solution never occurred to me.”

“Which was?” she asked.

“Exceedingly simple. Rebecca could get to the telephone all right when she was called, but only after the children had answered the phone first, and she couldn’t put through outside calls without arousing suspicions because she had lived so much as a recluse.”

“But why couldn’t Wenston simply have called and asked for — oh, I see, — that lisp of his. Anyone would have noticed it at once, and then after the case developed, it would have been commented on. His lisp is sufficiently pronounced so no one would ever forget it, once they had heard it.”

Mason said, “That is it. And, having laid down all of the basic factors for a solution I simply failed to apply them.”

“But I thought you said the voice of the woman who called you was very cultured and...”

“Don’t forget,” Mason said, “Rebecca has remarkable powers of mimicry. Remember the way she imitated Opal Sunley’s voice? She even tried to mimic Mrs. Gentrie’s voice, but she was smart enough to know that she would have to make it sound as though she were in great agony, to cover up any little defects in impersonation. Read me her confession, Della. I want to check certain details.”

Della Street said, “I’ll have to read it from my shorthand notes.”

“Go ahead.”

She opened her notebook, read, “I, Rebecca Gentrie, make this voluntary confession so Lieutenant Tragg will see how stupid he was. He thought he could flatter me and pull the wool over my eyes. All the time I was laughing at him. I take the full responsibility for the murders. I don’t want Rodney Wenston to be charged with them. He didn’t have anything to do with them.

“Rodney and I met by accident after Karr took the flats next door. It was a case of love at first sight. I have always enjoyed fake photography. With a little practice, a person can transpose negatives in an enlarging camera so faces can be changed from one person to another. I had made a picture of myself and put Hedy LaMarr’s face on it. I happened to have it in my hand when I stepped out in the yard between the flats. Mr. Wenston was there. I showed him the picture, and he became interested in my photography. I took him into my darkroom and showed him around and told him how skillful I’d become in switching faces around. I thought perhaps I could do something with it commercially because lots of times when a person is being photographed, he’ll like one picture of his face, but not the pose of the body.

“Rodney told me afterwards he fell desperately in love with me then and there, although he didn’t show it at all until three days later, when I saw him again. Then he couldn’t conceal it.

“I have always hated my sister-in-law. I never wanted to live with her. I hated the children. I wanted a car. I could never even learn to drive while I was living there. I couldn’t get a chance at the car. Then Rodney told me a scheme by which he could make enough money to marry me, and we could live in style, and go around the world taking pictures. All I had to do was to take an old photograph of Doris Wickford’s family and place the head of another man on the body of the father in the picture. I told him I could do it if I could get both of the negatives. He gave me one of the negatives and explained that the other was kept in the safe over in Hocksley’s flat. He said Hocksley was a blind, that his stepfather had rented that flat under the name of Hocksley. Rodney wasn’t supposed to know this. They kept that lower flat so closely guarded he couldn’t ever get in to the safe. There was a housekeeper who was really in on the secret, and a secretary who didn’t know too much. There was also his stepfather’s bodyguard, Johns Blaine, and Gow Loong, the Chinese. These people used the back stairs to go up and down from the lower flat. They claimed they were doing some business with this man Hocksley. Rodney found out that it was no such thing. Hocksley had been one of the partners in the gun-running business they’d had twenty years ago. Hocksley had sold out then. Afterwards, he’d done some gun-running and double-crossed his Chinese customers, tipping the Japs off to when and where the guns were going to be put on Chinese junks. As a result, the Japanese were letting all of Hocksley’s business go through, so Karr simply took the name of Hocksley.

“Once, when Rodney flew his stepfather to San Francisco, Karr went very sound asleep and Rodney was able to get a notebook from his pocket. There was a string of figures in this notebook, and Rodney decided it was the combination of the safe. He told me to go over and try it. He said I’d better take a gun just in case anything happened. Rodney was the only one who could manufacture an emergency which would take everyone out of the house except the old cripple. In order to do that, he had to leave himself. It was going to take quite a little planning to make it work. He fixed the time as midnight and agreed that he’d leave an empty can on the shelf as a signal. If anything turned up, he’d scratch a code message on the inside of the tin. If there was no message it simply meant everything was fixed for midnight the night the tin was placed on the shelf.

“We had to communicate that way because I couldn’t get to a telephone very well, and if Rodney called me, his voice would have been recognized.

“The yard between the Gentrie house and the flat was sort of common property. Rodney had access to that and had had a key made which would fit the door in the garage. Because the housekeeper didn’t like him and was suspicious of him, Rodney thought it would be better if we were never seen together, so he arranged this signal and the code. Occasionally, when I’d see him in the yard, he’d bow and smile, and I’d also bow and smile very impersonally, although I could feel my heart pounding until I grew dizzy.

