She broke off as the sound of a speeding automobile motor became audible. They listened while the machine roared into a turn at the foot of a hill, heard the driver shift gears, and then the tires slid over the gravel as the machine was braked to an abrupt stop. A moment later, there was a pound of steps on the porch, and a man flung open the door of the cabin. Mason recognized him at once, from the photograph he had seen, as Morgan Eves.
“All right,” the man said, standing in the doorway, his hand hovering near the left lapel of his coat, “what is this, a pinch?”
Mason said, “Take it easy, Eves. I’m Perry Mason, the lawyer.”
“That’s what you say,” Eves said.
“He is, Morgan,” Evelyn Whiting assured him. “He was on the boat with me coming over. Remember, I told you.”
Eves nodded without shifting his position. “All right,” he said, “so what?”
“We’re asking questions,” Mason said.
“Well, you’re not going to get any answers. And you,” he said, shifting his eyes toward Drake’s operative, “be careful what you do with that right hand. If you pull that rod, you’re going to have to smoke your way out.”
In the moment of tense silence which followed, Perry Mason extracted his cigarette case, leisurely selected a cigarette, tapped the end on the side of the cigarette case, and said, “Let’s talk sense, Eves.”
“All right,” Eves said, “you do the talking.”