The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito

Chapter 6

The back door of the big house was opened by Nell Sims almost as soon as Mason knocked.

“You alone?” she asked suspiciously.

“Miss Street, my secretary, is the only one with me.”

“That’s fine. Come in. The boss is anxious to see you. He told me to let him know just as soon as you came.”

“Where is he, in the cactus garden?”

“Yes.”

“And still batching?” Mason asked jovially.

“He eats one square meal every other day here,” Nell Sims snapped. “That keeps him from starving to death. The rest of the time, he eats that awful slum that he and Salty cook up. — I guess this has been a hard day for you, hasn’t it?”

Della Street and Mason followed her into the kitchen. Mason said cheerfully, “Oh, well, there’s no rest for the wicked.”

“That’s right,” Nell Sims said, regarding him in serious contemplation, “but blessed be the pure in heart, for they shall multiply as the grains of sand.”

Della Street glanced mischievously at Mason. Mason regarded Nell Sims with a coldly suspicious eye, but she met his gaze with bland innocence. “Do you,” she asked, “want something to eat?”

“Got anything without arsenic in it?” Mason asked.

“It’s a little bit early to tell, yet. Land sakes, I certainly had trouble enough getting them to eat a thing this noon. And it was even worse than that for dinner.”

“What do you know about the poisoning?” Mason asked.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“But surely you know in general what happened.”

“Where ignorance is bliss, a little learning is a dangerous thing,” Nell Sims proclaimed. “I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t intend to know anything about it. The police have been traipsing all over the house. As far as I’m concerned, let ’em...”

The back door opened and Banning Clarke grinned with relief when he saw Mason. “Been sort of keeping an ear to the ground,” he said. “Thought I heard you come in. Good evening, Miss Street.”

Della smiled a greeting. Mason shook hands.

“How about some dinner?” Banning Clarke asked.

“Maybe he’s afraid of arsenic,” Nell Sims suggested. “Everybody else seems to be. People barely touched their dinners.”

Mason laughed. “We’ll take a chance. We’ve only had a few sandwiches. Bring out your arsenic.”

Nell Sims said, “There’s lots of fried rabbit left. It’s a case of one man’s poison being another’s meat.”

Banning Clarke drew up a chair and sat down, jerking his thumb toward the front of the house. “They’re having a regular stockholders’ meeting in there. I want your advice. Should I burst in and take part in it, or should I not take part in it?”

“What do you have to gain by attending?” Mason asked.

“Nothing. Under that pooling agreement Salty can vote my stock.”

“What have you to lose if you don’t attend?”

“That,” Clarke confessed, “is something that’s been worrying me.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

Mrs. Sims opened the oven, took out a big pan of fried rabbit, placed tea in a teapot, poured on boiling water. “My boarders would hardly touch a thing tonight,” she snorted indignantly.

Clarke said, “I’ll have a cup of tea, Nell, and that’s all. You folks go ahead and eat, and I’ll talk while you’re eating.”

Della Street said, “I’m so hungry I could eat the enamel right off the plate. I hope you don’t mind an unladylike exhibition of hunger.”

“Why are you worried about not attending the meeting?” Mason pressed for an answer. “And what about the shooting?”

“The shooting is a mystery. Some prowler was in the yard. He shot twice at Miss Starler when she directed the beam of a flashlight toward him — the bullets struck the upper window, only about three inches apart, perhaps two feet above her head. The shots wakened me and I grabbed my old forty-five and ran out into the moonlight. He was down by the gate then. He took a shot at me, and I fired at the flash of his gun. Didn’t hit him, but must have come close. This morning I found where my bullet had struck the wall, right by the lower gate — a gate that’s always kept locked, by the way.”

“And the poisoning?” Mason asked.

“Someone put arsenic in the saltcellar Mrs. Bradisson and her son use. A prompt diagnosis enabled the doctor to pull them through. We have Velma Starler to thank for that.”

“All right,” Mason said with a smile. “Now we’ll come back to the original question. Why are you afraid not to attend that meeting?”

“Because... well, I... Mason, I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told any other living soul, although I think Salty Bowers suspects it.”

“Want me to leave?” Nell Sims asked.

