Phyllis Leeds said quietly to the lawyer, “The check you hold speaks for itself.”
Mason said, “If I take this case, I’ll need money — money for my services, money for investigation. I’ll hire a detective agency and put men to work. It’ll be expensive.”
Barkler took the pipe out of his mouth and said, “Cheap lawyers ain’t no good anyhow. Alden ain’t being blackmailed, Phyllis. He’s in trouble of some kind. Give Mason a check and let him go to work... But it ain’t blackmail. You can lay to that.”
Phyllis Leeds opened her purse and took out a checkbook.
“How much,” she asked Perry Mason, “do you want?”
Chapter 2
Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, relaxed all over the big, leather chair in Mason’s office. His backbone, seeming to have no more rigidity than a piece of garden hose, bent forward until his chin came close to his knees. His feet were propped against the opposite arm of the chair. He habitually sat sideways in the big chair, and adopted an attitude of extreme fatigue. His eyes were dull and expressionless, his voice had a tired drawl. His appearance of general lassitude and lugubrious disinterest in life kept anyone from suspecting he might be a private detective.
Drake said, “Give me a cigarette, Perry, and I’ll tell you the sad news.”
“Get it?” Mason said to Della Street, tossing the detective his cigarette case. “The big moocher comes in here and bums my cigarettes to report that he’s foozled a case.”
“Nuts to you,” Drake said, extracting a cigarette and snapping a match into flame. “I did some good work on that case. The blonde who cashed the check gave the name of Marcia Whittaker. Her address checked with the address on her automobile license — but it wasn’t her address. However, the name was right, and it didn’t take me long to locate where she’d been living.”