Case of the Silent Partner

Chapter 9

It was after ten when Perry Mason opened the door of his private office. He hung up his hat and coat, said, “Hello,” to Della Street, and she brought in the mail.

“Sit down a while, Della. Let the mail go. I’m in a jam.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know how bad it’s going to be. You’ve seen the papers?”

“Yes. Is it about Lynk’s murder?”

“It’s connected with that.”

“Mildreth Faulkner?”

“No, her sister, Carlotta Lawley.”

“The paper doesn’t say anything about her.”

“The police aren’t ready to do anything about her yet. For one thing, they think they have a better case against Mildreth Faulkner, and, for another thing, there’s a lot they don’t know about Carlotta yet.”

“Will they find out?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Probably today.”

“I thought you were representing Miss Faulkner.”

“No. I don’t want her case, and I don’t think she wants me.”

“Why doesn’t she want you?”

“Because she wants me to represent her sister, and she’s smart enough to know that if I’m representing her sister, I can’t have any strings tied to it.”

“Does the sister know that?”

“No.”

“Why are you in a jam over it?”

Mason offered her his cigarettes. She shook her head. He took one, scraped a match on the sole of his shoe, lit up, and sat for a moment gazing at the flame of the match before he extinguished it. Then he said, “She could be guilty.”

“Who?”

“Either one of them, Carlotta or Mildreth.”

“You mean of the murder?”

“Yes.”

“Well?” she asked.

He said. “I’ve always tried to represent clients who were innocent. I’ve been lucky. I’ve taken chances. I’ve played hunches, and the hunches have panned out. Circumstantial evidence can be black against a client, and I’ll see something in his demeanor, some little mannerism, the way he answers a question or something, which makes me believe he’s innocent. I’ll take the case, and it will work out. I’m not infallible. My percentages should run about fifty-fifty. So far I’ve always been on the black side of the ledger. That’s luck. Now I have a feeling things may turn, and the debits may catch up with me.”

“How much difference would it make?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Mason said frankly. “I do know that a lawyer can’t simply sit back and refuse to take any case unless he thinks his client is innocent. A client is entitled to legal representation. It takes the unanimous verdict of twelve jurors to find a person guilty. It isn’t fair for a lawyer to turn himself into a jury, weigh the evidence, and say, ‘No, I won’t handle your case because I think you’re guilty.’ That would deprive an accused person of a fair trial.”

She watched him with solicitous eyes. “Are you whistling in the dark to keep your courage up?”

He grinned at her. “Yes.”

“I thought so.”

Mason said, “The hell of it is she’s got a weak heart. She’s been through a lot, and the pump has gone bad. It will take a long spell of rest, medicine, and recuperation before it gets back into any sort of shape.

“If she’s accused of crime, taken before a grand jury, interrogated by the district attorney, or even hounded by newspaper reporters, she’s not going to make it.”

“Make what?”

“She’ll kick off.”

“Oh.”

After a moment, Mason said, “That’s the same as a death penalty. If you know a person will die as the result of being accused — well, you just can’t do it, that’s all.”

“What’s the alternative?” she asked.

Mason rubbed his fingers along the angle of his jaw. “That,” he said, “is the tough part of it. The law doesn’t recognize a situation such as this. I could probably go to court and get an order putting her in a sanitarium under a doctor’s care with no visitors permitted until the doctor said so. But the doctor would be someone appointed by the court. He would be more or less subject to influence by the district attorney. The main thing is that the minute I go to court I have to prove my case. I can bring in a doctor who testifies to what he found. The district attorney would want his doctor to check on mine. The judge would probably want to see her personally. She’d have to know something of the nature of the proceedings. She’d know they were going to charge her with murder when she got well enough to... No, I can’t go ahead that way. I can’t let that hang over her head.”

“Where does that leave you?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “I’ve got to take the law into my own hands. I’ve got to fix it so they can’t find her.”

“Isn’t that a pretty large order if they really want her?”

Mason said, “That’s what bothers me. There’s only one way to really keep them from doing it — and at the same time accomplish something else I want.”

“What’s the something else?”

“I want the police to get Robert Lawley.”

“Aren’t they looking for him?”

“Not very hard. So far, he’s just a missing witness who skipped out to save his own bacon, and the police can prove everything they want by other witnesses.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Mason grinned. “I’ve already done it,” he said. “I’m just looking back to see the thing in its proper perspective — like climbing a mountain. You keep looking back to see how far you’ve climbed.”

“Or how far you have to fall?” she asked.

“Both,” he admitted.

There were several seconds of silence, then Della said abruptly, “Well, you’ve done it. Why worry about it?”

