The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom

Nine

Perry Mason slowed his car as he saw the little group ahead.

To the north, the outlying buildings of Oceanside showed white in the morning sunlight. To the west of the highway was a flat mesa and then, beyond that, the sparkling blue of the ocean, lying calm and tranquil under a cloudless sky.

Mason parked his car to one side of the road.

A uniformed traffic officer was making a valiant attempt to keep the traffic moving, but it was possible for cars to be driven off to the side of the road and parked.

Mason approached the group, and a deputy sheriff warned him to stay back. “The coroner hasn’t got here yet,” he said. “Get back and keep back.”

Mason fell back, then as the officer moved away, inched forward.

Paul Drake’s man, picking Mason out from the crowd, sidled over toward him and said, “I’m Drake’s operative. I found the body. Anything I can do for you, Mr. Mason?”

Mason led him off to the outskirts of the group. “You looked around a little?”

“Sure I looked around,” the detective said. “I didn’t do anything illegal, and didn’t leave any fingerprints, but I looked around.”

“What about the gun?”

The man opened a notebook and said, “Here are the numbers on the gun.”

Mason checked the numbers from the ones he had written in his notebook, said, “Paul Drake gave them to me over the phone. How many shells were fired?”

“Only one. It’s a .38 Smith and Wesson, double-action revolver. All the chambers were loaded and the hammer is resting on the one cylinder that was discharged. Shot in the left side of the head.”

“Powder burns?” Mason asked.

“I believe so. The hair’s singed. I couldn’t look too closely.”

“Was she wearing gloves?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else of interest?”

“One thing that may be important,” the man said. “The ignition switch was turned off on the car. I turned it on long enough to look at the gasoline gauge. The gas tank shows that it’s completely full.”

“Did you check the gasoline stations in Oceanside?”

“That’s right.”

“Find out which one of them filled her tank?”

“I checked every one that was open all night. None of them remember it.”

“Well, check again after you get away from here,” Mason said. “It’s important. I’m going to take a little look around here and see what I can find.”

The lawyer moved in as close to the car as the deputy would permit him, then started slowly moving around the car, looking it over.

The body was slumped down to the right of the steering wheel. A gloved hand had protruded through the space between the spokes of the steering wheel, and, as the body had slumped, the tension had pulled the arm tight against the spokes.

Drake’s man followed Mason.

“Headlights on when you found the car?” Mason asked.

“No, it was just like you see it now. It could have been suicide.”

“But why the devil,” Mason asked, “should she have driven all the way down here to pull off to the side of the road and commit suicide? Moreover, a woman who is going to commit suicide isn’t concerned about having the gasoline tank filled on her automobile.”

Mason walked around the car once more, looking it over, noticed that there were numerous spots on the windshield, caused by night-flying bugs which had been picked up and smashed by the windshield as the car speeded through the night.

“Any chance she could have been killed some other place and the car driven over here?” Mason asked.

“I haven’t thought of that.”

“You haven’t seen my secretary, Della Street?”

“I don’t believe I know her.”

“A good-looking... here she comes now.”

Della Street, driving rapidly from the north, slowed her car. The traffic officer motioned that she was to keep moving. She nodded, smiled, drove on for a ways, then parked her car and started walking back.

“Any tracks around the car when you got here?” Mason asked, keeping an eye on Della Street.

“None that I could see, not around that particular car. It’s evidently a place where couples come for a little necking. You can see that a lot of cars have been in here from time to time and have made a regular roadway in here from the highway. From the way the tracks look they customarily park and turn around... But there weren’t any tracks, not any that I could see, except car tracks... Of course, it’s all trampled out now. There have been a hundred people in here at various times. They come and gawk and hang around until the cops chase them off and...”

Della Street, looking compact and competent in a neatly tailored skirt and jacket came up to join them. “Hi, chief,” she said.

“Hi, Della. Sorry you had to get up so early. Do you have a notebook?”

“Right in my jacket pocket.”

