Case of the Silent Partner

Chapter 5

The road up Lilac Canyon wound like a sinuous snake, twisting and turning. Side roads meandered off the main highway, following the contours of the steep hillsides to secluded little cabins, places almost within a stone’s throw of the city, yet still distinctly rural and rustic.

At one time, before the city had entered upon its phenomenal spurt of growth, Lilac Canyon had been the hinterland. It was devoted to week-end cabins, little hideouts, places where city dwellers could spend quiet Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

Then the city had expanded. Lilac Canyon was still too precipitous, too brushy, and too rural to lend itself to real estate subdivision, but the lots were pounced upon by those who wished relatively cheap hillside property within commuting distance of the metropolitan district.

Mason had some trouble as he threaded his way along the winding pavement of the main road, locating the names of the roads which turned off. Eventually, however, he found Acorn Drive and turned off, following the road along the contours until he rounded the shoulder of a mountain from which he could look down on the valley, and see the long lighted lines which marked the location of boulevards; in the distance the bright blotches of the suburban cities.

Mason slowed down, looking for house numbers, but the houses were back from the roadway, crowded up or down on the hillside, screened wherever possible by the scrub oak which was native to the hillside.

Abruptly Mason saw the red light of a car parked ahead. Just beyond was another car, and beyond that still a third. Up from the road to the right, was a small cabin with lights ablaze. A group of men gathered on a porch which stretched from the front around to the side of the house. They were smoking, and the little pin points of red light made by the tips of their cigarettes glowed into alternate spurts of brilliance like stationary fireflies.

The front door of the house was open. Across this illuminated oblong, men moved back and forth, men who kept their hats on. It might have been a Hollywood party, but there was no hilarity, no sounds of merriment emanating from the lighted building.

Mason swung his car so that the headlights fell on the license plate of one of the parked cars. He saw that it held an “E” within a diamond, the sign of a police car.

Abruptly, Mason changed his course and drove on past the group of parked automobiles.

Three hundred yards beyond, the road ended in a paved circle which gave Mason barely enough room to turn around.

Headed back toward town, he ran his car in close to the curb where there was a straight stretch free of parked automobiles. He switched out the lights, turned off the ignition, and climbed the two flights of stairs which led from the street, up the steep declivity to the porch.

One of the men seated on the porch recognized him, came forward, took his arm, pushed him slightly to one side. “How about it, Mr. Mason? Got a story for us?”

“On what?” Mason asked.

“On the murder. How do you come in on it? Are you retained, and, if so, by whom? What’s it all about?”

Mason said, “I think you are one up on me.”

“On what?”

“On the murder.”

“You didn’t know about it?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to get in touch with Lieutenant Tragg,” Mason said. “I tried to reach him at headquarters. They told me I’d find him here. They didn’t say what was wrong. You say a man was killed?”

“Yes. Shot in the back with a thirty-two caliber revolver.”

“Do they know who did it?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

“Harvey J. Lynk is the name.”

“Lynk,” Mason said, “means nothing to me. What did he do?”

“Big time stuff. One of the owners of the Golden Horn, a nightclub. There’s an upstairs above that nightclub.”

“Rooms?” Mason asked.

“Roulette, craps, stud poker.”

“What was this place? A love nest?”

“No one knows — yet.”

“You say he was one of the owners. Who’s the other?”

“Clint Magard.”

“Has he been advised?”

The newspaper man laughed. He said, “The police have advised him, and every newspaper in town has sent a man to ask him for a statement.”

“Why all the commotion?” Mason asked.

“Looks like a swell story. There’s a woman in the case somewhere. A woman’s overnight bag and some stuff are in there. Powder spilled on the dresser, a cigarette end with lipstick on it... Tragg has a couple of leads he’s working on. Have an idea we can make it a nice, juicy scandal-killing before we get done. Sweet young thing fighting to save her honor, finally pointing a gun. Lynk grabbed her. There was a struggle. She has no recollection of pulling the trigger. She heard an explosion. Lynk fell backward. Dazed, she dropped the gun and ran, afraid to tell anyone because... Hell, I should go ahead and outline a perfect defense for you. You’ll probably be the attorney representing her and get ten thousand dollars for thinking up the stuff I’m giving you for nothing.”

Mason chuckled. “Well,” he said, “if Tragg is as busy as all this, I won’t bother him. I’ll catch him some other time.”

“Want me to tell him you’re here?”

“No. Don’t tell him anything about my being here. I have something to take up with him and don’t want to tip my hand. I’d prefer to walk in on him without having him know I’m looking for him.”

