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.