“This is Paul Drake’s man. He was telling me about tracks — go right ahead. This is my secretary.”

“Well, like I was saying, it’s a place for picnics and necking, a nice little strip of mesa. Now over on the left a car had been parked and there were tracks in the dust walking away from it, but most of them were obliterated before the police got wise and kept the crowd back.

“Now I left a few tracks of my own around this car. I did a little snooping, all right. But I told the police I had to see whether she was dead or drunk, or if anyone else had been in the car with her. But there weren’t any tracks around the car when I got here. If anyone else had been in that car, he sure didn’t leave tracks when he got out.”

A siren sounded, coming from the direction of San Diego. A car with two red spotlights became visible in the distance as it speeded along the highway. The deputy sheriff called out, “Where’s the man that discovered the body? Hey, you, come over here!”

Drake’s man left Mason’s side, moved over toward the deputy.

Mason said to Della, “I think I’ve got all I can get here. You look the thing over from a woman’s viewpoint. I’m going to telephone Paul Drake. You meet me at the airport.”

Mason called Drake’s office from Oceanside. “You get anything on that gun yet, Paul?”

“I’m working on it,” Drake said. “I have the name of the original purchaser.”

“Who?”

“A Frank L. Bynum, who lives in Riverside. I’m having my men find out about him. We haven’t been able to contact him as yet.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “I’ve picked up Della. I’m going to charter a private plane and fly back. There’s something cockeyed about the case. It looks as though she’d driven at a fast rate of speed all the way down the coast road. Her windshield is smeared up with places where bugs have hit it, and, believe me, when they hit they hit hard. Just spattered all over the windshield.”

“Well, of course she was going fast,” Drake said. “She wouldn’t have started out at that hour and given my shadow a slip merely in order to take a little pleasure ride.”

“That isn’t the point,” Mason said. “She had a full tank of gas. It must have been filled in Oceanside, although so far none of the service stations have identified her. They may not remember the car but when they look at the body it could be different. However, I don’t think it will be.

“Now, if you can tell me why a woman should go tearing madly down the highway to fill up her tank with gasoline at Oceanside, then drive off the road and commit suicide, I’ll give you a furlined fountain pen.

“And if, on the other hand, you can tell me why a woman should tear down the coast road in order to drive suddenly off the road to a parking place usually used by couples who are out for a little necking, and wait there to get shot, I will again give you the second prize consisting of a twenty-one jewel watch which runs backwards.”

Drake laughed and said, “It’s too much for me, Perry.”

“Use your head,” Mason said. “See what it means? She filled the tank where she didn’t get any windshield washing thrown in. Get me?”

“Oh, oh! You mean at a ranch?”

“At a ranch gasoline pump, Paul. You know what I mean.”

“I get you, Perry. Want to go call on him?”

“Not yet. We’ll run down that gun first. You’ll probably have a lead by the time I get back. Della’s covering the corpse from a woman’s angle and I’ll get a plane and have the motor all warmed up. We’ll be in soon. Try to have that gun angle all worked out by the time we arrive. I’d like to keep one jump ahead of the police on that.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “We should reach Bynum any minute now.”

Mason chartered a plane, waited for Della Street at the airport. “Find out anything?” he asked as she joined him.

“Yes. She wasn’t wearing a hat. There was no sign of a hat in her car. Drake’s man thinks she was wearing a hat when she started out. That may be very significant.”

“Perhaps she took it off and then just forgot it,” Mason said.

“Perhaps, but women aren’t likely to do things like that. Here’s something else. Someone in the crowd said a person living in the nearest house had noticed a car parked there, with the lights on. Now, when Drake’s man found the car the lights were off. The lights remained on for what this witness thinks was five or ten minutes. They shone right in his bedroom and bothered him. He didn’t hear any shot.”

“It could have been another car the neighbor saw.”

“That’s the point,” Della Street said. “It could have been a necking party.”

“Necking with the lights on?” Mason asked.

