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.