The Case of the Cautious Coquette

Chapter 21

Jerry Lando, tall, athletic, good-natured, but with a devil-may-care glint in his dark eyes, put his suitcase in the corner and said, “Okay, Mr. Drake, I have my car downstairs. It’s full of gas and I’m ready for anything.”

“You know Mr. Mason?” Drake asked. “Perry Mason, the lawyer?”

“How are you, Mr. Mason,” Lando said, shaking hands. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” and then grinning, he added, “and read a lot about you.”

“You’re going to read more,” Mason told him. “We’re paving the way for a story in tomorrow morning’s papers.”

“What do we do?” Lando asked.

Mason said, “We go to an automobile court. We pick one where the arrangement of the cabins is just the way I want it. Then you put on this tan topcoat. Let’s see how it fits.”

Mason held the topcoat. Lando put his arms in the sleeves, pulled it up over his shoulders.

“Just like my own coat,” Lando said.

Mason said, “Paul, get your photographers. Have them bring press cameras, flash guns and lots of bulbs. How soon can you have them here?”

“Oh, give me an hour.”

“I’ll give you thirty minutes,” Mason told him. “I’ll phone in instructions. Come on, Lando, let’s go.”

Lando picked up his suitcase.

Mason slipped the strap of the big camera case over his shoulder.

“Have a heart, Perry,” Drake pleaded. “I can’t get these men on the job...”

“Thirty minutes is the deadline,” Mason said. “Come on, Lando.”

They started through the door.

Drake said hastily, “Remember you’re working out of this office, Jerry. Don’t let this guy get you in any trouble.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Lando said, “when I’m with Mr. Mason, I’m acting under my attorney’s advice.”

At the elevator, the night janitor looked at Mason in open-mouthed surprise. “Why I thought you... Why you were supposed to have sneaked out...”

“Nonsense,” Mason said. “I was working late.”

“But you... you weren’t in your office.”

“Of course not,” Mason said. “I was in conference with Paul Drake.”

“Well, I’ll be darned,” the janitor said. “You should have seen all the trouble they made about that packing case I shipped out. Why, I’m just going to tell those boys...”

“Don’t tell them anything for a while,” Mason said. “Let them find out their own mistakes. After all, you’re not responsible for what they put in the papers.”

And Mason opened his wallet, selected a crisp ten-dollar bill, folded it, and slipped it into the hand of the grinning janitor.

“Your car’s outside?” he asked Lando.

“Right in front of the place,” Lando said.

“Okay,” Mason told him. “We make a sprint for it in case anyone should be watching, but I don’t think they will be.”

“The place was clear as a bell when I came in,” Lando said. “Everyone had cleared out.”

“That’s fine.”

They crossed the lobby without incident, entered Lando’s automobile.

“Where do we go?”

“Drive up the main highway north,” Mason said. “Keep an eye out for auto courts. I want to get one that’s arranged just the way I want it.”

After a few miles, Mason said, “Here’s a place that looks about right and I see it has a sign saying ‘vacancy’ so I guess we’re okay.”

“What accommodations do we want?”

“We want a two-room bungalow if we can get one,” Mason said. “Otherwise we’ll take a one-room. But it has to be at the extreme rear of the lot. Simply register as Lando and party. Give them the license number of the automobile. That’s all they’ll want. Do you get me?”

“I get you,” Lando said.

Lando brought the car to a stop in front of the bungalow marked “Office,” left the motor running and went in.

Within a couple of minutes he reappeared, accompanied by a stout woman carrying a key.

Lando beckoned, and Mason, sliding over into the driver’s seat, put the car into low gear and drove slowly along until the landlady fitted a key to the door of one of the cabins in the rear.

The woman went in, followed by Lando, lights were switched on, and after a moment, Lando appeared in the doorway and nodded.

After the landlady started back to the office, Mason got out and inspected the cabin.

“Okay?” Lando asked.

“Okay,” Mason said. “Now let’s go telephone Paul Drake.”

“There’s a phone in the office.”

“We don’t want that,” Mason said. “There’s a service station down the street that has a phone. We’ll use that.”

“Okay,” Lando said. “You want me to drive?”

“That’s right. Get started and I’ll tell you what you’re to do while we’re traveling.”

Lando left the lights on, locked the door, climbed in behind the steering wheel.

Mason said, “Now, when you get Paul Drake give him the address and tell him to rush his men with the cameras out here.”

“Okay.”

“Then,” Mason said, “wait ten minutes. Then call up police headquarters. You’ll ask for Sergeant Holcomb at Homicide. You’ll tell Holcomb that you’re a representative of the Blade. Tell him that you’ll give him a tip that will enable him to scoop the whole force if he’ll absolutely protect you and see that the other papers don’t get it.”

“Suppose he says he won’t?”

“Okay, what do I tell him?”

“Tell him that your reporters have located Perry Mason out here in this auto court. Give him the number of the cabin, give him the address of the auto court, and tell him that Mason is not registered personally, but that he’s with a representative of the Drake Detective Agency by the name of Lando, driving an automobile of a certain make and license number, and give him all the data. Tell him to rush Goshen out here to make an identification. Tell him your paper wants a scoop on the identification, inasmuch as you’re giving him the exclusive tip.”

“Okay,” Lando said. “What else?”

“Then,” Mason said, “we ring up the city editor at the Blade. Tell him you’re giving him an exclusive tip. That if it pans out you’ll call on him later for a five-spot. Tell him that Homicide is sending Goshen out here to make a surprise identification.”

Lando studied Mason’s guileless countenance with shrewd eyes. “This guy Holcomb knows you, doesn’t he?”

“Sure he knows me,” Mason said.

“Isn’t that going to wreck things?”

Mason said, “Holcomb is a fiend for publicity. He’s always trying to make it appear he’s done something Tragg has been unable to do.”

Lando said, “I still don’t get it.”

Mason said, “Holcomb believes in results and doesn’t care how he gets them. He’ll force Goshen to make an identification. Tragg wouldn’t go that far.”

“What I’m getting at is what Holcomb will say when he sees you.”

Mason said, “When Holcomb drives in here he’s not going to see anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever tried looking at something in the dark, just after half a dozen flash bulbs backed by silvered reflectors have popped into your eyes?”

Lando said, “I’ll be damned,” and his voice held admiration. He went into the service station, and started putting through calls.