The Case of the Baited Hook

OLE — A sleepy-eyed janitor

ROBERT PELTHAM — An architect of devious methods

“THE MASKED MISTRESS” — Who holds half the bait

DELLA STREET — Secretary par excellence

GERTIE — Switchboard operator and information clerk

ABIGAIL ESTHER TUMP — Who has imagination and ambition

PAUL DRAKE — Of the Drake Detective Agency

ALBERT TIDINGS — A mistrusted trustee

NADINE TIDINGS — His estranged wife

SERGEANT HOLCOMB — Of the Homicide Squad

BYRL GAILORD — A social climber

CARL MATTERN — Tiding’s secretary

MR. LOFTUS — Senior partner of Loftus & Cale, brokers

MR. GANTEN — Legal adviser to Loftus & Cale

EMERY B. BOLUS — President of the Western Prospecting Company

ADELLE HASTINGS — A penniless heiress

ARTHMONT A. FREEL — Who indulges in genteel blackmail

HAMILTON BERGER — District attorney

and PERRY MASON

Chapter 1

Two persons in the city had the number of Perry Mason’s private, unlisted telephone. One was Della Street, Mason’s secretary, and the other Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency.

It was early in March, a blustery night with rain pelting at intervals against the windows. Wind howled around the cornices and fought its way through the narrow openings in the windows to billow the lace curtains of Mason’s apartment into weird shapes which alternately blossomed into white ghosts, collapsed, and dropped limply back against the casements.

Mason fought off the heavy lethargy of that deep sleep which comes during the first part of the night, to grope for the ringing telephone.

The instrument momentarily eluded his sleep-deadened fingers.

Mason’s right hand found the chain which dangled from the light over his bed. At the same time, his left, reaching for the telephone, became entangled with the cord and knocked the instrument to the floor.

Now thoroughly awake, he retrieved the telephone, placed the receiver to his ear, and said, “My gosh, Della, why don’t you go to bed at a decent hour?”

A man’s voice said, “Mr. Mason?”

Surprised, Mason said, “Yes. Who is it?”

The voice said crisply, “You are talking with Cash.”

Mason sat up in bed, bolstering himself against the pillow. “That’s nice,” he said. “How’s Carry?”

For a moment the voice was puzzled. “Carrie?” it asked. “I don’t know to whom you refer.”

“Come, come,” Mason said amiably. “If you’re Cash, you must know Carry.”

“Oh, a pun,” the voice said with the offended dignity of a man who has no sense of humor. “I didn’t understand at first.”

“What,” Mason asked, “do you want?”

“I want to come to your office.”

“And I,” Mason said, “want to stay in bed.”

The man at the other end of the line said, carefully clipping his words, “I have two one-thousand-dollar bills in my wallet, Mr. Mason. If you will come to your office and accept the employment I have to offer, I will give you those two one-thousand-dollar bills as a retainer. I will also arrange for a further payment of ten thousand dollars whenever you are called upon to take any action in my behalf.”

“Murder?” Mason asked.

The voice hesitated for a moment, then said, “No.”

“Let me have your full name.”

“I’m sorry. That’s impossible.”

Mason said irritably, “It only costs ten cents to put through a telephone call and talk big money. Before I go to the office I want to know with whom I’m dealing.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the voice said, “This is John L. Cragmore.”

“Where do you live?”

“5619 Union Drive.”

Mason said, “Okay. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get there. Can you be there by that time?”

“Yes,” the man said, and added courteously, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Mason,” and hung up the telephone.

Mason scrambled out of bed, closed the windows, and picked up the telephone directory. There was no Cragmore listed at the address given on Union Drive.

Mason dialed the number of the Drake Detective Agency. A night operative said in a bored monotone, “Drake Detective Agency.”

“Mason talking,” the lawyer said crisply. “I have an appointment in twenty minutes at my office. The man will probably drive up in a car. Put an operative at each end of the block. Check the license numbers of any cars that park anywhere in the block. Get all the dope you can, and have it ready when I call. I’ll drop in at your place just before I go to my office.”

Mason hung up the telephone, stripped off his pajamas, and hurriedly pulled on his clothes, noticing as he dressed that his wrist watch gave the hour as ten minutes past midnight. He ran a comb through the tangled mass of hair, struggled into a raincoat, gave a hasty look about the apartment, and paused to telephone the night clerk to have the hotel garage deliver his car. He switched off the lights, pulled the door shut, and rang for the elevator.

The Negro elevator boy looked at him curiously. “Rainin’ pow’ful hard, Mista Mason.”

“Cats and dogs?” Mason asked.

The boy flashed white teeth. “No, suh. Ducks and drakes. You goin’ out some place, suh?”

“There is,” Mason announced, “no rest for the wicked.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Meanin’ you’se wicked?” he asked.

“No,” Mason said with a grin, as the elevator slid to a smooth stop at the lobby floor. “My clients are.”

He greeted the night clerk on duty at the desk, said, “You got my message through to the garage man?”

“Yes, Mr. Mason. Your car will be waiting. Pretty wild night.”

Mason nodded absently, tossed his key to the desk, and strode across to the stairway which led to the garage, the skirts of his raincoat kicked about by the long strides of his legs. The clerk watched him curiously, the extent of his interest shown by the manner in which he weighed Mason’s key in his hand before placing it in the proper receptacle.

The lawyer acknowledged the greeting of the garage man, slid in behind the wheel of his big coupe, and sent it roaring up the spiral ramp of the garage. As he left the shelter of the garage, the wind swooped down upon him. Sheeted rain beat solidly on the body of the car, streamed down the windshield. Mason turned on the windshield wiper, shifted cautiously into second, and eased the wheels through the curb-high flood at the gutter.

The headlights reflected back from miniature geysers of water mushrooming up from the pavement ahead. Mason eased the car into high gear and settled down to the chore of driving through the rain-swept, all but deserted streets.

He noticed that there were no cars parked in the block in front of his office building. Over in the parking station, where Mason rented a regular stall, were two of the nondescript cars of the Drake Detective Agency, and no others. He parked and locked his automobile, and stepped out into the storm. Rain beat against his face, cascaded in rivulets from his raincoat, spattered against his ankles. Mason, who detested umbrellas, shoved his hands down deep into the pockets of his raincoat, lowered his head against the force of the storm, and sloshed through the puddles which had collected in the parking place, to push against the swinging door in the lighted lobby of his office building.

Streaks of moisture which seemed fresh indicated that others were there ahead of him. He paused at the elevator, rang the night bell which summoned the janitor, and waited for a full minute before the sleepy-eyed Swede, who had charge of the basement and night elevators, brought a cage up to the lobby floor.

“Some rain,” the janitor said, and yawned.

Mason crossed over to look at the register which persons entering the building at night must sign. “Anyone for me, Ole?” he asked.

“Not yet,” the janitor said. “Maybe she rain so much they don’t come on schedule.”

“Someone down from Drake’s office a few minutes ago?” Mason asked.

“Yah.”

“Still out?” Mason inquired.

“No. He comes back oop.”

“No one else been in in the meantime?”

“No.”

The janitor missed the floor by six inches with the elevator, and Mason said, “That’s good enough, Ole.”

The sliding doors rolled smoothly back, and Mason stepped out into the semi-darkness of the long corridor. He walked rapidly to where the corridor made a T, but in place of turning left to his own office, turned right toward the oblong of illumination which marked the frosted glass door of the Drake Detective Agency. He pushed open this door and crossed a small waiting room just large enough to accommodate an open bench and two straight-back chairs.

Behind an arch-shaped, grilled window marked “Information,” the night switchboard operator looked up, nodded, and pressed the button which released the catch on the swinging door.

Near a radiator, an undersized man was trying to dry the bottoms of his trousers. A soggy felt hat and a glistening raincoat hung on a rack near the radiator.

“Hello, Curly,” Mason said. “Did you give up?”

“Give up,” the operative asked, looking ruefully down at his wet shoes. “What do you mean, give up?”

“Ole says no one came up.”

“Yeah,” the operative said. “What Ole doesn’t know would fill a book.”

“Then someone came in?”

“Yeah. Two of ’em.”

“How did they get up?”

“The man,” Curly said, “pulled out a key ring, unlocked the door of one of the elevators, switched on the lights, and whisked himself and the woman up here just as neat as a pin. By the time I got up, the cage was there with the door locked and the lights out.”

“Did Ole notice it?” Mason asked, interested.

“No. He was too sleepy. He’s having a hard time keeping his eyes open.”

“Then there’s a man and a woman on this floor?”

“Uh huh.”

“How long ago?”

“They’ve been waiting about five minutes. Gosh, I wish you’d pick clear nights for your shadowing jobs. I felt like a guy trapped in a sunken submarine.”

“Where did you pick them up?”

“They came in a car. The man was driving. He dropped the woman in front of the lobby. Then he drove on and turned the comer. I figured he was parking the car, so I took it easy, tailed him into the building, and up to this floor.”

“How about the automobile?”

“I got the license number and checked on the registration. It’s owned by Robert Peltham of 3212 Oceanic. I checked up on him in the telephone directory. He’s listed as an architect.”

Mason thoughtfully took a cigarette case from his pocket, scraped a match on the side of the radiator, and began smoking. “How about the girl?”

“There’s something funny about her,” Curly said. “I call her a girl. I don’t know. She was a jane. That’s all I know. She’s all bundled up in a big black raincoat. She walks like her shoes were two sizes too big for her feet, and she kept a newspaper over her face.”

“A newspaper?” Mason asked.

“Uh huh. When she got out of the car, she put a newspaper up over her head as though to protect her hat, but I noticed she had the newspaper held over her face when they went up in the elevator. And that’s the last I’ve seen of them.”

“They’re on this floor?”

“The cage is.”

Mason said, “Find out all you can about Peltham.”

“I’m working on it,” Curly said. “Got an operative on the job now. Do you want me to report at your office?”

“No,” Mason said. “I’ll get in touch with you. In about fifteen minutes you’d better come in my office and get a drink of whiskey — unless Paul keeps a bottle in his desk.”

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Mason. I’ll be in.”

Mason said, “I’ll do better than that. I’ll put the bottle on a desk in the entrance room, and leave the door unlocked.”

“Gee, that’ll be swell. Thanks.”

Mason’s heels pounded echoes from the silent walls as he marched down the corridor toward the end of the passage where he had his office.

He saw no one, heard no sound save the pound of his own footfalls. He unlocked the door of the reception office, left it unlatched, and walked on into his private office. He opened the drawer of his desk, found a pint of whiskey, and was just placing it on the desk used by the information clerk when the door opened and a thinnish man in the late thirties said, “Mr. Mason, I presume?”

Mason nodded.

“I’m Peltham.”

Mason raised his eyebrows. “I thought the name was Cragmore,” he said.

“It was,” Peltham observed dryly, “but several things have caused me to change it.”

“May I ask what those things are?” Mason asked.

Peltham smiled, a frosty gesture of the lips. “To begin with,” he said, “I was followed from the time I parked my car. It was cleverly done — but I was followed just the same. I notice that the office of the Drake Detective Agency is on this floor. After you came up in the elevator, you went down to that office and were there for some five minutes. I notice that you are now placing a bottle of whiskey on your desk where it can be picked up. Under the circumstances, Mr. Mason, we’ll abandon our little subterfuge. The name is Peltham, and we won’t bother beating around the bush. You’ve won the first trick rather neatly — but don’t overbid your hand.”

Mason said, “Come in,” and indicated the door to his private office. “You’re alone?” he asked.

“You know I’m not.”

“Who’s the woman,” Mason asked; “—that is, does she enter into the case?”

“We’ll talk about that.”

Mason indicated a chair, slipped out of his raincoat, shook drops from the brim of his hat, and settled back in the big swivel chair behind the desk.

His visitor gravely took out a wallet. “I suppose, Mr. Mason,” he said, extracting two one-thousand-dollar bills, “that when I said I’d pay you two thousand dollars for taking this case, you hardly expected to see the color of my money so soon.”

He didn’t hand Mason the two one-thousand-dollar bills, but held them in his hand as though just ready to place them on the edge of Mason’s desk.

“What,” Mason asked, “is the case?”

“There isn’t any.”

Mason raised his eyebrows.

“I,” Peltham said, “am in trouble.”

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly what is it?”

Peltham said, “I don’t want you to bother about that. I have my own ways of handling those tilings. What I want you to do is to protect her.”

“From what?” Mason asked.

“From everything.”

“And who is she?”

Peltham said, “First I want to know whether you’ll accept the employment.”

“I’d have to know more about it,” Mason told him.

“What, for instance?”

“Exactly what you think is going to happen — what you want her protected against.”

Peltham lowered his eyes to study the carpet for several thoughtful seconds.

“She’s here,” Mason said. “Why not bring her in?”

Peltham raised his eyes to Mason. “Understand this, Mr. Mason,” he said. “No one must ever know the identity of this woman.”

“Why?”

“It’s dynamite.”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply that if it was known this woman had any connection with me, it would raise the very devil all around. It would bring about the very situation I’m trying to avoid.”

“What,” Mason asked, “is she to you?”

Peltham said steadily, “She’s everything to me.”

“Do I understand you want me to represent some woman, but I’m not to know who she is?”

“Exactly.”

