Case of the Beautiful Beggar

Chapter 11

It was just as Perry Mason and Della Street were closing the office that Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door.

Della opened the door and Mason said, “Hi, Paul, we’ve been waiting to hear from you but had decided to go out and have a cocktail and a little dinner — thought we’d drop by your office and give you an invitation. Since you’re here, we’ll give you the invitation in person.”

Drake grinned. “You’re dangling temptation in front of my nose,” he said, “but I’ll probably be sending out for hamburger sandwiches and drinking coffee out of a paper cup.”

“What gives?” Mason asked. “Have you struck pay dirt?”

“We’ve not only struck pay dirt, we’ve got Daphne Shelby.”

“The deuce,” Mason said. “Where?”

“Your hunch paid off,” Drake told him. “I started men looking for automobiles parked in motels around El Mirar, and we finally located the car at the Serene Slumber Motel. She’s in Unit 12 and she’s all alone”

“Alone?” Mason asked.

Drake nodded.

Mason walked back to the desk, sat down in the big swivel chair and started drumming softly on the edge of the desk with the tips of his fingers.

“And what has happened to Horace Shelby?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “She may have him hidden out. He’s probably in another unit and—”

“Not in the Serene Slumber,” Drake interrupted. “My men are thorough enough for that. They checked every unit and quizzed the people who are running the place. There’s no single, unattached elderly man in the place, and Daphne Shelby has just the one unit and she’s alone in there.”

“What name is she registered under?” Mason asked.

Drake grinned. “Her own name.”

“Thank heavens for that,” Mason said. “It will give us something to work on when they catch her.”

“They’ll catch her?” Drake asked.

“Probably,” Mason said. “But the person we’re interested in right at the moment is Horace Shelby. They’ll certainly be trying to corral him, and if the Finchley crowd get him before Dr. Alma can have a chance to examine him, you can’t tell what’s going to happen.

“I’ll tell you what you do, Paul, keep a tail on Daphne and let’s see if she isn’t keeping him hidden in some other motel.”

“What would be the object of that?” Drake asked.

“Darned if I know,” Mason said, “but I have a hunch she’s trying to cover her trail so that if anyone locates her they can’t automatically put their hands on Horace Shelby.

“Come on, Paul, put your me ou on the job and leave word where you can be reached Have a cocktail and then a nice thick steak, a baked potato filled with butter, some French fried onion rings and—

“Don’t, you’re killing me,” Drake said.

“Those hamburgers will be soggy by the time you get them sent up to the office,” Della Street said. “The coffee will taste of the paper cup, and—”

“Sold!” Drake exclaimed.

“Come on,” Mason told him. “We’ll stop by your office and leave word where they can catch you on the telephone.”

Drake said, “Something seems to tell me the case is going to get hot all at once and I should be where I can get on the phone and put out men.”

“We’ll go someplace reasonably close,” Mason promised.

“I’ve already succumbed to the temptation,” Drake told him, “so you can ease off on the sales talk. Let’s go.”

They stopped by Drake’s office on their way to the elevator. Drake left minute instructions with the switchboard operator in charge, said to Mason, “All right, let’s hurry. I’ll bet you that I get my appetite sharpened with a cocktail, that we order our steaks and just as they are put on the table the phone will ring with an emergency that will send me scampering and I’ll wind up with—”

“A steak sandwich,” Della Street said. “We’ll get the waiter to bring you a bowser bag as soon as you order and you can have some French bread all buttered and waiting.”

“You may think you’re kidding,” Drake said, “but as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. You’ve got an idea.”

They went to the Purple Lion Restaurant which was one of Mason’s favorites and was within easy cab distance of the office.

They had a cocktail and ordered their dinners at the same time they ordered the cocktail.

“Now then,” Mason told the waitress, “bring a bowser bag, bring the freshest sourdough French bread you have in the place, and lots and lots of butter, both for the baked potato and for the steak sandwich.”

“Steak sandwich?” the waitress said. “Why, I have orders for three extra thick steaks, but—”

“This man may have to make his into a steak sandwich and leave in a rush,” Mason told her.

“Oh, I see,” she said, smiling. “All right, we’ll have the cocktails immediately. I’ll have the steaks put on the fire and the bread and the bowser bag will come while you’re drinking the cocktails.”

Drake grinned and said, “Not a bad idea. If necessary I could eat a steak sandwich in the taxicab on my way to the office— What the deuce do you suppose she’s doing sitting out there all by herself?”

“She’s awaiting developments of some sort,” Mason said. “But you can gamble on one thing she isn’t going to let Horace Shelby go wandering around unchaperoned, even if he’s in a fit condition to do so.”

“So?” Drake asked.

“So,” Mason said, “somewhere along she’s going to see that he has dinner. After all, the guy has to eat, you know.”

“Well, let’s hope she didn’t give him a hamburger,” Drake said. “Those things are fine when you eat them while they’re fresh, but when you put them in a paper bag the bread gets soggy and— Oh, I guess they’re all right, but I’ve eaten so darned many of them sitting up there in the office with a telephone at my ear that I just don’t like the idea.”

“Why don’t you get something else?” Mason asked.

“What else can you have sent in?” Drake asked. “What takes place of a good old hamburger sandwich with lots of onions?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Mason said, “you make it sound appetizing.”

The waitress brought their cocktails and the French bread, butter and the bowser bag for Paul Drake.

Drake made a ceremony out of buttering two thick slices of French bread.

They finished the cocktails and after a few minutes the waitress brought the steaks.

Della Street waived her feminine prerogative pointing at Paul Drake she said, “Serve him first. He’s apt to be called out.”

The headwaiter approached the table. “One of you is Mr. Paul Drake?” he asked. “I have a call for you. Shall I plug the phone in here?”

Paul Drake groaned.

Mason nodded. “Bring the phone,” he said.

Drake picked the steak off the plate with a fork, put it between the two slices of French bread.