“No. Stick around, Nell, I know I can trust you.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said, passing the rabbit to Della Street and then filling his own plate.

“Know anything about any of the famous lost mines of California?” Clarke asked.

“Only a little.”

“Ever hear of the Goler Placer Diggings?”

Mason, his mouth full of rabbit, shook his head.

“Lost mines,” Nell Sims interpolated. “Lots of ’em in the desert.”

Clarke put sugar in his tea, stirred the beverage, took a little blue paper-covered book from his coat pocket.

“What’s that?” Mason asked.

“The Miners’ Guide, compiled by Horace J. West. West collected a lot of information about the famous lost mines of California. This book was published in 1929. You’ll find there are several versions of the famous lost mines — some of them sound plausible, some of them won’t hold water. West went out and examined records, talked with old-time miners, compiled his history some twenty years ago, and made it as accurate as was possible.”

“All right,” Mason said. “What about the Goler Lost Mine?”

“Around 1886,” Clarke said, “if we take West’s account, three men who had been prospecting in the Panamint Range that borders Death Valley emerged from a pass in the Panamints and headed toward San Bernardino. These men were well mounted on good horses, had ample packs and ten-gallon water canteens. And they rode out into the desert filled with confidence.

“About the second day, there was a dispute as to the best way to go, and the dispute warmed up into a pretty good quarrel. Frank Goler, one of the party, thought they were heading too far to the south and west. He claimed they should keep on a more easterly course. After the quarrel, he pulled away from the others and headed pretty much east. No one knows what happened to the other two. They may have been lost in the desert. They may have come through to some destination. They may even have reached San Bernardino. So far as history is concerned, they just disappeared.”

Nell Sims said briefly, “Two men get along. Three fight.”

Della Street, her eyes shining with interest, paused in her eating, watching Banning Clarke. Perry Mason kept on eating rabbit.

“Want your tea now?” Nell Sims asked.

“Please,” Mason said.

As she poured tea into their cups, Banning Clarke went on, “By noon two days later, Goler, pretty well spent and badly frightened, reached some low hills that sprawled out exactly in his path. He crossed them, and on the far side discovered a canyon that actually had vegetation and a little stream of water — and he reached it just in time. He was almost delirious. He flung himself down on the bank of the stream and started drinking, soaking up the water in the shade cast by a big cottonwood that was directly behind him. While he was drinking, a little wind stirred the branches of the cottonwood and let a shaft of sunlight through that struck directly on something yellow in the stream just a few inches beyond Goler’s face.

“Goler finished drinking, plunged his arm into the stream and picked up the yellow object. It was a big gold nugget, weighing several ounces. There were quite a few more lying near it on a bedrock formation in the stream. Goler picked these nuggets up and shoved them inside his shirt.”

“I’d have got a sackful,” Nell Sims said.

“Struck it rich, eh?” Mason asked.

“Struck it rich all right,” Clarke said. “But until you’ve been out in the desert you haven’t any idea what you’re up against when you’re at the mercy of the bleak, barren waste. Goler had gold, but he couldn’t eat gold and he couldn’t drink gold. He was a long way from civilization. His horse was tired and hungry. He himself was weak from lack of food; and suddenly the realization dawned on him that his gold wasn’t worth anything whatever except in civilization. Out in the desert it was merely that much extra weight for Goler’s tired horse to pack. The several gold nuggets Goler had picked up would actually lessen his chances of getting through to civilization.

“With that realization, Goler had a touch of panic. He decided to compensate for the extra weight of gold by lessening his weight as much as possible. He unbelted his six-shooter, tossed it into the brush, and spurred his horse to action. As so frequently happens with people when they’re fatigued, he didn’t pay too much attention to his exact location. What’s more, he’d been lost — he was still lost — and that does strange things to a man’s mind.

“He rode on down this canyon, then came out to more level country and saw what apparently had been the place where a big lake had evaporated and left a smooth, dry plain. Then was when he began to take his bearings. He saw that Mt. San Antonio was just about due west — we call it Old Baldy now — and that was his first landmark. There was a little mining town at the foot of an arrowhead mountain in the general direction of that peak. Goler headed for that town.