Mason laughed. “Good Lord, man! You seem entirely sober and in possession of your senses.”

“I am.”

“But you’re asking the impossible. I can’t represent a client unless I know who she is.”

Peltham got up from the chair. He walked gravely across to the exit door which led from Mason’s private office to the corridor. He said, “Pardon me, Mr. Mason, if I seem to take a liberty.” He clicked back the spring lock on the door and stepped out into the corridor. Mason could hear low-voiced conversation, and a few moments later the door opened and Peltham ushered a woman into the room.

She was garbed in a dark raincoat, buttoned up around the throat, which stretched almost to the ground and concealed all of her figure. It was a voluminous coat either cut for a person several sizes larger or else it had originally been a part of a man’s wardrobe. She wore a small, close-fitting hat which nestled well down on her head. The upper part of her face was concealed by a mask, through which sparkling dark eyes held a twinkle that was almost a glitter.

“Come in, dear, and sit down,” Peltham said.

The woman walked calmly across the office to seat herself in the chair opposite the lawyer. Her chin, the tip of her nose, and the full-bodied crimson lips indicated youth, but there was nothing else about her to give a clue to her age or appearance. She sat motionless in the chair, her hands concealed in black gloves. She did not cross her knees, but sat with her feet flat on the floor. Those feet were encased in galoshes which were evidently a size too large.

“Good evening,” Mason said.

She might not have heard him. Her eyes — dark, glittering, and restless — stared through the eyeholes in the mask.

Mason quite evidently began to enjoy the bizarre situation. Outside the dark windows of the office, wind-driven rain pelted against the glass, lending a semblance of fitting background to the situation.

Peltham was the one person in the office who seemed to see nothing unusual in the conference. He once more took from his pocket a pin-seal wallet. From it he took a bank note. “This, Mr. Mason,” he said, “is a ten-thousand-dollar bill. Perhaps you would care to examine it to see that it is genuine.”

He passed the bill across to the lawyer who looked it over and silently handed it back.

“Have you a pair of scissors, dear?” Peltham asked.

The woman wordlessly opened a black purse and took out a pair of curved manicure scissors. She handed these to Peltham who took them and walked over to Mason’s desk. He held the bill in his left hand, the scissors in his right.

With the careful touch of a man whose hands are trained to do exactly what he wants them to do, he cut the bill in two pieces by a series of curved segments.

With the last snip of the small scissors, a piece of the bill representing about one-third of its area fluttered to Mason’s desk.

Peltham returned the scissors to the masked woman. He held the two sections of the ten-thousand-dollar bill so that Mason could see they fitted perfectly, then he presented the larger portion of the bill to the woman, and dropped the smaller portion on top of the two one-thousand-dollar bills, which he shoved across the desk to Mason.

“There you are,” he said. “I don’t want a receipt. Your word’s good. You’ll never know this woman’s identity unless it becomes necessary for you to know it in order to protect her interests. At that time, she’ll give you the rest of this ten-thousand-dollar bill. That will be her introduction. You can paste the two halves together, take it down to your bank, and deposit it. In that way, your fee will be guaranteed, and there’ll be no chance of an impostor imposing on you.”

“Suppose someone else should get that other half of the bill?”

“No one will.”

Mason looked across at the woman. “You understand what Mr. Peltham is asking of me?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I take it that you knew what he had in mind when he came here?”

Again she nodded.

“And you’re satisfied to have me accept employment under those conditions?”

Again there was a nod.

Mason straightened in his chair, turned to Peltham, and said, “All right. Sit down. Let’s get down to brass tacks… You want me to represent this woman. I don’t know who she is. Perhaps tomorrow morning someone will walk in and ask me to take a case. I’ll accept the employment. Later on, this woman will announce that she’s the adverse party in that case, and hand me the rest of this ten-thousand-dollar bill. I’d then find myself retained on both sides of the same case.

“I think that explains my position. I can’t do it. What you ask is impossible. I’m interested, but I can’t do it.”

Peltham raised his left hand to his head. The tips of his fingers massaged the left temple. He was silent for an interval. “All right,” he said at length. “Here’s how we’ll get around that. You’re free to take any case except one that involves matters in which I am apparently directly or indirectly interested. If such a case should come to your office, you will get my permission before you accept the employment.”

“How can I get that permission?” Mason asked. “In other words, how can I get in touch with you? Will you be instantly available?”

Again Peltham rubbed his temple for several seconds of thoughtful deliberation. Then he said, “No.”

“All right,” Mason said impatiently. “That leaves us right back where we started.”

“No, it doesn’t. There’s another way.”

“What is it?”

“You can put an ad in the Contractor’s Journal in the personal column. You will address it simply to P, and sign it with the single initial, M. You will ask in that ad if there is any objection to your accepting employment on behalf of the person calling on you.”

“That,” Mason said, “wouldn’t be fair to my other clients. Clients don’t care to have their names broadcast in the personal columns of a newspaper.”

“Don’t mention that person by name,” Peltham said. “Take the telephone directory, list the number of the page, the column, and the position of the name in that column. For instance, if it’s a person on page 1000 of the telephone directory, the fourth name down from the top in the third column, you will simply say, ‘If I accept employment for 1000-3-4, would I be in danger of handling a case against you?’ ”

“And you’ll answer it?”

“If I don’t answer it within forty-eight hours,” Peltham said, “you may consider yourself free to accept the employment.”

“And how,” Mason asked, “will I know about your affairs? I take it, you have somewhat diversified business interests. I may not know…”

Peltham interrupted. For the first time, there was in his voice evidence of mental tension. “You’ll know by tomorrow,” he said, “—that is, if you read the newspapers.”

Mason said, “It’s goofy. It doesn’t make sense.”

Peltham indicated the two thousand dollars on the desk. “There’s two thousand dollars,” he said. “That money is paid over to you with no questions asked. I don’t want a receipt. I’ll take your word. Ninety-nine chances out of a hundred you won’t have to turn a finger. That money will be velvet. But if you should become active on behalf of this woman, you will then automatically receive the additional ten thousand dollars.”

Mason said, with finality, “I’ll take you up on that proposition on one condition.”

“What’s the condition?”

“That I’ll use my best efforts to be fair. I’ll act in the highest good faith. If I make a mistake, and find myself involved, I have the right to return the two thousand dollars and wipe the matter off the books as effectively as though we’d never had this conversation.”

Peltham glanced inquiringly at the masked woman.

She shook her head vigorously.

Mason said, “That’s my proposition. Take it or leave it.”

Peltham looked about him at the walls of the office. His eyes fastened on the door to the law library. “Could we,” he asked, “go in there for a moment?”

“Go right ahead,” Mason said, and then added, “Are you afraid to have me hear this woman’s voice?”

It was Peltham who started to answer the question, but the vigorous nodding of the woman’s head gave Mason his answer.

The lawyer laughed. “Go ahead,” he said. “After all, it’s your show. I’m just sitting in the wings.”

“In a twelve-thousand-dollar seat,” Peltham said with some feeling. “It’s bank night as far as you’re concerned, Mr. Mason, and you’ve won the jackpot.”

Mason indicated the door of the law library with a gesture. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m going to be back in bed within thirty minutes. You have my proposition. Take it or leave it.”

Peltham crossed over to her chair. “Come, dear,” he said.

She arose with some reluctance. He cupped his hand under her elbow, and they walked across the office, her raincoat rustling as she walked.

The galoshes gave her a somewhat awkward gait. The raincoat, hanging loosely from her shoulders, gave no indication of the contours of her figure, but there was something in her gait which showed that she was young and lithe.

Mason pinched out his cigarette, tilted back in the chair, crossed his ankles on the corner of the desk, and waited.

They were back in less than three minutes. “Your proposition is accepted,” Peltham said. “I only ask that you use the highest good faith.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” Mason said, “and that’s all I can promise.”

For a moment, it seemed that Peltham was about to put more cards on the table. His face twisted with expression as he leaned forward across Mason’s desk. “Look here,” he said, in a voice harsh with emotion — and then caught himself.

Mason waited.

Peltham took a deep breath. “Mr. Mason,” he said, “I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t absolutely necessary. For two hours now, I’ve been racking my brain trying to find some method of accomplishing what I want to accomplish without undoing everything in the process. If it were ever surmised by anyone that this woman and I had any connection, it would… it would… it would be absolutely ruinous to all concerned. I must keep her out of that at any cost — no matter what it costs. Do you understand?”

“I can’t understand the necessity for all this hodgepodge,” Mason said. “After all, you could afford to be frank with me. I don’t betray the secrets of my clients. I respect them. If this young woman wants to take off her mask and…”

“That’s impossible,” Peltham snapped. “I’ve worked out the only scheme which will give us all protection.”

“You don’t trust me?” Mason asked.

“Suppose,” Peltham countered, “that you happened to have information which the police considered vital evidence. Would you be justified in withholding it?”

“I’d protect the interests of a client,” Mason said. “I’m a lawyer. A client’s communications are confidential.”

Peltham’s voice was determined. “No,” he said shortly. “This is the only way.”

Mason looked at him curiously. “You evidently have made elaborate preparations for this interview.”

“What do you mean?”

“The elevator for instance.”

Peltham dismissed the matter with a gesture. “Whenever I do anything,” he said, “I lay my plans carefully and well in advance. I have watched your career with interest. Months ago I decided that if I ever needed a lawyer, I’d call on you. It may interest you to know, Mr. Mason, that I drew the plans for this building when it was constructed — and that at the present time, I own a controlling stock interest in it. Come, dear.”

She arose and silently started for the exit door.

Mason, thinking perhaps he could surprise her into letting him hear her voice, called banteringly, “Good night, Miss Mysterious.”

She turned. He saw her lips tremble in a nervous smile. She made him a slight curtsy, and wordlessly left the office.

Mason pocketed the two one-thousand-dollar bills. He looked at the fragment of the ten-thousand-dollar bill, and chuckled. Walking over to the safe, he spun the combination, opened the door, unlocked the drawer, opened it, held his hand over it for a moment, and then noisily closed the drawer and clanged the door of the safe shut. He snapped the bolt home, and twisted the combination.

But the fragment of the ten-thousand-dollar bill had not been dropped into the drawer of the safe. Instead he had unobtrusively slipped it into his trousers pocket.

He walked over to the hat tree, put on his wet hat, got into his raincoat, looked out into the outer office, and made certain that the bottle of whiskey he had placed on the desk was no longer there. He locked the door of the reception room and switched out the lights. He returned to his private office and went to the exit door. As he had surmised, Peltham had left this door unlocked, the spring lock being held back with a catch.

Mason dropped the catch, releasing the lock, switched out the lights, and went out into the echoing corridor.

He noticed that the locked, dark elevator was still on the seventh floor. He rang the elevator bell, and after a few moments, the janitor came shooting upward in the cage.

Mason indicated the dark elevator. “One of your elevators stalled on this floor?” he asked.

The janitor stepped out of the cage to stare at the elevator. “Ay be a son of a gun,” he said in an astounded voice which seemed to Mason to be thoroughly genuine.

Mason entered the lighted elevator. “Okay, Ole,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Chapter 2

Della Street was opening the morning mail when Mason came sauntering into the office.

“You’re early,” she said. “Didn’t you remember that the Case of People vs. Smithers was dismissed by the district attorney?”

“Uh huh. I came down to study the newspaper.”

She stared at him with her brows arched, laughter trembling at the comers of her lips, but her eyes grew puzzled as she saw the expression on his face. “Going in for contemporary history?” she asked.

He scaled his hat to the hat tree, pushed the mail on his blotter aside without so much as glancing through it, and spread out the newspaper on the desk. “Quite a rain we had last night.”

“I’ll say. What about the newspaper, Chief?”

“Shortly after midnight,” Mason said, “I received a two-thousand-dollar retainer and a piece out of a ten-thousand-dollar bill. I had an interesting session with a masked woman and a man who seemed very much worried about something, who intimated that some startling news would be found in the morning newspaper.”

“And you can’t find it?” she asked.

“I haven’t looked as yet,” he said with a grin. “Sufficient for the day are the business hours thereof.”

“Who were the parties?”

“The man,” he said, “was Robert Peltham, an architect. He didn’t seem particularly pleased when I discovered his real identity. He wanted me to believe that he was John L. Cragmore of 5619 Union Drive. That was the one slip he made. There isn’t any Cragmore listed at that address in the telephone book. It was a slip which I can’t understand. He had so thoroughly prepared all the other steps in his campaign that I can’t imagine him falling down on such a simple matter. If he’d only given me a name that appeared in the telephone book, I’d have fallen for it — at least temporarily.”

“Go on,” she said.

Mason told her briefly of the mysterious caller and what had taken place at the interview.

“How did he get your unlisted telephone number, Chief?”

“That is simply another indication of the care with which he’d prepared his campaign.”

“It wasn’t something on the spur of the moment?”

“I think the thing that caused him to call on me was something that happened rather unexpectedly, and apparently he’d decided some time ago that if he ever needed a lawyer he’d call on me, and he blueprinted his plans for reaching me and filed them away in the back of his mind. It’s indicative of the man’s character.”

“But how about that elevator business?” Della Street asked.