Della Street laughed, said, “Well, I’m giving it to you for what it’s worth.”

The pilot approaching them said, “Okay, the plane’s all ready if you folks want to get in.”

Mason and Della Street climbed into the small cabin job. The pilot taxied down the field and took off.

Mason said, “Drake’s located the original purchaser of the gun, a Frank Bynum at Riverside. He’ll have something definite on that by the time we arrive. We’ll call him just as soon as we get to the airport in Los Angeles. I’d like to beat the police to the evidence on the gun if we can.”

They were silent while the plane tossed in rough air over hills near San Juan Capistrano, then they watched the country slowly flow past them, the built-up districts becoming more and more numerous, until finally they were over the city and the plane was slanting down to a landing at the airport.

“Get Paul Drake on the line while I settle up with the pilot,” Mason said, and Della Street, nodding, hurried away toward a telephone.

Mason paid off the pilot, hurried toward a bank of telephone booths at the airport. He knew as soon as he saw Della Street’s face through the glass door of the telephone booth that she had received definite news on the gun.

Della Street pulled the door back and said, “Frank Bynum has been contacted. He said he gave the gun to his sister for her protection. She lives in the Dixieland Apartment Hotel, apartment 206. Drake wants to know if you want him to call on her.”

“Tell Paul Drake to keep that Bynum chap sewed up so he can’t telephone and that I’ll call on her myself,” Mason said. “You take a cab to the office, Della. Call Edward Garvin at the Vista de la Mesa Hotel in Tijuana. When you get him on the line, first get a list of stockholders whom you can call to be at that meeting this afternoon. After you’ve done that, tell him what’s happened. Tell him to be sure to stay in Mexico. Don’t let the police bring him back to identify the body or anything else. That bigamy charge is still pending, and he can be arrested on it if he sets foot in the United States. And tell him not to open his mouth to any newspaper reporter. Don’t give him too many details about his wife’s death. Just tell him the bare facts. I’m on my way.”

And Mason sprinted for a taxicab.

The Dixieland Apartment Hotel was one which had no central switchboard, no clerk on duty, but a list of tenants on the outside was flanked by a row of buttons.

Mason found the name, Miss V. C. Bynum, and held his thumb over the button on the right.

A few moments later the little telephone receiver hanging from a hook by the door made a noise, and Mason picked it up and said, “Hello, yes, I’m looking for Miss Bynum.”

“Who are you and what do you want?” the voice asked.

Mason decided to resort to subterfuge.

“A package with twenty-three cents postage due on it,” he said. “Want to come down and pick it up?”

“Oh, just a moment. I’ll come down or... would it be too much to ask you to come up to apartment 206? I’m just dressing and I... if you could, please.”

“Okay, I’ll bring it up,” Mason promised.

The electric buzzer signaled that the door was being unlocked, and Mason pushed the door open and entered a long, dimly lit lobby.

Apartment 206 was on the second floor. Mason ignored the elevator, climbed the stairs and went down the corridor counting doors.

When he was still a few feet away from 206, the door opened and revealed the young woman whom he had seen on the fire escape and who had said her name was Virginia Colfax. She was wearing a robe thrown over her shoulders and held in the middle with her left hand. Extended, in her right hand, was twenty-three cents.

“Where’s the package?” she asked, then, suddenly recognizing Perry Mason, she drew back with a sharp, involuntary exclamation of dismay.

Mason said, “The package is one you threw away and then picked up later.”

He took advantage of her utter confusion to push his way into the apartment.

“You!.. How did you find me?”

Mason closed the door behind him, said, “We may not have long to talk, so let’s get to the point. When you were on the fire escape you threw away a gun when you saw that you were discovered.”

“Why I...”

“I went down into the alley, looking for that gun, afterwards,” Mason said, “and couldn’t find it. You must have either had an accomplice waiting there or tossed it somewhere where I couldn’t find it and then you came back and found it later.”