“He reached Arrowhead, and fell sick. The nuggets rubbing inside his shirt had chafed his skin raw, the wounds had become infected. His resistance to infection was low, and he lay in bed for three weeks before he could even think of getting started back to locate his claim. Three weeks can be a long time when your mind keeps constantly dwelling on one subject. After a while, your memory begins to play tricks on you.”

“Certainly does,” Nell Sims said, throwing the comment over her shoulder as she took more rabbit from the oven.

Clarke went on. “Well, naturally, he didn’t go alone. A lot of prospectors trailed along behind, hoping to locate claims of their own in a new bonanza. The party straggled around the desert for quite some spell. Then the prospectors got disgusted and began to drift back. It was all too plain to them that Goler, somewhere, somehow, had lost his bearings, and was wandering blind.

“Goler himself came back after about a month, rested up, got more provisions and started out again. He never did get back to that canyon — couldn’t even locate the range of those hills.

“Now then, that’s pretty well authenticated history. Most of it is right here in West’s book. Some of it I’ve gleaned from other sources — about the gun, for instance. I learned that from finding a letter Goler wrote. It’s in a rare collection in a library in Pasadena.”

“It hardly seems possible a man could lose himself so completely,” Della Street said.

“It’s perfectly possible,” Clarke said. “You can get lost in the desert very easily. Just think of the people who go out on hunting trips, leaving camp in the morning determined to remember exactly where it is so that they can get back at night. And when it comes to finding the camp, after a few hours’ walk, they can’t come close enough to locate any familiar landmarks.”

Mason nodded. “That,” he asked, “is the end of the Goler Mines?”

An enigmatic smile twisted Banning Clarke’s lips. “Well,” he said, “let’s go back to Horace West’s account. This, mind you, was 1886. Now, a few years later, in 1891, there was a two-fisted old prospector by the name of Hen Moss who hung out around San Bernardino and made little periodic prospecting trips out into the desert.

“Moss was making one of his regular trips, when a new burro that he had bought and was taking on its first trip decided to wander away from the rest of the outfit. You can figure how exasperated Moss was. The burro had a pack containing a lot of stuff that Moss simply had to have for his prospecting trip, and that burro just calmly took off across the desert. Moss couldn’t head him off and he couldn’t catch him. All he could do was trail along behind with the rest of the outfit, cussing and sputtering. That suited the burro fine. He had suddenly become the leader of the whole outfit. Well, Hen Moss tailed along behind that burro, cussing him, occasionally chasing him, then trying to wheedle him back. But a burro is a peculiar sort of customer. He gets an idea in his head and that idea is there for keeps. This burro was heading toward a barren stretch of country that Hen Moss had never been in before. No prospector had ever looked around very much in it because it was a wicked-looking, waterless country far removed from any base of supplies. In those days, such places in the desert were sure death.

“However, Hen Moss simply couldn’t afford to lose the stuff that was on that burro, and he hated to lose the burro. He kept on, thinking all the time that if he couldn’t catch him within the next mile, he’d turn back and let the burro go. Then, just as he was about to give up, he found that the burro was headed toward water. — Take a burro out in the desert that way and when he begins to — head toward water you can tell it every time. However, the other animals smelled the water too, and they all began to move right along. So Moss just trailed along behind, and his burro led him right down into a canyon filled with water and rich with gold.

“As soon as Hen Moss found that gold he went completely crazy. He filled up his pockets and went delirious with joy. He ran around in circles, whooping and shouting, and then started back to San Bernardino to have the time of his life. He was about halfway back before he suddenly realized he’d been so wildly excited he hadn’t even staked out a claim. For a while he hesitated about going back, but the thought of the big celebration he was going to have in San Bernardino was the determining factor. He decided to move right on into town and have one good spree, then go back to the canyon, locate his claims and do some serious mining.”

“Men always make good resolutions when they’re going to get drunk — and right afterwards,” Nell Sims said.

Clarke smiled. “What he hadn’t counted on was the reaction in San Bernardino. The town went crazy as soon as it saw Moss’s gold nuggets. They knew old Hen Moss had struck it rich. And they knew that pretty soon he was going to have to go back and get more gold. So they poured liquor into him, and watched him and kept watching him.