“That,” Mason said, “was a case where luck played into his hands. He owns a controlling stock interest in this building. He probably has duplicate keys to everything. Just as a matter of precaution, I didn’t leave that fragment of the ten-thousand-dollar bill in the office overnight. I figured a man who had a key to the elevator would very probably have a passkey to my office.”

“How about the woman? Do you think he’d planned to consult you in connection with her?”

“No. I think that was something that developed rather unexpectedly,” Mason said musingly. “Take that mask for instance. I’m virtually certain it had been part of a costume at a masquerade ball. It was a black mask with tinsel trimming. Evidently, it had been made to go with a masquerade costume — one of the things a woman would file away in a drawer of keepsakes.”

“Couldn’t you tell anything about her, Chief?”

“I’d say she was not over thirty,” Mason said, “and that she had a good figure. Her hands were small, but she was wearing gloves much too large. There were a couple of rings on the right hand, and one on the left. You could see the outlines through the gloves. She’d turned them so that the stones were on the inside.”

“Wedding ring?” she asked.

“I don’t think there was a wedding ring. And she was afraid to let me hear her voice.”

“Then you must know her,” Della Street said. “That is, you must have already met her, and she was afraid her voice would give her away.”

“Either that, or I’m going to meet her in the near future. Somehow I’m more inclined to the future theory than the past.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, just a hunch.”

“How do we handle it on the books?”

Mason handed her the portion of the ten-thousand-dollar bill. “That’s up to you — but that piece of ten grand you’ve got there is powerful bait.”

Della sniffed. “You know perfectly well you’re more intrigued by the Mysterious Madame X than you are by the money. Why not ‘The Case of the Masked Mistress’?”

“Well, that’s a thought,” he said, “although you may wrong the girl’s morals.”

“Did she look like a moral young woman?”

Mason grinned. “As to that,” he said, “it’s hard to tell even when you see them in complete regalia, watch the gestures of their hands, and listen to their voices. This woman kept her hands on the arm of the chair, her feet on the floor, and her mouth shut. Open up a file on ‘The Case of the Baited Hook’ and you’ll be right whoever or whatever she is.”

“And the answer’s supposed to be in the newspaper?”

“Not the answer,” he said, “but a clue.”

“Do you want me to look through it?”

“You take the first section,” he said. “I’ll take the second. Let’s not overlook anything: notices of death, or intentions to wed, birth notices, and divorces — particularly divorces.”

And Mason promptly turned to the sporting page.

Fifteen minutes later, Della Street looked up from the section of the newspaper she had been studying. “Find anything?” she asked.

“Nuh uh.”

She said, “I thought perhaps you’d find that One-punch Peltham had been signed up with Joe Louis for a fifteen-round bout.”

He grinned. “No harm killing two birds with one stone, Della.”

“We’ve thrown all our rocks, and haven’t even got a feather. I can’t find a thing. Did he act as though he expected it would be something obscure?”

“No, he didn’t,” Mason said. “I gathered that it would be spread on page one of the newspaper — something one couldn’t miss.”

“Well, it hasn’t broken then, that’s all.”

“That,” Mason said, “complicates matters. I don’t have any idea what it was he really wanted me to do. I might take a divorce case against Mrs. Jones and have Mrs. Jones walk in and shove the other half of this ten-thousand-dollar bill across the desk, and say, ‘Is this any way to treat a client?’ ”

“Or,” Della Street said demurely, “you might fire me for inefficiency and suddenly have me push the rest of that ten-thousand-dollar bill in front of you, and say, ‘Is this any way to run a law office?’ ”

Mason looked at her with sudden suspicion. “By George,” he said, “—now you have given me something to think about.”

She laughed.

Gertie, the big, good-natured blonde, who presided over the information desk and switchboard in Mason’s outer office, tapped on the door, then opened it, and slipped into the room. “Can you,” she asked, “see A. E. Tump?”

“What does he want?” Mason asked.

She shook her head. “It isn’t a he. It’s a she.”

“What’s the name?”

“Just A. E. Tump, but she’s a woman.”

“What does she want?”

“She wants to see you, and she looks like a woman who has a habit of getting what she wants.”

“Young?” Mason asked.

“Nope. She’s around sixty-five, and she still has sex appeal, if you know what I mean.”

Mason said, “Good Lord, Gertie. You don’t mean she’s kittenish.”

“No, not kittenish, and she isn’t one of those women who tries to have the figure of a young woman of twenty. But… well, she has personality and uses it. She puts her stuff across.”

Mason said to Della Street, “Go find out what she wants, Della. Give her the once-over.”

Mason returned to the newspaper, turning idly through the pages, reading the headlines, and waiting.

Della Street returned in a few moments and said to Perry Mason, “She’s white-haired, smooth-skinned, broad of beam, matronly in a seductive way. She seems to have money and poise and she has character and personality. Maybe you ought to see her.”

“What does she want?”

“It’s over a trust fund and an illegal adoption proceedings.”

Mason said, “Bring her in,” and Della returned to escort the new client into the office.

“Good morning, Mrs. Tump,” Mason said.

She smiled at him and walked across to seat herself in the big leather chair.

Mason, sizing her up, said laughingly, “You were announced as A. E. Tump. I thought you were a man.”

The woman beamed across at him. “Well, I’m not,” she said. “A is for Abigail, and E is for Esther. I hate both names. They reek with respectability and Biblical associations.”

“Why didn’t you change your name?” Mason asked, watching her with the shrewd, lawyer-wise eyes.

“Too much trouble in connection with property. My holdings are in the name of Abigail E. Tump. Well, I gave my daughter a break anyway.”

Mason raised his eyebrows.

Mrs. Tump needed no prompting. She went on smoothly in the effortless voice of one who is an easy, fluent talker. “I christened her Cleopatra Circe Tump. I guess it embarrassed her to death, but at least she wasn’t chained to a life of mediocrity by having names that were a millstone of conventional respectability around her neck.”

Mason flashed a swift glance of amusement at Della Street. “Do you then associate respectability with mediocrity?”

“Not always,” she said. “I haven’t any quarrel with respectability. I just hate the labels, that’s all.”

“Did you want to consult me about your daughter?”

“No. She married a banker in Des Moines — a stuffed shirt, if you ask me. She’s a pillar of respectability, and hates her names as badly as I hated mine. None of her friends even know about the Circe part of her name.”

Mason smiled. “What was the matter you wanted to discuss?”

She said, “It goes back to 1918 shortly before the Armistice.”

“What happened?”

“I was a passenger on a British boat sailing for South Africa. On the ship were two Russian refugees — traveling incognito, of course. They had been high officials under the old regime — that is, he had. It had taken them years to escape from that awful nightmare of Bolshevism, and their little daughter had been left behind.”

Mason nodded and offered Mrs. Tump a cigarette. “Not right now,” she said. “Later on, I’ll join you. Now I want to get this off my chest.”

Mason lit a cigarette and glanced across to where Della Street was holding a pencil poised over her notebook ready to take skeleton notes on the conversation.

“The boat was torpedoed by a submarine without warning,” Mrs. Tump said. “It was a horrible experience. I can see it yet whenever I close my eyes. It was night, and a heavy sea was running. The boat had a bad list almost as soon as she was struck. A lot of the lifeboats capsized. There were people in the water, only you couldn’t see them — just arms and clawing hands coming up out of the dark waves to clutch at the slippery steel sides of the boat. Then the waves swept them away. You could hear screams — so many of them, it sounded just like one big scream.”

Mason’s eyes were sympathetic.

“This couple I was telling you about,” Mrs. Tump went on, “—I’m just going to hit the high spots, Mr. Mason — they told me their history. The woman was psychic if you want to call it that, or just plain frightened and worried if you want to figure it that way. She felt certain the boat would be torpedoed. The man kept trying to kid her out of it… laughing at her, making a joke of it. The night before the ship sank the woman came to my cabin. She’d had a horrible dream. A vision, she called it. She wanted me to promise that if anything happened to her and I lived through it, that I’d go to Russia, find the daughter, and work out some way of getting her out of the country.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

“She gave me some jewels. She didn’t have much money, but lots of jewelry. She said that if the boat reached port safely, I could give the jewelry back to her. Her husband wasn’t to know anything about it.”

“And she was drowned?” Mason asked.

“Yes. They were both in the first boat which went over. I saw it capsize with my own eyes. Then a big wave came up and smashed the second lifeboat against the side of the ship. However, Mr. Mason, all this is just preliminary. I’ll only sketch what happened. I was saved. I went to Russia, located the child, and brought her out. It doesn’t matter how. She was a wonderful girl with the blood of royalty in her veins. I wanted my own daughter to adopt her. My daughter was just getting married at the time. Her husband wouldn’t listen to it. So I… I’m afraid I did something which was unpardonable, Mr. Mason.”

“What?” he asked.

“I wasn’t where I could keep her myself — that is, I thought I wasn’t. I put her in a home.”

“What home?” Mason asked.

“The Hidden Home Welfare Society.”

“Where was that?” Mason inquired.

“In a little town in Louisiana. They made a specialty of caring for children whose parents couldn’t keep them.”

She paused for a moment as though trying to get the facts straight in her mind.

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

She said, “I have to tell you a little something about that home, Mr. Mason, things I didn’t know at the time but found out afterwards. It was a baby brokerage home.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She said, “There’s always been a great demand for children to adopt. Childless couples are always on the lookout. Well, this home didn’t care how it got its children. I found out afterwards that most of the women who were employed on the premises were expectant mothers. They’d have children and leave. Some of them would arrange to pay for the child’s care and maintenance, and some of them couldn’t.”

“You, of course, made arrangements for the care of this child?”

“Oh, yes. I sent them regular monthly remittances. I have my old cancelled checks to prove it. Thank God I kept them.”

“And the child?” Mason asked.

“A year later,” she said, “when my own affairs were in order, I went to the home to get her out. And what do you think I found?”

“That she wasn’t there?” Mason asked.

“Exactly. They’d sold that baby for a thousand dollars. Think of it, Mr. Mason! Sold her just as you’d sell a horse or a dog or a used automobile.”

“What was their explanation?”

“Oh, they were frightfully sorry. They claimed it had been a mistake. At first they said I hadn’t paid them a cent. And then I confronted them with the cancelled checks — and they tried every means on earth to get those checks from me. I made a lot of trouble. The district attorney took it up, and The Hidden Home Welfare Society simply dissolved and vanished into nothing. I learned later what those places do. Whenever there’s trouble, they simply move to some other state, give themselves another name, and begin all over again.”

“But surely,” Mason said, “their records would show what became of this child.”

“They did, but the Home wouldn’t admit it. They lied about those records. I should have hired a lawyer and gone right into court, but in place of that I started making complaints to the authorities, and I suppose they were dilatory. You know how public officials can be at times. The district attorney was taking his vacation, and he stalled me along. I went back to New York and waited to hear from him. He wrote me a letter and seemed very pleased with himself. He said that thanks to my efforts, The Hidden Home Welfare Society had been put out of existence, that there had been previous complaints, and that I was to be congratulated on having saved my checks and all that sort of stuff.

“I went right back down to Louisiana and told him that wasn’t what I wanted, that I wanted the child. He said I’d have to engage private counsel, that his office was concerned with the broader aspects of the case. Think of it! The ‘broader aspects of the case.’ I could have choked him.”

Rage glittered in her cold gray eyes.

“You employed private counsel?” Mason asked.

“I did. That’s where I made my next mistake. It was too late for lawyers then. I should have employed good detectives. The lawyers took my money and puttered around. They said that the home had destroyed all of its records, fearing criminal prosecution, that it had scattered — as they said — to the four winds… Four winds nothing! They’d simply moved to Colorado and started all over again under another name. That was something else I didn’t know.”

“How did you finally get the information?” Mason asked.

“By persistence and a little luck,” she said. “One of the men, who had been in their bookkeeping department had, of course, remembered the entire transaction because of the commotion I’d raised, finally got in touch with lawyers who in turn got in touch with me… They wanted to sell the information of course.”

“What did you do?” Mason asked.

“I suppose I should have gone to the authorities, but I’d had a bitter dose of that medicine so I paid through the nose and got the information.”

“Which shows?” Mason asked.

“The child was given the name of Byrl. She was adopted by a Mr. and Mrs. Gailord. They lived here in this city.”

“How long ago was that?” Mason asked.

“Within two months of the time I’d left the girl at the orphanage, the Gailords came there looking for a child. They became completely infatuated with this girl. They insisted on having her. The Home told them that she wasn’t as yet free for adoption, but they felt certain she would be within a few months, as their experience had convinced them that very few people kept up the payments, and the understanding was that whenever the payments ceased, the child was free for adoption.

“The Gailords couldn’t wait. They offered to pay a fancy price — a thousand dollars. And I suppose there was a little bribe money passed at the same time. They said that if there was any trouble, they’d return the girl… Perhaps they meant to at the time, but they’d become attached to her — and — well, you know how those things are.”

Mason said, “But surely, Mrs. Tump, the girl has now arrived at the age of majority. She can do anything she pleases. She’s free, white, and twenty-one. She…”

“That part of it’s all right,” Mrs. Tump said. “I’ve straightened all that out, but here’s what happened. The Gailords were wealthy. Frank Gailord died. He left property, half to his widow, half to Byrl. Byrl’s half was in a trust fund. She was to get it when she was twenty-seven. In the meantime, the trustee was to pay her such sums as he thought necessary for care, maintenance, and education.