As the waiter brought the telephone, Drake sliced a piece off the steak, started chewing on it then, still chewing, picked up the telephone, said, “Yes, this is Drake.”

The receiver made noises. Drake listened for a while, said, “Just a moment.”

He turned to Mason, said, “The tail is reporting on Daphne Shelby. She went to a Chinese restaurant and ordered food to take out — chow mein, fried rice, barbecued pork and chicken pineapple. I’ll get back to the office and—”

“Stay right here,” Mason interrupted. “You won’t have time to get to the office. What’s she doing now?”

“She’s waiting for the food. My man slipped to a telephone.”

“She doesn’t know she’s being tailed?”

“No, apparently not. She looked around a bit when she started out, but apparently she feels pretty safe.”

“Tell your man to keep on her tail,” Mason said. “Don’t take any chances of losing her, We’ve got to know where she goes. She’s taking food to Horace Shelby right now.”

“You mean I eat?” Drake asked with mock incredulity.

“You eat,” Mason said. “Tell your man not to lose her under any circumstances.”

Drake gave instructions in the telephone, slipped the thick steak out from under the pieces of buttered French bread, noted especially the stained surfaces of the bread where the steak juices had soaked in mingling with the melted butter.

He heaved an ecstatic sigh and said, “Sometimes, Perry, I think you’re a slave driver, but this time I’m for you a million per cent. I thought you’d want to have me get Horace Shelby located, bolt my food and get out there.”

Mason shook his head. “I want to find out what Daphne Shelby is up to first, Paul. There’s something cooking and I don’t know what it is.”

“You don’t think there’s any chance the guy really is off his rocker and Daphne is keeping him stashed away?”

“I doubt it,” Mason said. “If he were confused and disoriented, she wouldn’t want to leave him alone and— After all, Paul, the guy’s only seventy-five and the way we’re living nowadays with vitamins and people being conscious of diet and cholesterol, a guy at seventy-five is just coming into the prime of life.”

“Some of them get a little woozy at that age,” Drake pointed out. “You know you have the testimony of the doctor who said he found him disoriented and confused.”

“And, by the same token,” Mason said, “we don’t know what medication he had had before the doctor saw him.”

The headwaiter took away the telephone. Drake attacked his steak, wolfing it down with swallows of hot coffee between bites.

Mason and Della Street ate more leisurely but without wasting time.

The waitress, sensing the urgency of the situation, hovered over the table.

Paul Drake dug out the last of the baked potato, rich with golden butter and red paprika on the top.

“That’s the first time I’ve really enjoyed an evening meal in a long time. You’d be surprised how exacting this job is, Perry. And when you get a case, everything seems to go bang all at once.”

“I’ll admit I want lots of fast service,” Mason said. “Somehow my cases seem to develop at high speed.”

Drake said, “You’re the high-speed factor. Once you start on something you whip it through to a conclusion. The other attorneys I work for keep office hours, go home at four-thirty or five o’clock, forget about business until eight-thirty or nine-thirty the next morning.”

“They don’t have my type of work,” Mason said.

“No one does,” Drake told him, grinning.

The headwaiter was apologetic as he returned with the phone the second time.

“For you, Mr. Drake,” he said.

Drake grinned affably. “It’s all right — now,” he said, “I’ve had my dinner. No hamburger tonight.”

Drake picked up the telephone, said, “Drake speaking... Go ahead, Jim, what do you know?”

Drake was silent for a moment, then cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Mason, “She took the food to the Northern Lights Motel, parked the car directly in front of Unit 21, gave a perfunctory knock on the door, then opened the door which was unlocked and went in with the food in two big bags.”

“Then what?”

“Closed the door. She’s there now. There’s a phone booth at the corner and my man is in the phone booth.”

“Tell him to keep an eye on the situation,” Mason said, “and particularly notice the time element. I want to know what time she went in I want to know what time she comes out and I want to know where she goes when she leaves there... How about some more coffee, Paul?”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m serious.”

Drake relayed Mason’s instructions into the telephone, settled back in his chair with a grin. “Paul Drake,” he announced to no one in particular, “is dining high on the hog tonight. I think I’ll have a hot fudge sundae as well.”

“May as well have whatever you want,” Mason said. “I have an idea Daphne is going to be in there for some time and we have to wait here.”

They had a leisurely dessert.

“Now what?” Drake asked when they had finished.

“We still wait,” Mason said.

“We can go to my office,” Drake suggested. “My men all call the office, and the office relays the call to wherever I happen to be.”

Mason nodded. “Call your office. Tell them we’re on our way back,” he said.

“I hope you know what this is all about,” Drake said. “It’s all mixed up as far as I’m concerned.”

“It’s mixed up as far as I’m concerned,” Mason admitted. “But I want to get a few high cards in my hand before I start calling for a showdown.”

“You’re calling for a showdown?” Drake asked.

“I’m going to have to,” Mason said, “somewhere along the line.”

“Tonight?”

Mason nodded, summoned the waiter, signed the check, gave the waitress an extra ten-dollar tip and said, “I just want you to know how much we appreciate the friendly service that you gave us.”

Her face lit with pleasure. “Why — thank you so much. You’re so nice!”

Mason detoured past the headwaiter, handed him another bill, said, “Thanks ever so much for keeping an eye on us and, incidentally, the waitress who handled our table did a wonderful job, the sort of job that makes people want to come back.”

The headwaiter bowed. “She’s one of our best. I assigned her to your table, Mr. Mason.”

“Thanks,” Mason said.

Driving back to the office, Drake said, “Why all the flowery talk, Perry? The money would have been enough. That’s what they care about.”

Mason shook his head. “They like appreciation.”

“You show it with money.”

“No you don’t,” Mason said. “It takes both money and words. Money without words is vulgar. Words without money are cheap.”

“I never thought of it exactly that way,” Drake said. “But perhaps that’s why you always get such good service in restaurants.”

