Drake pushed his way through the spectators, to reach Mason’s side. “Okay, Perry,” he said, “I think we have something.”
“On Della?” Mason asked.
Drake nodded.
Mason bent over the chair in which Mrs. Moar was sitting. “That,” he told her in a whisper, “just about blows up their case. Judge Romley doesn’t believe in binding defendants over when it will be impossible to obtain a conviction in the Superior Court. He’ll give you just as fair a hearing here as though you were on trial before a jury, and Aileen Fell’s testimony isn’t going to carry very much weight. All she saw was two figures struggling on the deck, and she saw them rather indistinctly.”
Mrs. Moar squeezed his hand gratefully.
“I have to run out on an important matter,” Mason said. “I’ll see you at three o’clock this afternoon.” He turned to Drake and said, “Okay, Paul, let’s go.”
Belle Newberry grabbed his hand as Mason started to leave the courtroom. “You darling!” she exclaimed.
Mason smiled down at her, patted her shoulder, and said, “You’ll have a chance to visit with your mother for a few minutes before the matron takes her back. I’ll see you later, Belle.”
Drake had a car waiting in front of the courthouse.
“All right,” Mason said eagerly, “what have you found, Paul?”
Drake said, “I don’t know, Perry. I don’t want to be the one to tell you. I’d rather you’d see for yourself.”
“What the devil are you getting at?” Mason asked.
Drake shook his head and said, “Get in, Perry. It won’t be long.”
“Where is it?”
“Over in Berkeley.”
“Well then, let’s get started,” Mason snapped.
The car dashed across Market Street and turned to the left, to speed down the boulevard leading to the bridge which crossed the bay.
“Look here,” Mason said, “there are only three of us. If we’re going to have trouble with Eves—”
“We’re not going to have any trouble with Eves,” Drake said. “He didn’t have anything to do with Della’s disappearance.”
“How do you know?” Mason asked.
“I’ll tell you more about it in a few minutes,” Drake said. “In the meantime, I think I know what was the trouble with Eves.”
“Go ahead and spill it,” Mason said. “Or do you want to be mysterious about that, too?”
“Now, take it easy, Perry,” the detective cautioned. “I’m just trying to be fair all around. You’ll understand my position when—”
“Forget it,” the lawyer interrupted savagely. “Tell me what you can tell me and quit beating around the bush.”
“Well, about Eves,” Drake said. “I think Eves was planning some sort of a big bunco game, and this murder knocked him out of it.”
“Go ahead, ” Mason told him impatiently.
“Well, when I looked up Roger P. Cartman in Honolulu,” Drake said, “I found he’d been injured in an automobile accident, all right, and had suffered a broken neck. But that was three months ago. He was a wealthy visitor from the Mainland who was caught in a skidding car on the Pali, and—”
Mason interrupted, to say to the driver, “For God’s sake, get some speed out of this bus. I’ll pay the fines.”
The driver lurched the car into speed. Drake glanced apprehensively through the rear-view mirror and said, “A car tagging along behind, Perry. It may be a prowl car.”
“I don’t care if it is,” Mason said irritably. “I said I’ll pay the fines. You were talking about Eves and Cartman. What about him?”
“Well,” Drake said, “Cartman had a lot of money. Doctors put a brace on him, which held his head absolutely rigid and he came over to the Mainland—”
“I know that already,” Mason interrupted.
“No, you don’t,” Drake said, “because Cartman came over to the Mainland six weeks ago.”
“He did what!” Mason asked, staring at the detective.
“Came over to the Mainland six weeks ago, and he came over on a clipper plane.”
“Then why did he go back to Honolulu?” Mason asked.
“He swears he didn’t,” Drake said.
“You’ve talked with him?”
“My operative located him in a private sanitarium. He says he’s been in the sanitarium ever since he arrived, and, what’s more, the nurses and doctors all swear he has.”
“Then this wasn’t the real Cartman that Evelyn Whiting brought over?”
“No.”
“Well, what was the idea?” Mason asked.
“Don’t you see,” Drake said, “it was some sort of a bunco game. Put one of those harnesses around a man’s head, put on a large pair of smoked goggles, and it’s just about the same as a mask. Cartman has money. He can’t move around, and he doesn’t care about publicity, so he’s been careful to keep his whereabouts from becoming generally known. His friends, however, his bankers and associates, knew all about his accident and knew he had to wear his head in a brace.
“Eves wasn’t going to the Islands on his honeymoon. He sent Evelyn Whiting over there to pick up this ringer. She was to build up his identity on the ship, and also her identity as his nurse. Then, after they’d arrived on the Mainland, she and Eves were going to put through some major swindle. But the murder on the ship attracted too much attention, and they had decided to lie low until it blew over. Then, as an unfortunate coincidence, it happened that she knew Carl Moar, and he ran into her on deck and told her his troubles. Nothing could have upset her more. It was exactly what she didn’t want. Then when you discovered that she was a witness, traced her to that place of concealment and served that subpoena on her, she knew the jig was up.”
