“What the devil was Jason Braun doing up here?” the lawyer asked.
“I can’t figure it myself,” Drake said, “unless he came up here to meet someone. Remember, he was an investigator working on a case, and—”
“And if he’d wanted complete privacy, he could have secured it just as well about twenty-five miles nearer the city,” Mason interrupted.
Drake said, “We’ll see.”
The pilot car labored up the heavy grade, rounded a turn, and the stop light flashed an angry red of warning. Ahead of the car, a motorcycle officer, attired in whipcord, puttees and a leather coat, flagged the car to a stop. A tow car was parked crossways a hundred feet beyond him, a taut wire rope stretched down into the depths of the canyon. The motor of the car was turning slowly and the wire rope gradually reeling in over the revolving drums.
Mason and Drake jumped to the ground. Drake showed his card to the traffic officer. “I’m making an investigation of this,” he said.
“What’s the idea?” the officer wanted to know.
“I’m representing an insurance company,” Drake said. “The big-shot thinks the man’s a policy holder.”
“What makes him think that?” the traffic officer wanted to know.
Drake shrugged his shoulders and said, “Probably just a poor hunch, but one of his policy holders has been missing for two or three days, and he’s just playing it safe. Anyway, there’s ten dollars a day and expenses in it for me, eight and expenses for the photographer, and this guy, here, so I should worry.”