“Finally old Hen got down to the bottom of his gold and couldn’t buy any more booze. He began to sober up, and then realized what he was up against. He started back to his diggings, and the minute he pulled out of town, just about half of San Bernardino pulled out along with him, all of them on good horses, and packs all provisioned for a long stay in the desert.

“Hen wandered around the desert trying to throw them off his trail. He tried to pretend he’d lost the mine, tried to steal marches at night, and do about everything he could to shake them; but there was no chance. They followed along right behind—”

Banning Clarke broke off to say, “This isn’t boring you, is it?”

“Exciting,” Mrs. Sims remarked.

“It’s remarkably interesting. I take it this is all vouched for,” Mason said.

Banning Clarke tapped the little blue book. “I’m giving you history,” he said; “and so there won’t be any chance of getting it wrong, I’m checking up as I go along, although I know the story by heart. But this was back fifty years ago when the desert was full of gold, and before there was any fast transportation.”

“I understand,” Mason said. “Go on. What happened to Hen Moss? Did he manage to shake his pursuers?”

“No. He finally doubled on back to San Bernardino pretty much sore and disgusted. He was stony broke, yet he knew where he could go and in a few hours pick up enough gold to make him the king of the saloons and the dancehalls. But he couldn’t move two feet out of town without all of San Bernardino moving right along with him. He tried to find some way of getting out of town without anyone knowing it. He was licked before he started. It would have been suicide to go out in the desert without packs, and San Bernardino was keeping too close a watch on him to enable him to cache some pack burros somewhere to be picked up later.”

“And this mine he’d discovered was the lost Goler claim?” Mason asked.

“I’m coming to that in a minute,” Clarke said, and then after a moment added, “It’s been generally conceded that what he discovered was the Goler claim.”

Mason became thoughtful. “I’m interested in poor old Hen Moss and his predicament. It hardly seems possible that all this could have happened in San Bernardino. Why, we go whizzing out there in an automobile, perhaps stop long enough to buy gas, and then are on our way. It seems to be just an ordinary bustling little community, modern and up to date — just a regular city.”

“There was lots that happened in San Bernardino,” Clarke said, “but the automobile blots out history. It used to be a real mining town.”

Nell Sims, standing over by the electric stove, said, “It’s a good thing those times have passed. Think of the poor people who had to run restaurants out in that country, with no ice, no electric refrigerators, no transportation.”

“They got along somehow,” Clarke said.

Mrs. Sims wagged her head dolefully. “I don’t see how. Food preservation is the first law of nature.”

“Self-preservation,” Clarke corrected.

“Well, don’t that mean food? You can’t live without food.”

Clarke winked at Mason. “The more you try to argue with her, the deeper you get.”

“That’s because I’m right,” Mrs. Sims announced with the calm finality of one who is sure of her position and doesn’t have to bother about the impression she makes on others.

“But we’re leaving Hen Moss right out in the middle of the desert,” Della Street prompted.

“Right in the middle of San Bernardino,” Clarke reminded her, “and a mighty disgusted, disillusioned Hen Moss he was. But the old chap was something of a philosopher. So one day he whimsically observed to just about everyone in town, ‘Well, I can’t seem to get away without taking you with me, so all get packed up. We’re going to start, and this time we’re going right to the diggings. The more the merrier. If I can’t get rid of you, I’ll save a lot of time and energy just taking everyone along and not making any detours.’”

“Wore him down,” Nell Sims observed.

“And he actually meant it?” Della asked.

“Sure he meant it. Old Hen was a man of his word. He got his outfit together and waited on the outskirts of San Bernardino to make certain that everyone was along who wanted to come. Then he started out for his mine... They had characters in those days.”

“Then what happened? Were there enough claims to go around?”

Clarke smiled. “That,” he said, “is the pathetic part of it. Old Hen Moss was a good scout, generous to a fault. He’d live out in the desert for weeks at a time on the scantiest provisions imaginable, having a poorly balanced diet, absolutely alone, without anyone to talk to. And then he’d come into town and squander every cent he’d been able to scrape up. And that’s what he’d done just before he returned to his mine. As a result, the horse he was riding wasn’t the best, and Hen Moss probably wasn’t the best rider in the outfit.