“Mrs. Gailord married again — a man by the name of Tidings. They lived together five years, and then the woman died, leaving all of her property to Byrl under the same sort of trust and making Mr. Tidings the trustee without bonds. Tidings is no good. He married again, and there’s been another separation… You don’t need to concern yourself with all these preliminaries, Mr. Mason. I’m giving them to you just so you’ll have the background clear in your mind. The point is, that Albert Tidings is now trustee for Byrl’s property, and it’s a tidy little fortune. He has absolutely no right to be trustee. He’s an improper person. He’s a crook, if you want my opinion.”

“You’ve seen him?” Mason asked.

“Naturally. I went to him and explained matters to him.”

“What did he do?”

“He said, ‘See my lawyer.’ ”

“And so you decided to come to me?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve explained matters to Byrl — about her parents?”

“I most certainly have. It came as something of a shock to her. She’d always considered the Gailords were her real parents.”

“Where is she now?”

“Here in the city.”

“What,” Mason asked, “do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go after Tidings,” she said. “I want you to prove that the original adoption was illegal, that it was a fraud, and was the result of bribery and corruption. I want Tidings out of there as trustee.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Meaning,” he asked, “that you want to be appointed trustee in his stead?”

“Well, I certainly think Byrl is entitled to more of her money. She should travel, see something of the world, come into her own inheritance, and marry.”

“She’s free to marry whenever she wants to, isn’t she?” Mason asked.

“Yes, but she can’t meet the sort of people she should meet… You can take one look at Byrl and realize that she has a most unusual heritage.”

Mason said, “So far as the past history is concerned, Mrs. Tump, it has but little bearing on the legal situation. The trust doesn’t depend on the adoption. Byrl is now of age. You have no legal standing in the case. You aren’t related to her. The parents asked you to get the girl and protect her. You got her out of Russia. After that — I’ll be frank with you, Mrs. Tump — a shrewd lawyer would make it appear that, having received the jewelry and smuggled her out of Russia, you suddenly lost interest in her. Beyond making your monthly payments, you were, to be frank, rather lax.”

“I wasn’t lax,” she said. “I wrote the Home regularly asking how she was getting along, and they answered by telling me that she was a bright girl, and was doing well.”

“You’ve kept those letters?”

“Yes.”

“Of course,” Mason pointed out, “Tidings wasn’t a party to the original fraud, and as far as Byrl is concerned, she’s in no position to complain. She has inherited property because of those adoption proceedings.”

“But she never was formally adopted,” Mrs. Tump said.

“No?”

“No.”

“How did that happen?”

“Well, you see when they first took her, they knew that she wasn’t eligible for adoption, and then, later on, when I made so much trouble, the attorneys for the Home wanted it kept entirely under cover. They were afraid that if adoption proceedings ever went through the courts, I’d find out about it and take Byrl away from them. As nearly as I can get it, their lawyer told them they could take care of Byrl’s interests financially through a will, and simply let the child go on believing they were her parents. They’d gradually instilled that into her mind, making up a story to account for some of her childish memories.”

“How,” Mason asked with interest, “did you get her out of Russia?”

“That’s a story I can’t tell you right now. Some very influential people who were friends of mine were traveling on a passport with a child. The child died and — well, Byrl got into the United States all right. I suppose I could be prosecuted for my share in that, and the other people could, too. I’ve promised to protect them in every way. Byrl knows all about it now, and all about her real parents.”

“Well,” Mason said, “I can force an accounting in that trust matter. I can probably make Tidings give Byrl all of the income, and perhaps a part of the principal. Then, within a year or two, the young woman can take over the entire trust fund under the terms of the trust. If Tidings has been guilty of any misconduct, we can get him removed.”

Mrs. Tump said, “That’s all I want. I wanted you to get the picture. If you want to know anything about Albert Tidings, you can find out from a man who’s very close to him. He’s associated with him in some other trust matters — one of a board of three men who handle endowment funds for a university.”

“That,” Mason said, “will be valuable. Who is this man?”

“He’s very influential and very wealthy,” she said. “Incidentally, he’s a great admirer of yours, Mr. Mason. He’s the one who sent me to you.”

“The name?” Mason asked.

“Robert Peltham,” she said. “He’s an architect. His address is 3212 Oceanic Avenue, but he has a downtown office, and you can reach him there.”

Mason carefully refrained from even glancing in Della Street’s direction. “That,” he said, “is fine, Mrs. Tump. I’d like to get in touch with Mr. Peltham before I decide about taking your case.”

“Why, I don’t see what he has to do with it, except as he can give you some information. Why don’t you take the case and then get in touch with Mr. Peltham? I’ll pay you a retainer right now.”

Mason thoughtfully flicked ashes from his cigarette. After a moment, he said, “Of course, Mrs. Tump, you have no legal standing in the matter. As I have pointed out, you aren’t related to Miss Gailord. Any action would have to be instituted by Miss Gailord herself.”

“I suppose that’s right.”

“And,” Mason said, “before I started anything, I’d have to see Miss Gailord and have her give me a direct authorization to act.”

Mrs. Tump, suddenly businesslike, glanced at a jeweled wrist watch. “At two o’clock tomorrow afternoon?” she asked. “Would that be convenient?”

Mason said, “I’d be very glad to give her an appointment for that time.”

Mrs. Tump pulled herself out of the deep recesses of the leather chair. “I’ll get busy right away,” she said. “—Oh, by the way, Mr. Mason, I may have done something wrong… Perhaps I got the cart before the horse.”

“What?” Mason asked.

She said, “When Mr. Tidings told me to see his lawyer, I told him that he could see my lawyer, that Mr. Perry Mason would call on him at eleven o’clock this morning. I hope that was all right.”

Mason did not answer her question directly. He said, “You’re a resident of this city, Mrs. Tump?”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “I came here recently because Byrl was here. I’m living at the St. Germaine Hotel.”

Mason said, with elaborate unconcern, “Do you have her address, Mrs. Tump?”

“Why, of course — the Vista Angeles Apartments… She’s going to take a trip with me as soon as we can get matters straightened out. I’m financing her in the meantime. Understand, Mr. Mason, you’ll make all arrangements through me. She’ll be your client, of course, but I’ll be the one who pays the fees, and therefore the one you’ll look to for instructions.”

“Is she,” Mason asked, “listed in the telephone book?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “Thank you, Mrs. Tump. I’ll see you at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“And how about this appointment with Mr. Tidings?”

“I’ll get in touch with him,” Mason said, “and explain that I’ve been consulted, that the hour isn’t convenient for me, and ask for a later appointment.”

She gave him her hand. “You give me a real feeling of confidence, Mr. Mason… You’re so different from those other lawyers. I built up a phobia about the legal profession. But Mr. Peltham told me you’d be like this. He seemed to know a great deal about you… You’ve met him personally, perhaps?”

Mason laughed. “I meet so many people — and so many people know me whom I don’t know, that at times it’s embarrassing.”

“Yes, of course. That’s what comes of being a famous lawyer. Well, I’ll see you at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

Mason and Della Street remained motionless, watching Mrs. Tump walk across the office with firm, competent steps. She made no effort to leave by the door through which she had entered, but walked directly to the door which opened from Mason’s private office into the outer corridor. She twisted the knurled knob which released the catch, and turned on the threshold to smile once more at them. “Don’t forget about that eleven o’clock appointment with Tidings, Mr. Mason,” she said, and pulled the door shut behind her.

When the latch had clicked into place, Mason trusted himself for the first time to look at Della Street.

“Ain’t we got fun!” she said.

Mason grinned. “I knew there was going to be a joker in the thing somewhere.”

Della, suddenly serious, tried to reassure him. “After all,” she said, “the coincidence may be just that and nothing more.”

“It may be,” he admitted, in a voice that showed his skepticism. “One chance in ten million if you want to make it mathematical.”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose that Mrs. Tump would hardly be the woman who holds the other part of that ten-thousand-dollar bill.”

“No,” Mason said, “but what do you want to bet that Byrl Gailord isn’t?”

“No takers,” she told him. “This is your personally conducted excursion into the realm of mysterious women and masked mistresses… Of course, if Byrl Gailord knew that Mrs. Tump was going to call on you and arrange for an appointment, she’d have been careful to keep you from hearing her voice… But I don’t see why all the secrecy.”

Mason said, “Because she doesn’t want Mrs. Tump to know that she’s intimate with Peltham — if Byrl Gailord is the one who’s intimate with him.”

“And if she isn’t?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “Forget that. Ring up that Contractor’s Journal. Tell them we have a personal ad which must go in their next issue. Look up the position of Byrl Gailord’s name in the telephone directory, and compose a code ad asking if it’s all right to represent her… And somehow I feel as though I’m walking into a trap the minute I do that.”

“Couldn’t you go ahead and represent her without it?”

“I could,” Mason admitted, “but I don’t want to. That ten thousand dollars looked as big as the national debt last night, Della, but it looks like trouble now. Go ahead and work out that ad. Tell Paul Drake to look up Tidings, and get Tidings on the telephone for me.”

A few moments later, she popped her head in the door to say, “There’s a one-thirty dead-line on that ad, Chief. I’ve got it ready and will rush it down. Albert Tidings is coming on the line in just a moment. His secretary’s on now.”

Mason picked up the telephone, and a man’s rather high-pitched voice said, “Hello.”

“Mr. Tidings?” Mason asked.

“No. This is his secretary. Just a moment, Mr. Mason. Mr. Tidings is coming right on… Here he is.”

A booming, resonant voice said, irritably, “Hello. Who the devil is this?”

“Perry Mason, the lawyer,” Mason said. “I’m calling in regard to an appointment a Mrs. Tump made with you. She said I’d call on you at eleven… Is this Albert Tidings?”

There was a moment of silence, then the voice said cautiously, “Yes, this is Tidings. I know all about what you want, and…”

“Mrs. Tump has just left my office,” Mason interposed as the man at the other end of the line paused uncertainly. “She said she’d made an appointment for me to meet you at eleven o’clock this morning. That appointment was, of course, made without consulting my own convenience and…”

“I understand perfectly, Mr. Mason,” the booming voice interrupted. “I was going to call you myself… Hadn’t got around to it yet. It’s all damn poppycock. You don’t want to waste your time on it, and I don’t want to waste mine. She said eleven o’clock… I knew you wouldn’t drop your business and come running around to peddle a lot of old woman’s gossip, but I didn’t say anything to Mrs. Tump. I just figured I wouldn’t hear any more about it, but I told my secretary to call you up just to make sure.”

“It’s quite possible,” Mason said, “that I’ll want to talk with your attorney — if you can tell me who he is.”

“I have several attorneys,” Tidings said, evasively.

“Can you tell me which lawyer will be handling this particular case?”

“None of them,” Tidings said. “It’s all bosh. I tell you there’s nothing to it, but one thing I will tell you, Mason. If that woman doesn’t quit her whispering campaign of poison propaganda, I’m going after her. Byrl’s a swell girl. We get along fine, but that old buzzard is poison and she’s laying up trouble for herself. She’s a chiseler and is just trying to make Byrl dissatisfied so as to feather her own nest. I’m going after her if she doesn’t quit. You can tell her that straight from me.”

“Tell her straight from yourself,” Mason said. “I only called up to cancel an appointment.”

Tidings laughed. “All right. All right. I didn’t mean it that way, Mason, but I’m getting irritated… All right. Call up whenever you want to see me. Your secretary and mine can doubtless get together. Good-by.”

Mason dropped the telephone receiver into place, pushed back his chair, got to his feet, and started slowly pacing the office.

Chapter 3

Perry Mason was lying in bed reading when the telephone rang. He had been about to turn off the light, and there was a frown on his face as he picked up the receiver.

Della Street’s voice greeted him. “Hello, Chief. How about the evening paper?”

“What about it?”

“Did you read it?”

“I glanced through it. Why?”

“I notice,” she said, “that auditors have been called in to examine the books of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital. Charges of mismanagement of funds have been made by a member of the Hastings family. A firm of certified public accountants were called on to make a preliminary audit of the books. The endowment funds are held in a trust administered by a board of three trustees. The members of that board of trustees are Albert Tidings, Robert Peltham, and a Parker C. Stell.”

For several thoughtful seconds Mason was silent, then he said, “I guess that’s what Peltham meant when he said I’d learn about him in the papers.”

“Get this,” Della Street went on, speaking hurriedly. “I didn’t intend to disturb you over that newspaper business. I clipped the item out of the paper and figured it would keep until morning, but I was getting ready for bed and turned the radio on to get the evening broadcast. A news item came through that early this evening police investigated a parked automobile which had been found in a vacant lot, discovered that there were bloodstains on the seat cushion. A man’s bloodstained topcoat was found pushed down on the floor boards near the gearshift lever. There was a bullet hole in the left side of the coat. The car was registered in the name of Albert Tidings, and a handkerchief in the right-hand pocket of the raincoat had Albert Tidings’ laundry mark and some lipstick on it. A check-up shows that Tidings hasn’t been seen since shortly before noon, when his secretary said he went out without saying where he was going.”

Mason digested the information and said, “Now that’s something. Any other clues?”