“That isn’t what I’m worrying about.”

“What?”

He said, “I’ve got to drag you into it.”

“How?”

He said, “I hate to do it. I don’t see any other way out. If you follow instructions and don’t ask any questions, I can keep you in the clear, but...”

“I don’t want to be kept in the clear,” she said impatiently. “How many times must I tell you that I’m part of the organization? If you take chances, I want to take chances.”

He shook his head. “No dice, Della.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just follow instructions and not ask any questions.”

“What are the instructions?”

“I have a book of travelers’ checks. The name on those checks is Carlotta Lawley. Practice that signature until you’re pretty good at it — not too good, because I want someone to get suspicious; but I don’t want it to happen until after you’ve cashed some of the checks.”

Her eyes were alert. Anxious to miss no detail of his instructions, she sat perfectly motionless, watching and listening.

Mason said, “You’ll need to make a build-up on the first checks. Go home and put on your glad rags. Go to a pawn shop, get some secondhand luggage, have the initials ‘C.L.’ put on it. Go to a hotel, say you don’t know whether you’re going to get a room or be with friends, that you’ll know in half an hour. Go over to the cashier’s window, say you’d like to cash a check for a hundred dollars, but that you can get along with a smaller check if they’d prefer. You won’t have much trouble there. Explain that you’re waiting to see about getting a room.

“Then go over to the telephone, and tell the clerk you’re going to be staying with friends, and go out. Do that at a couple of hotels. Then go to a department store, buy a little stuff, and cash a small travelers’ check in payment. All of that is going to be easy.”

“What’s the hard part?”

“You’d probably better do it in a department store,” Mason said. “Order about five dollars’ worth of merchandise and try to cash a hundred-dollar check. The cashier will be tactful but suspicious. She’ll ask to see your driving license or some identification. You look in your purse, then get in a panic, and say you left your coin purse together with your driving license in the ladies’ restroom. Tell the cashier you’ll be back. Now get this. As you leave, call back over your shoulder, ‘There’s over three hundred dollars in that coin purse.’ ”

“Then what?”

“Then duck out, and don’t come back. Get out and stay out.”

“The travelers’ check?”

“You leave that with the cashier.”

“And don’t try to claim it?”

“No. That’s where the catch comes in.”

“How so?”

“The cashier will wonder why you don’t come back. She’ll also wonder why you’re trying to cash a hundred-dollar travelers’ check for a five-dollar purchase if you had three hundred dollars in your coin purse. The cashier will start looking at the signatures a little more closely. Then the cashier will call the police.”

“All right,” Della said. “When do I start?”

“Now.”

She walked over to the coat closet, put on hat and coat, paused to powder her face, and touch up her lips in front of the mirror. “Okay, Chief. Give me the checks.”

Mason smiled. “You haven’t asked me whether you were going to jail.”

“This isn’t my day to ask questions.”

Mason got to his feet, slid his arm around her waist, and walked to the door with her. “I hate to do this, Della. If there’d been anyone else I could trust...”

“I’d have hated you the rest of my life,” she said.

“If things don’t go just right, call me, and I’ll...”

“What will you do?”

“Get you out.”

“In order to do that you’d have to give away your plan of campaign.”

He shook his head. “If you get pinched, my plan of campaign is all finished... and so am I.”

“Then I won’t get pinched.”

“Ring me up and let me know how things are coming. I’ll be anxious.”

“Don’t worry.”

He patted her shoulder. “Good girl.”

Her eyes were eloquent as she flashed him a quick smile, then slipped out into the corridor. Mason stood listening to the sound of her heels on the tiled corridor. He was frowning and thoughtful. Not until after the elevator door had clanged shut, did he walk back to his desk.

At eleven-thirty-five Harry Peavis called, and Mason told the receptionist to bring him in.

The lawyer studied the tall, lumbering figure of the florist as Peavis came marching across the office, his manner indicating a dogged determination.

“How are you, Mr. Peavis?” Mason said, and shook hands.

Peavis had been freshly shaved, massaged, and manicured. His suit showed a despairing effort on the part of the tailor to mask the toil-worn slouch of the shoulders. His six-dollar tie and fifteen-dollar custom-made shirt seemed incongruous against the weather-checked skin of his neck. His powerful, gnarled fingers circled Mason’s hand and gripped — hard.

Mason said, “Sit down.”

There was that in Peavis’ manner which indicated a scorn of diplomacy and hypocrisy. “You know who I am,” he said, and it was not so much a question as a statement.

Mason said, “Yes.”

“You know what I want.”

Again Mason said, “Yes.”

