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.