Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, was waiting at the dock. His long legs lifted his face, with its filmy, expressionless eyes, and droll grin, over the heads of the crowd which pushed against the customs barrier.
Mason winked surreptitiously at the detective, rushed his baggage through customs, parried questions from a group of reporters, and pushed Della Street into a taxicab.
Paul Drake, loitering at the curb, apparently an innocent bystander, popped into the cab just before the driver slammed the door.
“Make time to the airport,” Mason ordered.
Drake said, “I have a chartered plane waiting, Perry... My gosh, you two had better take a vacation every six months. It’s taken years from you both. Della looks positively immature.”
Mason grinned and said, “No go, Paul. She’s been kidded by experts since you’ve seen her. Spill the dope, and spill it fast.”
“What’s this about the murder?” Drake asked.
“I’ll tell you about that after you tell me about the Products Refining Company.”
Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket. “There’s a shortage of twenty-five grand. It was discovered by C. Denton Rooney, the head auditor, a couple of days after Carl Moar failed to show up. Rooney accused Moar of embezzlement and wanted the company to have a warrant issued immediately, but the lawyer who handles things for the corporation is a conservative chap. There’s a nigger in the woodpile somewhere. I don’t know what it is. They’ve engaged outside accountants to make an audit of the books and hired a firm of private detectives to pick up Moar’s trail. So far, as nearly as I can understand, the detectives have drawn a blank.”
“I haven’t met Rooney myself. I talked with Jackson, who had a talk with Rooney and got no place. Jackson hates him, says he’s a pompous little bantam rooster; that he’s absolutely incompetent and holds down a four hundred and sixty dollar a month job because he married the sister of the president’s wife.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Mason asked.
“You mean Dail’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, she’s dead. Rooney’s wife is very much alive. She rules Rooney with an iron hand. At home he’s nothing but a doormat. At the office he’s a dictator. You know the type.”
“Yes,” Mason said. “What have you got on him, anything?”
“He’s buying flowers for a blonde,” Drake said dejectedly. “That’s everything we can find out about him.”
“Who’s the blonde?”
“A Margie Trenton, who lives in apartment 14B, at 3618 Pinerow Drive. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing,” Mason said. “She doesn’t fit into the picture anywhere, so far as I know.”
“Well, I put a man to work on her,” Drake said, “and got nowhere. Here’s a picture snapped with a candid camera.”
Mason looked at the enlargement printed on glossy paper. which the detective handed him, grinned and said, “I’ll say it’s candid! Where was this taken?”
“While she was sunbathing at the beach.”
“She looks expensive,” Mason observed, and, after a moment, added, “and interesting.”
Della Street, studying the picture with that skeptical appraisal which one woman gives to another, said, “She spends money on herself, and she wasn’t wearing that suit to attract sunshine so much as attention. Notice that wrist watch?”
Mason studied the wrist watch. “Any dope on it, Paul?” he asked.
“I can probably get some,” Drake said. “Why?”
Mason said, “We’re going to make a play on that wrist watch, Paul, and we’re going to have to work fast.”
“What sort of a play?” Drake asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Mason told him, “but we’re going to get Rooney in some sort of a jam. The only way he can get himself out is by giving us the low-down on that embezzlement and, using that as ammunition, we’ll scare the Products Refining Company into keeping its mouth shut.”
Drake said, “I can tell you what I think is the joker, Perry. The Products Refining Company, and a couple of other companies, have an interlocking directorate and a holding company. There are a lot of accounts payable and accounts receivable. Some of the subsidiary companies pay in money and others borrow that money and give notes for the indebtedness. Then they gradually retire the notes, and that money is borrowed by another company, and everybody gets dizzy.”
“You mean they’re dodging income tax?” Mason asked.
“Sure. The holding company juggles cash around. The Products Refining Company is in on that. I think there’s a lawyer back of the whole business somewhere, but he isn’t coming forward to claim any laurel wreaths, if you get me.”