“Don’t you?” Mason asked.

Drake grinned. “Sure, I send my secretary down to the restaurant for a couple of hamburgers with mustard and onion, and a pint of coffee. She always smiles when she brings it in. That’s what you call service with a smile.”

“We’re going to have to do something about your eating,” Mason said.

“You can say that again,” Drake told him. “Now that I’ve found out how the other half lives, I’m ruined.”

They dropped Paul Drake at his office. Mason and Della Street went on down to the lawyer’s office.

“She’s having dinner with Horace Shelby?” Della asked.

Mason nodded.

“And you’re worried about the case, aren’t you?”

Again Mason nodded.

“Why?”

“In the first place,” Mason said, “my client has started taking shortcuts. I don’t like that. In the second place, she isn’t confiding in me and I don’t like that. In the third place, the fact that she’s taking such elaborate precautions to keep Horace Shelby out of circulation either means that he’s pretty far out in left field or that both of them are afraid the Finchley’s are going to put him back in that sanitarium and restrain him by force.”

“Well,” Della said, “after a man has been strapped to a bed after he’s been taken against his will and thrown into what is virtually a mental institution and all of that, he’s going to dread any possibility of returning.”

“That probably accounts for it,” Mason said, “but the situation may be a lot more complicated than appears on the surface... What do you suppose Borden Finchley and his wife are doing? What do you suppose Ralph Exeter is doing?”

“Doesn’t Drake have men on them?”

Mason shook his head. “After his men picked up Daphne Shelby, I concentrated on her. The others are relatively unimportant, and I don’t want Finchley reporting to the court that I had him shadowed.”

“Do you think he’d know that he was being shadowed?” Della Street asked.

“He’s pretty apt to find it out. A skillful shadow can tail a person for a while, but when you have three people to shadow, someone’s going to get wise. And then, of course, if that one communicates his thoughts to the others and they begin to look around, it isn’t too difficult to spot a shadow.

“Of course, it can be handled if you have the money to spend. You can alternate shadows, you can put several shadows on one suspect you can have them behind him, ahead of him, and generally do a pretty good job. But I didn’t want to take chances in this case, and therefore once we’ve found Horace Shelby that’s what we’re playing for. When we get him, we’ve hit the jackpot.”

“And what are you going to do then?”

“It depends on the condition he’s in,” Mason said. “I’m going to play fair. As soon as we’re dead certain we have him located, I’m going to get in touch with Dr. Alma and arrange for an interview. If Shelby is okay, I’m going to see what we can do for Daphne. If he isn’t — if he’s really in need of having someone look after him, then, of course, we’re in a different situation.

“However, I am going to try and get evidence that will make the Court change his order in regard to Borden Finchley. I think we’ll have some other conservator.”

Mason walked around the office aimlessly, working off his restlessness while he was waiting.

Della, knowing that Perry Mason did much of his intensive thinking while pacing the floor, settled herself in the big, overstuffed leather chair, remaining motionless so as not to disturb the lawyer’s thoughts.

The silence of night settled upon the big office building.

The sound of the unlisted telephone ringing shattered the silence.

Only three people had the number of that unlisted telephone — Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake so Mason scooped up the instrument and said sharply, “Yes, Paul.”

Drake said, “My man just telephoned. She’s back at the Serene Slumber Motel. He didn’t have a chance to telephone when she came out of the Northern Lights. She just jumped in her car and started moving and he had to follow. He’s at a phone now, waiting instructions.”

“Tell him to wait until we get there,” Mason said. “Unless, of course, she goes out. If she does, he’s to follow her and report at the earliest opportunity. We can’t afford to lose her now.”

“Your car or mine?” Drake asked.

“Both,” Mason said. “We may want to separate later. You take your car and lead the way. Della will go with me. We’ll pick you up at your office and start out at once.”

Mason hung up the telephone, nodded at Della Street, who already had her hand on the light switch.

They hurried down the corridor, stopped at the illuminated oblong of Paul Drake’s door. Mason was reaching for the doorknob just as the door was opened from the inside and Drake emerged.

“All ready?” Drake asked.

“All ready,” Mason said. “Let’s go.”

They rode down in the elevator, crossed to the parking lot, got in their respective cars, and Drake led the way out to the freeway, then along to the turnoff at El Mirar.

The lawyer knew that Drake had the telephone in his automobile and saw the detective using it once in a while, apparently getting directions as to the best way to get to the Serene Slumber Motel.

Drake drove unerringly, making good time, then blinked his brake lights a couple of times to call Mason’s attention to the illuminated sign ahead which read, “Serene Slumber Motel” and, down near the street, a red illuminated sign reading, Sorry. No Vacancies.

Drake pulled his car into the parking lot and usurped a vacant place. It took Mason a few seconds to find a place where he could leave his car. Since the marked parking stalls were all filled, it was necessary for the lawyer to leave his car down at the curb at the far end of the lot.

Mason and Della walked to join Paul Drake, who, by that time, was standing close to the shadowy figure of a tall, young man,

“I think you know Jim Inskip,” Drake said, by way of introduction and then added, “This is Della Street, Mr. Mason’s secretary.”

Inskip bowed. “I’ve met you before, Mr. Mason, and I’m very glad to meet you, Miss Street. Our party’s in Unit 12.”

“Any sign of leaving or turning in for the night?”

“Neither. Her car’s here. You can see the lights on in the unit — that’s the one with the light right over there.”

The detective pointed.

“What do we do, Perry?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “Inskip stays here and keeps the place covered. He is to stay with Daphne Shelby no matter what happens. If we come out and drive away, Inskip is not to come anywhere near us but is to sit in his car and wait, because Daphne might be smart enough to turn out the light and look out of the back window. We’ll arrange our communication system by phone later on.”

“You want me to come with you?” Drake asked.

“I think I do,” Mason said, “but I may have to ask you to leave. Anything that a client says to a lawyer is a privileged, confidential communication anything that a lawyer says to a client, is a privileged, confidential communication.”