“Apparently that’s all that found its way to the last minute news flashes… Want me to call up Paul Drake and start him working on it?”

Mason said, “I’d better call him myself, Della.”

“Look like the plot’s thickening?” she asked.

“Positively curdled,” he agreed, cheerfully. “It’s like Thousand Island dressing… Almost as bad as the cream gravy I tried to make on that hunting trip last fall.”

“Can I do anything to help, Chief?”

“I don’t think so, Della. I don’t think I’ll do very much. After all, we’ll be hearing from Mrs. Tump on this, and in one way this will simplify matters.”

“Sounds more complicated to me,” she said.

“No. It’ll work the other way. With the charges made in connection with the trust fund of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital, a court would want a pretty thorough accounting from Tidings on the Gailord trust. Tidings won’t dare to let us drag him into court on that now. He’ll make all sorts of concessions — that is, if he wasn’t inside of that coat when the bullet went through. If he was, and should pass out of the picture, we’ll then be in a position to have another trustee appointed and get an accounting from Tidings’ administrator… What worries me is the lipstick on the handkerchief in his coat pocket.”

“Getting narrow-minded, Chief?” she asked banteringly.

“I was just wondering if the girl who owned that lipstick didn’t perhaps have part of a ten-thousand-dollar bill in her purse… I’m getting a complex about that bill, Della. I’m afraid to go to sleep for fear I’ll dream of chasing a witch who turns herself into a beautiful young woman poking a part of a ten-thousand-dollar bill under my nose.”

Della Street said, “More apt to be a beautiful young woman who turns into a witch… Let me know if you want anything, Chief.”

“I will. Thanks for calling, Della. ’Night.”

“ ’Night, Chief.”

Mason rang up the Drake Detective Agency. “Paul Drake — is he where you can reach him?” he asked of the night operator at Drake’s switchboard.

“I think so, yes.”

“This is Perry Mason calling. I’m at my apartment. Tell him to give me a ring soon as he can. It’s important.”

“Okay, Mr. Mason. I should have him within fifteen minutes.”

Mason slipped out of bed, put on bathrobe and slippers, lit a cigarette, and stood in frowning concentration, his feet spread apart, his eyes staring intently down at the carpet. From time to time he raised the cigarette to his lips, inhaling slow deliberate drags.

The ringing of the telephone aroused him from his concentration. He picked up the instrument, and Paul Drake’s drawling voice said, “Hello, Perry. I was wondering whether to call you tonight or wait until tomorrow morning. I’ve got some information on Tidings.”

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“Oh, a bit of this and that,” Drake said. “A bit of background, some gossip, and a little deduction.”

“Let’s have the high lights.”

Drake said, “He’s married. Been married twice. The first time to a Marjorie Gailord, a widow with a daughter. They lived together four or five years, then Marjorie died. A while later, Tidings married Nadine Holmes, an actress, twenty-eight, brunette, and class. They lived together about six months. She left him. He more or less publicly accused her of infidelity. She filed suit for divorce on grounds of cruelty, and then suddenly dismissed the action. Rumor is that after his lawyers told her lawyers what they had on her, she decided to be a good girl; but she won’t go back and live with him, and he won’t give her a divorce. He’s either crazy about her or just plain mean.

“He’s in the brokerage business, also director in a bank, reputed to be pretty well fixed. He’s one of the trustees of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital, and Adelle Hastings doesn’t like him. They’ve had some differences, which culminated when Miss Hastings demanded an audit of the books of the trustees. She seems to have something rather definite to work on.”

“Who is she?” Mason asked.

“Granddaughter of the original Hastings,” Drake said. “The money in the family ran out along in the depression. She could sure use some of that money which the old grandfather scattered around to charity. She’s poor but proud, thinks a lot of the family name, and points with pride to the hospital.”

“Does she have anything at all?” Mason asked.

“Nothing except looks and social standing. She’s working as a secretary somewhere, but the bluebloods all recognize her as being one of the social elite. She works during the week and goes out on millionaires’ yachts and to swell country estates over week-ends. Some of her friends have tried to give her good-paying jobs, but she figures they’re just making things easy for her. She prefers to stand on her own.”

Mason said, “Okay, Paul. Now I’ve got something for you. Beat it down to police headquarters. They found Tidings’ car parked in a vacant lot somewhere with blood on it and a topcoat with a bullet hole through it. Apparently, the coat belonged to Tidings, and he may have had it on when the bullet went through.”

Drake said, “That’s something! How did you get it, Perry?”

“Last minute flash on the news broadcast. Della phoned me a few minutes ago.”

Drake said, “I’ll get on the job. Want me to do any investigating on that car business?”

“Just tag along behind the police,” Mason said. “Don’t bother to do anything on your own hook as yet. Just gather facts and keep me posted.”

“Call you later on?” Drake asked.

“No,” Mason said. “I’m going to sleep. They dragged me up in the wee small hours this morning.”

“I heard about that,” Drake said. “By the way, Perry, that man the boys were covering for you was also on the board of trustees of the hospital with Tidings… I presume you knew that.”

“Uh huh.”

“Mean anything?” Drake asked.

“I think so,” Mason said, “but I don’t know what — not yet.”

“Want me to do any work on that angle?”

“I don’t think so, Paul. I don’t know just where I stand yet. Pick up what information you can without going to too much expense. Don’t bother with it personally. Just put a good leg man on it, and we’ll check over the dope in the morning.”

“Okay,” Drake said.

“Here’s something I am interested in, Paul,” Mason went on.

“Shoot.”

“This has to be handled with kid gloves. I want the dope on it, and I want it just as fast as you can get it.”

“What is it?”

“Robert Peltham,” Mason said. “He must never know that I’m making the investigation, but I want to find out whom he’s sweet on. I tried to telephone him this afternoon. He wasn’t in, and his secretary said she didn’t know when he’d be in. She was delightfully vague.”

“Isn’t he married?” Drake asked.

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “If he is, my best hunch is that his wife isn’t the center of attraction.”

“If he’s married, he’ll keep his love affairs pretty well covered up,” Drake warned. “I may not be able to get you anything on it for a day or two.”

“I’d like very much to have it before two o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” Mason said. “See what you can do, Paul.”

“Okay, I will.”

Mason hung up the telephone, stretched out on the bed, picked up a book, and tried to resume his reading. He couldn’t get interested in the book, nor on the other hand did he feel like sleeping. He tossed the book to the floor, sat up in a chair by the window, smoked three cigarettes, then turned off the lights, raised the windows, and got into bed. It was an hour before he dropped off to sleep.

By ten o’clock in the morning when he reached the office, events were gathering mass and momentum like a huge snowball rolling down a steep slope.

The preliminary investigations of the auditors had uncovered what amounted to a serious shortage in the trust funds of the Elmer Hastings Memorial Hospital. They were baffled, however, by the fact that all check stubs, all cancelled checks, and the check ledgers had disappeared. From the remaining books and available data, however, it was evident that some two hundred thousand dollars had been checked out of trust funds, and apparently this sum was not reflected in current assets or legitimate operating expenses. In view of the fact that the trustees had the discretionary right to sell stocks and bonds or other holdings and re-invest the proceeds, the auditors pointed out that it would be necessary to follow the trail of tangible assets through a complicated series of transactions in order to get an accurate picture.

Because withdrawals from the trust fund could be made only by checks signed by Albert Tidings and one other trustee, it appeared that there were what the newspaper cautiously referred to as “grave and far-reaching implications.” The newspaper account mentioned that Robert Peltham was reported to be out of town on business. His office would give no information as to where the architect could be reached. Albert Tidings had mysteriously disappeared. Police, frantically working on clues in connection with the finding of Tidings’ automobile with the telltale stains on the front seat and the bullet-pierced topcoat, were making a determined effort to learn more of where Tidings had gone after leaving his office. They had run up against a blank wall.

Parker C. Stell, the other member of the board of trustees, had consulted the firm of certified public accountants as soon as he knew that the investigation was under way. He had placed his own bookkeeping facilities at the disposal of the accountants. He announced he was deeply shocked and anxious to render every assistance possible. He said that he had been called on from time to time at the request of Tidings to sign some checks, that he thought Peltham had been the one who signed most of the checks with Tidings. He admitted that within what he termed “reasonable limitations” matters were left very much in Tidings’ hands, and signing many of the smaller checks was considered a matter of routine formality once Tidings’ name appeared on them. Larger checks, however, he said, were scrutinized carefully — at least those which he had signed with Tidings. These had represented monies paid out for securities in which the funds of the trust had been re-invested. The books of the trust fund had, he believed, been kept exclusively by Tidings who submitted detailed reports from time to time as to the state of the trust fund.

Adelle Hastings had not minced words in her characterization of the members of the board who administered the trust funds. Albert Tidings she accused of criminal mismanagement, Parker Stell of credulous inefficiency, and as for Robert Peltham, she insisted that he was honest, upright, and conscientious, and that Albert Tidings would never have dared submit any checks to him for signature which were not actual bona fide trust fund withdrawals.

Mason looked up from reading the newspaper to say to Della Street, “Well, I guess this is what he had reference to… Strange, however, that it broke twenty-four hours later than he had anticipated.”

She nodded, then after a moment said, “Chief, do you notice something peculiar about that?”

“What?”

“The way Adelle Hastings sticks up for Robert Peltham. After all, you know, Tidings has disappeared. That bloodstained coat could well be a blind to throw police off the track. Peltham has skipped out. Parker Stell is available and doing everything he can. Yet she accuses him of credulity and inefficiency.”

“Keep it up,” Mason encouraged. “You’re doing fine, Della. If you can think this thing out, I won’t have to work up a headache wrestling with a lot of confusing facts.”

She said, “Miss Hastings apparently had some pretty definite information as to what was going on, something on which she could base definite accusations.”

Mason nodded.

“She went to the bat and blew the lid off,” Della Street said. “Now according to all outward indications, Peltham is just as deep in the mud as Tidings is in the mire, but Adelle Hastings sticks up for him. Parker Stell, judging from newspaper accounts, is the only one who is doing the logical, reasonable, manly thing. Yet Miss Hastings doesn’t hesitate to accuse him of inefficiency.”

“You mean,” Mason asked, “that you think Adelle Hastings got her inside information as to what was going on from Robert Peltham?”

She said, “Goosy, wake up. I mean that Adelle Hastings holds the other half of the ten-thousand-dollar bill which we have in the safe.”

Mason sat bolt upright in his chair. “Now,” he said, “you have got something.”

“Well,” she went on, “it’s just guesswork, but I can’t figure Miss Hastings on any other basis. As one woman judging another woman, I’d say she was in love with Peltham… At any rate, she has a faith in him which doesn’t seem entirely justified by the circumstances, and she’s taking pains to make that faith public.

“The rest of it all fits in. You can see what would happen if it should appear that Peltham, as one of the trustees, had been carrying on a surreptitious intimacy with Adelle Hastings.”

“But why should it be surreptitious?” Mason asked. “Why couldn’t he have courted the girl or gone out and married her?… assuming, of course, he wasn’t already married.”

Della Street said, “Probably because of things we’ll find out later on. I’m just offering to bet that that Hastings girl holds the other half of your ten-thousand-dollar bill.”

Mason was reaching for a cigarette when Paul Drake’s knock sounded on the door which opened from Mason’s private office to the corridor.

“That’ll be Paul, Della,” he said. “Let him in… By George, the more I think of it, the more I believe you’re right. That, of course, would mean that there’d be no objection on Peltham’s part to our taking that Gailord case… But I have ideas about Mrs. Tump.”

“What sort of ideas?” she asked, opening the door to Paul Drake.

“I’ll tell you later,” Mason said. “Hello, Paul.”

Paul Drake was tall and languid. He spoke with a drawl, walked with a long, slow-paced stride. He was thinner than Mason, seldom stood fully erect, but had a habit of slouching against a desk, a filing cabinet, or slumping to a languid seat on the arm of a chair. He gave the impression of having but little energy to waste and wishing to conserve that which he had.

“Hi, Perry. Hi, Della,” Drake said, and walked over to the big leather chair. He dropped down with a contented sigh into the deep cushions, then after a moment raised his feet and twisted around so that his back was propped against one arm of the chair while his knees dangled over the other. “Well, Perry,” he said, “I’ve got to hand it to you.”

“What is it this time?” Mason asked.

“You sure can pick goofy cases. Did you know all this business about Tidings was going to break?”

Mason glanced at Della Street, then shook his head.

Drake said, “How’d you like to get some dope on Tidings’ love-life, Perry?”

“On the trail of something?” Mason asked.

“Uh huh. May be on the trail of Tidings himself. If he’s missing, I think I can put my finger on the person who saw him last.”

Mason sat up in his chair to drum nervously with the tips of his fingers on the edge of his desk. “Darned if I know whether I want to try to capitalize on that or not, Paul,” he said.

“How soon would you know?”

“After two o’clock this afternoon.”

Drake said, “I don’t think it’ll keep that long, Perry. There’s too much pressure being brought to bear. Some newspaper chap or some detective will stumble onto it.”

“What have you got?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “Tidings told an intimate friend three days ago that he was going to spring a trap on his wife. He said he was going to move in on her and let her forcibly eject him. Seemed to think there was some legal point in that which would give him an advantage. He said his wife had been waiting to get a cause of action on desertion. He was going to move in on her just before the year was up.