She was rapidly regaining her composure now. She said, “I’m dressing, Mr. Mason. I...”

“I want to know about that gun.”

“If you’ll sit down,” she said, “until I finish dressing. After all, the apartment is rather cramped. I’ll take my clothes, go in the bathroom and...”

“Tell me about that gun,” Mason said.

“I’ve told you there wasn’t any gun.”

“The gun,” Mason went on, “was given to you by your brother, Frank L. Bynum, who lives in Riverside. Sometime this morning that gun was used to kill Mrs. Ethel Garvin. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to get on a witness stand and tell a jury all you know about that gun and what you were doing out on the fire escape, spying into the office of the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company. Now might be a good time for a dress rehearsal — sort of a warm-up, so that you can get your story in shape.”

“Mr. Mason, I... that gun... Ethel Garvin — Good God!”

Mason said, “Yes. Go on, let’s hear the story.”

She seated herself as though her knees lacked the strength to hold her up.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Mason said, “If you killed her, you hadn’t better talk to me or anyone else until you’ve seen your lawyer. But if there’s any other explanation, I want to know it. I’m trying to protect Edward Garvin.”

“He’s... he’s your client?”

“Yes.”

“How does he enter into it?”

Mason shook his head impatiently and said, “Quit stalling. How do you enter into it?”

“I... I don’t.”

“What about that gun?”

“The gun was stolen several weeks ago,” she said. “I used to keep it right here in this bureau drawer. Look, I’ll show you right where I had it.”

She crossed over to a drawer and said, “See, it was right here in this corner.”

Mason didn’t even move from his chair. He took out a cigarette case, snapped it open and offered her a cigarette.

She shook her head in refusal and kept pointing at the drawer. “See, you can see the place right here in this corner where I kept it. The card-board box still has traces of oil on it. I didn’t want it to get against my clothes. It was oily, and — my brother, you know, read so much about the recent crime wave and about girls being molested. He thought that it would be a fine thing for me to have something with which to protect myself. He told me I should never answer the door at night and...”

“When did you have the gun last?”

“I tell you I don’t know. I used to notice it here in the drawer when I’d open the drawer to get my things. You see, I keep my stockings and some underthings here in this drawer. A short time ago... oh, I don’t know, perhaps three or four weeks...”

Mason said, “The other night when I surprised you on the fire escape, you had a gun in your hand. You knew that I’d discovered you. You tossed the gun down into the alley. You pulled a fast one on me for a getaway. I went back and looked in the alley for the gun. It wasn’t there. If it was, I couldn’t find it. I remember there were some boxes and barrels of trash, and wastepaper. I gave those only a cursory glance. I thought the gun would be lying on the pavement. It wasn’t there. Now, what happened to that gun?”

“I tell you it was stolen and...”

“And I saw you with it in your possession two nights ago,” Mason said.

“Can you swear it was the same gun?”

Mason smiled and said, “No, Miss District Attorney, I can’t swear it was the same gun, but I can swear it was a gun, and then the police are going to want to know a lot more about it.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Mr. Mason, I simply don’t know who has that gun, that’s all there is to it. You’re right about one thing. I did have it, and I threw it away.”

“What were you doing out on the fire escape?”

“I was spying on someone in the office of the Garvin Mining, Exploration and Development Company.”

“Who was it?”

“Frankly, I was staked out there so I could investigate certain nocturnal activities in the office. Imagine my surprise when the office door opened and the person who came in wasn’t the one I expected, but a woman — a woman who I have since learned is the first wife of Edward C. Garvin.”

“What did she do?”

“I didn’t have any opportunity to find out all she did. Your interference upset that. But she had a handful of papers which I now believe were proxies. She was opening the drawer of the proxy file when your activities took me off the job — and, unfortunately, kept me off the job.”

Mason thought that over.

“Why were you watching the office in the first placer Whom were you after?”

She knuckled her eyes, yawned prodigiously.

“I believe he’s the secretary and treasurer. His name is Denby.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes.”