“That privilege also applies to a lawyer’s secretary, but if the lawyer takes along someone else as an audience, that person can be called to the stand to relate any conversation which took place. I may want to have certain parts of the interview confidential. A great deal will depend on just what she’s trying to do and just what she hopes to accomplish.”

The three of them separated from Inskip, moved around to the walk which went around the front of the units, and Mason tapped gently at the door of number 12.

There was no answer from within, although a faint illumination shone through the curtains.

Mason tapped again.

Again, there was no answer.

The third time, the lawyer’s knock was loud and peremptory.

After a moment, the knob turned, the door opened a crack and Daphne Shelby said, “Who... who is it?... What do you want?”

Mason said, “Good evening, Daphne.”

Daphne, light-dazzled eyes failing to penetrate the semi-darkness, flung herself against the door, trying to close it, but Drake and Mason pushed their weight against the door and Daphne slid back along the carpet.

Mason held the door open while Della Street entered.

Daphne, apparently recognizing him for the first time, was wide-eyed with surprise.

“You!” she exclaimed. “How in the world did you get here?”

Mason said, “Daphne, I want to ask you some questions. I want you to be very careful how you answer them. Anything that you say to me is a privileged communication as long as only you. Della and I are in the room. But with Paul Drake, a detective, present, the communication is no longer privileged. Drake can be called as a witness. Now, if there are any questions I ask which are going to embarrass you, or anything you want to tell me which you don’t want known, just speak up and Paul Drake will either step outside or step into the bathroom. Is that clear?”

She nodded wordlessly.

“All right,” Mason said, “just what do you think you’re accomplishing?”

“I’m trying to save Uncle Horace’s sanity,” she said. “He would have gone stark, staring, raving mad if I hadn’t got him out of that place. Or did you know that I had got him out of the place?”

“I knew,” Mason said. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were intending to do?”

“I didn’t dare. I was afraid you would stop me.”

“Why?”

“Your ideas of professional ethics.”

Mason regarded her thoughtfully.

She said after a moment, “I presume you know all that I’ve done.”

Mason said, “You went out to the sanitarium. You saw from the sign that they were very anxious to get someone to do domestic work. You applied for the job.”

She nodded.

“You bought a new car.”

Again she nodded.

“All right,” Mason said, “you went out and went to work. What happened?”

She said, “I’ll never forget what I saw when I got out there. I started work. It took me a couple of hours before I dared to slip into Unit 17 where they were keeping Uncle Horace.

“There was that poor man strapped to a bed — absolutely strapped — and the straps were stretched so tight that they were holding him motionless.”

“What was his mental condition?”

“What would your mental condition be in a situation like that? Here the poor man had been taken away from his home, had been stripped of his property. And they intended to leave him there until he died, and to do everything they could to hasten his death.

“Uncle Horace has always had claustrophobia — a fear of being rendered helpless where he couldn’t move. And he was tied down there, he was moving his head and trying to get at his straps so he could bite them. He was wild and disheveled and—”

“Did he recognize you?” Mason asked.

She hesitated a moment and then said, “I don’t think I’d better talk any more about that phase of it until you and I can be alone, Mr. Mason.”

“All right,” Mason said. “What else can we talk about now?”

“Well,” she said, “I went back in the morning after the night’s work had all been done and just before the morning shift came on — right after the cook came in. I had picked up a very sharp butcher knife in the kitchen and I cut through those straps. I found Uncle Horace’s clothes in the closet and I got some clothes on him and got him out into the automobile and drove away.”

“Did you think they would follow you?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you keep Uncle Horace here with you?”

“I thought it would be safer to park him off by himself.”

“Did he recognize you in the morning when you took him out?”

“Oh heavens, yes,” she said.

“What’s his mental condition now?”

“Pretty near normal, except when you mention something about the sanitarium he just goes all to pieces. He’s on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown because of the things he’s had to put up with.”

“You knew they’d find out about what you did?” Mason asked.

“I felt they probably would, yes.”

“You knew that they’d come looking for you?”

“That’s why I got Uncle Horace where no one could ever find him.”

Mason raised his eyebrows.

“No one will find him where he is,” she said. “He’s going to stay there until he’s got his nerves back in shape and until we can get Finchley shown up for the type of man he is.

“Uncle Horace tells me that no sooner had I left for the Orient than they started doing all sorts of little things that they knew would irritate and annoy him. They treated him like a child. They wouldn’t let him do what he wanted to. They started making him nervous. He thinks Aunt Elinor was giving him some drug that overstimulated him. He couldn’t sleep, and when he told her he couldn’t sleep, she said she’d give him some sleeping pills.

“Within a week or ten days, he was so dependent on those sleeping pills that he had to have them in order to get a night’s sleep. Otherwise he’d lie there and toss and get nervous, sleep for an hour or two, then lie awake for the rest of the night.”

“Didn’t it occur to him that Mrs. Finchley was deliberately drugging him?”

“Not at the time. She handed him a great line of talk about how he was upset because he was accustomed to having me around, but that the trip was the best thing on earth for me and that I was going to crack up if I didn’t have some recreation and some help. And she pointed out to him that he was pretty much of a nuisance and needed altogether too much attention for one person to give it to him. And then she kept giving him more and more medication.

“Finally, he realized what they were trying to do. That was when he wrote that letter to me.”

“Just what was his idea in writing that letter?”

“He wanted me to get enough money out of the bank account so that if they did start proceedings for a guardianship, he wouldn’t be absolutely helpless.”

“He realized what they had in mind?”

“By that time, yes it was very obvious... That’s a horrible thing, Mr. Mason. They suddenly drag a man into court and claim that he’s incompetent to manage his affairs and strip him of every cent he has in the world.

“How would you feel if you’d saved up enough money to be independent, and then relatives suddenly moved in and took all that money away from you and put you in some kind of an institution where—”

“I’d feel pretty bad,” Mason said, “but that’s not the point. Just what are your plans now?”