“I looked her up through the records of the Bureau of Light and Power. It’s a place up on one of those steep hillside subdivisions where there’s a swell view and privacy. I have a hunch Tidings went there Tuesday after he left his office. Want to go find out?”

Mason said, “I guess so… Della, get Byrl Gailord on the phone for me. If I’m going to mix into this now, I’d better know exactly where I stand.”

“Where does she fit into the picture?” Drake asked, as Della Street noiselessly glided from the office.

“It’s a long story,” Mason said. “Apparently, she’s the daughter of Tidings’ first wife. In reality she isn’t. There’s a question of adoption mixed into it… What else is new, Paul?”

“Oh, a lot of routine stuff,” Drake said. “I can’t find out anything about Peltham’s girl friend.”

“Is he married?”

“No. He’s a bachelor, pretty much of a businessman, rather austere, something of an ascetic, and referred to by his friends as a cold, calm, reasoning machine… Are you sure he has a heart-throb, Perry?”

Mason laughed. “You,” he said, “are giving me the information. I’m a lawyer protecting the confidence of a client… You give, and I take.”

Della Street opened the door of her secretarial office, holding a telephone in her hand. “She’s on your line, Chief,” she said.

Mason picked up the telephone on his desk. “Hello. Miss Gailord?”

A rich, well-modulated voice said, “Good morning, Mr. Mason. Thank you for calling. I believe I have an appointment with you for two o’clock this afternoon.”

“You have,” Mason said. “In the meantime, events are moving rather rapidly. I suppose you’ve seen the newspapers?”

“Yes. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “But I have a hot tip I’m going out to investigate now. The only information I have at present is that contained in the newspaper account… I take it you’re familiar with what Mrs. Tump has been doing in your behalf?”

“Yes.”

“And that meets with your approval?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You want me to represent you?”

“Certainly. Mrs. Tump is acting for me.”

“Do you know Mr. Peltham?”

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “He’s Mrs. Tump’s friend. I believe he’s the one who sent her to you.”

“So I understand. Now you must be pretty well acquainted with Mr. Tidings?”

“Yes, of course.”

“How do you get along?”

“We were always friendly. It never entered my head to doubt him until I started checking up recently. I tried to find out where I stood and Uncle Albert — I’ve always called him that — became furious. He said Mrs. Tump was poisoning my mind, that she was trying to get control of my property — but she isn’t. I trust her absolutely. I know some things I can’t tell even you, Mr. Mason, but she is empowered to act for me in every way.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That was what I wanted to find out. I’ll see you at two o’clock, then.”

He hung up and said to Della, “Get me that Journal on the phone, Della. Let’s see if there’s been an answer sent in to that ad of mine.”

Della Street nodded, put through the call, and a few moments later signified to Mason that his party was on the line. Mason said, “Perry Mason talking. I put a personal ad in your paper to make the morning edition. I wonder if there’s been any answer to it.”

“Just a moment. I’ll check it up with the classified ad department,” the man said. Mason could hear steps retreating from the telephone, and a moment later returning; and the man’s voice said, “Yes, Mr. Mason. A young woman left a reply at the counter not over an hour ago. It says simply, ‘Okay. Go ahead. R.P.,’ and it’s headed, ‘Answer to M.’ — which, I take it, means your ad… Anyway, we’re going to publish the ad in tomorrow’s edition so there’s no reason to keep it confidential.”

“Thank you very much,” Mason said, hung up, and nodded to Paul Drake. “Okay, Paul,” he said. “Let’s go drop in on the thwarted wife.”

Chapter 4

Mason shifted into second at the foot of the grade. The road wound upward, twisting and turning around the steep sides of typical Southern California mountains. The subdivision was relatively new, and there were many vacant lots, some marked with a red placard bearing the word, SOLD. Here and there were scattered bungalows, obviously new. Up nearer the top of the grade, where a ridge offered more level building sites, half a dozen small homes were clustered.

“It’ll be one of those,” Drake said.

Mason looked at the house numbers and said, “Probably the last one in the row… Yes, here it is.”

The bungalow faced to the south and east. Above it, on the west, towered the slopes of the hill, covered with a thick growth of chaparral. Below, to the east, the city stretched in glistening brilliance, the white buildings reflecting the brilliant sunlight, spotless gems of intense white below the red patches of tiled roofs.

Mason looked the place over before he went up to ring the bell. It was within two hundred feet of the end of the subdivision, and, just beyond the house, the road, taking advantage of the little bench on the hillside, terminated in a big circle where cars could be turned around. The sunlight was warm and the air balmy. The sky was a blue, cloudless vault. Of to the far northeast mountain crests sparkled, a white coating of snow suspended above the pastel blues of distant slopes.

Mason said, “Curtains drawn tight. Doesn’t look as though anyone’s home.”

“If he’s here,” Drake said, “it’s a hide-out.”

Mason led the way up the short stretch of cement walk to the porch, and pressed his thumb against the bell button. They could hear the ringing of a bell on the inside of the house, but there was no answering sound of motion. There was about the place that dead silence indicative of an untenanted house.

“Might try the back door,” Drake suggested.

Mason shook his head, pressed his thumb against the button once more, and said, “Well, I guess… Wait a minute, Paul. What’s this?”

Drake followed the direction of his eyes. Just below the threshold was a jagged, irregular splotch of rusty, reddish brown.

Mason moved his feet and said, “There’s another one, Paul.”

“And another one back of that,” Drake said.

“All within eighteen inches of the doorstep,” Mason pointed out. “Looks as though someone had been wounded and gone in, or had been wounded and gone out. He must have been losing quite a bit of blood at that.”

“So what?” Drake asked.

Mason pulled back the screen door, examined the front door, and said, “It isn’t tightly closed, Paul.”

“Let’s keep our noses clean,” Drake warned.

Mason bent down to examine the bloodstains. “They’ve been here for a while,” he announced. “Wonder if the sun would shine in here later on in the afternoon… They look baked.”

He raised his eyes to determine the course of the shadows. The porch consisted of a slab of cement with a gable roof extending not over three feet from the side of the house, furnishing a somewhat scanty protection for the door, a roof which was more ornamental than useful.

“How about it, Perry?” the detective asked.

By way of answer, Mason knocked on the door, at the same time pushing against the panels with his knee.

The door swung slowly open.

“There you are, Paul,” Mason said. “You’re a witness to what happened. We knocked on the door, and the force of the knocking pushed the door open.”

“Okay,” Drake said, “but I don’t like it. Now what?”

Mason stepped inside. “Anyone home?” he called.

It was a typical bungalow with wide windows, gas radiators, an ornamental half-partition opening to a dining room, and a swinging door evidently leading to a kitchen. On the side of the living room were two doors which evidently opened into bedrooms.

The house had the atmosphere of a place that had been lived in. There were magazines on a wicker table in the center of the living room, with a comfortable chair drawn up near the table, a floor lamp behind it. A magazine lay face down and open on the wicker table.

Mason lowered his eyes to the floor on which were several Navajo rugs.

He pointed to a red splotch on one of the Navajo rugs. A few inches farther on was another. Then there was a spattering drop with irregular edges on the floor, another on the rug nearest the bedroom door on the left.

Mason followed the trail directly to the closed door of the bedroom.

Drake hung back. “Going in?” he asked.

By way of answer, Mason turned the knob and opened the door.

A blast of hot, fetid air rushed out of the bedroom to assail their nostrils. It was the oxygen-exhausted air of a room tightly closed in which gas heat has been generated, and it was an atmosphere which held the suggestion of death.

It needed only a glance at the fully clothed figure lying on the bed to confirm the message of that superheated, lifeless air.

Mason turned back to Paul Drake. “Call Homicide, Paul,” he said. “There’s a phone.”

The detective whirled to the telephone.

Mason stepped into the room and gave a quick look around.

Apparently it was a woman’s bedroom. There were jars of cream and bottles of lotion on the dresser. There were bloodstains on the floor. There was no counterpane on the bed. The top blanket had been soaked with blood which had dried into a stiff circular stain beneath the still body.

The corpse was clothed in a double-breasted gray suit, with the coat unbuttoned. Red had trickled down the trousers to dry in sinister incrustations. There were no shoes on the body. Gray, silk, embroidered socks which harmonized with the gray trousers covered the feet. The man lay on his back. His lids were half closed over glassy eyes. The jaw was sunken, and the interior of the partially opened mouth showed a grayish purple. About the lips was a crimson smear, which might have been the faint traces of lipstick, a stain which would hardly have been noticeable in life but which was now strikingly evident against the pallid skin of the dead man.

The gas radiator was hissing at full blast. The windows were tightly closed, the shades drawn.

Somewhere in the room a fly was buzzing importantly.

Mason dropped to one knee, looked under the bed, and saw nothing. He opened a closet door. It was filled with articles of feminine wearing apparel. He looked in the bathroom. It was immaculate save for rusty red splotches on the side of the wash bowl. A towel on the floor was stiff with dried blood. Mason opened the door into the adjoining bedroom. It was evidently used as a spare room for guests. There was no sign that it had been occupied recently.

Mason retraced his steps to find Paul Drake just hanging up the telephone.

“Tidings?” Drake asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” Mason said. “Probably.”

“Look in his clothes?”

“No.”

Drake heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m glad you’re showing some sense. For God’s sake, Perry, close that door… Let’s open a few windows, first.”

Mason said, “No, let’s go outside. We’ll leave things here just as they were when we came in.”

Drake said, “We’ve got our fingerprints on things. The boys from Homicide aren’t going to…” He broke off to listen. “Car coming,” he said.

A car purred past the house, swung in a turn at the end of the roadway, came back, and stopped.

Drake, who was nearest the front window, slid one of the drapes a few inches to one side, and said, “Coupe. Class at the wheel… She’s getting out… Swell legs… Overnight bag, brown coat, fox fur collar… Here she comes. What do we do, Perry? Answer the bell?”

Mason said, “Push that door shut with your foot, Paul. I think there’s a spring lock. Try and get the license number on the car.”

Drake said, “I can’t see it right now. She’s parked right in front of the house. If she drives away, I’ll get it.”

“Sit still and shut up,” Mason said.

They could hear the click-clack of heels on the cement, the sound of the screen door opening. They waited for the doorbell to ring, but heard instead the scrape of a key against the metal lock plate on the door. Then the latch shot back, and a woman entered the room.

For a moment her eyes, adjusting themselves to the subdued light of the interior, failed to take note of the two men. She started directly for the bedroom, then suddenly stopped. Her eyes became wide and round as she saw Mason. She dropped her bag and the coat from nerveless fingers, turned, and started toward the door. A key container dropped with a muffled clang to the wooden floor.

Drake stepped from the window to stand between her and the door.

She screamed.

Mason said, “Hold it.”

She whirled, at the sound of his voice, back to face him. She stared steadily for a moment, then said simply, “Oh.”

Mason said, “I’m an attorney. This man is a detective. In other words, we’re not thieves. Who are you?”

“How… how did you get in?”

“Walked in,” Mason said. “The door was unlocked and slightly ajar.”

“It was locked just now when I… when I…” She gulped as her voice caught in her throat, laughed nervously, and said, “This has knocked me for a loop. What’s it all about?”

She was in the late twenties or early thirties, a striking brunette with jaunty clothes which set off her figure to advantage, and she wore those clothes with an air of chic individuality. Her face had been drained of color, and the pattern of the orange rouge showed clearly against the pasty white of her skin.

“Do you,” Mason asked, “happen to live here?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re…”

“Mrs. Tidings,” she said.

“Does your husband live here?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me these questions. What do you want here anyway? What right did you have breaking in?”

“We didn’t break in,” Drake said. “We…”

“We just walked in,” Mason assured her, keeping Drake out of the conversation by interruption. “I think it will be to your advantage to answer that question, Mrs. Tidings. Does your husband live here?”

“No. We’ve separated.”

“Didn’t you patch up your differences recently?”

“No.”

“Weren’t there negotiations looking toward that?”

“No,” she said, and then added with defiance in her voice, “—if it’s any of your business, which it isn’t.”

Color was returning to her cheeks now, and her eyes flashed with resentment.

Mason said, “I think you’d better just sit down and take it easy for a few minutes, Mrs. Tidings. Officers are on their way out here.”

“Why should officers be on their way here?”

“Because of something we found in the bedroom.” And Mason pointed to the stains on the floor.

“What’s that,” she asked, “ink? What is that on my floor? Good God! I…”

She took a step forward, stared down at the stains, and then a gloved knuckle crept toward her mouth. She bit hard on the black leather stretched taut over her knuckles.

“Take it easy,” Mason said.

“Who… who… what…”

Mason said, “We don’t know yet. I think you’d better prepare yourself for a shock. I think it’s someone you know.”

“Not… not… Oh, my God, it can’t be…”

“Your husband,” Mason said.

“My husband!” she exclaimed. There were both incredulity in her voice and a something which might have been relief. Then there was sudden panic again. “You mean that he… he might have done it, might have…”

“I think that the body is that of your husband,” Mason explained.

She gave a half-stifled exclamation and moved swiftly toward the bedroom door. Mason caught her arm.