“How well?”

“Not well. I just know him when I see him.”

“Why were you spying on him?”

“Because my mother has every cent of her money invested in that company and I was afraid something was going wrong.”

“Now we’re beginning to get somewhere,” Mason said. “What made you think something was going wrong?”

“I thought there was something — well, something shady going on.”

“What made you think that?”

She said, “Mother received a proxy in the mail. She always gave proxies to Mr. Garvin. I guess everyone did. The stockholders were satisfied with the company. It made money and — well, I guess that’s all they wanted, to have it make money.”

Mason said, “Come on, quit beating around the bush. You knew something was in the wind. You were out on the fire escape with a gun in your hand. You weren’t carrying that gun just as an ornament; you were carrying it for some particular specific purpose.”

She said, “I was simply carrying it for my own protection, Mr. Mason. As a matter of fact, I’ve been carrying that gun in my purse whenever I’ve been out late at night. I’m employed as a stenographer and sometimes I work late at night. The car line is three blocks from here. I have to walk from that car line to this apartment house. The way things have been going — well, you read in the papers about the way girls have been attacked and — well, I carried the gun. That’s what my brother gave it to me for. I suppose I shouldn’t have carried it without a permit, but anyway you want to know the facts, and those are the facts. It’s just that simple.”

“And why did you take the gun out of your purse and have it in your hand when you were out on the fire escape?”

“Because I was scared. I didn’t know what would happen if I were caught.”

“And what were you doing out on the fire escape?”

“As I’m telling you, Mr. Mason, my mother had received the usual proxy and had signed it, and then as we were casually discussing the company, she just happened to tell me that she’d received another proxy and signed it. I couldn’t understand why they would have sent out two proxies, but didn’t think much about it until she mentioned that the proxy had been just a little different in its wording from the way they usually came out; that the proxy listed the certificate number of Mr. Garvin’s share of stock. Well, I started wondering about that and I went down and asked the girl who had charge of the office about the date of the stockholders’ meeting and a few questions, and then told her who I was and asked her if I could see my mother’s proxy.”

“And what happened?”

“Well, she went over and asked this Mr. Denby about it, and Mr. Denby came over, all smiles and courtesy, and told me, certainly, he’d be only too glad to let me see the proxy my mother had signed. He went to the files and took out what must have been the first proxy. It was made out just that way, to E. C. Garvin. There was nothing on it about any certificate number.”

“So you went back out and climbed out on the fire escape and...”

She said, “You’re trying to make it sound absurd, aren’t you, Mr. Mason?”

“Well, it does sound a little fishy to me, to tell the truth.”

She struggled to fight back a yawn, then, putting her hand over her mouth, surrendered to the yawn. Her eyes seemed heavy from lack of sleep.

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“You can call it a woman’s intuition if you want to. I don’t know what accounts for it, but in any event I’ve always followed my hunches. When I was up there, looking things over, I saw that the Drake Detective Agency was in the building and there was a sign on the directory board stating that it was open twenty-four hours a day and that persons who went to the Drake Detective Agency did not need to register with the elevator operator after hours.

“I kept thinking that over and finally decided I’d go up and talk with the Drake Detective Agency. Then I had a brilliant idea. I remembered a landing of the fire escape was outside the window of the office of the mining company. I got off at Drake’s floor, found the stairs, walked up two flights, located the landing to the fire escape, went out on it, crept down one flight and found I was on the landing just outside the window of the office I wanted.

“The window was open just a little bit. It wasn’t locked. I was wrest-ling with the temptation to go in when all of a sudden a shadow formed against the frosted glass on the outside of the door. I could see that someone was coming in... There was a night light in the corridor and it showed the shadow of some person fitting a key to the door of the office.