“I was intending to get in touch with you.”

“You took long enough doing it.”

“Well, I had to make arrangements to see that Uncle Horace would be safe and comfortable.”

“Where is he?”

She clamped her lips together and shook her head.

Mason smiled. “You’re not telling me?”

“No. I’m not going to tell a soul. That’s why I have him where people can’t get at him until he’s ready to step into court and go in there fighting. And this time, he’s not going to be drugged.”

“He was drugged when he went to court?” Mason asked.

“Of course,” she said scornfully. “You don’t think that they could ever have pulled a fast one like that unless they had him drugged in such a way that he didn’t have his normal responses.”

“The judge didn’t detect that he was drugged and the doctor that examined him didn’t.”

“They were rather clever but they had been brainwashing him for three months. Don’t ever forget that! And with a man of that age, a very clever person can do a lot of brainwashing in three months.”

“How is he now?” Mason asked.

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Better.”

“And you gave him money?” Mason asked.

“I gave him forty thousand dollars of his money.”

“Forty thousand dollars?” Mason asked.

She nodded. “I bought the car, and I’m keeping enough money so I can do the things that have to be done. I gave him the rest.”

“Did you,” Mason asked, “tell him about the evidence that had been brought out in court, that you weren’t actually related to him?”

She said, “I don’t think I want to talk about that for a while, but I can tell you this, he’s made his will now.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “I wish you’d got in touch with me. That was the one thing he should never have done.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see,” Mason said, “you’re playing right into their hands. They claimed that if you could ever get him where he was under your control, you’d have him make a will and you’d get his property.

“That letter he wrote with the check for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars was just the sort of thing they needed and, if they can show that you had him make a will in your favor as soon as you got him out of the sanitarium, that also will be ammunition they can use.”

“But this was his own idea,” she said. “He wanted to do it. He insisted on it. He’d been trying to make a will so there couldn’t be any question.”

“Then he should have done it through an attorney and in the regular way,” Mason said. “The document should have been formally witnessed... What kind of a will did he make?”

“He said that in this state a will is good if it’s entirely written, dated and signed in the handwriting of the testator and you had told me the same thing, so that’s the sort of will he made.”

“Who has it?” Mason asked.

“I do.”

“Give it to me.”

She hesitated a moment, then opened her purse, took out a folded document and handed it to Mason.

Mason read the will. “This is all in his handwriting?”

“Yes.”

Mason checked the points Dated... Signed... Purporting to be a last will and testament... “You’d better let me keep this, Daphne.”

“I want you to.”

“And,” Mason said, “say nothing about it unless you’re asked. I want to get hold of Horace Shelby and in the event he’s competent, I want him to make a will setting forth whatever he wants to put in it, and I want to make certain it will be a valid will.

“Now then, let’s go and see Horace Shelby.”

She shook her head. “I am not going to tell you where he is.”

“Suppose,” Mason said, “that you just take a little ride with me and we’ll go to see him.”

She smiled. “And you can’t bluff me, Mr. Mason. I know you regard me as a naive child but I’m not as green as some people think.”

“I’ll say you’re not,” Mason said. He nodded significantly to Della Street and gestured toward the telephone directory.

Della moved quietly behind Daphne’s chair to consult the directory and then, when she had the address she wanted, made a surreptitious note and nodded to Mason.

Daphne Shelby, in the meantime, had been glaring at Mason defiantly.

“I’m not going to tell you,” she said. “And you’re not going to bluff me by making me think you know so that I’ll say something that will be a giveaway. I know all about that technique of getting information.”

Mason smiled. “I’m sure you do,” he said. “Well, get your hat and coat and we’ll take a little ride.”

“I’ll ride with you,” she said, “but I’m not going to give you any information about where Uncle Horace is. He needs rest he needs to have the assurance that he’s his own man once more. You just can’t imagine what a devastating experience this has been for him.”

“You gave him forty thousand dollars?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I endorsed seven cashier’s checks for five thousand dollars over to him and I gave him five thousand dollars in cash.”

“A man in his condition shouldn’t be carrying that money around with him,” Mason said. “In fact, nobody should carry that much, but particularly your Uncle Horace shouldn’t have it.”

“It’s his money!” she blazed. “And that’s the only way he’s ever going to snap out of it — is to feel that he’s his own master, that he can do what he wants to with his own money.”

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s get in the car. Perhaps you’d better follow us in your car, Paul.”

“Will do,” Paul Drake said.

“Perhaps you’d be so good as to tell me where you’re taking me?” Daphne asked.

Mason grinned. “Just down the road a piece. We’ll bring you back in due course. There’s a man down there I want to see.”

Her head held high, she stalked out to Mason’s car.

Mason, Della Street and Daphne got into the front seat. With Paul Drake following, they drove down the thoroughfare, turned to the right, cruised past the Northern Lights Motel. Mason frequently glanced at Daphne’s face.

The young woman kept looking straight ahead, not even her eyes turned as they cruised slowly past the motel.

Paul Drake, in the car behind Mason, snapped his lights on and off, gave two quick taps on the horn button.

Mason swung to the curb, rolled down the window on his side and waited.

Drake’s car pulled alongside.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“Cops,” Drake said tersely.

“Where?”

“Other end of the motel. Two cars.”

“Oh-oh,” Mason said.

“What do we do?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “We pull around the corner and wait. You go ask questions. Not pointed questions but adroit questions.”

“Will do,” Drake said.

As the detective pulled away, Mason turned to Daphne and said, “That’s what comes of trying to give your own attorney a double cross and taking things into your own hands.

“Now you can see what’s happened. Finchley has found out where your Uncle Horace is. He’s charged him with escaping from a sanitarium where he was confined under a Court order and has probably brought in police to take him back.”