“Figure on pulling a little surprise?” the reporter asked.

“Not exactly, but there’s no reason why he should waste a lot of time speculating over why I want to see him and what I want to see him about.”

“Something to that. And you can’t give us a story?”

“No.”

“Anything in what you want to see Tragg about?”

“Nothing you’d care to publish.”

“You don’t know whether you’re going to get in on this case?”

Mason laughed. “I didn’t even know there was a case. I’ve never seen Lynk in my life, and had no idea he’d been killed.”

He turned back toward the stairs. “Well, so-long. I...”

A man’s form loomed in the doorway of the house, cast a shadow along the porch. Lieutenant Tragg said, “Well, dust the whole damn thing for fingerprints and — Where’s that photographer? I want a photograph of...”

He stopped midsentence as he saw Perry Mason halfway down the steps. “Hey, you!” he shouted.

Mason paused and looked back.

“What the devil are you doing out here?”

“Come down to the car,” Mason invited.

“No. I’m too busy. Talk right here...”

Mason jerked his thumb toward the cluster of lighted cigarettes which marked the little group of reporters.

Tragg said, “You may be right at that.”

He followed Mason down the stairs to where the lawyer had the car parked.

“Okay,” Tragg said, “what did you want to see Lynk about?”

Mason smiled ruefully. “To tell you the truth, I thought I’d steal a march on you, but I see you beat me to it.”

“How do you mean steal a march?”

“Well, I wanted to know more about Esther Dilmeyer, who her friends were, wanted to get a line on anyone she’d been going with, wanted to find out whether her folks were living, whether she had much mail.”

“You thought Lynk could tell you?”

“Yes, I had an idea he could.”

“What gave you that idea?”

Mason said evasively, “I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you talk with Magard? He was at the office where the information would be more readily available.”

Mason said, “I was going to talk with them both.”

Tragg regarded him thoughtfully. “Holcomb,” he announced at length, “always claimed you played dirty pool, Mason. I could never see it that way. I figured that you were on one side, Holcomb on the other. It was a fair fight. You moved a little faster than Holcomb could follow. At times, your hands were quicker than the eye — Holcomb’s eye, anyway.”

“Well?” Mason asked.

“Right now, I can appreciate just about how Sergeant Holcomb felt. You aren’t strong on giving out information, are you?”

“I can’t afford to be.”

“Why?”

“I protect my clients.”

“Yeah. I want to talk with you about that client. What do you know about her, and what did she say when she came in?”

“Came in where?” Mason asked.

“Your office. Didn’t you say you had a one o’clock appointment?”

“Oh, that,” Mason said, as though just placing what Tragg was talking about. “That was a minor matter. Well, I don’t suppose she’d object if I told you, Lieutenant, but... Well, as a lawyer, I can’t tell you about her affairs.”

Tragg said, “Your appointment was for one o’clock.”

“That’s right.”

“Let’s say that took twenty or twenty-five minutes...” He looked at his watch thoughtfully. “You hot-footed it out here and didn’t waste a great deal of time doing it. How’d you get this address?”

“How,” Mason asked, “did you know Lynk had been murdered?”

“How,” Tragg countered, “did you?”

“A newspaper man told me.”

“Headquarters told me. I was ordered to get out here.”

“But don’t you know how the murder was discovered?”

“No. Someone rang up headquarters, said to rush a car out here right away.”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman.”

“And they sent the car out?”

“Yes. She pretended to be telephoning from this cabin, said there was a prowler on the outside.”

“Where do you get that pretended stuff?” Mason asked. “That probably was Lynk’s little playmate. There was a prowler.”

“Lynk had been dead quite a while before that call came in,” Tragg said dryly.

“Why are you so sure of that?”

“The doc’s word, not mine. Coagulation of blood, rigor mortis, and a lot of technical stuff. They fix the time of death as right around midnight, and they aren’t going to be a hell of a long way off. It’s a good thing we got here when we did. Tomorrow morning they’d have had to fix the time of death somewhere between ten o’clock and one o’clock. The way it is now, they can split it down almost to a few minutes one way or another. Figure it midnight on the nose, and you won’t miss it far.”

Mason said, “You haven’t anything new on that Dilmeyer case, have you?”

“No. I had to drop that to work on this. I understand she’s going to be all right. You’re sure you didn’t have an idea that perhaps Lynk wasn’t in the best of health?”

“And came out here to discover the corpse?” Mason asked. “No, thanks. I’ve had my share of that.”