“Do I get it?”

Mason’s lips softened into a smile. “No.”

“I think I do.”

“I think you don’t.”

Peavis took a cigar from his pocket, extracted a knife from his vest pocket, carefully clipped off the end of the cigar, then raised the eyes under his shaggy iron-gray brows, and said to Mason, “Want one?”

“No, thanks, I’ll stay with the cigarettes.”

Peavis lit the cigar. He said, “Don’t think I’m making the mistake of underestimating you.”

“Thanks.”

“And don’t make the mistake of underestimating me.”

“I won’t.”

“Try not to. When I want something I get it. I’m a slow-wanter. I don’t see something, say all at once, ‘I want that,’ and try to get it. If I want something, I look it over for a good long time before I decide I really want it. When I decide I want it, I get it.”

“And right now you want the Faulkner Flower Shops?”

“I don’t want Mildreth Faulkner out.”

“You want her to stay in and work for you?”

“Not for me. For the corporation.”

“But you want to control the corporation?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “When Mrs. Lawley got sick, you had her husband pretty well sized up. You knew you could play on his weakness, didn’t you?”

“I don’t have to answer that question.”

“You don’t. That’s right. It might save time if you did.”

“I’ve got lots of time.”

“I suppose that you knew Sindler Coll — or was it the blond lure, Esther Dilmeyer, that you had for a point of contact?”

Peavis said, “Go to hell.”

Mason picked up the telephone, said to the girl at the switchboard, “Get me the Drake Detective Agency. I want to talk with Paul Drake.”

While he waited, Mason glanced across at his visitor. Peavis sat with an absolutely expressionless face. He might not have heard, or, if he had, failed to appreciate the significance of the call. He puffed thoughtfully at the cigar, his deep-set eyes of glacial blue glittering frostily from beneath the bushy eyebrows.

After a few moments, the switchboard operator said, “Here’s Mr. Drake,” and Mason heard Paul Drake’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hello, Paul. This is Perry. I have a job for you.”

“Thought you might have,” Drake said. “I read about Lynk’s murder in the paper and wondered if you were going to get mixed up in it.”

Mason said, “A man by the name of Harry Peavis, a florist, controls a large part of the retail flower shops in the city. He’s been trying to get a controlling interest in the Faulkner Flower Shops. There are three of them. It’s a closed corporation. One of the principal stockholders got sick, turned the stock over to her husband. Peavis saw a chance to get that stock. I don’t know whether he knew Lynk, or whether he knew some people who knew Lynk. Two people may have figured in the deal, a Sindler Coll, who lives in the Everglade Apartments in two hundred and nine, and an Esther Dilmeyer, who’s in the Molay Arms Apartments. Someone sent the Dilmeyer girl a box of poisoned candy last night — filled with veronal. She ate some of the chocolate creams, and passed out. She’s in the hospital now under the care of Dr. Willmont. She probably won’t wake up for another twelve hours. Incidentally, Harvey Lynk had a partner, Clint Magard. I don’t know whether Magard was in on it or not.”

“Okay,” Drake said.

“Got those names?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “Get busy. Find out whether Peavis knew Sindler Coll or Esther Dilmeyer. Or he may have been working through Lynk. Anyway, investigate Peavis and find out his connection with it.”

Peavis smoked in stony silence.

“Anything else?” Drake asked.

“Yes,” Mason said. “Get what dope you can on Peavis. If there are any weak points in his armor, I want to know them. Put a bunch of men on it, and get results.”

“Starting now?” Drake asked.

“Immediately,” Mason said, and hung up.

Mason pushed the phone away from him and settled back, tilting his swivel chair to a reclining position.

Harry Peavis crossed his legs, knocked ashes from the end of his cigar, and said to Mason, “Very dramatic. It might bother some people. Doesn’t bother me. It isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

“It’s just routine,” Mason said. “I’d never forgive myself if I overlooked it.”

Peavis said, without reproach, “You must think I’m a damn fool.”

Mason said, “I’ll tell you more about that when I get Drake’s report.”

“When you get ready to quit kidding and act grown-up, I’ll talk,” Peavis said.

“All right, act grown-up.”

Peavis said, “Money will do lots of things.”

“It will for a fact.”

“You have money, and I have money. We can both spend it.”

“What are you leading up to?”

“It might be better if we saved it.”

“Why?”

“You could use your money to better advantage. So could I. You’ve hired detectives. I can hire detectives. I can hire just as many and just as good ones as you can.”

“Well?”

