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.”