Daphne, who had been bravely silent, suddenly started to cry. “If they take him back to that sanitarium and strap him in bed, it will kill him,” she said.

“We’ll try not to let it happen,” Mason told her. “We’ll get out of the way and park and see what we can do.”

The lawyer eased the car into motion, came to the cross street and started to turn. A police car, with siren moaning a low but peremptory message for the right-of-way, came around the corner. Mason pulled to the curb.

The police car, traveling at slow speed, started past the lawyer’s car, then suddenly stopped. The beam of a red spotlight illuminated the interior of Mason’s car.

“Well, well, well,” Lieutenant Tragg’s voice said. “Look who’s here!”

“Why, hello, Lieutenant,” Mason said. “What are you doing here?”

“I think I’ll ask you first and make the question official,” Tragg said. “What are you doing here?”

“I had been out to see a client on a probate matter,” Mason said, “and—”

“Your client live at the Northern Lights Motel?” Tragg interrupted.

Mason grinned and shook his head. “Why?”

“We’re investigating what seems to be a homicide,” Tragg said.

“A what?” Mason asked.

“Some fellow out here in Unit 21,” Tragg said. “Evidently somebody fed him some Chinese food that was drugged with a barbiturate and then, when he went to sleep, turned the gas stove on and didn’t light it. Occupants of an adjoining unit smelled the gas, called the proprietor, the proprietor got in the door, opened the windows, shut the gas off. It was too late.”

“Dead?” Mason asked.

“As a mackerel!” Lieutenant Tragg said. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

“About the man’s death?” Mason asked. “Heavens, no! I had no idea there had been a death until you told me just now.”

“Well, I was just checking — that’s all,” Tragg said. “Sort of a coincidence, you being here.”

He nodded to the driver of the car. “Let’s go,” he said.

When the police car pulled away, Mason turned back to look at Daphne Shelby.

She was sitting white-faced and frozen, her eyes wide with terror.

“Well?” Mason asked.

She looked at him, tried to say something, then collapsed to the floor of the car.

Mason said, “Inskip will be trailing us because we have Daphne in the car with us. Let’s see if we can spot him.”

The lawyer made a U-turn, circled back to the corner, suddenly spotted a car parked at the curb, braked his own car to a stop and motioned.

Inskip started the agency car he was driving and pulled alongside.

“Tell Paul we’re going back to the Serene Slumber Motel,” Mason said. “Tell him to come back there as soon as he finds out what’s cooking.”

The lawyer drove back to the motel where Daphne had her room. He and Della Street helped Daphne from the car. Daphne handed him the key with cold numb fingers. The lawyer opened the door, escorted Daphne inside.

“All right,” Mason said. “Pull yourself together, Daphne. Let’s have it straight from the shoulder. Did you have anything to do with your uncle’s death?”

She shook her head. Her lips quivered. “I loved him” she said. “He was a father to me. I’ve sacrificed most of my life trying to make him comfortable.”

“That’s right,” Mason said. “But that’s not the way the evidence is going to point.”

“What evidence?”

“Let’s look at the evidence,” Mason said. “You aren’t related by blood to Horace Shelby. You can’t inherit without a will.

“Shelby’s half brother has filed affidavits stating that you are a shrewd and designing person that you have planned to ingratiate yourself with Horace Shelby and get him to turn his wealth over to you. The records show that Shelby gave you a check for a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.

“The Court ordered Shelby to have a conservator for his estate. You smuggled Shelby out of the rest home where he was placed on the orders of a physician, took him to the Northern Lights Motel. You got him to make a will leaving everything to you. And, within hours after he made that will, the man was dead.”

“I suppose,” she said, “he was so despondent that he could have committed suicide, although I would never have thought of it.”

“We’ll wait until Paul Drake comes,” Mason said. “Evidently, the police have reason to believe that barbiturates entered into it. You bought him a Chinese dinner tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Brought it in in cardboard containers?”

“Yes.”

“And had spoons and ate it from the containers?”

“He liked to use chopsticks,” she said. “I bought two pair of chopsticks. We ate it with chopsticks.”

“And what did you do with the empty containers?”

“They weren’t quite empty,” she said. “I had to leave, but Uncle Horace promised he’d flush what was left of the food down the toilet, wash the containers out so they wouldn’t smell, and put them in the wastebasket. After all. it isn’t a housekeeping unit — just a bedroom — and I thought they might make trouble if he used the wastebasket as a garbage pail.”

“There was food left and he promised to flush it down the toilet?”

“Yes.”

“Looking at it from the standpoint of the police,” Mason said, “they’ll claim you did the flushing and it will be considered an attempt to conceal the evidence. Then you weren’t content with that, they’ll say you washed the cardboard containers out with hot water. You told your uncle to do that?”

“Yes.”

“That and the will you let him make out in your favor can send you to the penitentiary for life,” the lawyer said.

Drake’s code knock sounded on the door.

Della Street let him in.

Drake looked serious.

“How bad is it, Paul?” Mason asked.

“Bad,” Drake said.

“Give us the lowdown.”

“Someone in Unit 22 had been out to dinner, came home and smelled gas coming from Unit 21. They notified the manager of the motel. He got a passkey and opened the door. The gas just about knocked him down. He opened the door, ran to the windows, opened them, and dragged the man’s body out into the open. He notified the police. Police arrived and tried resuscitation. It didn’t work.”

“Why did they figure homicide instead of suicide?” Mason asked.

“The gas stove is vented,” Drake said. “Someone had unscrewed the feed pipe so the gas could escape directly into the room. The guy had been eating Chinese food. The doctor who is riding with the deputy coroner suspected barbiturates. He made a quick test. Apparently, the food was loaded. I think they also found evidence of drugs in the bathroom.”

Mason looked at Daphne Shelby.

Her eyes refused to meet his.

“You stayed with your uncle while you both ate Chinese food?” he asked.

“I left before he was finished.”

“Did you,” he asked, “give him any barbiturates?”