“About the time the procession, after several days in the desert, got within a reasonable distance of this watered canyon, the smart ones suddenly realized that this was the end of the road. So they spurred their horses into a gallop and started ahead. Hen Moss clapped spurs into his own horse. That started the stampede. And it must have been some sight — pack horses left behind, a big cloud of desert dust rising up to the heavens, the sun beating down out of a cloudless sky, and these horsemen frantically spurring into a wild gallop over rough desert country, tearing headlong down a steep rocky slope and into a canyon! And poor old Hen Moss was just about at the tail end of the procession.

“The stampede reached the canyon. They found no claims had been staked, and men scurried madly about staking out claims. Those were the days when men had the power of quick decision, and there wasn’t any fumbling around. A man picked what he considered the best available claim, took possession, and held possession. By the time Hen Moss finally got his jaded horse down into the canyon, just about the whole creek had been staked out. Hen Moss heaved himself off his staggering horse and looked around, to see his bonanza in the possession of intruders. Eighty claims had been located ahead of him. The one that Hen Moss finally located was just about the poorest of the whole outfit.”

“The law of retribution,” Nell Sims said.

“And that was the Goler Placer?” Mason asked, realizing by this time that no one ever paid the slightest attention to Nell Sims’ chirping interpolations.

“That was considered to be the Goler Placer. Mining men looked the territory over, remembered the story Goler had told, and decided it was the Goler claim.”

“And it was?” Mason asked.

“It was not.”

Della Street ceased eating to watch Clarke.

“Goler,” Clarke went on, “wasn’t quite as simple as he seemed to be. The story that he told of the location of his bonanza didn’t quite fit the actual facts. The description of the location was doctored just enough so it would fool anyone who wanted to go trailing along behind him, and keep him from being outdistanced at the last by younger men on fresher horses, the way Hen Moss was. Goler was smarter than Moss. He deliberately fabricated the description of the country in which his mine was located.”

“How,” Mason asked, “do you know?”

“Fair question,” Mrs. Sims chirped.

Banning Clarke looked furtively around the kitchen.

“It’s all right,” Nell Sims reassured him. “They’re all in that meeting. Hayward Small nearly always comes in for a cup of tea this time of night, but he won’t be in as long as that meeting’s going.”

Clarke opened his coat, hitched a holster into sight which had once been black but was now faded to a dark brown and polished with much wear. “I want to keep this pretty much out of sight.”

His hand dropped to the holster, snaked out the weapon and placed it on the table.

Mason, Della Street and Mrs. Sims bent over it.

It was a worn, badly rusted single-action Colt revolver. Whatever the finish had originally been, it was now buried under the deep incrustations of rust which had formed a deep, shell over barrel, cylinder, and trigger. The yellowed ivory handle alone had completely resisted the elements. And etched in that ivory handle was the word Goler, and, below that, a date, 1882.

Mason gave a low whistle.

“I found that,” Clarke said, “purely by accident near a little trickling spring beneath some cottonwoods in the desert. The man who was with me had gone off to do some climbing. It was before my heart got as bad as it became later, but even then I was troubled with shortness of breath and was trying to take things easy. I stretched out in the shade of the cottonwood. About three inches of the barrel of this gun was protruding from the ground by the side of the spring. I saw that it was. part of a gun barrel and dug it out, looked at it curiously for a minute, then saw the name Goler and the date — and then knew what I’d found.”

“What did you do?” Della Street asked, her eyes big and shining with excitement.

“I didn’t have any tools or equipment with me,” Clarke said, “but I grubbed around in the bottom of the stream a bit with just my bare hand. There was a little pocket right next to the bedrock, and I scooped out gravel that was thick with gold.”

“But how does it happen no one has ever heard about this?” Mason asked.

“That,” Clarke said, “is the rub. The ground on which that spring was located was part of a quartz claim on which some poor befuddled prospector was starving to death, trying to find rock that would be worth mining. The idea of placer gold on the place had apparently never occurred to anyone. Hang it, the Come-Back Mining Syndicate has an interest in that claim right now, thinking that it holds only a quartz mine of problematical value. Only one of hundreds of similar mining propositions that it’s bought up. And I’m not going to pour any more money into the laps of Mrs. Bradisson and her infallible son, James.”

“Anyone any idea you know about the location of this mine?” Mason asked.