Tragg studied the lawyer for a moment, then scratched his hair over his left ear. “You see your client and beat it out here. A guy would almost think Esther Dilmeyer was one of your witnesses, Lynk another, and that it’s open season on the witnesses in that case of yours. Looks like someone doesn’t want you to win that case.”

Mason said, “If you find any angle on this that ties in with the Dilmeyer case, will you let me know?”

“I suppose you’ll let me know what you find.”

Mason said, “Well, there’s no harm in trying. See you later.”

“You will at that,” Tragg assured him grimly.

Mason was careful to start his car in a leisurely manner, nor did he step on the throttle until he was a good half mile from the mountain cabin.

An all-night restaurant on the boulevard had a telephone, and Mason called the Hastings Memorial Hospital to ask for Dr. Willmont.

Mason had a wait of more than a minute before he heard Dr. Willmont’s voice on the line.

“Mason talking, Doctor. What did you find with Esther Dilmeyer?”

“She’ll pull through.”

“The candy was poisoned?”

“Yes. Every piece had been tampered with.”

“What was the poison?”

“Judging from the patient’s symptoms,” Dr. Willmont said, “and from the best guess I can make from tests we’ve carried out, it’s one of the barbituric derivatives, probably veronal. The drug has a mildly acrid taste which is pretty well disguised in the bittersweet chocolates.

“It’s a hypnotic, but there’s a wide range between the medicinal and the lethal dose. The official dose is five to ten grains. That’s usually sufficient to bring on sleep. Death has occurred after a dose of sixty grains, but, on the other hand, there’s been a recovery after a dose of three hundred and sixty grains. There have been numerous recoveries with around two hundred grains. We haven’t been able to analyze the candy definitely, but, judging from taste and other factors, there’s probably five to seven grains in the centers of each of the chocolates. She evidently ate them slowly enough so there was an interval between the first ten or twenty grains and the rest of the ingestion, which gave the drug a chance to work before she’d eaten enough to bring about a fatal result.”

“You’re sure that’s what it is?” Mason asked.

“Pretty sure, both from an examination of the candy and from the condition of the patient. Her face is congested, respiration’s slow and stertorous. There are no reflexes. The pupil is somewhat dilated. There’s a temperature rise of a little over one degree. Personally, I’d say veronal, and I’d figure about five grains to a candy center. That would make above fifty grains she’d taken. That makes a recovery almost certain.”

Mason said, “All right, keep on the job. See that she has the very best of care. Keep a special nurse on duty all the time. Watch her diet. I want to be damn certain that no one slips her any more poison.”

“That’s all taken care of,” Dr. Willmont said dryly.

“When will she be conscious?”

“Not for some time. We’ve cleaned out her stomach, made a lumbar puncture, and drained off some of the fluid. That will expedite things a lot, but she has enough of the drug in her system so she’ll be sleeping for quite some time. I don’t think it’s advisable to try to hurry that any.”

“Let me know when she wakes up,” Mason said, “and be sure to fix things there so nothing else happens.”

“You think something’s going to?” Dr. Willmont asked.

“I don’t know. She was coming to my office to give me some information. She’s a witness. I don’t know what she knows. Someone evidently went to some pains to see that I didn’t find out.”

“Give her another twenty-four hours, and she can tell,” Dr. Willmont said.

Mason said thoughtfully, “It may be that whoever sent her that drugged candy didn’t want to kill her, but simply wanted to keep her from telling me what she knows for twenty-four hours. In other words, it may be too late then to do any good.”

“Well, nothing else is going to happen to her,” Dr. Willmont promised. “No visitors are to be admitted without my permission. I have three nurses working on the job in shifts — and all of them have red hair.”

“Okay, Doctor. I’m leaving it up to you.”

Mason hung up the telephone and made time to Mildreth Faulkner’s house on Whiteley Pines Drive.

Here also he was on a steep slope overlooking the city. The house was on the slope below the road, one story on the street, three stories on the back.

Mason touched the bell gently, and Mildreth Faulkner opened the door almost at once.

“What,” she asked, “did you find out?”

Mason said, “She’s going to pull through all right. Some drug, apparently veronal. You certainly are up in the air here.”

She laughed nervously, leading the way into the living room. “Yes, I bought this house about six months ago, after Carla got sick. I wanted to be near her.”

“And are you?”

“Yes. She lives on Chervis Road. That’s over around the shoulder of the hill.”

“How far?”

“Oh, not more than five minutes’ walk. I’d say about— Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps a quarter of a mile.”

