Perry Mason was standing at the cigar counter buying a package of cigarettes when Della Street came through the doorway, carried along by the stream of people pouring in from the street. Several masculine eyes looked at her with approval as she swung to the outer edge of the file of in-pouring office workers. From the straight seams of her stockings to the tilt of her chin, she represented a feminine bundle of neat efficiency which was remarkably easy on the eyes.
Perry Mason, tossing a quarter on the glass counter and turning back toward the elevators, encountered Della Street’s smiling eyes looking up at him. “What is the rush?” she asked.
Mason gripped her elbows with his hand. “Surprise!” he said.
“I’ll say it’s a surprise. What’s bringing you down this early? Is there a murder in the air that I haven’t sniffed? I didn’t expect to see you before eleven, not after the way you were working last night when I went home. I suppose the office is a litter.”
“Your supposition is entirely correct,” he said, “and don’t try putting away the books in the law library. I’ve worked out a new theory in that Consolidated case. The books are all lying face open, piled one on top of the other in the exact order that I want to follow in dictating an office brief.”
They walked together into one of the crowded elevators, stood back from the door, being pushed into the intimacy of a close proximity by the packed humanity. Mason’s hand, still on Della Street’s arm, tightened into that little gesture of friendship and understanding which was the keynote of their relationship.
“Going to win that case?” she asked.
He nodded, smiled at her, but said nothing until the elevator stopped to let them out, then as they walked down the long corridor, he said, “It’s a cinch now. I always thought it should have been presented on the doctrine of ‘last clear chance,’ but I couldn’t find the authorities to support that contention. Last night about eleven o’clock I uncovered just the line of decisions I wanted.”
“Nice going,” she said.
Della Street unlocked the door of Mason’s private office, said, “I’ll take a peek at the outer office and see what’s doing. I suppose you’ll want the mail?”
Mason grinned. “Not all the mail. High-grade it for checks. Throw the bills away, and put the other correspondence in the deferred file.”
“Where it will duly repose for a week or two, and then get transferred to the dead file,” she said.
“Oh, well, if there’s anything important, you’ll know what to do about it.”
Mason, who hated all letters with the aversion a man of action feels for routine work, hung up his hat in the cloak closet, walked over to the window, looked down for a moment at the confusion of tangled traffic, then turned back to his desk. Picking up a law book which lay open on his blotter, he started studying the decision. As he followed an obscure legal principle through an intricate maze of legal reasoning, the corners of his eyes puckered with the enjoyment of concentration. Slowly, as though hardly aware of what he was doing, he pulled out the swivel chair and settled down at his desk without interrupting his reading.
Several minutes later the door opened and his confidential secretary, easing her way into the room, waited for him to look up. It was almost five minutes before, turning a page, he saw her standing there. “What is it?” he asked.
“An aviator who wants to see you on behalf of his stepfather,” Della Street said. “He’s in the outer office.”
“Not interested,” Mason said. “I have this Consolidated case on my mind and don’t want to be disturbed.”
“He’s a tall, handsome devil,” she said, “and knows it. He says that his stepfather is a cripple and can’t come himself, that he has a most important legal matter to take up with you, that because there was a shooting affair last night in the flat below, he’s afraid the situation may be complicated.”
Mason put down the law book somewhat wistfully. “The gunshot does it,” he announced with a grin. “I never can concentrate on a brief when there’s shooting going on. What’s his name, Della?”
“Rodney Wenston. He’s one of these playboy aviation enthusiasts; living, I gather, largely on funds inherited from his mother. I doubt if his stepfather entirely approves of him, and I also doubt if he entirely approves of his stepfather — refers to him as the guv’nor.”
“How old?” Mason asked.
“Somewhere around thirty-five. Tall, straight, and has that slow-moving assurance of a man who’s accustomed to the best in life. He has a lisp when he’s embarrassed or self-conscious and you can see it annoys him.”
“He’s not flying for a living, just as a sport?”
“A hobby, he calls it.”
“You seem to have found out a good deal about him.”
“What it takes to get information I have,” she told him coolly. “But this time I didn’t even have to work. The man really loosened up. Perhaps that’s why I’m prejudiced in his favor. He doesn’t regard a secretary as a wall to be jumped over or detoured but as a necessary part of a business organization. As soon as I told him I was your secretary and asked him about his business, he opened right up.”
Mason said, “With that in his favor and the gunshot as a lure, we’ll certainly give him an audience. What about the lisp, Della?”
“Oh, it isn’t bad. He’s really very distinguished looking, tall, straight, blue eyes, blond hair and lots of it, a nice profile, probably more than a little spoiled, but quite definitely a personality. The lisp embarrasses him a lot but he gets over it somewhat after he’s warmed up to his conversation.”
“All right, let’s talk with him,” Mason said.
Della Street picked up the telephone, said, “Send Mr. Wenston in, Gertie.” She dropped the telephone receiver, said to Mason, “Now, don’t start reading that law book again.”
“I won’t,” Mason promised.
“Your mind is just about half focused on that book right now.”