“Don’t do it,” he said.

“Why not? I must find out…”

“You will, later. Right now, don’t spoil any of the fingerprints on that doorknob.”

“But I have a right to know. Can’t you see how I…”

“Quit looking at it from your viewpoint,” the lawyer interrupted. “Figure it from the police viewpoint. Do a little thinking.”

She stared at him silently for several seconds, then crossed over to sit down on the davenport. “What happened?” she asked.

“Apparently he was shot.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. He was in his office yesterday morning. I talked with him on the telephone. He must have come out here shortly afterwards… Would you know anything about that?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve been away ever since Monday afternoon.”

“May I ask what time Monday?” Mason asked.

“Why?”

Mason smiled and said, “The officers will ask these questions. After all, it’s your house, you know. I thought perhaps it might help you a little if I gave you a chance to collect your thoughts before the officers get here.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” she said. “Was it suicide?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “I haven’t made any investigation.”

“How about this detective?”

“He’s a private detective employed by me.”

“Why did you come here?”

“We thought Mr. Tidings might have come out here after he left his office Tuesday. Had you seen him lately?”

“No. We — didn’t get along at all.”

“Now then,” Mason asked, “would you mind telling me where you went on Monday afternoon?”

“I drove nearly all night,” she said. “I was upset.”

“And where did you drive?”

“To a friend’s house. I spent a couple of days with her.”

“You didn’t take much baggage,” Mason pointed out.

“No. I decided to go on the spur of the moment. I’ve had — well, troubles of my own.”

“Where does this friend live?”

“In Reno.”

“And you drove to Reno Monday?”

“Yes. I got in about daylight Tuesday morning. I felt a lot better after the drive.”

“And you’ve been there ever since?”

“Until late last night. I left about ten o’clock.”

“Where did you stay last night?”

She laughed nervously, and shook her head. “I don’t drive that way. When I want to go some place, I start driving. When I get sleepy, I pull off to the side of the road and get a few minutes’ sleep, then I start driving again. I much prefer to drive at night. I don’t like the glare of the sun on paved roads.”

“You slept some last night?”

“Yes, a few cat-naps here and there along the side of the road.”

Mason said, “The officers will probably want to check your time pretty carefully. If you can give them all the data they need it will make it a lot easier for you. I’m just telling you as a friend. Here they come now.”

A siren screamed up the hill. A police radio car finished the ascent, raced along the level stretch of roadway, and swerved sharply to park up against the curb. An officer jumped out of the car and came striding toward the house.

Drake opened the door.

The radio officer looked at Drake, pushed a foot through the door. “Which one of you telephoned Homicide?” he asked.

“I did,” Drake said. “I’m a private detective.”

“Your name Drake?”

“Yes.”

“Got a card on you?”

Drake handed him a card.

“How about the woman and this other guy?” the officer asked.

“This is Mrs. Tidings. She came in right after I telephoned headquarters.”

The officer stared at her suspiciously.

“I just this minute returned from Reno,” she explained. “I drove.”

“When did you leave there?”

“Last night.”

“She lives here,” Mason explained. “This is her house. She’s been visiting a friend in Reno for a couple of days.”

“I see. And who are you? Oh, I place you now. You’re Perry Mason, the lawyer. What are you doing here?”

“We came out to see Mr. Tidings.”

“Find him?”

“I think he’s the dead man in the next room.”

“I thought you said this woman came here after you did.”

“She did.”

“Then how’d you get in?”

“The door was unlocked and slightly ajar,” Mason said.

“Well, Homicide will be here in a minute or two. The radio dispatcher rushed us out to hold things until Homicide could get here. You haven’t touched anything, have you?”

“No, nothing important.”

“Doorknobs and things like that?”

“Perhaps.”

The officer frowned. “Okay,” he said. “Get out. It’s a pleasant day. You can wait outside as well as in. Let’s not get any more fingerprints around… You didn’t touch the body, did you?”

“No.”

“Go through the clothes?”

“No.”

“Where is it?”

“In that bedroom.”

“Okay,” the officer said. “Go on out… What’s this — blood on the floor?”

“That’s what led us to the corpse,” Mason said. “We noticed the bloodstains on the floor. You notice they go from the outer threshold into the door of the bedroom.”

“Okay,” the officer said. “Go on out. I’ll take a peek in that bedroom.” He opened the door, looked in, then stepped back and pulled the door shut.

Mason said, “There’s some reason to believe the body is that of Albert Tidings, this woman’s husband. Wouldn’t it be well to have her make an identification?”

“She can do that when Homicide gets here,” the radio officer said. “I’m just keeping the evidence lined up. Go on. Out with you. I’ll call you if I want anything.”

Mason led the way out into the fresh air and warm sunlight. The radio officer followed them to the door and called to his partner, who sat behind the wheel of the radio car. “Keep an eye on this outfit, Jack. There’s a stiff in here. It’s a job for Homicide right enough.”

He stepped back inside the house and slammed the door.

Mason offered Mrs. Tidings a cigarette, which she accepted gratefully. Drake shook his head in refusal. Mason placed one between his own lips, and snapped a match into flame. As he held the light to Mrs. Tidings’ cigarette, the grind of a motor running fast in second gear could be heard from the grade.

“That’ll be Homicide,” Mason said.

The Homicide car flashed swiftly around the turn, hit the more level stretch of roadway along the ridge, and swept down upon them. Men jumped out. The radio officer got out from his car and reported in a low voice. The other radio officer appeared at the door of the house. “In here, boys,” he said.

Sergeant Holcomb strode across to Mason. “Hello, Mason.”

“Good morning, Sergeant.”

“How’s it happen you’re here?”

“I had some business with Albert Tidings,” Mason said. “I had a tip I could find him here.”

“Did you?”

“I think it’s his body,” Mason said. “On a guess, I’d say it had been here at least since yesterday afternoon. The gas heat’s turned on, and the windows and doors are tightly closed. That’s a condition you’ll have to take into consideration in determining the time of death.”

“When did you get here?”

“About half an hour ago.”

“You didn’t have any reason to think you’d find a body?”

“No.”

“You’ve seen him before?”

“No.”

“Talked with him over the telephone?”

“I called his office yesterday, yes.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know. I would say it was shortly before eleven o’clock.”

“What did he say?”

“I had a tentative appointment with him,” Mason said. “I wanted to cancel it, and make one at a later date.”

“Have any argument?”

“Not exactly.”

“What was your business with him?”

Mason smiled and shook his head.

“Come on,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “Kick through. If we’re going to solve a murder, we’ve got to have motives. If we knew something about that business you wanted to discuss with him, we might have a swell motive.”

“And again,” Mason said, “you might not.”

Sergeant Holcomb clamped his lips shut. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t leave here until I tell you you can… That your car?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s the other one belong to?”

“Mrs. Tidings… Mrs. Tidings, may I present Sergeant Holcomb?”

Sergeant Holcomb didn’t remove his hat. “What are you to him?” he asked.

“His wife.”

“Living with him?”

“No. We’ve separated.”

“Divorced?”

“No, not yet… That is, no. I haven’t divorced him.”

“Why not?”

She flushed. “I prefer not to discuss that.”

“You’ll have to, sooner or later,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I don’t want to pry into your private affairs, just to be doing it, but you can’t hold out on the police. You stick right around here. I’m going in.”

The others had already gone on into the house, and Sergeant Holcomb joined them. Mason dropped his cigarette to the cement, ground it out with the sole of his shoe.

“Just as a matter of curiosity, Mrs. Tidings,” he said, “had your husband been here before?”

“Once.”

“On a friendly visit?”

“A business visit.”

“Was there some question of alimony between you?”

“No. Well, it wasn’t serious. Alimony was a detail. I didn’t care about that.”

“You wanted your freedom?”

“Why do you ask these questions?”

“Because it might help my client if I knew some of the answers, and the police are going to make you answer them anyway.”

“Who,” she asked, “is your client?”

Mason said, “I’m not ready to make any statements yet.”

“Is it that Gailord girl?”

“Why?” Mason asked. “What makes you think it’s she?”

She watched him with narrowed eyes. “That,” she said, “isn’t answering my question.”

Mason said, “And you aren’t answering mine.”

He strode out to the curb to stand gazing thoughtfully. The radio officer watched him narrowly. Paul Drake stood close by, his manner seemingly detached.

Suddenly Mason turned to Mrs. Tidings. He said, “You look like a nice girl.”

“Thank you.”

“You wouldn’t by any chance be trying to kid anyone, would you?” Mason asked.

“Why, what do you mean, Mr. Mason?”

Sergeant Holcomb opened the door of the house, motioned to Mrs. Tidings. “Come in here,” he said.

Mason took his cigarette case from his pocket and carefully selected another cigarette. “Watch your step,” he said in a low voice, his eyes turned toward the distant horizon with its gleam of snow-capped mountains. “And if you have anything to say to me, you’d better say it now.”

Mrs. Tidings shook her head in a swiftly decisive gesture of negation and walked firmly toward the house.

Chapter 5

Della Street was waiting in the doorway of Mason’s private office as he came down the corridor. She beckoned to him to come in without going through the reception room of his office.

“Someone laying for me, Della?” he asked.

“Mrs. Tump and Byrl Gailord.”

Mason said, “Her appointment wasn’t until two o’clock.”

“I know it, but they’re all worked up about something. They say that they have to see you right away.”

Mason said, “I thought I’d pick you up for a bite of lunch.”

“I’ve tried to stall them off,” she said. “They won’t stall… They’re biting fingernails and whispering.”

“What’s the girl look like?”

“Not what you’d call beautiful, but she has a swell figure, and she can turn on plenty of personality. Her features aren’t much, but she could get by in a bathing-girl parade anywhere. Her hair is darkish, her eyes black. She goes in for vivid coloring in clothes, throws lots of hand motions in with her talk, and seems full of life.”

Mason said, “I’ll see them now and get it over with… We ran into something out there, Della.”

“What was it?”

“Albert Tidings,” he said, “nicely drilled with a revolver shot, probably a thirty-eight caliber, not suicide because there were no powder burns on the clothes or skin; and the officers can’t find the fatal gun. There was a thirty-two caliber revolver in the right hip pocket. It hadn’t been fired, and it wasn’t the murder gun. What’s more, the officers can’t find Tidings’ shoes. There’s lipstick on his mouth.”

“When was the body discovered?”

“When we got there.”

“You mean — you were the one who discovered it?”

“That’s right.”

“Think Paul Drake had a hunch what you’d find?” she asked.

“No, not Paul. He’d have had a fit. The police think we find too many corpses. Paul’s jittery about it.”

“Well, you do get around, Chief,” she said.

“I have to,” he told her, grinning. “I met Mrs. Tidings out there. She’d been visiting friends in Reno and walked in on us.”

“What sort?” Della Street asked.

“Class,” Mason said. “Took it like a little soldier. Stood up and told the officers frankly that she didn’t love him, that he’d been doing everything he could to make things difficult for her, that she wanted a divorce and he wouldn’t give her one. She was a little indefinite about his methods, but he evidently had something on her.”

“Doesn’t that make her look like a logical suspect, Chief?” Della Street asked.

“That’s what the officers seem to think. They’re going to check her alibi. Holcomb put through a long distance call to Reno while I was there. Apparently, there’s no question but what she was with friends just as she said… However, I got my usual complex.”

“What do you mean?”

Mason grinned. “Made a stab in the dark,” he said, “figuring that she might hold the other part of that ten-thousand-dollar bill.”

“Any results?”

“No. She couldn’t have been the one, anyway. She left town Monday afternoon. Her friends say she arrived in Reno before daylight. The Reno police are checking up, but it sounded pretty good over the telephone. Even Holcomb accepted it… Well, let’s get Mrs. Tump and the Gailord girl in here and see how they react to the news.”

“There won’t be any need for you to represent them if Tidings is dead, will there, Chief?”

“Probably not,” he said. “I can keep an eye on things; but there’s nothing much to be done. The court will appoint another trustee.”

“Mrs. Tump?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “Probably not. It’s more apt to be some trust company. The accounts will take a lot of going over.”

“Want them in now?” Della Street asked.

“Uh huh,” Mason said, and crossed over to the washstand. He ran water into the bowl and was drying his hands on the towel when Della Street ushered in Mrs. Tump and an attractive, willowy girl whose eyes flashed about the room in a swift glance, and then registered approval as they appraised Perry Mason.

“This is Mr. Mason, Byrl,” Mrs. Tump said, and to Mason, “Byrl Gailord.”

Mason caught a glimpse of red lips parted to disclose flashing teeth, of intense black eyes, and then Byrl Gailord’s hand was in his as she smiled up in his face. “I’m afraid I’m a nuisance, Mr. Mason,” she said, “but when I told Mrs. Tump about what you’d said over the telephone — you know, about investigating a hot tip — well, we just couldn’t wait.”

“That’s quite all right,” Mason said. “The tip panned out. Won’t you sit down?”

“What was it?” Mrs. Tump asked. “What have you found out?”

Mason waited until they were seated. “Albert Tidings is dead,” he said. “We found his body stretched out on a bed in a bungalow owned by his wife. We notified the police. He’d been shot in the left side. Police can’t find the gun. There was one in his pocket, but it hadn’t been fired, and it’s the wrong caliber anyway. There was a faint smudge of lipstick on his lips.”