“Just a hop, skip, and a jump in a car?”

“That’s right. Tell me, why was she poisoned? Or was it an overdose of sleeping medicine?”

“No. She was poisoned. That is, the candy was poisoned. The chemist for the Homicide Squad says that every piece has been tampered with. They haven’t made a complete analysis yet.”

Mildreth Faulkner walked over to the grid over a floor heater, and said, “Sit down. I’m cold.”

Mason dropped into a chair, and watched her as she stood over the grille, the upcoming draft of hot air agitating her skirt. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Did you get chilled?”

“I guess so. It’s been a strain. Well, go ahead and tell me about it. What’s the use of stalling? I suppose it’s bad news.” He nodded.

“I was afraid of that. Lynk isn’t the sort who will scare easily.”

“What made you think it was bad news?”

“You’d have told me when you first came here if it had been all good. How about a drink? Want one?”

“A short one,” Mason said.

She opened a little parlor bar, brought out Scotch, ice cubes, and soda.

“Rather neat gadget that,” Mason commented. “Yes, it’s really a little electric refrigerator, makes its own ice, keeps the charged water cold. Well, what did Lynk say? He hasn’t turned the stock over to Peavis already, has he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t he tell you?”

“He wasn’t able to talk,” Mason said.

“Wasn’t able to? You mean he was drunk?”

She was pouring whiskey from the bottle, and her hand trembled enough so that the neck of the bottle chattered against the rim of the glass. Mason waited until she had finished with the whiskey, and had reached for the bottle of charged water.

“Lynk,” he said, “was murdered, about midnight.”

For a moment, it seemed that the words meant nothing to her. She continued to trickle charged water from the siphon into the glass, then suddenly she gave a convulsive start, depressed the lever, and squirted liquid up over the rim of the glass. “You mean— Did I hear you right? Dead!”

“Murdered.”

“At midnight?”

“Yes.”

“Who... who did it?”

“They don’t know. He was shot in the back with a thirty-two caliber revolver.”

She put down the bottle of charged water, brought his drink over to him. “Where does that leave me?”

“Out on a limb perhaps,” Mason said.

“At midnight?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, anyway, I have an alibi.” She laughed nervously.

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“Are you serious?”

“Weren’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, let’s be serious then. Where were you?”

“Why,” she said, “I was... Why, how utterly absurd! Nothing could have suited me less than to have anything happen to him before I — we got that stock.”

She paused in front of the little bar, then took out a bottle of cognac. “Scotch is all right,” she said, “as a sociable beverage, but I’m cold and this has been a shock to me. I’m going to have a good jolt of brandy. Do you want to join me?”

“No,” Mason said, “and I don’t think you’re going to have any brandy.”

She had been about to pour the liquor. Now she whirled to stare at him. “You don’t think I’m going to?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Mason said, “if you take a swig of brandy, and then that Scotch, in about twenty minutes or half an hour, you’re going to be just a little warped in your judgment. You’ll think you can get away with things that you can’t.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“Where,” Mason asked, “is the fur coat that you had on when you came to the office?”

“Why, in the coat closet.”

“There in the hall?”

“Yes.”

Mason put down his drink, got up, and walked across to the door she had indicated. He opened the hall closet, and took down the hanger which held the silver fox coat she had worn to his office.

Suddenly she ran toward him. “No, no! Put that back. You can’t...”

Mason slid his hand down in the right-hand side pocket of the coat and brought out a thirty-two caliber revolver.

“I thought,” he said, “there was something heavy in your pocket when you came to the office.”

As though his discovery had deprived her of the power to move, she stood motionless and silent.

Mason broke open the gun, saw that one shell had been fired. He smelled of the barrel, closed the gun, hung up the fur coat in the closet, carefully closed the door, walked across to his chair, and dropped into it. He placed the gun on a taboret by the side of the chair, picked up his drink, and said to Mildreth Faulkner, “Here’s how.”

She walked back to the place where she had left her Scotch and soda, without once taking her eyes from him. Then she moved over to stand over the floor heater. “Can I... Can I drink this?”

“Sure,” Mason said. “Go ahead. That will do you good. Just don’t overdo it.”

She drained a good half of the glass, kept watching him with wide, frightened eyes.

“It is rather cool for this time of year,” Mason said. “I’ve noticed when the days are warm and dry, there’s usually a wind in from the desert, and that makes the nights cool off rapidly. Your fur coat should have kept you warm.”

She said, “I got frightfully c-c-cold. I’m having a nervous ch-ch-chill right now.”