Reluctantly, Mason turned the book face down on his desk. The door of his private office opened, and Rodney Wenston bowed deferentially. “Good morning, Mr. Mason. I hope you’ll pardon this early intrusion but the fact ith the guv’nor is all worked up. Apparently, there’s been a shooting in the lower flat, and he’s afraid officers will be thwarming all over the place to interfere with what he wants to see you about. He says it’s dreadfully important and I’m commissioned to get a habeas corpus, mandamus, or whatever you lawyers call it, to see that you get there at once. My stepfather promises to pay you anything you want if you’ll come immediately.”
“Can you tell me the nature of the business?” Mason asked.
Wenston smiled. “Frankly, I can’t. My stepfather ith one of those rugged individualists. I was to act as intermediary. He’s...”
The telephone rang. Della Street picked it up, said, “Hello,” then, shielding the mouthpiece with her hand, said to Mason, “This is he on the phone now. Elston A. Karr. Says he sent his stepson to explain matters, and he’d like to talk with you personally.”
Mason nodded acquiescence to Della Street, took the telephone from her, and said, “Hello.” He heard a thin, high-pitched voice saying in a crisp, meticulous accuracy of enunciation, “Mr. Mason, this is Elston A. Karr. I have given my address to your secretary. I presume she has made a note of it. Apparently a murder was committed in the flat below mine sometime last night. The place is crawling with police. For certain reasons which I cannot explain at the present time or over the telephone, I want to talk with an attorney. It’s about a matter about which I’ve been thinking for several days. I want to get it disposed of before police start messing into my private affairs. Can you come out here immediately? I am confined to a wheelchair and am unable to get to your office.”
“Who was murdered?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know. That matter is highly immaterial except as it will interfere with what I want to do.”
Mason, conducting a psychological experiment, asked, “Do you think you’ll be suspected of complicity in this murder?”
The man’s close-lipped accents said scornfully, “Certainly not.”
“Then why all this hurry about seeing me?”
“It’s a matter I’ll explain when you get here. It’s highly important. I am willing to pay any fee within reason. I want you personally, Mr. Mason. I would not be satisfied with any other attorney. But you’ll have to make up your mind quickly.”
Mason turned to Della Street. “Tell Gertie not to touch those books on the library table. Okay, Mr. Karr, I’ll be right out. Just a minute. Della, you have the address?”
“Yes.”
Mason dropped the receiver into place. “Come on, Della. We’re going places.”
Wenston smiled. “Glad you talked with him, Mr. Mason. He’th a card. I’ll not be going out with you. Sometimes we don’t get along too well. I fly him around and do errands for him, but we’re not too thick. Just a tip — don’t let him dominate you. He’ll try fast enough — and lose all respect for you as soon as he does it.
“And, if you want another tip, remember he’s a deep one. He may seem simple enough, but he has an oriental angle of approach. You know, when he wants to go north, he starts to the east and circles back. He’s rented the flat in my name. You’ll see Wenston on the door.
“Well, I’ll be on my way. Thank you for your courtesy in seeing me. Good morning.”
Mason was putting on his hat as Wenston went out. He and Della caught the next elevator down, and crossed to the garage where Mason’s car was parked. The lawyer drove swiftly through the congestion of morning traffic, parking the car half a block from the address his client had given Della Street. Four or five cars were already parked in front of the two-flat stucco house, its cream-colored sides and red-tiled roof contrasting in architecture with the old-fashioned rambling frame house on the comer where the Gentries lived.
As they walked rapidly along toward the flat, Della said, “That corner house certainly goes back.”
Mason looked at it curiously. “A lot of those houses were put up around 1900. They were then the last word in luxurious mansions. Of course they seem hopelessly antiquated now. That’s because this section of the country is so young and styles have changed with such bewildering rapidity. Take some of the older parts of the country and old houses don’t look so much out of place. You’ll find lots of houses seventy-five to a hundred years old which don’t seem nearly as old as this place. This flat is the one we want, isn’t it?”
“Yes. We ring the bell on the left. This one on the right says Robindale E. Hocksley.”
Mason said, “Hope he doesn’t keep us standing here. It would be just our luck to have Lieutenant Tragg pop his head out of the door and...”
Abruptly the door of the left-hand flat opened. A tall Chinese, clad in somber, dark clothes, said, “How-do? Mistah Mason? You please come in, velly quick please.”
Mason and Della walked through the door the Chinese was holding open and climbed the stairs. The door was swung quietly shut behind them by the swift-moving Chinese.
Nearing the head of the stairs Mason heard the sound of rubber-tired wheels rolling rapidly along the hardwood floor. The same high-pitched, reedy voice he had heard over the telephone said, “It’s all right, Johns. Don’t bother. I’ll make it.” Then a wheelchair shot through a curtained doorway. An emaciated hand applied a brake, and Mason found himself scrutinized by a pair of piercing gray eyes, deep-set beneath shaggy brows, in a face which seemed all skin and bones.
The man in the wheelchair gave the impression of boundless nervous energy. It was as though the strength which had been denied the body had gone into nervous vitality. So intense was the concentration in those gray eyes that the man seemed to entirely forget the amenities of the situation. Della Street he ignored, utterly and completely, devoting all of his attention to a study of the lawyer.
It was a man who came hurrying from the room behind the curtained doorway who broke the tension. “Mr. Mason?”
The lawyer nodded.
The man came forward, smiling. Powerful shoulders pushed out a short, muscular arm. Thick, strong fingers grasped Mason’s hand. “I’m Blaine,” he said. “Johns Blaine.”
