Mason said, “The last I saw of him he was at his hotel.”
“Are you in the same hotel?”
“No. I registered again in a second hotel because I didn’t want Leeds to be interrupting me with a lot of questions. I was tired and wanted to sleep. See you tomorrow, Della. ‘By.”
Mason hung up, went down to the lobby, paid his bill, and caught the plane south. It was still raining.
In San Francisco, Mason bought a newspaper. He found what he wanted on the second page. While he was flying to Los Angeles, he read the newspaper account with twinkling eyes:
KLONDIKE MILLIONAIRE WANTED FOR MURDERING SAME MAN IN TWO STATES. KNOTTY EXTRADITION PROBLEM PRESENTED TO WASHINGTON GOVERNOR.
Seattle, Washington. Did Alden Leeds murder Bill Hogarty in the Klondike in 1906? Did Bill Hogarty murder Alden Leeds in the Klondike in 1906? Or did Alden Leeds murder William Hogarty in California last Friday night? These are questions which are perplexing the authorities and causing a particular headache to the Governor of the State of Washington, who is advised that he will shortly receive, in due form, demands that Alden Leeds, who is at present held a prisoner in Seattle, be returned to Alaskan authorities to answer to the charge of murdering Bill Hogarty, his mining partner, back in the later days of the Klondike gold rush. On the other hand, California authorities, who have appeared on the ground in Seattle, are equally positive that Alden Leeds murdered Bill Hogarty no later than last Friday night. A discrepancy of thirty-three years in the date of a man’s demise is startling, to say the least, to say nothing of the fact that it is virtually an impossibility for a man to be murdered in Alaska and then again in California. There is, in the popular mind, a supposition that murder is a final gesture. The corpse is supposed to remain in, what the lawyers term, status quo. Alaskan authorities claim that they have found the body of Bill Hogarty where it was left in a shallow grave by Alden Leeds following a rich strike which the partners made in a mining claim. The Alaskan authorities claim to have evidence showing that Leeds disguised his identity by taking none other than the name of the murdered man, and left the Yukon, masquerading as Bill Hogarty. So completely were the officers fooled by this clever ruse, that for years they were searching for Bill Hogarty, on the theory that he had murdered Alden Leeds. California authorities, however, claim that the Alaskan body was not that of Bill Hogarty because Bill Hogarty was killed by Alden Leeds no later than last Friday night, and cite a frostbitten foot on the part of the corpse to prove identity. The situation is rendered more puzzling in view of the fact that a well-known criminal attorney, whose dramatic exploits have attracted more than state-wide attention, has instituted a frantic search for information concerning the deceased Bill Hogarty, and, in particular, as to the manner in which he lost his toes. To the layman, the whole affair appears puzzling, to say the least. It is as though Alden Leeds, having murdered Bill Hogarty in the Klondike in 1906, was subsequently confronted with the body of a corpse which had refused to accept the murder as final, and who had suffered only the amputation of four toes from his right foot as the result of thirty-three years’ interment in an icy grave in the far north. Whereupon, as though to illustrate the maxim of, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, the dead man was murdered again — so that now all that is mortal of Bill Hogarty lies in a Southern California mortuary undoubtedly quite dead, frostbitten foot and all. It is to be borne in mind that the contention of the authorities that Alden Leeds is the murderer is as yet entirely unsubstantiated in any court of justice. It is quite possible that Alden Leeds could make a statement which would go far toward explaining the matter, but Alden Leeds has become afflicted with a temporary impediment of speech which prevents him from answering any questions. Emily Milicant, whom the authorities insist was occupying a room with Alden Leeds in Seattle, has also mysteriously vanished. Inasmuch as she seemed to evaporate into thin air during a time when the hotel was under the closest surveillance, the authorities are, to put the matter mildly, irritated. They insist that there is more than a casual coincidence in the fact that Miss Milicant’s astounding disappearance into the Seattle atmosphere coincide with the arrival on the scene of a noted criminal lawyer.
Della Street and Paul Drake were waiting for Mason at the airport.
“Hello, gang,” Mason said. “How about eats?”
“Swell,” Della Street said. “There’s a fine restaurant right here in the main administration building.”