“I–I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I told you he couldn’t sleep without these sleeping pills. He has developed such a need for them that he had to have them. I knew that, so when I left him I gave him the sleeping pills that I had.”

“Where did you get them?”

“They were given me by a doctor — the same doctor who treats Uncle Horace. You remember when I went away, I was all rundown and nervous. The doctor gave me some sleeping medicine in case I had any trouble sleeping.

“I never needed to use it. From the time I got on that boat, I slept like a log. I felt that Uncle Horace might need those pills, so I gave them to him to use if he needed them.”

Mason said, “You have put yourself in a beautiful spot for a first-degree murder rap.”

Drake said, “The proprietress of the motel got a little suspicious that everything wasn’t quite on the up-and-up. This young woman rented Unit 21 and said her uncle was going to occupy it that she would bring him in later. She got the license number of her automobile — it was a new Ford.”

Mason turned to Daphne and said, “And there you are, Daphne!”

Paul Drake caught Mason’s eye jerked his head, indicating he wanted a private conference.

“Excuse us a moment,” Mason said, and walked over to the far corner of the room with the detective.

Drake lowered his voice to a half-whisper. “Look, Perry,” he said, “you’re in a spot. Your client is in a spot. The minute she produces that will, she’s convicted herself of murder.

“That girl isn’t any sweet, innocent, naive rose-bud. She’s shrewd, scheming and clever.

“She located her uncle. She spirited him out of the institution. She was too smart to put him in the motel where she was staying, but she took him to another motel.

“Everything that she’s done indicates that she’s quick-thinking and ingenious.

“Now then, she found out that she wasn’t actually related to Horace Shelby. She can’t get any of his money unless she has a will.

“So she spirits him out from under the hand of the authorities and the guardianship of the Court, gets him to make a will, and then the guy promptly dies.

“Now then, if you want to forget about that will, I’ll forget about it.”

“What do you mean?” Mason asked.

“It’s the strongest single fact against her,” Drake said. “Just take that will and burn it up. Have her refrain from mentioning it to anyone, and we can refrain from mentioning it. In that way, we can dispose of some of the worst evidence against her.”

Mason shook his head.

“Why not?” Drake asked. “I’ll stick my neck out. I’ll put my license on the line to give your client a break.”

“It isn’t that,” Mason said. “In the first place, as an officer of the court, I can’t tamper with evidence. As a licensed detective, you can’t. In the second place, I’ve always found that truth is the strongest weapon in the arsenal of any attorney. The trouble is lawyers quite frequently don’t know what the truth is. They get half-truths from the evidence or from their clients and try to get by on those half-truths.

“As far as we are concerned, we are—”

Mason stopped talking abruptly as heavy steps sounded on the wooden porch of the motel, knuckles pounded on the door.

Mason said, “Permit me, Daphne.” He walked across the room and opened the door.

Lieutenant Tragg, accompanied by a uniformed officer standing on the threshold, had a hard time hiding his surprise.

“What the devil are you doing here?” Tragg asked.

“Talking with my client,” Mason said.

“Well, if your client is the owner of the new Ford automobile out in front, she’s going to need an attorney in the worst way,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

“Come in,” Mason invited. “Daphne, this is Lieutenant Tragg of the Homicide Department. Lieutenant Tragg, Daphne Shelby.”

“Oh-ho,” Tragg said, “I’m beginning to see a great light. Headquarters tell me they’ve been looking for Horace Shelby, who was spirited out of the Goodwill Sanitarium despite an order of Court.”

Tragg turned to the uniformed officer and said, “Bring in the woman. Let’s see if we make an identification.”

“Let me point out that that’s hardly the best way to make an identification,” Mason said.

“Well, it is in this case,” Tragg said. “We’re working against time.”

The officer left the porch, a car door slammed, then there were steps on the porch, and the officer escorted a woman into the motel unit.

“Look around,” Tragg invited, “and see if there’s anyone here you know.”

The woman instantly pointed to Daphne Shelby.

“Why, that’s the woman who rented Unit 21,” she said. “She told me that her uncle was going to be occupying it.”

Tragg turned to Mason with a grin. “This,” he said, “is your exit line, Counselor. We can get along without you from here on.”

Mason smiled. “I think you’re forgetting about the recent Supreme Court decisions, Lieutenant,” he said. “Miss Shelby is entitled to have an attorney representing her at all stages of the investigation.”

Mason turned to Daphne and said, “Before you answer any questions, Daphne, look at me. If I shake my head, don’t answer if I nod my head, answer it and tell the truth.”

“That’s going to be one hell of a way to interrogate a witness,” Lieutenant Tragg said.

“It may be a poor way to interrogate a witness, but it’s the only way you can interrogate a prospective defendant,” Mason said. “Perhaps I can make some stipulations which will make things easier for you, Lieutenant.”

“Such as what?” Tragg asked.

“This is Daphne Shelby,” Mason said. “Until a short time ago, she believed in good faith that she was the niece of Horace Shelby.

“However, whether there is any blood relationship or not, Daphne is very fond of the man she has always regarded as her uncle. She lived in the house and took charge of his rather restricted diet. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from trying to nurse him, do the cooking, and supervise the housekeeping problems.

“When Horace Shelby was sent to the Goodwill Sanitarium by a conservator and a doctor who was employed by the other relatives, Daphne obtained employment at the sanitarium. She found Horace Shelby strapped to a bed, she took a knife, cut the straps, took Horace Shelby to the Northern Lights Motel and established him in Unit 21.

“Now then, Lieutenant, that’s as far as we are going to go at the present time.”

Tragg whirled to Daphne. “Did you bring him some food tonight?”

Mason shook his head.

Daphne remained quiet.

“Chinese food in particular,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “We know you did so you might just as well make it easy on yourself. After all, Miss Shelby, we’re trying to get at the truth in the case and, if you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear from the truth.”

Again Mason shook his head.