“The whiskey will warm you up,” Mason said casually. “How long have you had the gun?”

“Two years.”

“Got a permit for it?”

“Yes.”

“Buy it here in the city?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what ballistics experts are able to do with bullets?”

“No. What?”

“Every bullet fired from a gun bears an unmistakable identification which can be imprinted on it only by that one weapon.”

“Are you trying to tell me that as — as my lawyer so you can warn me...”

“I’m not your lawyer.”

“You’re not? Why, I thought...”

He shook his head. “Not on this case.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know enough about it. I don’t go around selling myself. My brains aren’t a commodity like a motor car which anyone can buy who has the price. A person can buy a bulletproof car and use it to help hold up a bank, but he can’t buy my knowledge of law to use in committing a crime.”

“Mr. Mason, you aren’t serious? You don’t think I killed him?”

“I don’t know. Even if you did, it might be justifiable homicide. All that I’m telling you is that I’m not going to represent you until I know the facts.”

“You mean...”

Mason looked at his wrist watch impatiently and said, “I mean the police will be here almost any minute. If I’m going to represent you, I should know it before then. If there are any weak spots in your story, a little rehearsal wouldn’t hurt any. Go ahead.”

“I don’t want you to represent me.”

“You don’t?”

“No. I want you to represent Carlotta, my sister.”

“What’s she got to do with it?”

Mildreth was silent for several seconds, then said, quickly, “Listen, Mr. Mason, if you’re Carlotta’s lawyer, and I tell you the whole story, they can’t ever make you tell, can they?”

Mason said, “Anything you tell me, goes no farther.”

“But is it legal? If I tell you something, and you’re Carla’s attorney...”

“Legality be damned,” Mason said. “Don’t stand there and quibble. If I’m going to do anything, I have to know what the hell it’s all about.”

“Well,” she said, “the story is simple. I ran over to see Carla and Bob tonight. I had a talk with Bob, and told him I wanted to get that stock in the morning, that Peavis had shown up with the five shares. And Bob was so casual about the whole thing, but had so many reasons why he just couldn’t get me that stock, that I became suspicious and — well, I’m not certain. I think perhaps Carla was listening from the head of the stairs.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said. “Make it snappy.”

“Well, you know what must have happened. Bob had pledged that stock. He had to get it back just to show me anyway. He must have rushed out to see Lynk.”

“What makes you think he did?”

“I... this gun.”

“What about it?”

“Well, I got to thinking things over and decided to have another talk with Bob after what I’d learned from Esther Dilmeyer. I thought it would simplify matters a lot if I could walk into your office and tell you just what the situation was, and...”

“Never mind what you thought. What did you do?”

“I went out to see Bob.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He wasn’t there.”

“Where was Carla?”

“She wasn’t there.”

“Perhaps they both went out.”

“No, no. You don’t understand. Carla has been confined to the house for months. She’s been in bed for more than two months. Now she’s getting around the house a bit, and occasionally she goes for a ride.”

“Perhaps Bob took her for a ride.”

“No. Her own car’s gone.”

“You think she drove it?”

“I’m sure she did. No one else ever drives it.”

Mason said, “Bob went some place. You think he went to see Lynk. Now where do you think your sister went?”

“I think she followed him.”

“You think Bob killed Lynk?”

“I think Carla... I don’t know what did happen.”

“All right, where did you get the gun?”

“Well, when I went there the second time and found they were gone, I looked around some. I found this gun on Carla’s dresser.”

“I thought you said it was your gun.”

“It is, but I let Carla have it two months ago. She was left in the house alone quite a bit, and I wanted her to have some protection.”

“Bob was going out?”

“Yes. You couldn’t expect him to give up everything and become just a stay-at-home because Carla was an invalid. No one expected that, and — well, you know how it is. I suppose he... well, he...”

“Played around?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“Was the gun on the dresser when you were there earlier in the evening?”

“No. And — well, a few of Carla’s things were gone. I didn’t notice them right at first, but I got to looking around and some of her medicines and a few of her clothes were gone.”

“What do you think happened?” Mason asked.

Words poured out in hysterical rapidity. “I think that she followed Bob out to Lynk’s place. I think Bob had my gun and killed him. I think Carla knows it. Good Heavens, I wish I knew where she was! I’m worried absolutely sick about her. It was bad enough for her to get out of bed and drive her car, but the shock of finding out about Bob, of knowing about the murder, of... it’s awful.”

“Then you think she came back to the house?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“About when?”