“I was in a panic. I was... well, Mr. Mason, I’d just made up my mind that I was going to go in and take a look at the proxy file from which Mr. Denby had removed Mother’s proxy when he showed it to me. I actually had one leg over the sill.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“Well, I backed up fast and started down the fire escape. Then this person came in and switched on the lights and I realized that the lights were streaming out through the window and that I would be plainly visible. Well, I started down the fire escape and then you moved and I saw you, and my skirts blew up, and — well, frankly, Mr. Mason,” she said, smiling disarmingly, “I was in what I would consider one hell of a fix.”

Mason said, “You seem to me to be a very determined young woman.”

“I am and I’m... Mr. Mason, I’m sorry, I’m downright sorry about what I did — slapping your face.”

“You should be. I owe you one for that.”

She laughed. “You were so darned decent about — well, about everything. I didn’t feel that I could tell you all about what was happening and what I was doing there and — well, I felt you wouldn’t believe me even if I did try to explain and I was desperate.”

Mason said, “You’re telling me all about this quite readily now.”

“The circumstances are entirely different. You’ve found me. I suppose that means — oh, I’ll bet I know!”

“What?” Mason asked.

“You found that gun,” she charged. “I wondered what happened to it.”

“Suppose you tell me a little more about the gun?” Mason invited.

“I didn’t throw it down in the alley. I made a motion with my hand, as though I was going to throw it, but I didn’t. I made that motion and then whirled around and put the gun on the fire escape right next to the wall on the landing. I intended to go back and get it later — but when I had a chance to go back it was gone. I supposed you’d figured out what must have happened and had gone back and found it. You must have done that, traced the numbers, found my brother had bought it and — so that’s the way it was!”

Mason said, “How did you know the gun was gone, Virginia?”

She shifted her eyes for a moment, then turned back to face him squarely. “I led with my chin on that one, didn’t I?”

“I’m interested in knowing,” Mason said.

She said, “I was back there last night as well as the night before. All last night, in fact. That’s why I’m so damn sleepy this morning. This business of working all night — and I almost froze to death last night. I’m telling you, Mr. Mason, I looked longingly down in your office and thought I’d give almost anything to get warm.”

“You stayed out there all night last night?” Mason asked.

“All night.”

“Suppose you tell me a little more about that?”

“Well,” she said, “I waited until the scrub women had left. Then I did just as I’d done before. I went up to the floor where Mr. Drake’s office is. The janitor who operates the night elevator knows me by this time and we’re palsy.”

“So you got off at Drake’s office, and then what?”

“Walked up two flights of stairs, went out to the landing on the fire escape, crawled down and took up my position. I looked for the gun, and it was gone. That frightened me.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Let’s have the rest of it. I think I know now why you’re talking so glibly.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Never mind,” Mason said. “Go ahead.”

“That last sounded like a crack.”

“I guess it was,” Mason told her, “but go ahead. Let’s have your story first.”

“Well,” she said, “I was prepared for what might happen. This time I was bundled up against wind and rain. I even had on what we call in Idaho my ‘long-handled underwear,’ and I had a heavy sweater and a leather coat over the sweater, and a ski cap — oh, I was all dolled up for a long wait. I’d taken those extra clothes in with me in a bundle.”

“And you stayed there all night?”

“All night.”

“Didn’t you think it was a little unlikely anyone would come in after — oh, say, one or two o’clock in the morning?”

She said, “I wasn’t taking any chances, Mr. Mason. That stockholders’ meeting is at two o’clock this afternoon. I’m going to be there and I’m going to protect my mother’s interests. And I’m here to tell you there’s something very funny going on in that company. The whole thing is crooked.”

“What makes you think so?”

She said, “That man, that secretary and treasurer, I think his name is Denby — he was in the office ail night doing things.”

Mason’s eyes showed interest. “What sort of things?”

“I don’t think I should tell you all this, Mr. Mason. After all, I don’t know just what your position might be. You might — for all I know, you might be representing somebody on the other side.”

Mason said, “Nevertheless, you’re talking. You’ve already said enough. Let’s find out what actually happened. Just what did Denby do?”