Karr lowered the lids of his eyes. In that moment, so transparent and waxlike was his skin that he seemed almost as a corpse. Then his eyes slowly opened. The look of intense concentration had departed. There was a smile on his lips, and a kindly twinkle in his eyes. “Forgive me, Mr. Mason,” he said. “I need a good lawyer. I’ve heard a lot about you. I wanted to see if you measured up.”
He raised his hand from the arm of the wheelchair and extended it. Mason folded gentle fingers about the hand, noticing that the skin was cold, that the bones seemed delicately fragile.
“My secretary, Miss Street,” Mason introduced.
The others acknowledged the introduction, then Karr said, “And my number one boy, Gow Loong.”
Mason regarded the Chinese with undisguised interest. He had, somehow, more the air of a companion or partner than of a servant. His high forehead, the calm placidity of his countenance, the steady inscrutability of his dark eyes gave him a distinguished appearance.
“Don’t get interested in him,” Karr warned, in his quick, nervous voice. “He’s too much like the Orient. You want to understand him, but can’t. A perpetual mystery. Arouses your curiosity and then slams the door in your face. We’ve got too confounded much to think about — too much to talk about. Glad you brought your secretary. She can take notes, and I won’t have to go over the thing twice. Makes me terribly impatient when I have to repeat things. What are you standing there for? Come on, let’s go in where we can sit down and be comfortable, and get this over with.”
He grasped the big rubber tires of the wheelchair, spun it in a quick turn, lunged forward with his thin shoulders, and, mustering surprising strength, sent the chair shooting back through the curtained doorway at such speed that the others, following along behind, were hopelessly in the rear.
The room beyond the curtained doorway was a well-furnished drawing room with hardwood floors, sumptuous Chinese rugs and furniture which had quite evidently been brought from the Orient. The dark wood of this furniture had been cunningly carved with a design in which the dragon motif predominated.
Karr spun the wheelchair into a quick turn and stopped it instantly. He handled his chair with the deft, expert skill born of long practice. “Sit down. Sit down,” he said in his high-pitched, piping voice. “Don’t stand on formality, please. There isn’t any time. Mason, sit over here. Miss Street, if you’ll use that table for your writing. No! Wait a minute. There’s some nested tables over there. You can get one just the right height. Gow Loong, put that table over by her elbow. All set? Sit down, Johns. Damn it, you make me nervous, hovering around over me. I’m not going to break in two.”
“What has happened?” Mason asked.
Karr said, “Listen attentively, please. You got your notebook there, Miss Street? That’s fine. I’m right in the middle of a delicate matter. I won’t go into details right now, but I had a partner in China. A rough partnership it was, too. We were running guns up the Yangtze. Slice you up in fine pieces if they caught you. Death of a thousand cuts, they called it.
“Well, anyway, my partner and I kept ’em supplied with guns. There was excitement in it, and money. I won’t go into that, though, not now. I’ll only say I’m doing something in connection with that old partnership — and I’ve got to keep under cover until it’s done. I can’t stand any notoriety — don’t want anyone to know of me. Far as anyone knows, Elston A. Karr was killed up the river.
“I rented this apartment in the name of my stepson, Rodney Wenston. He signs all the checks, pays the rent, and all that. I don’t enter into the picture at all.
“However, there are some of the boys who aren’t fooled easily. Don’t ever underestimate the Oriental. They’re slow but sure. Sometimes they aren’t so slow, either. Well, as I said, I’ve got to avoid any publicity. No one must see me here. I can’t be questioned.
“Well, this matter I want to talk to you about has to do with the old partnership. I didn’t start the ball rolling until I was certain any interest which might have been aroused by my having moved in here had quieted down. So I picked this particular time to go ahead, and then that murder happened downstairs. Puts me in the devil of a predicament. I suppose the newspapermen will describe the house and the tenants. Worst possible time it could have happened.”
Mason asked, “Why not let this other matter wait?”
“Because I’ve already started it,” Karr exclaimed irritably. “Dammit, Mason, I told you that already. I’ve started the ball rolling. I can’t stop it now. And the more of a mystery they make of that murder downstairs, the longer the thing drags out, the more notoriety I’ll get, and the more dangerous it is for me.”
“Have the police been here yet?” Mason asked.
“No. That’s why I was in such a hurry to get you. I want you to help me handle them.”
Mason frowned. “How does it happen they haven’t been here before this?”
Karr said, “Talked them out of it. Sent Johns and Gow Loong down to find out what it was all about. The police questioned them. Some lieutenant from the Homicide Squad down there. What’s his name, Johns?”
“Tragg.”
“That’s right, Tragg. Lieutenant Tragg. Know him, Mason?”
“Yes.”
Karr said, “They told Tragg I was sick, that he’d have to come up to interview me, that I didn’t know anything, anyway. That’s not true. I heard the shot, but that’s all I know about it.”
Mason said, “Perhaps if you’d tell me why you felt it necessary to call me, we’d have a more satisfactory starting point.”
Karr jerked his head into a sharp turn. His eyes were blazing now with the fire of that devastating, nervous energy which seemed to be too much for his frail body to hold. “How about this secretary of yours? All right?”
“All right.”
“You can vouch for her?”
“Yes.”
“This is important — important as the devil.”
“She’s all right.”