“I don’t know. I left there about quarter to one. That’s why I was a little late getting to your office for the one o’clock appointment. I arrived about twenty minutes to one, and wasted a good five minutes looking around and trying to find what had happened. Then I decided to rush to your office. Then you told me about Esther Dilmeyer being drugged and — and you said you were going out to see Lynk, and I thought — well, I tried to persuade myself it was all right.”

“Then you had an idea Lynk was dead before I went out there?”

“Well, I didn’t know. I knew the gun had been used.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because I looked at it, and found an empty shell in it.”

“Then,” Mason said, “you got your fingerprints all over the gun?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“And slipped it in the pocket of your coat?”

“Yes.”

“Now you say you think Bob killed him?”

“That’s right.”

“And that Carla knew about it?”

“Yes.”

“And that Carla came home and packed up some things and left?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think Bob came back with her?”

“No. I think Bob must have just kept right on going. You know, I don’t think Bob would have nerve enough to face anything like that. I think he’d kill a man and then run away.”

“Then,” Mason said dryly, “if we are to follow your reasoning to its logical conclusion, after Bob killed him, Carlotta got the gun with which the murder was committed.”

She bit her lip and turned away so that he couldn’t see her face.

“Is that right?” Mason asked.

She said, “I g-g-guess so.”

“That isn’t logical,” Mason said. “You know it.”

“Well, what is logical?”

“I don’t know, but I want to find out where I stand. You want me to represent your sister?”

“That’s right.”

“But not you?”

“No. I can take care of myself.”

Mason said, “Don’t be too sure. If that’s the murder weapon, it’s in your possession. It has your fingerprints on it.”

“I tell you I can take care of myself. They can’t pin anything on me. I’m strong and healthy. They can question me, and it won’t hurt me. They can’t prove a thing.”

“Where were you at midnight?”

“I was... I was at my store in the office trying to figure things out so I could see just how much money I could raise in case we had to buy that stock.”

“And you want me to represent your sister?”

“Yes, please. I want you to stand back of her.”

Mason said, “No one needs to know anything about her having gone out. If her husband killed him, that won’t involve her.”

“You don’t understand. If you knew about her condition, if you could see her. This must have been a terrible strain. If they should start questioning her, or the newspaper men should get after her and ask her questions about Bob and about where she was, and about how she got the gun and those things — well, it would undo all the good that her treatment has accomplished. She’d either die, or her heart would be so bad it never would get better.”

Mason said, “Who’s going to pay me for representing her?”

“I am.”

“If I’m representing her, I’ll be representing her alone.”

“Of course.”

“Her interests would come first.”

“That’s what I want.”

“If yours get in the way, you’d be in the position of an adverse party. I’d smash you just as quickly as I would a total stranger.”

“That’s the way I want you to do.”

“Did you ever hear of the paraffin test?” Mason asked abruptly.

“The paraffin test? What are you talking about?”

“For telling whether a person has fired a gun recently?”

“What’s paraffin got to do with that?”

“Whenever a gun’s fired, an invisible spray of powder particles backfire, and imbed themselves in the skin of a person’s hand. They’re microscopic particles, invisible to the naked eye, but they always fly back and are imbedded in the skin.

“The Scientific Crime Detection Bureau has worked out a new technique for telling whether a person has fired a gun. They pour melted paraffin over the suspect’s hands, reinforce it with a thin layer of cotton, and then cover it with wax. After the paraffin has just about set, the whole thing is rolled back from the hand. The little bits of powder which buried themselves in the skin of the hand are caught by the paraffin and adhere to it when the mold is taken from the hand. A chemical reagent is poured on the paraffin. That reacts on the nitrates in the powder so that it brings about a chemical change that makes the specks visible to the naked eye.”

“I see,” she said, her voice holding a slight quaver.

Mason said, “If Carlotta didn’t fire that gun, it would be a lot better for her to go to the police right now and tell them her story, whatever it is. Then, before it’s too late, the police could subject her hands to a paraffin test and prove that she didn’t fire the gun. That would clear her.”

“But... but... suppose she did?”

“In that event,” Mason said, “with one shot fired out of the gun, with the police able to prove that the gun had been in her possession, with a paraffin test showing that she had recently fired the gun, and with the ballistics experts showing that the bullet which killed Harvey Lynk came from that gun, your sister would be headed for the gas chamber at San Quentin.

“And,” Mason went on dryly, “the fact that Harvey J. Lynk was shot in the back isn’t going to help a self-defense plea any.”