“I think Bradisson does.”

Mason raised his eyebrows.

“Out there in Salty’s camp I have no place to keep anything of this nature, so I left the gun in a drawer in my desk — left it with the side of the handle that had Goler’s name etched on it turned down. Well, a week or so ago, I found that side turned up. I don’t often get up to my room now — it’s a job for me to climb the stairs. I have to take it mighty easy when I go up, resting for a minute or two every second or third step. You see, I have—”

The swinging door creaked on its hinges. Banning Clarke’s hand shot out to the old rust-covered six-shooter, jerked it back out of sight and into the holster.

The door opened. A girl of somewhere around twenty, a lithe girl in a sweater who knew she looked well in a sweater, drew back as she saw the compact little group around the table. “Am I intruding?”

Banning Clarke said, “Not at all, Dorina. Come in. This is Mr. Mason and Miss Della Street, his secretary. — And this is Dorina Crofton, Mrs. Sims’ daughter by her former marriage. — I was just explaining something to Mr. Mason, Dorina, but it’s all right now.”

Clarke turned to the lawyer. “So you see the peculiar position in which I find myself — particularly with reference to the corporation.”

“Do they,” Mason asked, “have any suspicion of the true facts?”

“I think they have.”

“I mean the legal title — the ownership of the property that is — er — involved?”

“Yes.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “You say they have an attorney at that meeting?”

“Yes. Chap named Moffgat. You may know him. He was my wife’s lawyer. He handled her estate. Then Bradisson started going to him. Moffgat represented their side in the litigation over the stock. I don’t think he cherishes any great love for me — and I know I don’t for him.”

“He’s attending that directors’ meeting?” Mason asked.

“Oh, yes. He has a finger in every pie the corporation cooks these days.”

“Look here,” Mason said suddenly, “when you resigned as president did you resign as a director also?”

Clarke nodded.

Mason said, with a trace of irritation in his voice, “You should have told me this before I drew up that pooling agreement.”

“Why? What’s that got to do with it?”

“Suppose,” Mason said, “they put you up as a director in the corporation. Salty is in there, voting your stock under that pooling agreement. That would be the same as though you voted for yourself. Once you become a director you’re acting in a fiduciary capacity. If you have knowledge affecting the value of corporate assets and fail to give the corporation the benefit of that knowledge — Get Salty out of that meeting before they can do anything about—”

“The meeting’s all finished, Mr. Mason,” Dorina said. “I heard the chairs scraping back just as I came by the room.”

Clarke looked at Mason. “Isn’t there some way I can beat that?”

Mason shook his head. “The minute you become a qualified director, even if it’s only for a few minutes, you’re licked. You can’t withhold this information and then subsequently... Wait a minute — under the by-laws does a director have to be a stockholder?”

“I believe he does,” Clarke said.

“What’s your stock worth?”

“Three or four hundred thousand, anyway, and perhaps more. Why?”

“I want to buy it,” Mason said, and added with a grin, “for five dollars. I’ll have a private understanding with you that I’ll sell it back to you for five dollars and five cents day after tomorrow, but no one is to know of that agreement.”

“I can’t hurry up those stairs,” Clarke said. “It’s up in my desk on the second floor, in the third pigeonhole from the right.”

“Desk locked?” Mason asked, getting to his feet.

“No. There’s a lock, but it won’t work. I’ve been intending to have it fixed. A key broke off in it. Suppose you could find — Dorina, how about showing Mr. Mason the way to my room? You can go up the back stairs.”

Dorina, standing by the table, seemed for the moment not to have heard him.

Mrs. Sims said, “Dorina, honey, wake up. Look out — don’t upset the sugar! Mr. Clarke wants you to take Mr. Mason up to his room.”

“Oh, yes. Certainly.” She smiled with the vague expression of a person waking from a sound sleep. “Will you come this way, please, Mr. Mason?”

Mason said, “Here is your five dollars, Clarke. Consider the sale completed.”

Clarke lowered his voice. “If you hear the meeting breaking up, Mason, and find you can’t possibly make it, you know what to do.”

Mason held up his right hand, made a signing motion and raised his eyebrows.

Clarke nodded.

“That,” Mason said, “would make complications.”