Karr said, “I don’t know what happened downstairs. I don’t give a damn. I’m confined to my wheelchair. I can’t get around. Have to be lifted in and out. Don’t have any opportunity to be neighborly. Don’t want to be neighborly. All I ask is to be left alone. Now this confounded murder comes along, and I suppose the newspaper reporters will start snooping around. One thing I can’t stand, Mason, is publicity. Don’t want any of it. Can’t have it.”
“Why did you send for me?” Mason asked.
“I’m coming to it. Don’t interrupt me. When I get started, let me go. And don’t make me repeat. It makes me nervous to have to repeat. Where was I? Oh, yes, publicity. I’ll tell you why I can’t stand any publicity. I’m hiding. They’re trying to murder me. Wouldn’t be surprised if this murder downstairs was because some hired assassin got his numbers mixed. I used the greatest care getting this flat. It’s an ideal location for what I want. But I made one mistake. I should have rented the lower flat as well, and put Gow Loong in there. But when I moved in, the lower flat was untenanted and had been for over a year. Neighborhood’s gone to hell, but they still want too much money for their rentals. I rented this place, moved in at night...”
“Why didn’t you take the lower apartment for yourself?” Mason asked. “The stairs must make a difference.”
“Don’t make any difference at all,” Karr said. “Can’t go any place except in a wheelchair. Have no desire to go out of doors except to get a little sunlight. There’s a fine balcony here on the south and west side. I can get out there and get the sunlight. That’s why I like the place. No buildings over on the south side to shut off the sunlight. That big old-fashioned mansion over on the north literally blankets the north side, shuts off any cold north winds. I want it warm. My blood’s thin. Too long in the tropics. Too much dysentery. Too much malaria. Too much other stuff. Never mind. Don’t need to go into that now. How’d I get talking about stairs? Oh, yes, you asked me.”
He raised his hand and pointed a long, bony finger at Mason. “I told you not to interrupt me. Let me talk.”
Mason smiled. “There are certain things I have to know.”
“All right, I’ll come to them. Wait until I’ve finished, and then ask me for anything I haven’t covered. What was I talking about?”
“Publicity,” Johns Blaine said in the half second of silence which followed Karr’s request.
“Murder,” corrected Gow Loong.
Mason’s eyes shifted to the face of the Chinese, regarding him with keen interest. The one word which he had spoken had been without emphasis, without accent, and without hesitation. It was the one word of prompting which Karr needed.
“That’s right,” Karr said. “It’s murder. I’m a wanted man, Mr. Mason. There are people who want to know where I am. If they find out, I’m finished. In my condition, I can’t move around rapidly. I took a lot of trouble getting into this place unobserved. Johns Blaine rented it, and moved in. He and Gow Loong smuggled me in under cover of darkness. No one has ever seen me. That’s the beauty of the place. That balcony out there gets the sunlight, but it can’t be seen from any direction. There isn’t any other house which can command a view. That’s the advantage of that deep gully along there — ‘barranca’ they call it in this country. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t think they’d ever rent the lower part of the house. Too many people are afraid there’s going to be an earthquake, and the whole thing will slide down into the gully — barranca.
“There may be better places out here in Hollywood, but we didn’t have time to look around too much. They were after me. They were pretty hot on my trail, if you want to know the truth. A man who has to move around in a wheelchair isn’t exactly what you’d call inconspicuous. Johns did a good job in the limited time he had. It’s a satisfactory place. But I can’t stand any investigation. I don’t want to talk with the police. I don’t want them to talk with me. I can’t see any newspaper reporters.”
“What do you know,” Mason asked, “and what happened?”
“A man moved in down in the lower flat about a week after I’d rented this place,” Karr said. “I haven’t ever seen him. He’s never seen me. His name’s Hocksley. Guess you saw it on the mailbox — didn’t you?”
Mason nodded.
“I don’t know what he does. I think he’s connected with the studios, some sort of a writer. Damned irregular habits. I can hear him dictating sometimes at night. Always seems to dictate at night. Don’t know what he does during the daytime. Guess he sleeps.”
“Does he dictate to a stenographer?” Mason asked.
“No. To a dictating machine. That’s the way it sounds, and I think that’s right. Has a girl who comes in every day and pounds the typewriter. He seems to keep her busy. She’s the one who discovered the murder.”
“She comes in each day?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“He lives down there alone?”
“No, he doesn’t. He has a housekeeper. What’s her name, Gow Loong?”
“Salah Pahlin.”
“That’s right, Sarah Perlin. Never can remember names. That’s an odd name, anyway. I’ve never seen her. Johns has seen her. Tell him what she looks like, Johns.”
Blaine said very tersely, “Fifty-five, tall, angular, dark eyes, thin gray hair, keeps it combed tightly back, flat-footed, doesn’t try to make herself look attractive. She lives in the place, has the back bedroom, I think. About five-foot-four or five, weighs a hundred ten or a hundred and fifteen. Is there to work, and that’s all, closemouthed, does the cooking, takes care of the place, doesn’t do washing, evidently a good cook. There’s lots of baking. You can smell it up here. Doesn’t seem to do much frying.”
Karr held up his hand. “That’s enough,” he said. “Gives Mason the picture. He doesn’t have to know too much about her. Just wants a description — doesn’t want to know what brand of toothpaste she uses. She’s disappeared.”