Byrl Gailord stifled a faint exclamation. Mrs. Tump stared at Mason with startled eyes. “You’re sure it was he?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mason said. “Mrs. Tidings identified him.”

“The body was found in her house?”

“Yes.”

“Where was she?”

“She’d been in Reno,” Mason said. “She happened to return at about the time we discovered the body.”

Byrl Gailord said, simply, “I’m glad it wasn’t suicide. I’d always have felt that we — well, hounded him into it.”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Tump said.

“I couldn’t have helped feeling that way,” Byrl Gailord insisted. “I liked him a lot, although I distrusted him in some ways. I think he was the kind who would have taken a lot of financial liberties, figuring that things were going to turn out all right.”

“He was a crook,” Mrs. Tump said. “His whole record shows it.”

“He was very kind to me personally,” Byrl observed, biting her lip and fighting back tears.

“Of course he was kind to you,” Mrs. Tump said. “He was embezzling your money. Why shouldn’t he have kidded you along? You were Santa Claus.”

Byrl said, “The accounts may be out of balance, but his intentions were the best. If he’d made some poor investments, he’d have tried to plunge in order to get them back. I don’t think he’d deliberately embezzle any of my money, but I did resent his attitude towards you.”

Mrs. Tump said nothing.

“When… when did it happen?” Byrl Gailord asked, at length.

“Sometime after noon on Tuesday,” Mason said. “The coroner rushed the body to an autopsy to have an examination made that would give him an exact time.”

“And where does that leave Byrl?” Mrs. Tump asked.

“The court will appoint another trustee,” Mason said. “There’ll be a complete check-up on the accounts.”

Mrs. Tump met his eyes steadily. “Very well, Mr. Mason. Let’s be businesslike… Does this mean that we don’t need your services?”

Mason said, “Yes.”

“I don’t see why,” Byrl Gailord said.

“Because there’s nothing he can do now,” Mrs. Tump said. “There’s no need to pay Mr. Mason a fee if there’s nothing he can do.”

“That’s right,” Mason agreed.

“Isn’t there any thing you can do?” Byrl Gailord asked. “No way in which you can — well, sort of look after my interests?”

“I can keep an eye open,” Mason said. “If I find something that will justify my employment, I’ll take it up with you. The court will probably appoint some trust company as a trustee. The trust accounts will have to be carefully examined.”

“Can I be appointed?” Mrs. Tump asked.

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “but a court would be more inclined to appoint a company which had auditing facilities at its command.”

“I’d serve without compensation just to get things straightened up.”

“We’ll have to wait a few days until we can find out more about it,” Mason said. “A court might permit Miss Gailord to nominate the trustee.”

“I’d want Mrs. Tump, of course,” Byrl Gailord said.

The telephone on Mason’s desk rang sharply. Mason said, “Excuse me,” picked up the receiver, and heard the voice of his receptionist saying, “Sergeant Holcomb is here. He says he must see you immediately. There’s a man with him.”

Mason thought for a moment. “Did you tell him I was busy, Gertie?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t give him the names of my clients, did you?”

“No. Certainly not.”

“Tell him I’ll be right out,” Mason said.

He hung up the telephone and excused himself to his clients. “Sergeant Holcomb of the Homicide Squad is outside,” he said. “He wants to see me at once. I won’t be long. Excuse me, please,” and went out to the reception office, carefully closing the door of his private office behind him.

Sergeant Holcomb said, “Let’s go some place where we can talk.”

“The law library is available,” Mason said, opening the door to the long room with its shelves lined with books.

The officer nodded to the young man who was with him, and said, “All right, Mattern. Come along.”

Mason shifted his eyes to make a quick appraisal of the young man. He was somewhere in the late twenties with a head which seemed too large for his body. The bulging, prominent forehead and slightly protruding eyes gave him an appearance of owlish intellectuality which was emphasized by large, dark-rimmed spectacles.

Mason led the way into the law library and closed the door. “What is it, Sergeant?” he asked.

Sergeant Holcomb jerked his head toward the narrow-shouldered young man. “Carl Mattern,” he said, “Tidings’ secretary.”

Mason nodded in acknowledgment of the introduction. Mattern didn’t say anything. He seemed intensely nervous.

Sergeant Holcomb said, “You’re representing Byrl Gailord?”

Mason hesitated a moment, then said, “On certain matters, yes.”

“What’s that other name?” Holcomb asked Mattern.

“Tump. Mrs. A. E. Tump.”

“Know her?” Holcomb asked Mason.

“Yes.”

“She your client?”

“Not exactly. What are you getting at?”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “Mattern says you called up and talked with Tidings yesterday about an appointment.”

“Yes. I told you I’d talked with him on the phone.”

“That appointment was to discuss Byrl Gailord’s affairs?”

“In a way, yes.”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “Where can I find Byrl Gailord now?”

Mason said, “That’s something I don’t feel called upon to answer — not as matters stand now.”

“Not being much help, are you?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

Mason said, “If you’ll come down to earth and tell me what you’re driving at, I might be able to help you.”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “I’m checking up on motives, that’s all. Mrs. Tump and Byrl Gailord were making things pretty hot for Tidings. They tried to see him Monday afternoon, and Tidings refused to talk with them. They were hanging around outside his office, waiting for him to come out. Tidings said he’d see Miss Gailord, but he’d be damned if he’d talk to Mrs. Tump; said she was a hellcat.”

“So she killed him?” Mason asked with a smile.

“Nuts,” Holcomb said. “You know what I’m after, Mason. I want the low-down. I want to know what they knew about him, and whether they accused him of embezzling funds. After all, when a man’s killed, we check up on his enemies. You know that as well as I do… As far as that’s concerned, a woman could have killed him as well as a man… That lipstick makes it look like a woman.”

“I don’t think Mrs. Tump uses any,” Mason said with a smile.

Sergeant Holcomb frowned and started to say something, but paused as the door leading to the reception office opened, and Gertie said, “I’m sorry to interrupt. There’s someone on the line who says he must speak with Sergeant Holcomb right away.”

Sergeant Holcomb looked around the room. “Can I take the call on this phone?” he asked, indicating an extension phone on a small table near the window.

Gertie said, “I’ll connect you,” and stepped back into the reception room, closing the door to the law library.

Sergeant Holcomb picked up the telephone, said, “Hello,” then after several seconds said again, “All right… hello. Who is it?… All right. Go ahead.”

Carl Mattern said in a low voice to Mason, “This has upset me frightfully. I’m so nervous I can hardly think straight.”

Mason looked down at the wide, greenish-blue eyes which stared steadily up from behind the horn-rimmed glasses. “I presume it was quite a shock,” he said. “It must…”

He broke off as Sergeant Holcomb, muttering an oath, slammed the receiver back into place, and, with no word of explanation, took two quick strides toward the door which led to Mason’s private office.

“Don’t go in there,” Mason said.

Sergeant Holcomb ignored Mason. He jerked open the door, strode into the private office.

The two women, sitting huddled in a whispered conference, looked up in surprise.

Holcomb swung back to face Mason. “Holding out on me, eh? If I hadn’t been tipped off that she was on her way to your office, I’d have fallen for it… That sort of stuff isn’t going to get you any place, Mason.”

Mason said, “I don’t have to report to you when a client calls on me. I’m having a conference with these women.”

“Well, ain’t that too bad?” Sergeant Holcomb said. “That conference is going to wait until I ask a few questions… You two women were having some trouble with Albert Tidings, weren’t you?”

Abigail Tump took the conversational lead. “Certainly,” she said. “And the Hastings Hospital was having trouble with him. Mr. Tidings was a crook.”

“You know he’s dead?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

“Yes. Mr. Mason told me.”

“All right,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “Now you went to Tidings’ office Monday afternoon to try and see him. He told his secretary to tell you that he’d talk with Byrl Gailord, but he’d be damned if he’d talk with you. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Tump said.

“But you did talk with him?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

She said, “We waited outside in the parking lot where he keeps his automobile. Byrl knew where it was. We parked our car right next to his.”

“What time did you talk with him?”

“Right after he left the office Monday, about four-thirty or quarter to five.”

“Did you make any threats?”

Mrs. Tump took a deep breath and seemed to swell up with indignation. “Did I make any threats?” she asked. “Well, I like that! Threats indeed! That man threatened to have me arrested for defamation of character. He said I’d poisoned Byrl’s mind against him. He said that under the trust he had absolute discretion as to what he’d give her and when he’d give it to her, and if I didn’t quite interfering, he wouldn’t give Byrl one damn cent. Those were his exact words, young man. One damn cent. Does that sound as though I was threatening him?”

“And what did you tell him?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

She said, “I told him that he was going to be forced to make a complete accounting on that trust fund, and tell Byrl exactly how her affairs stood, that I wasn’t anybody’s fool, and that I was going to consult a lawyer.”

“Then what?” Holcomb asked.

“Then,” she said, “I told him that Mr. Perry Mason was going to be my lawyer, and that Mr. Mason would call on him at eleven o’clock the next morning. And that seemed to knock him for a loop. He mumbled something we couldn’t hear, and started his car and drove away.”

Sergeant Holcomb glanced inquiringly at Byrl Gailord. “You were there?” he asked.

She nodded.

“How does that check with your recollection of what happened?”

Byrl Gailord lowered her eyes thoughtfully for a moment, then said almost inaudibly, “It isn’t the way I remember it.”

Sergeant Holcomb pounced on her statement. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

She said, “Uncle Albert — that’s Mr. Tidings — wasn’t quite as short and irritable as it would seem from the way Mrs. Tump tells it.”

“He was, too,” Mrs. Tump said indignantly. “He was very abusive. He…”

“I don’t think you understand Uncle Albert as well as I do,” Byrl Gailord interrupted. “He’s exceedingly nervous when he’s in a hurry, and he was in a hurry then.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Tump admitted, “he did say something about an appointment.”

“An appointment?” Sergeant Holcomb asked eagerly. “Who with?”

“He didn’t say,” Mrs. Tump said.

“A lady,” Byrl Gailord corrected.

“Yes, that’s right. He did say something about he couldn’t keep a lady waiting,” Mrs. Tump agreed, “but he didn’t say definitely that it was an appointment.”

“Well, not in so many words,” Byrl supplemented, “but I gathered that he had an appointment with a young woman.”

“A social engagement?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

Byrl twisted her gloves. “Personally,” she said, “I think it was a business appointment, and I think it was something which worried him very much, something which made him preoccupied and irritable.”

“You’re giving him altogether too much credit,” Mrs. Tump said. “The man was rude, impertinent, and — and ugly. He was trying to be abusive.”

Byrl Gailord shook her head decisively, and met Sergeant Holcomb’s eyes. “That isn’t true, Sergeant,” she said. “Mrs. Tump didn’t know him well, that’s all. If you investigate, you’ll find Mr. Tidings had a very important appointment, and he was in a hurry to keep it. It was an appointment which meant a great deal to him, either personally or in a business way.”

Carl Mattern said, “That agrees with what I told you, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Holcomb frowned to him. “You said that Tidings knew these women were hanging around the parking place.”

“I think he did,” Mattern said. “He saw them drive in there, but I told you that I thought Mr. Tidings had an important appointment. That appointment was with a woman, I’m quite certain… And I think it was on business matters.”

“You don’t know what business?”

Mattern chose his words carefully. “It was with a woman who had been making some trouble for Mr. Tidings, or was in a position to make some trouble for him. I know that.”

“You can’t give me her name?”

“No.”

“When did Tidings come to his office Tuesday morning?”

“Around nine-thirty. Between nine-thirty and ten.”

“And he didn’t say anything about having kept an appointment Monday night?”

“No.”

“Didn’t say anything about where he’d been or whom he’d seen?”

“Not a word.”

“Could you tell anything from his manner?”

“Well, he seemed more at ease, I thought… A little less nervous, but that may have been merely my impression.”

Sergeant Holcomb turned back to Mrs. Tump. “Now then, Mrs. Tump,” he said. “You went back to Tidings’ office on Tuesday morning, didn’t you?”

Mrs. Tump fidgeted uneasily in her chair.

“Go ahead,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “Answer the question.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Well,” she said, “I figured… I don’t know. I just wanted to give him one more chance.”

Sergeant Holcomb said, “You figured that you’d arranged with Mason to ring him up and frighten him, that the thought that Perry Mason was going to represent Byrl Gailord would scare Tidings into making some sort of a settlement, and you intended to see him and make a settlement direct and chisel Mason out of a lawyer’s fee, didn’t you?”

Mrs. Tump said indignantly, “I did nothing of the sort,” but her eyes avoided those of Mason and of Sergeant Holcomb.

Sergeant Holcomb smiled frostily at Mason. “Why did you want to see him?” he asked Mrs. Tump.

“I… Well, I wanted to explain to him that — well, I wanted to tell him that Mr. Mason was going to act for Byrl.”

“That was the only information you wanted to give him?”

“Yes.”

Sergeant Holcomb grinned triumphantly. “We’ll let it go at that. What time did you get there?”

Mrs. Tump nodded to Mattern. “His secretary knows. It was shortly before noon.”

“And Tidings wasn’t in his office?”

“The secretary said he wasn’t in his office.”