“I get you,” Mason said with a grin. “Now, then, if Charles Whitmore Dail tries to double-cross me, I’ll bring the income tax people down on him like a ton of bricks.”
“You’ve got to have a lot of dope before you can do that,” Drake said.
“And we’ll get the dope from Rooney,” Mason assured him. “We’ll pin something on Rooney.”
“What do you mean by ‘something’?” Drake asked.
“Hell, Paul, we haven’t time to be particular. We’ll frame him. We’ll begin with the wrist watch and smoke him out into the open.”
“Now wait a minute. Perry,” Drake remonstrated. “This chap, Rooney, is a respectable, influential citizen. If he’s playing around with a blonde, that’s his business. If you’re going to jail all the married men who buy flowers for girlfriends, there won’t be enough citizens outside the jails to pay the taxes.”
“There aren’t anyway,” Mason said, grinning.
“Now listen, Perry, you’re going off half-cocked. That girl may have had that wrist watch from a mother or a sweetheart. Rooney may be just a casual acquaintance... Hell, I’ve given you a button and you’ve sewed a vest on it. I tell you you’re playing with dynamite.”
“Well,” Mason told him, “if engineers didn’t play with dynamite, they’d never build railroads, and, after all, it’s just as true to say that the vest is on the button as that the button is on the vest.”
“There’s no use arguing with him, Paul,” Della Street said. “His mental system is deficient in mystery vitamins, and fighting calories, and he’s out to balance his diet all at once.”
Mason looked at his wrist watch and said to the cab-driver, “Squeeze a little more speed out of it, buddy.”
Drake said dejectedly, “This is a hell of a time to try a murder case in San Francisco, Perry. Baldwin Van Densie had a hung jury the other day which looked suspicious to the district attorney. He started men working on a couple of chaps who held out for acquittal, and it looks as though he’s going to get enough evidence to hook Van Densie on jury bribing, it’s thrown a scare into jurors and you can’t get a juryman to vote not guilty now, even on a tentative first ballot. He’s afraid someone will think he’s been bribed. The district attorney is rushing all of his important cases to trial and getting convictions in one-two-three order.”
“That’ll blow over in a week or so,” Mason said. “It always does.”
“Not this time it won’t,” Drake said. “The Bar Association is after Van Densie. They’re having a clean-up on all criminal lawyers. They’re investigating Van Densie’s hung juries and—”
“They can investigate my juries as much as they damn please,” Mason said. “If I can’t get a client acquitted by using my wits, I’ll let him rot in jail.”
“Van Densie hasn’t any wits to use,” Drake said.
“Has anyone said anything about me?” Mason asked.
“Well,” Drake said, “the district attorney has made some remarks about spectacular methods used by an attorney with a statewide reputation which have turned the administration of justice into a burlesque.”
Mason grinned and said, “In other words, Paul, you’re trying to talk me out of making a fast play on that wrist watch.”
“Well,” Drake said, “I’d hate to see you go to jail as soon as you get off the ship.”
Mason said, “We’re fighting a combination that stacks the cards against us, Paul. Newberry, who was murdered on that ship, is really Carl Moar. His stepdaughter is in love with the son of a millionaire. And in addition to that, she’s a dam nice kid. The newspapers will be on the street with her picture this afternoon. By night, the district attorney will know that her stepfather was C. Waker Moar instead of Carl Newberry. When Rooney finds that out, he’s going to cover up his bookkeeping mistakes by heaping disgrace on a dead man. And if there’s been any juggling of funds in order to avoid income tax they’ll push a lot more dirty linen in Moar’s coffin. I’m going to beat them to the punch.”
Della Street smiled across at the detective. “It’s no use, Paul, unless that chartered airplane falls down and goes boom, Margie Trenton is going to have a disagreeable afternoon.”
Drake groaned and said, “And to think that fifteen minutes ago I was actually glad to see you.”