“Then why didn’t she obey the subpoena and be in court this morning?” Mason asked. “she can be fined for contempt of court—”
“Because the swindle has gone so far they didn’t dare show up. Eves may have intended to let her testify in your behalf when he had talked with you yesterday. But after he studied the situation a bit, he realized how suicidal that would be, because it would be brought out in the trial that Evelyn Whiting had been escorting Roger P. Cartman; that Cartman had had his neck broken over on the Islands. The newspapers would mention it. Someone would see it who knew Roger P. Cartman was in a private sanitarium near Glendale. Then the fat would be in the fire. The police would investigate and quietly move in.”
Mason narrowed his eyes, bringing into view a network of fine wrinkles at the corners, as he stared into space. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I see the sketch now. But I want Evelyn Whiting’s testimony. It’s the one thing I need to bust this case wide open.”
“Well,” Drake said, “those are the facts. You can make a showing to the Court if you want to.”
“I’d a lot rather locate Evelyn Whiting and force her to testify, ” Mason said.
“How did you know that the Fell woman would blow up?”
“I’d noticed her in the dining room,” Mason said. “Whenever she wore an evening dress she left off her glasses. I’d noticed her rather particularly, because it seemed to me such an absurd gesture for a woman who had that wall of reserve thrown up around her, and who seemed to be so completely immune to emotion to sacrifice the comfort of her vision to make herself more attractive. I noticed from the way she walked that she seemed rather careful of putting her feet down, and had an idea she depended pretty strongly on her glasses. But she’s one of those opinionated persons who will cheerfully commit perjury rather than admit they’re wrong. And I knew that unless I had a photograph to show her and could definitely prove her custom of not wearing glasses with a dinner gown, she’d swear she had her glasses on that night.”
“Just how much do you suppose she actually did see?”
“She had a bluffed conception of figures struggling. She heard shots but she didn’t see any gun, and she doesn’t know what gun fired the shots,” Mason said. “She’s opinionated, obstinate, and hates to lose an argument. She didn’t take the stand as a witness, but as an adversary. She was just dying to give me a ‘piece of her mind,’ and particularly anxious to show me that no smart lawyer was going to rattle her. We run up against witnesses like that every so often, both men and women, people who will do anything rather than admit the possibility they may have been mistaken... Come on, Paul, tell me where we’re going. Have you found Della, or someone who knows where she is, or what?”
“I’d prefer not to talk about it right now, Perry.”
“She isn’t hurt?”
“No, she’s all right.”
“If she isn’t hurt physically,” Mason said, “something’s wrong with her mentally, Paul.”
Drake, remained silent.
“Isn’t that true, Paul?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mason said irritably, “Well, go ahead and be mysterious, then.”
The lawyer turned from the detective to the driver.
“Won’t this car make any better speed than this?”
“I’m doing fifty right now, Mr. Mason.”
“All right,” Mason told him, “do sixty.”
Drake flashed a glance back through the window and said, “That sure is a prowl car, Perry. They’re dishing out jail sentences for doing sixty.”
“I’ll take the responsibility,” Mason told the driver. “Go ahead and step on it.”
They dashed through Berkeley, came to the outskirts, and the driver swung the car sharply to the left. He braked the car to a stop in front of a long line of cabins in an auto camp. A man jumped to the runningboard. “Okay?” Drake asked.
“Okay,” the man said.
“You show us the way,” Drake said.
“Straight down here. The second cabin on the left.”
The driver moved the car forward, then brought it to a stop in front of the second cabin.
Drake said, “All right. Perry, she’s in that cabin.”
Mason jerked the door open, pushed past the operative, twisted the knob of the cabin door, and banged it open.
Della Street was seated in a wicker rocking chair, reading a magazine. She looked up with apprehensive eyes, then half-stifled a scream. “Chief!”
Without a word, he crossed the room and opened his arms to her.
“Chief, ” she said, snuggling against him. “Oh, Chief!.. Why did you have to do it?”
“Do what?” Mason asked.
“Hunt me out... Now I’ll have to tell you.... I didn’t want to.”
“Tell me what?” Mason asked.
“Haven’t you guessed?”
Mason shook his head. “Don’t ever leave me like that again, Della,” he said, his voice choking. “I need you.”
“But, Chief, I had to. I couldn’t... Oh, I simply can’t be the one to put you on the spot!”
Mason stared at her, comprehension showing in his eyes. “Della,” he said, “you couldn’t... you wouldn’t...”