Mildreth Faulkner slowly walked across to where the gun reposed on the taboret by Mason’s chair. “I suppose I shouldn’t have got my fingerprints on it.”

“That’s right,” Mason said. “Couldn’t we wipe them off?”

“I couldn’t.”

She grabbed up the gun, crossed over to her purse, took out a handkerchief, and started scrubbing vigorously away at the metal.

Mason sat calmly at ease, sipping his Scotch and soda, watching her frantic motions.

“Careful with that gun,” he warned. “You have your finger inside the trigger guard.”

A siren sounded close at hand, rising to a scream, then fading to a low, moaning sound as a car pulled up at the curb outside.

Mason said, “Unless I’m greatly mistaken, that will be Lieutenant Arthur Tragg of the Homicide Squad, and when he finds that gun absolutely devoid of fingerprints, he’ll...”

“Look out...”

Mason jumped up from the chair, lunged toward her, grabbed for her wrist — and was too late.

The revolver roared into noise. The bullet, sailing through a plate-glass window, sent tinkling fragments of glass dropping to the cement porch.

In the interval of startled silence which followed, the doorbell rang insistently. Knuckles pounded on the panels. Lieutenant Tragg called, “This is the police. Open up, or I’ll smash the door in.”

“That,” Mason said calmly, “is the pay-off.” He walked back to his chair, settled down in the cushions, picked up the drink, and lit a fresh cigarette. “It’s your party now.”

Mildreth Faulkner stood staring at the gun. “Good Heavens! I had no idea it was going off. My handkerchief caught on the hammer and pulled it back. My finger was on the trigger, and...”

“Better let Lieutenant Tragg in,” Mason interrupted. “I think he’s getting ready to smash in a window.”

She stooped and slid the gun along the floor under a davenport at the corner of the room.

Mason tolerantly shook his head at her. “Naughty, naughty! Lieutenant Tragg won’t like that.”

She went rapidly through the door to the reception hallway, started to run the last few steps, and opened the door. “What is it?” she asked.

“Who did the shooting just now?” Lieutenant Tragg asked, pushing his way into the hallway. “And is that Perry Mason’s car out there? Is he here?”

“Yes, he’s here.”

“Who did the shooting?”

“Why... er... was there shooting?”

“Didn’t you hear the shot?”

“Why, no. I can’t say that I did. I heard something that sounded like a backfire.”

Lieutenant Tragg made a sound which was midway between a sniff and a snort, and walked on into the living room. “Well, Mason,” he said, “you certainly get around.”

“Travel,” Mason told him, “is broadening. As you doubtless know, this is Miss Faulkner. Lieutenant Tragg, Miss Faulkner. You’ll find that Miss Faulkner has excellent taste in Scotch whiskey, and, for your further information, I’m not representing her.”

Tragg stood staring down at Mason. “You’re not representing her?”

“No.”

“Then what the devil are you doing here?”

Mason said, “Paying a social call and sipping a very delightful whiskey and soda.”

“You fired that shot?”

“No.”

The lieutenant’s eyes moved rapidly around the room. He saw the hole in the plate-glass window, and walked across to examine it.

“For Heaven sakes,” Mildreth exclaimed. “It’s a bullet hole in the glass! Then it was a shot. Someone must have shot at me, Mr. Mason.”

“Through the window?” Tragg asked.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t hear it?”

“No. I heard your car coming up. That is, I guess it was your car, and I thought there was a backfire. I had no idea it was a shot.”

“I see,” Tragg observed calmly. “Then someone must have shot at you from outside.”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s see. Here’s a hole in the drapes, and here’s a hole in the glass. That gives us the line taken by the bullet. Now, sighting along that line, you can see that — Here. Pull that drape to one side. Now you can see my car parked at the curb. The line runs just in front of the car.”

“That’s right, it does.”

“Then someone must have stood directly in front of my car and fired the shot. He must have been standing on stilts some fifteen feet high.”

“You didn’t shoot, did you?” she asked.

Tragg ignored the question. “Furthermore,” he said, “by the time you’ve had as much experience with bullets as I have, you’ll be able to tell the direction in which they’re going when they go through glass. And there’s the odor of smokeless powder in the room. I’m afraid, Miss Faulkner, that I’ll have to look around.”

“You can’t. I forbid you to do it.”

“Well, I’m going to just the same.”

“He can’t do it without a warrant, can he, Mr. Mason?”

Tragg said, “Mason isn’t representing you.”

“I know, but he can tell me that.”