She said, “For one thing, he did a lot of dictating. I thought at first it was only a little overtime work, but he sat there and dictated eighteen records to the Dictaphone dictating machine that he has by his desk. And I was kicking myself for being a sap — feeling that I was just stranded out there on the fire escape while this poor loyal company official was trying to catch up on the work that needed to be done before the stockholders’ meeting — and then I began to get suspicious.”

“Why?”

“Well, he started going through files, taking out papers and putting them in a brief case, and it was the way he acted, his manner. It was like that of an absconding cashier. And then he opened the safe and took out some more papers and put those in his brief case. Then he started going over the books and making notes of figures from different pages and — well, just the way he acted, Mr. Mason, it made me suspicious.”

“How long was he there?” Mason asked.

“He was there when I arrived, and he stayed there the whole blessed night, Mr. Mason, and I mean the whole blessed night. He kept up a steady stream of dictation.

“When it began to get daylight, there I was, plastered out there on the fire escape. I felt terribly conspicuous. People could see me from the other buildings. So I... well, I just climbed up the fire escape and walked up and down the corridors of the building, trying to get warmed up. Then I wrapped my extra clothes up in a bundle and about the time the elevator started running regularly, so that I wouldn’t be too conspicuous, I took the stairs down to the floor by Drake’s office, pressed the buzzer and when the cage came up for me I got in, went down and came home. I took a hot bath and swigged a lot of coffee and guess I managed two or three hours’ sleep. But I was so worried about that stockholders’ meeting today I... well, I set the alarm clock early. I’ve got to go up there and do something to protect mother’s interests.”

“You mentioned Idaho,” Mason said. “Do you live in Idaho?”

“I have lived there.”

“Worked there?”

She said, “Mr. Mason, why do you want to pry into all of my private affairs?”

Mason laughed, “You slapped my face. That gives me some rights.”

She said, “All right, if you want to know the truth, I’ve worked around quite a bit in Idaho. I’m a girl who likes adventure and variety. I’ve... I’ve worked in mining camps and I’ve worked in gambling places.”

“Do they have gambling in Idaho?”

“No more,” she said, “but they did up until a few years ago. They had it in the mountain districts, all sorts of gambling — roulette, crap games and things of that sort. I have a knack of being rather cool and collected and seeing what’s going on and yet I... well, I have what they call a pleasing personality, and they tell me I’m easy on the eyes.”

Abruptly she moved over, to sit on the arm of Mason’s chair, smiling down at him, “And I know a grand guy when I see one,” she said softly. “I guess working in those gambling places is what gives a girl an opportunity to know human nature. You get so you can size people up.

“And you’re all right, Mr. Mason. You’re just a darn good scout. Of course, being in gambling places that way, people feel that if — well, if a girl works in those places they can make passes at her, and it used to make me so damned mad when people would take liberties with me simply because I was trying to hold down a very exacting job — and believe me, Mr. Mason, those jobs are exacting.

“Well, that’s why I felt so angry when you said you were going to search me. And then you were so nice about it. I... really owe you something for that.”

She smiled at him, placed her hand on his shoulder, bent down so her face was close to his and said, “You know, really...”

She was interrupted by the banging of peremptory knuckles on the door.

She jumped off the arm of Mason’s chair, pulled her robe smoothly around her.

Knuckles again pounded on the door.

Virginia Bynum looked at Mason with dismay in her eyes.

The knuckles banged once more with heavy insistence.

“Who... who is it?” Virginia Bynum asked.

“This is Sergeant Holcomb of Police Homicide. We’re making a checkup. Open up.”

Virginia Bynum, her face drained of color, moved over to the door, turned the knob and opened it.

Sergeant Holcomb, pushing his shoulder against the door, shoved her back, entered the room, then stopped short at sight of Perry Mason.

Mason said, “Good morning, Sergeant,” then turning to Virginia Bynum, said, “Well, I guess this is where I came in.”

“Wrong again,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “this is where you go out!”