Abruptly, the sound of the buzzer on the door interrupted Karr’s speech.
Mason said, “That’ll be the police.”
Karr said, “Keep me out of it, Mason. You’ve got to keep me out of it.”
Mason said impatiently, “You’ve spouted out a lot of rapid conversation, but you haven’t got anywhere. That’s because you wouldn’t let me interrupt you and ask questions. Gow Loong, go to the door. If that’s Tragg, keep him down there for a minute or two. Karr, tell me exactly what happened.”
Karr frowned irritably. “Don’t interrupt me. I...”
“Shut up,” Mason said. “Answer my question. What happened?”
Johns Blaine stared at Mason in sudden consternation, said, “Mr. Karr gets nervous when he’s interrupted, Mr. Mason. He...”
“Shut up,” Karr said to Blaine, and to Mason, “Last night about half past twelve, a shot. After that, some moving around downstairs. I didn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t. I could have yelled, that’s all. I didn’t try yelling. Wouldn’t have done any good, anyway.”
“How about these other people?” Mason asked. “Where were they?”
“I was here alone,” Karr said. “I don’t ordinarily stay alone. I...”
Mason said to Gow Loong, “If that’s Tragg, stall him along as much as you can, but let him in. Go ahead and open the door. All right, Karr, let’s hear the rest of it.”
“Heard someone running, heard a door slam,” Karr said. “Then I didn’t hear anything more for ten or fifteen minutes. Then I heard someone moving around cautiously. I heard a man’s voice talking. Might have been telephoning.”
“Then what?” Mason asked.
“Nothing more for an hour. Then things moving again, a sound of something being dragged across the floor, and out the side door. It sounded like a body being dragged by someone who couldn’t lift it. There were two people, I think. I was in bed. I couldn’t even get to the window or the telephone. Never have a telephone by my bed. Makes me too nervous if it rings at night.”
“The side door?” Mason asked.
“That’s right. The side door is right opposite the garage over at the other house — that one on the north. Hocksley rents that garage, keeps his car there. His stenographer uses it sometimes.”
“Hear anything else?” Mason asked.
“Voices. I think one of them was a woman. I heard a car start and drive out. It was gone about an hour, came back to that garage. Gow Loong was back by that time.”
“And Mr. Blaine?” Mason asked as he heard steps on the stairs.
Blaine said, “I got in about two o’clock.”
The steps on the stairs were louder. Gow Loong said, “You come topside upstairs, please. Solly no come sooner. No savvy policee man. Massah in here, please.”
Lieutenant Tragg, standing in the doorway, surveyed the group for a minute before his eyes segregated Perry Mason from the others. As he recognized the lawyer, a slight flush deepened his color, but there was no other indication of surprise or annoyance. “Well, well,” he said, “fancy seeing you here! May I ask what’s the occasion of the visit?”
Mason said, “My client, Mr. Karr, is nervous. You understand how it is when a man of law-abiding habits is suddenly brought into contact with lawlessness. He naturally becomes apprehensive. Mr. Karr has been intending to make a will for some time, and the unfortunate occurrence downstairs tended to emphasize the uncertainties of life. He sent for me to... to come on a legal matter.”
“So you’re drawing a will?” Tragg asked skeptically.
Mason started to say something, then apparently caught himself, and said, “Well, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by discussing Mr. Karr’s private business. You may draw your own conclusions, Lieutenant.”
“I’m drawing them,” Tragg said significantly.
Mason performed the introductions. “Mr. Karr,” he said, “Mr. Johns Blaine, and Gow Loong, the number one boy.”
Lieutenant Tragg said, “I’ve met the others. Mr. Karr’s the one I want to talk with.”
Mason said, “I’m afraid Mr. Karr can’t help you very much. I’ve been asking him generally about the murder. Just the natural questions that one would ask out of curiosity, you know.”
“Yes,” Tragg said, and added, after a duly significant pause, “just out of curiosity.”
Mason grinned. “Certainly, Tragg. I hope you don’t think that if I were interested in what had gone on downstairs, I’d be approaching it in this roundabout method.”
Tragg said, “Experience has taught me that your methods of approach are sometimes oblique, but always deadly.”
Mason laughed. “Come on over and sit down. I’m afraid Mr. Karr can’t help you very much. You see, he heard two shots in the wee small hours of the morning, but thought they were from the exhaust of a truck, and...”
“Two shots!” Tragg interrupted.
Mason regarded him with wide-open, innocent eyes. “Why, yes. Weren’t there two?”
Tragg said, “What time was this?”
“Oh, perhaps one or two in the morning. He didn’t look at his clock. But he thinks it was right around in there.”
“Why does he place the time as being around in there if he didn’t look at the clock?”
“Well, he’d awakened about twelve-thirty, and he was just getting back to sleep again,” Mason said.
Tragg frowned. “That doesn’t agree with statements made by some of the other witnesses.”
“The deuce it doesn’t,” Mason said in apparent surprise. “Well, Mr. Karr can’t be very certain about any of it, Tragg. There is, of course, a chance he actually did hear a truck backfiring, and didn’t hear the actual shots, which may have been fired earlier in the night.”
“Shot,” Tragg said. “There was only one.”
Mason gave a low whistle.
Tragg looked at Karr. “You’re certain there were two?”
Karr said, “I don’t think I can add anything to what Mr. Mason has said.”