“If I have to put it in words of one syllable, I can show that Mildreth Faulkner went out to call on Lynk. She found the door slightly open. She went in and found the body. She found that certificate of stock. She figured that Lynk came by it wrongfully. She picked it up and went out. Now then, by the time I’ve finished proving that, where is that going to leave Mildreth Faulkner?”

“It’s your party,” Mason said. “Go ahead and serve the refreshments.”

“All right. I will. It leaves her in jail. It leaves her charged with murder, and it’s going to take a damn sight smarter man than I am, a damn sight smarter man than you are, to get her off. That isn’t going to do either of us any good. The reason I’m interested in the Faulkner Flower Shops is because they’re money-makers, and because I want Mildreth Faulkner working for me.”

“Why?” Mason asked curiously.

Peavis met his eyes then, and said slowly, “That’s another one of the things I want.”

Mason stared thoughtfully at the blotter.

“You get my point,” Peavis said.

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will you know?”

“I can’t even tell you that.”

Peavis got to his feet. “All right,” he said, “I’m a businessman, and you’re a businessman.”

“One question,” Mason said.

“What?”

“Does Mildreth Faulkner know what it is you want?”

The bluish-green eyes met Mason’s with the force of a physical impact. “No,” he said, “and she isn’t to know until I’m ready to tell her. I tell her at my own time and in my own way. What I told you was simply to explain my position.”

“Thanks for dropping in,” Mason said.

“My telephone number’s in the book,” Peavis remarked. He started for the door, turned, and stared steadily at Mason. “I’m not so damn certain,” he observed calmly and impersonally, “but what you and I are going to have trouble. If we do, it isn’t going to be like any other fight you ever had. Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Mason said.

At twelve-thirty-five Della Street telephoned. “Hello, Chief. I’m in a telephone booth at the hotel. Just cashed one of the hundred-dollar checks.”

“Any difficulty?”

“No.”

Mason said, “I’m having my lunch sent in here. I’ll be at the end of the telephone. If you have any trouble, call me. I won’t leave the office under any circumstances until I hear that you’re finished. Try and clean it all up by three o’clock.”

“How many do I cash?”

“Four or five, then try to let someone get suspicious.”

“Okay. I’ll keep you posted.”

Mason telephoned a restaurant to send up sandwiches and coffee.

At one-thirty Della Street telephoned again. “Two department stores, twenty bucks each. Okay. I’m ready to try for a big one now.”

“Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”

Mason called the switchboard operator and said, “I won’t see any client this afternoon. Keep my line open. I’m expecting Della Street to call in. It may be important. I don’t want her call to run into a busy signal.”

He hung up and lit a cigarette, smoked four puffs, and threw it away. Thirty seconds later, he lit another one. He got up and began pacing the office floor. From time to time, he looked at his wrist watch.

There was a timid knock at the door of the outer office, and the switchboard operator opened the door and eased herself into the room. “Mr. Clint Magard is out there,” she said. “He says he has to see you, that it’s important, that...”

“I won’t see him. Get back to the switchboard.”

She backed out of the room.

A moment later, she returned. “He said I was to give you this note.” She ran across the office, dropped the note into Mason’s palm, and dashed back.

Mason read:

Mason crumpled the note into a ball, threw it down into the wastebasket, picked up the telephone and said, “He’s called the winning number. Send him in.”

Magard was heavy-set, bald-headed, with a fringe of red hair around his ears and the back of his head. He wore spectacles and had a triple chin. Mason recognized him at once as the man in evening clothes he had seen going into Sindler Coll’s apartment.

“Sit down,” Mason said. “Start talking. I’ve got something on my mind. I didn’t want to be disturbed. I’m nervous as hell, and I’m apt to be irritable. If what you have to say will keep, it had better keep.”

“It won’t keep.”

“All right then, spill it.”

Magard said, “I presume you think I’m a heel.”

Mason said, “It’s a temptation to answer that question in detail. That’s not an auspicious beginning.”

Magard’s face was as fat and placid as a full moon on a summer evening. “I know how you feel,” he said.

“What did you want to tell me?”

“I want you to know where I stand.”

“I don’t give a damn where you stand.”

“Your client’s interests...”

“Go ahead,” Mason interrupted.

“Lynk and I are partners in the Golden Horn.”

“You mean you were.”

“All right, we were. We didn’t get along too well together. I didn’t have enough money to buy him out at the price he wanted, and I wouldn’t sell. It’s a good business. I had no idea Lynk was playing around with this stuff on the side.”

“What stuff?”

“Sindler Coll, Esther Dilmeyer, crooked horse racing, a sort of glorified tout service.”

“But you were friendly with Sindler Coll?”

“I never saw him in my life until last night — that is, this morning — when I called on him at his request.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk with you about.”