She nodded. “I couldn’t go against you, Chief, and after all, it didn’t make any difference as far as the case was concerned. I knew that the law couldn’t make me testify, but I was afraid the newspapers could play up my refusal...”
“The law can make you testify,” Mason said.
“Why, I thought a lawyer’s secretary was in the same position as a lawyer in being a witness against a client.”
“She is,” Mason told her, “but that applies only to confidential communications. It doesn’t keep a lawyer’s secretary from testifying things she’s seen. And you know how I feel about suppressing evidence, Della. Any time I have to win my cases that way, I’ll quit practicing law. Now tell me just what it was that you saw.”
She clung to him. “Chief, I’m so darned sorry! I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t thought they couldn’t make me testify. But you know how it would look in the newspapers... I wasn’t hiding from the law, Chief, I was hiding from the newspaper men.”
Drake said, “The more I hear, the less I know. I wish you two would come down to earth and tell me what the devil you’re talking about.”
Mason said, “Don’t you see, Paul, she’s the...”
There was a commotion on the outside of the cabin. One of Drake’s operatives said, “Beat it, you,” and a man’s voice answered, “Take a look at this, smart guy. ” Then two men pushed into the room.
Mason whirled to face them. “What the devil, ” he asked, “are you two trying to do?”
“Take it easy. Mason,” one of the men told him, flashing a badge. “We’re taking this young woman into custody as a material witness in the case of The People of the State of California versus Anna Moar.”
Consternation showed on Mason’s face. One of the men took Della Street’s arm and said, “Come on, sister, you’re going places. ” The other, huskier of the two, stood with his arms swinging free. “Don’t start anything, boys, ” he warned.
Mason said, “You can’t get away with that stuff.”
“The hell we can’t,” the other man said. “You just think we can’t. This is a material witness. She ducked out when we were trying to serve a subpoena on her and she’s been a fugitive ever since, living under an assumed name. We’re taking her into custody right now, as a material witness on an indorsed subpoena and as an accessory after the fact. If you have any kick to make, go get a writ, and if you want to talk with her, you’ll talk with her on the witness stand in San Francisco.”
Mason stepped forward, ominous purpose in his face. Della Street said, “Please don’t. Chief! It’s bad enough, the way it is...”
The men hurried her through the door. Drake, looking at Mason, said, “What do you say, Perry? Do we take her away from them?”
Mason slowly shook his head. “This is the pay-off, Paul. Let her go.”
The two officers hustled Della Street to an automobile which roared into speed. Mason sat dejectedly down in the chair which Della Street had just occupied. He stared about him, at the furnishings of the shabby cottage, the new suitcase, the underwear drying on a clothes line which had been stretched from the shower bath to one end of the bed.
“That wasn’t a prowl car,” Drake said bitterly. “They were tagging us. And like a fool, I played it wide open.”
Mason said gloomily, “I could kick myself all over the lot for not understanding. Why the devil didn’t I have confidence in her?”
“What do you suppose she knows. Perry?” Drake asked.
Mason put his chin on his hands, propped his elbows on his knees, stared at the floor and said, “Hell, she’s the one who telephoned the bridge. I should have known it all along.”
“What can we do?” Drake asked. “Nothing ‘
“Well, she can’t hurt your case much,” Drake said. “They can’t drag anything out of her. She...”
“She’s going to tell the truth,” Mason said. He got to his feet and stared at Drake. “She’s going to tell the truth,” he repeated, “because I’m going to make her tell the truth. If my client’s guilty of murder, she’s guilty of murder. No client is going to make Della Street get on the witness stand and take a chance on a perjury rap in order to give me a break. Do you get that?”
Drake said soothingly, “Okay, Perry. I’m not arguing with you. I was just asking, that’s all.”
Mason said, “All right, then, you know the answer.”
He got to his feet, crossed the cabin, hoisted the suitcase on the bed and started packing it. “Go down to the office, Paul,” he ordered in a husky voice. “Find out what her bill is, and pay it. We’re checking out of here.”
“Will you have a chance to talk with her before she goes on the witness stand?” Drake asked.
Mason shook his head. “I don’t want to, Paul.”
“We could have taken her away from them,” one of the men said.
“And what a sweet mess that would have been,” Mason said. “Played up right in the newspapers, it would have made her testimony sound ten times as bad as it’s really going to be. My only remaining chance is to show she was hiding from me as well as from the DA.”
“How bad do you think it’ll be, Perry?” Drake asked.
“It’ll knock my technical defense into a cocked hat,” Mason said grimly. “What the hell do you think she ducked out for? She actually saw Carl Newberry go overboard. God knows what else she saw. Get busy and pay that bill. I want to get out of here.”