“I’ve been talking it over with him,” Mason observed easily, “and he isn’t certain of a thing, Tragg. That’s why I told you I didn’t think he could help you much.”
Tragg said to Karr, “What do you know about this man, Hocksley, who lived in the flat below you?”
“Not a thing,” Karr said. “I’ve never so much as set eyes on the man. You see, I’m confined to my wheelchair and bed. I’m not interested in the neighbors, and I don’t particularly care about having them interested in me. Even if Hocksley had lived a completely normal, ordinary life, I probably would never have seen him; but he didn’t.”
“In what way didn’t he?”
“I think,” Karr said, “the man must have slept most of the day, because I’d heard him up at all hours of the night. He did a lot of talking down there. It sounded as though it was dictation he was pouring into a dictating machine...”
“Why not to a stenographer?” Tragg asked.
“It may have been,” Karr said, “but it sounded more like a dictating machine, a steady, even monotone of fast dictation with virtually no pauses. I’ve noticed that when people dictate to stenographers, they pause every little while — that is, most of them do. Then they’ll have intervals of real long pauses while they’re waiting for ideas. Something about a dictating machine which speeds up a man’s concentration. He feeds the stuff right into it. Anyway, that’s the way I’ve always thought about it.”
Tragg frowned and looked down at the toes of his shoes. After a while he said, “Humph,” then turned to regard Mason thoughtfully.
“Oh, well,” Mason said cheerfully, “it’ll probably work out all right. It’s been my experience there are always these little discrepancies in a case. What happened, Tragg?”
Tragg said, “Hocksley had that flat downstairs. He had a housekeeper, a Mrs. Sarah Perlin. A stenographer, Opal Sunley, came in and transcribed records. You’re right, Mr. Karr. The man dictated to a machine. In any event, that’s what Opal Sunley says, and I was glad to get your corroboration on that.”
“What was his line of business?” Mason asked.
Tragg said, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know!” Mason exclaimed. “Haven’t you talked with his stenographer?”
“That’s just it,” Tragg said. “His stenographer tells an absolutely impossible story.”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently, Hocksley was engaged in some sort of exporting business. He wrote a great many letters giving detailed specifications about bills of lading, shipments, shipping directions, and all that sort of stuff. He wrote to a manufacturer’s agent about buying merchandise. He wrote to steamship companies about deliveries. And every damn letter in the outfit was a phoney.”
“What do you mean?” Mason asked.
Tragg said, “The letters were some sort of code stuff. Because from what the Sunley woman tells me, I know darn well that, with shipments in the condition they are today, the letters weren’t what they seemed to be on their face.”
“Did she know it?” Mason asked.
“No. She’s one of the slow, plugging kind that sticks a head clamp over her head, turns on the dictating machine, transcribes the letters, and forgets about them.”
“How about carbon copies?” Mason asked.
“That’s just it. Hocksley would have her make carbon copies, but she didn’t do any filing. She doesn’t know where the carbon copies are, or what became of them, and we can’t find any.”
“Hocksley was killed?”
“Hocksley or his housekeeper or both. They’re both missing, and there’s evidences of a shooting. We’d been acting on the theory that either Hocksley killed his housekeeper, or the housekeeper killed Hocksley, because we’d only been able to account for one shot. But if there were two shots, that might make the situation entirely different.”
Mason said, “If there’s anything we can do, don’t hesitate to call, Tragg. But Mr. Karr is intensely nervous. He’s had a nervous breakdown, and his doctors have told him to live in seclusion where he wouldn’t meet strangers, not to cultivate acquaintances, or form any new friendships. It would be a lot better if you’d limit his contacts as much as possible.”
Tragg pushed back his chair, got to his feet, shoved his hands down deep in his trousers pockets, and looked down at Karr. “You won’t think I’m getting too nosey if I ask you why the wheelchair?” he inquired.
Karr said tersely, “Arthritis. In my knees and ankles. Can’t stand any weight on them at all. Have to be lifted. Get in one position and I’m fairly comfortable. Make any moves with my legs, and there’s intense pain. Doctors recommended diathermy. I tried it for a while and came to the conclusion I could do the same thing by keeping a blanket over my legs and keeping them warm all the time. I drink lots of water and fruit juices. I’m getting better.”
“You haven’t a doctor now?”
“No, sir. Got tired of paying them so much money, and having them do me so little good. Man gets something acute wrong with him, and a doctor can help cure him. When it’s something chronic, doctors can’t help. They know it. They try to kid the patient along so he keeps cheerful. To hell with that stuff. I don’t want it. I never have been kidded along, and I don’t want to start in now. Put it up cold turkey to the last doctor. He got mad and told me I never would get any better, that in the course of time, I’d probably get worse. They’ve looked me all over for bad teeth and focal infections. I’m getting along all right. Last few months I’ve been better than ever before. Keep my legs warm all the time.”
Tragg regarded him with an air of detached interest, as though he were looking at some specimen in a glass case. Then he turned to regard Mason thoughtfully. Abruptly, he said, “Well, I’m sorry I disturbed you, Mr. Karr. I just had to complete my checkup. Just a matter of routine, you know. It probably won’t be necessary to bother you again. Sorry you’ve been having your troubles and hope I didn’t aggravate them too much.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Karr said. “Like to talk with a man who has intelligence. Afraid some square-toed, brow-beating cop was going to come messing around here, asking a lot of damnfool questions. You’re all right. Come in any time.”