“I’m listening.”

“Coll thought we should get together. He said you’d be representing the murderer, that you’d try to get her off, and...”

“Why do you say her? Why not him?”

“Because I think it was a woman.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I have my reasons.”

“All right, Coll sent for you. He thought that I was going to be representing the murderer. So what?”

“That you’d be clever as the very devil and would be trying to get your client off.”

“That’s natural.”

“That in order to do it you’d pin the murder on someone else. Coll said that he’d long been interested in the way you tried cases. He said you never tried them by simply trying to prove your client innocent. You always tried to pin it on someone else. He said that it happened too often. He figured you framed on someone, and then stampeded a jury.”

“And he called you at that hour of the morning to tell you that?”

“No, to suggest that we take steps to see that we were protected.”

“In other words, that I couldn’t pin the murder on you or him.”

“That’s right.”

Mason said, “It’s an idea at that. Thanks for giving it to me.”

“You’re welcome,” Magard said, and smiled a little.

“So you had this conference,” Mason said, “then you come to me. Why?”

“Because I thought you should know what Coll was doing. He wanted me to give him an alibi, and then he’d give me one. We’d swear we were together.”

“And you decided not to play ball with him?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Because,” and this time Magard’s smile was very much in evidence, “I happen to have an alibi.”

“And Coll doesn’t?”

“Not one that he thinks would stand up.”

“Will yours stand up?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why did you come to me?”

“Because I want something.”

“What?”

“I’m not a fool, Mr. Mason. I know that when you start fighting, you rip things wide open. I know that Lynk was mixed up in a bunch of stuff. It isn’t going to look good, no matter how it’s dressed up. But you can — well, you can make it look like hell.”

“And you want me to pull my punches?”

“No. But if you can get your client acquitted without making a stink about my business, I’ll appreciate it.”

“I’m not making any promises.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“Won’t the police close you up anyway?”

Magard’s triple chin rippled as his lips twisted into such a broad smile that the pouches of fat on his cheeks pushed his eyes almost closed. “You leave that to me, Mr. Mason.”

“I intend to,” Mason said. “What’s your proposition?”

“I’m interested in helping you get your client off before trial.”

“So there won’t be any publicity?”

“That’s right.”

“What do you want in return?”

“I want you to go easy with the newspapers. If there’s a preliminary hearing, I want you to leave the Golden Horn out of it just as much as you can.”

“No dice,” Mason said.

“Wait a minute,” Magard went on, holding up a pudgy forefinger. “There’s one qualifying phrase I was going to add. I want you to leave the Golden Horn out of it as much as you can if you find it will be to the advantage of your client to do so.”

“That’s different.”

“I thought it would be.”

Mason said, “I won’t hamstring myself one bit, Magard. I won’t make any promises. I won’t...”

Magard interrupted him by holding up his hand, making a waving motion of the wrist as though patting the words back in the lawyer’s mouth. “Now, wait a minute, Mason. Keep your shirt on. If it’s to the best advantage of your client not to burn me up, you won’t do it. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“My client comes first.”

“Then the answer is yes?”

“Yes.”

“All right, I’m going to keep you posted on what’s going on. I’m going to give you enough dope so that I’ll be valuable to you. I’ll keep coming in here and telling you things just as fast as I find them out — as long as you don’t throw mud on the Golden Horn. Now you’re not under any obligation to me whatever. You can go ahead and throw mud any time you want to, but the minute you do that, you’ve quit getting any information from me.”

“Let’s begin now,” Mason said.

“What do you want?”

“How about Peavis? Did he work through Lynk or through Coll?”

“Through Sindler Coll and Esther Dilmeyer. He knew both of them. He got them to work on Lawley so they could pick up that stock. He knew that Lawley would never sell it unless he got in a jam. He wanted them to get Lawley in a jam.”

“Did they do it?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of a jam?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was the girl mixed in it?”

“I think so.”

“And then what?”

“Well, naturally, Lawley wouldn’t deal directly with Peavis. He’d have gone directly to his wife or to Mildreth Faulkner if he thought Peavis was mixed in it. He thought he was dealing with Coll’s employer, Lynk. He needed money. He wanted to put up the stock as collateral. Lynk wouldn’t stand for that. Lynk told him he had to turn over the stock absolutely, but, he told him, he’d hold the stock for five days, and then let Lawley buy it back if Lawley made the clean-up he expected.”

“Lawley expected to make a clean-up?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“On the horses.”

“And after Lynk got the stock, he wouldn’t turn it over to Peavis except at a much higher price than they’d agreed on?”