“The night of the shooting, everything went wrong. In the first place, my sister-in-law found the can Rodney had placed as a signal. This was before I had gone downstairs. I was afraid she’d be suspicious, but I kept commenting about the tin, and I saw she had no idea that it might be a signal. I intended to get down afterwards, find where she’d left the can, and see if there was a code message scratched in it. Then I found Arthur had used it for paint. Apparently, there wasn’t any message. I got Steele to look at the can. Of course, Steele didn’t know why. I simply told him that I wanted to find out about the can because I thought it was a very peculiar circumstance. I didn’t know then Steele was a detective. I found that out later.

“Because of a mistake, I didn’t get the message about disconnecting the burglar alarm. I went over shortly after midnight and got the safe open. I got a lot of papers out of the safe, and then I heard steps coming, slow, halting, ominous steps. I hid behind the safe. Karr entered the room and came directly toward me. At first, I thought he didn’t know I was there; then he told me to come out. I shot. He fell over, and then I was completely paralyzed with fright. After a few moments, I started out of the house, and then I saw Junior coming in, lighting matches. I almost killed him. I kept backing away. He couldn’t see me because the light of the matches was dazzling his eyes. I moved back and hid behind the safe. He telephoned that little floozy with the painted fingernails, wanting to know if she was all right. When he found she was, he went back out. I was trapped in that room. Karr was lying there unconscious, but I didn’t dare to go out, right on Junior’s heels. I waited for several minutes. I took the negative I wanted out of the envelope and put the rest of the things back in the safe, closed and locked the safe; then I started out.

“I was near the door when I heard a key click in the lock. The door opened and the housekeeper came in. I should have shot her then, but I tried to rely on surprise and rush past her in the dark. She grabbed at me. I struck at her with the gun. She tore a piece of cloth from my dress, but I fought free and slammed the door. Then I sneaked in and went to bed. I didn’t know a piece was gone from my dress until the next day. She’d seen that dress. Sooner or later she’d identify the piece she’d torn out.

“I heard people from next door take the car out of the garage. I knew they were driving the old man to a doctor. Rodney had told me about the housekeeper having her own place at East Hillgrade Avenue. I went out there the next night to try and make a deal with her. She knew she’d seen the pattern on the dress somewhere before, but couldn’t remember where. That was all that had saved me. She’d have thought of it later. She was going to turn me in to the police. She pointed a gun at me. I struggled with her. The gun went off in the struggle. I really didn’t intend to kill her.

“I wasn’t the least bit panic-stricken. I thought I could ring up Mr. Mason and Opal Sunley and pretend to be the housekeeper, confessing to the murder, and then make it seem logical she’d committed suicide. It almost worked. I did intend to kill Steele, the snoop. He’d been prowling around. He knew too much. I found a telegram in his pocket sending him to San Francisco. I knew I had to kill him to save Rodney. I didn’t care for myself, but I couldn’t let Rodney be dragged into it. I love Rodney as I have never believed it possible for a woman to love.

“Afterwards, when the message in the second can said that Perry Mason had fingerprints, I thought of a marvelous scheme to clean up the whole business. I have always hated my sister-in-law. Lots of times I’ve thought I’d like to kill her. I rang up Mason, pretended to be Florence, confessed to the murders, and said I was going to kill myself. Then I only needed to go quietly to Florence’s room, tell her that I had heard the phone ringing and had answered it, that Mason wanted to talk with her and was holding the line. Arthur sleeps so soundly I could have done this without waking him. When she came down to the telephone, I’d have shot her and then put the gun in her hand.

“You never would have got any of this if Mason hadn’t lied to me about Rodney having married that creature. I couldn’t go ahead with the scheme of killing Florence, because he sounded so drunk that he couldn’t have remembered what I told him. I have no regrets. I did what I did for the man I love...”

“That’s enough,” Mason said. “It will give Tragg everything he needs.”

“How about the person who broke into her darkroom and lit a match?” Della Street asked.

Mason laughed. “Just a little more alibi stuff. Those films weren’t fogged. She simply pretended to be trying to help. She was really manufacturing a lot of confusing details.”

“And she flew to San Francisco?”

“Sure. She had a meeting of a crossword-puzzle club, and there was an opera afterwards, so she had a good excuse for one of her infrequent absences from the house.”

“I never would have suspected her,” Della said.