“I know, but we can’t afford to let them catch us in that trap.”

Mason caught Dorina by the arm. “Come on, young lady,” he said.

Dorina Crofton led the way up a flight of back stairs. Wordlessly she hurried down the corridor.

“You seem to be a young woman of deep thoughts,” Mason said.

She gave him the smile which politeness demanded, said after a moment, “I guess I’m rather quiet today. This is Mr. Clarke’s room.”

Mason, who had been prepared for a sumptuous master’s bedroom, found himself surprised at the small room on the north side of the house. It contained a plain single bed, a bureau, a chest of drawers, a somewhat battered table, an old-fashioned roll-top desk, and a dozen or so framed photographic enlargements. A couple of coiled rawhide ropes hung on the wall. A pair of big roweled Mexican spurs hung between the two ropes. From the other wall, a worn rifle scabbard, still holding a gun, was suspended at an angle from a peg placed in the wall. A glass-enclosed gun cabinet held an assortment of rifles and shotguns. The skin of a big mountain lion was stretched along the third wall. At one time the room had evidently been an intimate part of a man’s personality, but now it had not been lived in enough to keep the atmosphere of warm friendliness and human occupancy which should have been a part of such a room. It had been kept scrupulously clean, yet it was a stiffly starched cleanliness that seemed divorced from the swirling currents of everyday activity.

Mason crossed over to the desk, pulled out the papers in the pigeonhole Banning Clarke had mentioned. He found the envelope containing the stock certificate, took it out, looked at it, saw that it was in order, and was just starting for the door when, from the lower floor, there came the sudden sound of several people talking at once, of footsteps gravitating toward the back part of the house, and that general bustle of activity which attends the breaking up of a meeting.

Mason stood still frowning at the stock certificate.

“What’s the matter?” Dorina Crofton asked.

Mason said, “The sale is completed, the certificate should have been signed before that meeting broke up.”

“Will it make any difference?” Dorina asked.

“It may make a lot of difference. Do you suppose there’s any way you could rush this certificate down to him before they get to the kitchen and—”

“They’re headed out that way now. I think they’re looking for him.”

Mason abruptly sat down at the desk, whipped out his fountain pen, pulled papers out of the pigeonholes until he found one bearing the signature of Banning Clarke.

He flashed a quick glance over his shoulder at Dorina Crofton.

She seemed completely unaware of what was going on, her mind apparently entirely occupied with some personal problem which absorbed her entire attention.

Mason spread the stock certificate out, placed the paper containing Banning Clarke’s signature just above it. For a moment he studied the signature; then, with a swift, sure touch, made a somewhat amateurish job of signing Banning Clarke’s name to an endorsement transferring the stock.

He replaced the paper from which he had copied Clarke’s signature, folded the stock certificate, pushed it down into his pocket and screwed the cap on his fountain pen.

“All ready,” he said.

Dorina moved silently out into the corridor. Mason felt certain that she had been so completely absorbed in what she was thinking that the significance of his act had not dawned on her.

They were all in the kitchen by the time Mason got there — Lillian Bradisson, who carried a little too much flesh and used just a bit too much make-up; Jim Bradisson, outwardly affable and good-natured in his friendliness; Moffgat the lawyer, stocky, well tailored, with hair that had been combed back so that every strand, glistening with hairdressing, was held in just the right position; Hayward Small, a wiry chap with quick, restless eyes and Salty Bowers, seeming completely detached from the others.

Mason gave them the benefit of a lightning survey and had them catalogued in his mind even before they became aware of his scrutiny.

Banning Clarke performed perfunctory introductions, and it seemed to Mason that the others were almost effusive in their cordiality. Moffgat particularly went out of his way to be friendly, although retaining somewhat of a careful reserve.

“I have just learned,” Moffgat said, “that you are to represent Mr. and Mrs. Sims in that fraud action. It will indeed be an honor to have such a famous opponent, Mr. Mason. I’ve seen you in court several times. I’m not certain that you place me — Moffgat & Steele, attorneys in the Brokaw Building.” He gravely tendered Mason a card.

Mason slipped the card into his pocket and said, “I haven’t had time to familiarize myself with the issues involved in that fraud action.”