For a moment, Magard looked startled. “How did you know that?” he asked.

“I’m asking,” Mason said.

“I can’t answer that question — not yet.”

“Why?”

Magard rubbed his hands together. His manner suddenly oozed bubbly good-nature. “Well, Mr. Mason, look at it from my viewpoint. You aren’t obligated to me one bit. You’re obligated to your client. As long as you can serve your client’s best interests by...”

“You’ve covered that already,” Mason said. “You don’t need to go over it again.”

“Well,” Magard said, “I just wanted you to see it from my standpoint. I’d be a damn fool to give you too much information all at once.”

“We might make a deal,” Mason said.

“Not you,” Magard observed. “I know you too well, Mason. You wouldn’t make any agreement in which the best interests of your client didn’t come first. If you did, you’d be a damn fool. I don’t want to do business with damned fools. I had one dose of that. That’s enough.”

“And so you intend to dole out the information?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

Mason said, “I’m going to outsmart you on that, Magard. I’m going to take the information you give me, and take a short cut. I’ll be two paragraphs ahead of you before you’ve made three visits to this office. Then I’ll raise hell with you just on general principles.”

“That’s a chance I have to take,” Magard said.

“You don’t seem very much alarmed.”

“I’m not.”

“Suppose you tell me about your alibi.”

Magard chuckled. “I’ve told that to the police.” He got to his feet. “I’ve told you enough for one interview, Mr. Mason. Good afternoon.”

“When,” Mason asked, “will I see you again?”

“Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps not for a week. I guess that’s why I’m a gambler. I like to take chances. I like to play dangerous games.”

“You’re playing one now,” Mason told him.

Magard’s diaphragm rippled in a chuckle. “I am at that,” he observed, and bowed himself out of the exit door.

Mason was less nervous now. He smoked a thoughtful cigarette, sat motionless in the swivel chair back of his desk, studying the pattern on the carpet. After a few minutes, he smiled; the smile grew into a chuckle.

The telephone rang. He jumped into activity, snaking his long arm out to pick up the receiver. “Hello,” he said when the receiver was halfway to his ear.

He heard Della Street’s voice, high-pitched with excitement. “Chief, I’ve done it. The cops are looking for me.”

“Get up to the office quick.”

“Coming,” she told him, and hung up the telephone.

He waited for her, pacing the floor, smoking nervously. When he heard her quick steps in the corridor, he flung open the door, circled her in his arms, held her close to him, and patted her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he said.

Della pushed her body back a little so she had room to tilt up her head to look into his eyes. “Good Heavens, what’s the matter?”

“It’s all right for me to take chances,” he said, “but I didn’t realize what it meant to me to have you out on the firing line. I’ll never do anything like that again, Della — not ever.”

“Goose,” she said, smiling, her lips half parted.

He kissed her tenderly, then hungrily, released her, walked abruptly back to the desk, said, “That’s the trouble with me, Della. When I get working on a case, I subordinate everything to that case. I become hypnotized with a single purpose. I don’t take any heed of consequences. I only want results.”

“That’s a darn good way to be,” she told him, taking off the little narrow-brimmed hat which perched jauntily on one side of her head, surveying her face in the mirror, calmly applying a touch of lipstick.

“Tell me about it.”

“Nothing to it,” she said. “The hotels were a cinch. The department stores were almost as easy. Then I tried for the big play — and something went wrong.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I said I wanted to cash a check and pushed the book through the window. The cashier just took one look at the checks, then at me. She moved her right hand very casually. I saw her shoulder move as she pressed a button. She said, ‘All right, Mrs. Lawley, just sign your name.’ ”

Mason’s eyes glinted. “What did you do?”

“I said, ‘Oh, I’ve forgotten my fountain pen,’ grabbed the book of checks, and beat it. The cashier called out to me that she had a fountain pen, but I pretended not to hear.

“I went down in the elevator. It seemed to take ages. On the main floor there was a commotion. Two men were running for the elevators. One of them pulled back his coat to show a star. He said, ‘I’m an officer — get me up to the cashier’s office, quick.’ ”

Mason said abruptly, “Did you ever set a grass fire, and have it get away from you?”

“No. Why?”

“It gives you the damnedest feeling of surprised impotence. You think you’re going to burn a little patch of grass. You touch a match, and all of a sudden a whole hillside explodes into flame. You dash madly around the edges, trying to trample out the fire, and it laughs at you.”

“What,” she asked, “does that have to do with what happened at the store?”

“Have you ever met Lieutenant Tragg?”

“No.”