Mason was thoughtful. “I should have suspected her sooner than I did. Any person who has studied criminology recognizes in that type the most dangerous potential murderer. She was a creature of repressions, a sex-starved, disappointed female. By pretending to fall in love with her, Wenston had no trouble whatever in making her an accomplice. She’d have done anything for him. You have only to read any of the well-authenticated works on criminology to recognize her counterpart in dozens of murders.”

“Did you have any idea the picture was faked?” Della asked.

Mason said, “Yes. Gow Loong tipped me off to that. He’s Chinese. His eyes notice little details which we pass up, probably because the Chinese have such marvelous memories. He noticed that the picture of the Wickford family group showed a face on the father which was not only like the photograph of the picture of Tucker taken in Shanghai, but was absolutely identical with it in every line and shadow. Gow Loong didn’t know enough about photography to realize what this meant, but, as is the case with Chinese the world over, being confronted with something he couldn’t understand, he became suspicious.”

“How about Opal Sunley?”

“Just a good kid,” Mason said, “who knew something mysterious was going on. She knew she was being paid to keep her mouth shut, and she kept it shut. She was there to transcribe records. She transcribed them. She didn’t ask any questions and didn’t try to find out what was going on. Of course, Junior was in love with her. When he heard what he thought was a shot in the adjoining house, he dashed over there to investigate, because he was afraid Opal might have returned to the residence of her employer. He was in love. Her reticence about her job made him think she was having an affair with her boss. He was suspicious, and he was jealous. When he didn’t find her there, he telephoned her. Notice her number was one that could be easily dialed in the dark. When she answered, he pretended he was calling from his own house. He then went back home, ashamed of himself. He never wanted her to know that he had suspected her to the extent of going over to the adjoining flat and making a search. He’s young and romantic. He would have even gone to jail before he’d have told the truth. Della, we actually are approaching the beach.”

“Well, it does look like it,” Della said. “You don’t suppose that I got my directions mixed, do you? How about the charred remnants of the clothes Tragg found out at Mrs. Perlin’s bungalow?”

Mason said, “That’s simple. Karr went to San Francisco to be treated for his wound. According to the story he told the doctor there, he’d been shot after he’d retired. That left them with some bloodstained clothes to get rid of; trousers, underwear, shirt, possibly a coat, and most certainly a pair of shoes. When Karr came back, he gave those things to Mrs. Perlin, told her to keep out of sight for a while, and to dispose of those clothes. She burnt them in the furnace at her bungalow.”

“Why did they have her disappear?” Della asked.

“Probably because she was the weak link in their organization. She couldn’t have stood up to police questioning. Della, we definitely are headed toward the beach.”

“Well—”

Mason said, “We’ll have to telephone Gertie. Be kind of nice to cover up with warm sand and doze off to sleep, then plunge in the salt water.”

“Uh huh. Ham and eggs and coffee would be nice, too.”

“Stack of buckwheats on the side?” Mason asked.

“No. That’s too heavy. I have to watch my figure, you know.”

Mason grinned. “Not when you’re on a beach in a bathing suit, you don’t, baby. Plenty of other people are doing that for you.”

She smiled across at him. “You’re awfully nice,” she said. “It wouldn’t be so bad getting scared to death in murder cases if there were only longer interludes in between. Will we take a spin in the speedboat?”

“Will we go out in the speedboat!” Mason echoed. “Well, I hope to tell you! After we’ve had a little sleep, we’ll charter a speedboat and tear the ocean wide open. Speed, in case you haven’t noticed it, is our middle name.”

By way of illustration, Mason’s foot pressed down on the foot throttle until the speedometer needle went quivering up into the high figures.

Della Street smiled, said, “Yes, I’d noticed,” and then, adjusting the mirror on the sunshield of the car so she could apply powder to her nose, she added evenly, “And in case you’re interested, there’s a gentleman behind you on a motorcycle who seems also to have observed that trait in your character.”

Mason slowed the car, started reaching for his wallet containing his driver’s license. The siren wailed as the motorcycle officer putted alongside. “What’s the idea?” he asked, as Mason sheepishly slowed the car to a stop.

Della Street leaned across the steering wheel. “What’s the idea of stopping us?” she demanded indignantly. “We’re rushing down to interrogate some witnesses in that Hocksley murder case.”

“You one of the boys working on that?” the officer asked.

Della Street said, “Well, I hope to tell you. He’s Lieutenant Tragg’s brother!”

The officer grinned and waved them on. “Go to it,” he said. “We just got a radio report Tragg had cracked that one.”

As Mason eased the car into gear, Della Street smiled at him and said, “After all, there’s no use having relatives if you can’t get some good out of them once in a while.”