“Thanks,” Tragg said. “I’ll try and handle this end of it myself, so you won’t be meeting new people.”
“I’ll certainly appreciate that,” Karr said. “I will for a fact.”
“Now then,” Tragg went on in a deliberately casual manner, “how about Rodney Wenston? Does he...”
“Just a blind,” Karr interrupted. “He’s my stepson. Lives down toward the beach somewhere. I have the telephone in his name, and his name on the door. In fact, he rents the flat. I’ve done that deliberately so as to let myself stay in the background. When peddlers come here and ask for Mr. Wenston, we can tell them quite truthfully he’s out and we don’t know when he’ll be back. I don’t want to be annoyed with people. I use Wenston as a sort of buffer.”
Tragg appeared quite favorably impressed with the explanation. He nodded his head sympathetically and said, “I understand perfectly. Is there any particular reason why you are avoiding people, Mr. Karr?”
“There certainly is,” Karr snapped. “I’m a nervous man — irritable — highly irritable. The doctors tell me to conserve my nervous energy. I can’t do it when I meet people, particularly strangers. Strangers ask too damn many questions. Strangers get sympathetic. Strangers talk too damn much. Strangers come to visit and stay too long. I don’t like them.”
Tragg laughed good-naturedly, and said, “And, I take it, the fewer questions I ask and the shorter I make my stay, the more popular I’ll be?”
“Poppycock,” Karr exploded. “I didn’t mean you, didn’t mean you at all. You’re here on business.”
“In any event, I’ll be going,” Tragg said. “I trust it won’t be necessary to bother you again, Mr. Karr.”
Mason watched him out of the room, then frowned and lit a cigarette. He was still frowning at the cigarette smoke when the sound of the lower door closing seemed to ease the tension.
Karr said, “What was the idea telling him about two shots, and making the time later, Mason?”
Mason said, “It would have been a good gag if it had worked.”
“Don’t you think it did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why was it a good gag?”
“Because when an officer’s working up a case, he talks with a lot of witnesses. From them he gets a pretty good idea of what happened and when it happened. Naturally, an officer likes to get newspaper publicity, so he stands in pretty well with the newspaper reporters. Otherwise he doesn’t stay on the force. The newspapers see to that. So when you tell a man like Lieutenant Tragg to keep your name out of the newspapers, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. But if you give him testimony which is at variance with the facts in the case he’s working up, then he’s certain to see your name is kept out of the newspapers.”
“Why?”
“Because if the newspapers state you don’t recollect things just as the other witnesses do, or that your testimony is at sharp variance with theirs, it means that the person who actually committed the murder, and whom the police are after, is encouraged. It means that when that person is arrested, the lawyer he retains will know immediately where to go to find a witness who will contradict the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses.”
Karr’s face lit up into a smile. “Clever,” he said. “Damned clever. That’s what I wanted you for, Mason. Fast thinking...”
“Well, don’t be too happy about it,” Mason warned, “because I don’t think it worked.”
“Why not?”
Mason said, “Tragg’s too damned intelligent. That man’s just nobody’s damn fool.”
“You think he saw through what you were doing?”
“I’m practically certain of it,” Mason said, “but that isn’t what’s worrying me.”
“What is?”
Mason said, “The way he suddenly started getting sympathetic, and telling you that he’d keep the reporters from annoying you.”
“Well, isn’t that just what we want?”
“It is except for one thing,” Mason said.
“What’s that?”
Mason looked down at the blanket thrown over Karr’s knees. “If any of this invalid business is part of the buildup you’re using to give yourself an alibi, and if your legs are in such shape you can walk, you’re going to find yourself Lieutenant Tragg’s very favorite suspect — leading the rest of the field by about a dozen lengths.”
Karr’s face, which had twisted with some emotional reflex as Mason expounded his theory of Tragg’s reactions, suddenly broke into a relieved smile. “Well, as far as that’s concerned,” he said, “I can give you absolutely definite assurance, Mr. Mason. I can’t walk. I can’t put any weight on my legs. I can’t even move from a chair to a bed or a bed to a chair. I have to be lifted. I can’t even get to a telephone without help.”
“If that’s the case,” Mason said, “it might simplify matters to have me suggest to Lieutenant Tragg that he call in his own doctor and make an examination.”
“Wouldn’t that indicate that I had something on my mind? Wouldn’t it be going out of my way to make it appear that I thought he was considering me as a suspect?”
“Sure it would,” Mason said. “After all, you’re a man of average intelligence. You were in the house. You were alone when the shot was fired. You’ve surrounded yourself with a good deal of mystery. Your Chinese servant isn’t going to help any. Blaine here could very well be considered a bodyguard. The way he described that housekeeper, you know at once he’s been a cop. Lieutenant Tragg comes up here to find what you know about what happened. Your story is at variance with that of everyone else. He finds you talking to me. In fact, by this time, it’s doubtless occurred to him that I was the one who furnished just about all the information. in other words, I did most of the talking.”
“Well?”
“Unless Lieutenant Tragg has uncovered some clues pointing to the person who actually did commit the murder, he’s getting ready to pin the blue ribbon right on your chest.”
Karr said, “That would be unfortunate.”