“Not quite as tall as I am,” Mason said, “about my age, black, wavy hair, wears a gray, double-breasted suit, has a prominent, clean-cut nose with thin nostrils, and when he’s excited, has a habit of tilting his head back so that his chin is up and his nostrils...”

“That’s who it was,” she interrupted.

Mason sighed. “Too fast for me,” he said moodily. “I tried to build a little fire to smoke someone out into the open, and the fire got away from me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you see what I was doing, Della?”

“Trying to make them think that Carlotta Lawley had been robbed?”

“Not robbed. Murdered.”

Her eyes widened.

“It’s logical,” Mason said. “Her husband was held to her by one bond — the bond of money. She loved him, but to him she was merely a convenience, a meal ticket, a source of income. Mildreth always had hated him. Probably he looked on his wife’s sickness as a godsend. At first, he felt it would give him an opportunity to prove himself, to show Mildreth that he could be a shrewd businessman, a careful guardian of his wife’s property, a faithful custodian of her income. And things didn’t go so good. Probably an initial loss which couldn’t have been foreseen, something which might have happened to anyone, but which, because he was lashed by the knowledge of Mildreth’s contempt, magnified itself out of all proper proportion in Lawley’s mind.

“There was only one thing for him to do. He must recoup that loss. He must change it into a profit. Spurred by the whiplash of his own impatience, he didn’t have time to wait for sound investments. He had to do something quick. He had to gamble.

“From the fact that he went so far, I presume that that first desperate chance turned in his favor. He gambled and won. It was that easy.”

She said, “But you don’t even know him, Chief.”

“Yes, I do. You don’t need to see a man, look in his face, shake his hand, and hear him talk, in order to know him. You can watch the things he does. You can see him through the eyes of others.”

“But the eyes of others are distorted by prejudice.”

“You make allowances for that prejudice when you know the others. You can then judge the extent of their distortion. That’s the only way you can solve cases, Della. You must learn to know the characters involved. You must learn to see things through their eyes, and that means you must have sympathy and tolerance for crime.”

She nodded.

“He had won,” Mason went on, “and he was jubilant. What he didn’t realize was that he was like the lion that has tasted meat. He could never go back. He could never forget that full-bodied flavor. He made other losses. He tried to recoup them by gambling, and that time he wasn’t so successful.”

“You mean gambling at the wheel?”

“No, not that — not at first,” Mason said. “It probably was a sure-thing tip on the horses. A friend in whose judgment he had learned to have confidence, someone who apparently knew all the inside facts.”

“Sindler Coll?” she asked.

“Probably.”

“And then,” she said, “I suppose he was decoyed along...”

“He got in so deep,” Mason said, “that there was only one way out, and that was to plunge. He plunged and lost, and lost again. Then came the time when he took stock of the situation. For the first time he really saw the position in which he’d placed himself. And then was when they dangled the real bait in front of his eyes. Then was when they had a sure-thing tip, something that was so absolutely certain that he became hypnotized with it. But you can’t gamble without money, and on this sure-thing, lead-pipe cinch which they dangled in front of his eyes, they demanded cash. So he had to raise cash, and Lynk wouldn’t lend him any money on securities as collateral. He pointed out that the loan was for a gambling stake, that there could be too many complications. Instead, he offered to buy the stock outright, that within five days Lawley could buy it back.

“By that time Lawley was so completely engrossed with the possibilities of once more turning his losses into profits that he didn’t bother to consider the cost of the step he was taking. That’s the difference between a good businessman and a bad businessman. The good businessman wants something and weighs the cost of what he wants against the utility of the article he desires. That’s the way Peavis plays the game. The poor businessman sees something that he wants, and he must have it. The price represents only an obstacle which stands between him and possession.”

“But what’s that got to do with Lieutenant Tragg?”

Mason dismissed it all with a gesture, smiled, and said, “I get to reconstructing what Lawley must have done, and how he must have felt, and I find it too fascinating... Well, anyway, Lawley’s next move, once he found that he had lost out, would be — well, you can realize for yourself.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Murder,” Mason said simply. “He wouldn’t come to it all at once. It wouldn’t be the first solution that would come into his mind, but he’d fling himself against the bars of his predicament as a caged animal would try out the iron bars, trying to find a weak point.”

“And so he murdered Lynk?” she asked.

“Not Lynk,” Mason said impatiently, “—not unless he could have gained by it, not unless he could have secured that stock.”

“Didn’t he?”

“If he had, he’d have gone back home. He’d have waited for his wife with an air of calm routine. No, if Lawley had murdered Lynk, it was a murder done either for revenge or to get the stock back. That would have been the purpose of it.”

“But the stock has disappeared.”