“Shucks,” Tragg muttered, then turned to Mason. “Any objections to letting her identify the body?”

“None whatever,” Mason said.

Tragg turned to Daphne Shelby and held out his hand. “Would you mind giving me those sleeping pills you have, Miss Shelby?” he asked. “The ones you’ve got left.”

She started to reach for her purse, then caught Mason’s eye.

“No dice, Lieutenant,” Mason said. “We don’t want to have you resort to subterfuge because, under those circumstances, we might quit cooperating.”

Lieutenant Tragg said bitterly, “It’s one hell of a note when the Court takes the handcuffs off the defendant and puts them on the wrists of honest officers who are trying to enforce the law.”

“I don’t see any handcuffs,” Mason said.

“Well, I can feel them,” Tragg snapped.

“We were going to identify a body,” Mason reminded him.

“All right, come on,” Tragg said and then added, “We’re going to have to deprive you of that Ford automobile for a while, Miss Shelby. It’s evidence, and we’ve got to have it identified.”

“That’s all right,” Mason said. “We’re cooperating in every way we can in the investigation.”

“Yes,” Tragg said, drawing his extended fore-finger across his throat. “I can feel the cordiality of your cooperation.”

Tragg turned to the officer, said, “Call in on the radio. Have a fingerprint expert come out and check that Ford car for fingerprints.”

He turned to Daphne and said, “You come with me.”

“I’ll ride in the car with you,” Mason said.

Tragg shook his head.

“Then Daphne rides with me,” Mason announced.

Tragg thought things over, then said, “All right, Daphne rides with you. You follow me.”

“I’ll tag along behind to make the procession complete,” Drake added.

“Come on, Della, you and Daphne sit in the back seat of my car,” Mason instructed.

“Daphne, you’re not to answer any questions by anyone unless I am present and advise you to answer. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Now, you’re in for a shock,” Mason said in a low voice. “They’re going to take you to identify your uncle’s body. You can make the identification, that’s all. I don’t want you to volunteer any information or answer any questions, do you understand?”

She nodded in a tight-lipped silence.

“This is going to be a very harrowing experience,” Mason said, “and you’ve had plenty of them within the last twenty-four hours. But you’re going to have to brace yourself and bear up.

“All right, Lieutenant, let’s go.”

The cars made a procession down the road until they came to the Northern Lights Motel.

A stretcher wagon was waiting to take the remains to the morgue for autopsy.

Lieutenant Tragg walked over to the stretcher, took hold of a corner of the blanket and said, “This way, please, Miss Shelby.”

She came to stand by the officer. Mason stood at her side, holding her arm.

Tragg jerked back the blanket.

Suddenly, Mason felt Daphne stiffen. She clutched at the lawyer, then gave a half scream.

Mason patted her shoulder.

“That isn’t Uncle Horace,” she said. “That’s Ralph Exeter!”

Lieutenant Tragg was puzzled. “Who’s Ralph Exeter?” he asked.

Daphne’s numb lips made two futile attempts before words came. “A friend of Uncle Borden.”

“And who’s Uncle Borden?”

“A half brother of Horace Shelby.”

“Then how did Exeter get in this unit of the motel and where is Horace Shelby now?”

Mason said, “Those are two questions. Lieutenant, which you are going to have to answer all by yourself.”

The woman who had identified Daphne Shelby came over to the officers. “Want to take a look?” Lieutenant Tragg asked her.

She nodded.

Tragg drew back the blanket.

“I don’t think that’s the man who’s supposed to be in Unit 21!” she said. “It looks like the man who rented Unit 20 about three hours ago.”

“How did he come here?” Tragg asked.

“He had his own car. It had a Massachusetts license. There may have been someone with him — a woman. I can get the registration card.”

“We’ll get it,” Tragg said.

He accompanied her to the office, came back holding the registration card.

“That’s right,” he said. “He registered under his own name. He gave the license number of his car — a Massachusetts license number.

“Now then, where’s his car? What became of it? It isn’t here.”

There was an interval of silence, then Tragg said, “Let’s take a look in Unit 20 and see what we find in there.”

He turned to Mason. “Since you aren’t of any help in this phase of the investigation, you and your client can go, but I want both of you to be available where I can reach you on short notice.”

Mason said, “Excuse me a minute. Daphne. It will only take a moment.”

The lawyer moved over to Paul Drake, lowered his voice, said, “Paul, Horace Shelby was in that cabin. He isn’t there now. He left under his own power or he was taken away.

“If he was taken away, we’re in trouble. If he left under his own power, I’d like to make sure that he’s on his own and see if we can take steps to keep him on his own.”

Drake nodded.

“Start your men covering the taxicab companies right away,” Mason said.

Again Drake nodded.

“Now then,” Mason went on, “it would be fatal if the police managed to implant in the proprietress’ mind the idea that Ralph Exeter was the man Daphne brought to the motel.

“She’s seen Daphne. She identified the license number of the car Daphne was driving, and she’s identified Daphne.

“Get to work on her in advance of the police. Get her to state that she can’t identify the woman who was with Exeter in the car in which Exeter arrived at the motel. And be darned sure to tie her up so that she can’t testify later on that the more she thinks of it, the more she believes Daphne was the one who was in Exeter’s car.

“You know and I know that personal identification evidence is just about the worst, the most unreliable type of evidence we have — not when a person identifies someone he knows but when he gets a glimpse of an individual and then later on makes an identification — either from a photograph or from personal contact.”

“Sure, we all know that,” Drake said. “I’ll do what I can. Anything else?”

“That’s all,” Mason said. “Get your men working. Use that telephone in your car. Put your men out and get busy on that woman while Lieutenant Tragg is searching Unit 20 for clues.”

“On my way,” Drake said. “Which comes first?”

“The talk with the proprietress of the motel,” Mason told him. “We don’t know how long Lieutenant Tragg is going to be in Unit 20. You can telephone the taxicab companies shortly after that.”