Mason sipped his Scotch and soda, puffed placidly at his cigarette, and said nothing. Lieutenant Tragg said, “You know, Miss Faulkner, we’re going to quit playing horse right now, and get down to brass tacks. If you’ll tell me who fired that shot and what was done with the gun, I won’t take you down to police headquarters, have you searched, and have detectives come out and go through the house...

“Wait a minute. You must have been standing about here. You heard me coming in the car. You must have fired that shot just as I was bringing my car to a stop. Now, figuring the angle of that shot... I was ringing the doorbell. Well, the natural place for you to have concealed the gun would have been under the cushions of this davenport.”

He calmly walked over to the davenport and started raising the cushions.

“You can’t do that,” she said, grabbing his arm.

Tragg pushed her to one side. “Don’t act up, sister,” he warned, “or I’ll have the place crawling with cops inside of twenty minutes.”

“But you can’t. You... Oh...”

Tragg dropped to his knees, placed his head down close to the floor, peered under the davenport, and said, “Oh-oh!”

Mason heard the grind of a car motor coming up the steep incline of a cross street. He carefully pinched out his cigarette, dropped it in the ash tray, stretched, yawned, and said, “Well, if the lieutenant will pardon me...”

“The lieutenant won’t pardon you,” Tragg said, sliding his left arm under the davenport.

“Meaning you’re going to try to hold me?” Mason asked.

“Meaning I’m going to find out what you have to say about this before you go anywhere,” Tragg said.

The car was coming closer now.

Mason said, “Sergeant Holcomb never liked to have me present when he was trying to get a statement from a suspect. He always thought that I was a disturbing influence. Funny thing about me that way. When I’m in the room, I simply can’t keep from advising a person about constitutional rights, warning about traps, and so forth.”

Tragg said, “You win. Get the hell out of here.”

Mason smiled reassuringly at Mildreth Faulkner. “Be seeing you. Don’t bother to let me out. I know the way.”

As Mason turned from the living room into the corridor, Lieutenant Tragg said, “All right, Miss Faulkner. Tell me about the gun. Why did you fire it?”

“It was an accident.”

Mason opened the front door.

“Were you perhaps taking a shot at Mason, or was he trying to take the gun away from you, or...”

Mason gently closed the door behind him, and stepped out to the porch.

A coupe had stopped just behind Tragg’s sedan. A woman was getting out of it. Mason held up his hand, motioning for her to stop, and walked rapidly toward the car.

The woman said, in a rather flat voice, “What’s the matter? What’s...”

“You Mrs. Lawley?” Mason asked in an undertone.

“Yes. I’m Mildreth Faulkner’s sister. What’s...”

Mason said, “Get in your car, turn around, and drive back down the road until I catch up with you. Make it snappy. Be quiet about it. The police are in there, and...”

She caught her breath. “You’re Perry Mason, the lawyer?”

“Yes. Your sister wants me to represent you.”

“To represent me? For Heaven sakes, what for?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said, “but unless you want to be dragged down to police headquarters while they try to find out, you’d better turn that car around and get started.”

He walked over to his own car, switched on the engine, made an excessive amount of noise, backing, turning, clashing gears, and racing his motor. When Carlotta Lawley had her car safely turned around and was headed back down the grade, Mason snapped his car into gear, ran rapidly along behind her, and, some two hundred yards from the house, drove up alongside, and signaled her to stop.

“Were you,” he asked, “going home?”

“Why, I... you see, I...”

Mason said, “Don’t go home. Go to the Clearmount Hotel, register as Mrs. Charles X. Dunkurk of San Diego. Be sure you spell it D-u-n-k-u-r-k. Go to your room, get into bed and stay there. Don’t go out, don’t read the papers, don’t listen to the radio. Simply stay there until I come to see you, and that won’t be until sometime tomorrow — or rather later on today.”

“You mean I’ll have to wait there...”

“Yes,” Mason said. “I don’t want to attract attention by coming in to call on you at three or four o’clock in the morning. I have some work to do between now and the time I see you.”

“And you don’t want to talk with me now — to ask me any questions, to...”

“I do not,” Mason interrupted. “I have more important things to do right now, and I want to get you under cover.”

“I... my husband...”

“Forget him,” Mason said, “and get started for the Clearmount Hotel. You know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“Well, get going. Lieutenant Tragg isn’t a fool. He’s all excited now about finding a gun in Mildreth’s possession, but it won’t be long before he realizes that I made an awful lot of noise backing my car and turning around.”

Without another word, Carlotta Lawley slipped her car into gear and shot ahead.