“If Lawley had murdered Lynk for the stock, the stock would be missing,” Mason said. “Someone murdered Lynk. The stock is missing. That doesn’t necessarily mean Lawley did it. We must guard against that mental trap. Perhaps Lawley did it, perhaps he didn’t. But what I’m getting at is that if he didn’t murder Lynk, his mind would turn elsewhere.”

“You mean his wife?” Della Street asked.

“Yes.”

“But... I don’t see...”

“His only out,” Mason said. “His wife still had money. There were other securities. If she died, Lawley wouldn’t have to account to her. He wouldn’t have to account to Mildreth Faulkner. Her death wouldn’t get him back the property he’d lost, but it would give him the stake for another gamble, and, above all, it would save his face. With a man of Lawley’s type, the saving of face is the thing of paramount importance.”

“But they’d certainly suspect him. He being the one to profit...”

“No,” Mason interrupted. “That’s where the man could be diabolically clever. You see, the stage is all rigged. He could commit the perfect crime. She’s been struggling with a weak heart. Doctors have warned her that excitement might prove fatal. It would only be necessary for Lawley to face her with some terrific shock, something that would throw a strain on her heart, and the death would be due to natural causes.”

“You think he’d do that — that any man would do that to his wife?”

Mason said, “It’s done every day. Wives kill husbands. Husbands kill wives. Mind you, Della, it takes a powerful motivation to lead to murder. That’s why people don’t usually murder comparative strangers. The more intimate the relationship, the more devastating the results which come from it. That’s why, taken by and large, more wives kill husbands than kill strangers. More husbands kill wives than kill persons outside the family.”

“I didn’t know that was true,” she said.

“Look at your newspapers. Why, those husband-wife killings are so common, they aren’t even front-page stuff. Usually there’s no mystery. They’re drab, sordid crimes of emotional maladjustment. A husband kills a wife and commits suicide. A woman kills her children and commits suicide.”

She nodded.

“And so,” Mason said, “I wanted to call Tragg’s attention to what would probably happen next. I wanted him to realize that whoever killed Lynk, Carlotta Lawley was in danger. The best way I could do that was to make him think that it had actually happened.”

“Why? He wouldn’t protect a woman who was already dead.”

“I didn’t want him to protect her,” Mason said. “I’ve already done that. I wanted him to turn the police force upside down to catch Bob Lawley, and put him behind bars.”

“And that’s the reason you had me cash the checks?”

“Yes.”

“So that the police would think Lawley had some female accomplice, that he killed his wife and took her travelers’ checks, that the accomplice is going about cashing those checks?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, it worked all right, didn’t it?”

Mason said, “It worked, Della, too damned well. Lieutenant Tragg was watching for it. He’s looking for Carlotta Lawley, and he’s asked department stores... Good Lord!” Mason exclaimed. “What a fool I was not to have realized it!”

“What, Chief?”

Mason said, “Carlotta Lawley must have an account at that department store where you tried to cash the check. The cashier probably didn’t know her personally, but she knew her signature, and Lieutenant Tragg knew she had an account there. He’d told the cashier to notify him at once if any new charges went on the account.”

Della said, “Yes, that would account for it.”

Mason said, “Put your hat back on, Della. You’re going places.”

“Where?”

“Places. I don’t want Lieutenant Tragg to come walking in and say, ‘Miss Street, were you, by any chance, the person who tried to cash a travelers’ check this afternoon by signing the name of Carlotta Lawley?’ ”

“You mean he suspects?” Della Street asked.

“Not yet,” Mason said, “but he’ll get a detailed description of the woman who tried to cash the check, and he’ll come to the office to see me. Then, if he sees you while the description is fresh in his mind — he’s too shrewd a detective not to tumble.”

“So I’m to hide out?” Della Street asked, picking up her hat again and adjusting it in front of the mirror.

“No,” Mason said. “We can’t have that. That looks like flight, and flight looks like guilt. No, Della, we’re going to go out to take some depositions or work on a case. You’re going to stay on the job. I’m going to come back and forth to the office. In that way, you won’t be available, yet your absence will have been explained.”

Her eyes lit up. “That,” she said, “won’t be hard to take. I can think of half a dozen places which would be simply swell for a vacation.”

He nodded and said, “And, by the way, Della, if the mailman delivers an envelope addressed in my handwriting with the return address of the Clearmount Hotel, don’t open it. It might be a lot better if you didn’t know what was inside of it.”

Della Street’s eyes narrowed. “Would it,” she asked, “be a certificate of stock?”

“You and Lieutenant Tragg,” Mason said firmly, “are getting too damn smart.”