“I gathered as much,” Mason said, “and may I remind you that Tragg’s inopportune arrival prevented you from telling me just why it was you wished to consult me?”
Karr sighed. “It’s about that old partnership,” he said, “but I don’t feel up to going into it now. Tell me, Mr. Mason, what’s the legal position of a surviving partner with reference to partnership business?”
Mason said, “The death of a partner dissolves the partnership. It’s the duty of the surviving partner to wind up the affairs of the partnership and make an accounting to the executor or administrator of the dead partner.”
“What do you mean by winding up the affairs of the partnership?”
“Reduce them to cash.”
“Suppose there isn’t any executor or administrator? What happens to the property?”
“It goes to the heirs.”
“I’m not positive there are any heirs.”
“You should have an administrator appointed, anyway, to protect yourself.”
Karr shook his head emphatically.
“Why not?” Mason asked.
“That would have to go through court, wouldn’t it?” “Yes.”
“Suppose the business was something you couldn’t take to court?”
“Why not?”
“Too dangerous.”
“For whom?”
“Me.”
Mason said, “Then you could absolve yourself from responsibility by paying the dead partner’s share of the funds to his heirs. But under those circumstances, you would have to take all the responsibility of seeing that you got all of the heirs and met the...”
“You mean,” Karr interrupted, “that if I paid money to someone who wasn’t the nearest relative, I might have to pay it all over again?”
“That’s right. Moreover, the nearest relative isn’t always the heir. Suppose a partner left a son, for instance, and sometime later on it appeared that he had been secretly married or he might have left a will which might not have been offered for probate.”
Karr fastened Mason with his alert, intense eyes, and said, “I understand. It’s better to take that risk than to have the court asking a lot of questions.”
“Was that the matter that you wanted me to handle?” Mason asked.
Karr leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. After a few moments he said, “That was it — at first. I wanted you to investigate the possibility of my late partner having left an heir. Now this other matter has come up.”
“You mean the murder?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me to do something in connection with the murder?”
“Yes, I think I do. I think I’d like to have you see that it’s cleared up just as quickly as possible. I can’t afford to have that develop into one of those mysteries that they spread all over the front pages of the newspapers. How soon do you think Tragg will solve it?”
“It shouldn’t take him long. He’s a good man.”
“Tell you what you do. You’re a good man. Give him a hand. See that the thing gets cleaned up and cleaned up fast.”
“You want me to find out who committed the murder?” Mason asked.
“That’s right.”
Mason said, “Make a note of that, Della.”
Her pen still poised over the notebook, Della said, “I did.”
“Why do you want a note of that?” Karr asked.
Mason said, “Because if you’re guilty, and I uncover the evidence that sticks your neck in the noose, I want to be in a position to send your estate a bill for doing it.”
Karr laughed. “You’re a great one! You really are. You measure up to expectations. Salty character. Individuality. All right, Mason, go ahead. Start working. Get that detective agency of yours on the job. Uncover everything you can. Help Tragg find out what actually happened. Turn over any evidence you find to him. Gow Loong, go massah’s bedroom. Drawer, on right-hand topside. Ketchum money. You savvy? You bring’m money. This lawyer man wants cash money now.”
“Can do,” Gow Loong said, and started for the bedroom.
Johns Blaine said easily, “Don’t let that idea of having Karr as a suspect cramp your style any, Mason. Just go right ahead. Karr’s absolutely in the clear, and I’d say the best way to get Lieutenant Tragg off his neck was to help him get some evidence.”
Mason said, “It’s all right, but I just wanted to have all the cards on the table. In this business, we find that a person who has anything to conceal wants to cover it up. You take a witness who’s lying on the witness stand, and he almost invariably starts stroking his cheeks with the tips of his fingers, then slides his hand around so that he’s concealing his mouth as much as possible while he talks. We know those signs and get to look for them. Mr. Karr’s idea about keeping his legs warm may be all to the good, but as far as Lieutenant Tragg is concerned, that heavy robe over his legs gave him the idea Mr. Karr was covering them up because he had something to conceal.”
Karr threw back his head and laughed. “And gave you the same idea, Mason?” he asked. “Come on, now, be frank. Didn’t it?”
Mason looked down at the heavy blanket.
“Yes.”
Gow Loong returned from the bedroom, carrying a tin cash box. He placed it gently on Karr’s lap. Karr threw back the lid of the box, reached in, picked up a sheaf of currency, and said to Mason, “How much do you charge in these cases, Counselor?”
Mason regarded the bundle of currency. “Usually all the traffic will bear,” he said.
Once more Karr threw back his head and laughed. “I like you, Mason. I mean I really do! You don’t beat around the bush.”
“No,” Mason said. “I don’t beat around the bush.
“And may I ask whether you want to retain me to solve that murder or to advise you in connection with your old partnership?”
“Both,” Karr said, “but we’ll do one thing at a time, Mason. I want that murder case off my neck. That’s a nightmare. Couldn’t possibly have happened at a more inopportune time. As I see it, the only way to keep it from becoming a mystery is to clean it up — only way to clean it up is to solve the damn case. Perhaps you can solve it by this afternoon. That’ll give me a chance to do what I have to do. Personally, I don’t see why the devil this man What’s-his-name couldn’t have picked a more opportune time to get himself killed. Damned inconsiderate, I call it.”