“No hurry, no hurry,” Moffgat said. “I think as soon as you hear the evidence, Mr. Mason, you’ll decide not to contest the action. In the meantime, Mr. Clarke, we have some good news for you.”

“What is it?” Clarke asked, his voice and manner coldly impersonal.

“It has occurred to us,” Moffgat said, “that because of various litigation and other things, the corporation has really done you an injustice. You aren’t physically able to go out on the properties and take an active part in their operation, but you do have certain highly specialized knowledge; and the company feels that it owes you a debt of gratitude for the work you have done in developing the mining property. In short, Mr. Clarke, we have elected you to a place on the board of directors, and have employed you as supervising manager at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year and all incidental expenses.”

Clarke looked surprise.

Mason said, “I am sorry, Moffgat, but it’s no go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. It’s a cleverly baited trap, but it won’t work.”

Moffgat said angrily, “I don’t know what right you have to make any such statement. We are trying to bury the hatchet, that’s all.”

Mason smiled at him. “I will tell you something else, Counselor. The election of Clarke to the board of directors is invalid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Directors have to be stockholders in the corporation.”

“Banning Clarke is a very large stockholder, Mr. Mason.”

“He was” Mason said. “It happens that he’s sold his stock.”

“The books of the corporation don’t show it.”

“They will when — the stock is presented for transfer.”

“But on the books of the corporation he’s still a stockholder. He—”

Mason pulled Banning Clarke’s stock certificate from his pocket, spread it out on the table.

“The question,” he said, “is whether Banning Clarke actually is a stockholder, and I think this answers the question. Gentlemen, I have bought Clarke’s stock.”

Moffgat became angry. “That stock purchase,” he said, “is just a subterfuge.”

Mason grinned. “Would you like to go to court and ask to have the transfer set aside on the grounds that you engineered a trap for Clarke, hoping that he would walk into it, and that he avoided it by selling his stock?”

“It wasn’t a trap, I tell you. We were trying to extend an olive branch.”

Nell Sims said in the peculiarly chirping tone of voice which she reserved for interpolations, “Fear the Greeks when they bear olive branches.”

Mason said suavely, “Well, perhaps I have been a little hasty.”

“I think you have.”

“Would you,” Mason asked, “make that contract of employment on an annual basis — provide that the contract couldn’t be terminated by the corporation except on twelve months’ notice?”

Moffgat flushed. “Certainly not.”

“Why?”

“Well, there are... there are reasons.”

Mason nodded to Banning Clarke. “There you are,” he said.

Clarke said, “I am satisfied to leave the entire matter in your hands, Mason.”

Mason folded the stock certificate and put it in his pocket.

“May I ask what you paid for that?” Moffgat asked.

“Certainly,” Mason observed.

Moffgat waited for a further reply.

“You are at liberty to ask” Mason said, smiling.

James Bradisson injected himself into the conversation. “Come, come. Let’s not have any hard feelings about it. As far as I am concerned I don’t want Banning Clarke to feel there’s any personal animosity. Frankly, Moffgat said that if we could elect him to a position on the board of directors and give him this contract, we could jockey him into a situation where either he would have to disclose everything he knew about the company property, or — if he ever exploited or developed it in his own name and for his own benefit — we could go to court and establish that he was acting as an involuntary trustee for the company. Come on, Moffgat, you have had your fling and you came out second best. Mason anticipated what you were up to and beat you to it. And I, for one, am just as well pleased. I am tired of lawsuits. Now let us forget our business differences and be friends. - Banning, I don’t suppose there is any chance of reaching an agreement and getting you to give us certain information that you have, is there?”

“What information?”

“You know what I mean.”

Banning gained time by extending his teacup for Mrs. Sims to fill. “So it was a trap?” he asked.

“Sure it was,” Bradisson said, as Moffgat, taking a quick breath, apparently started to deny it. “Now then, let’s talk of something else.”

Mrs. Sims, carrying the teapot around the table to refill the teacups of Della Street and Perry Mason, asked, “What about my case?”

Moffgat, in a cold rage, said, “I am glad you mentioned it. It’s one of the things I wanted to discuss. But it probably would be better to discuss it in the absence of your client, Mr. Mason.”

“Why in my absence?” Mrs. Sims asked.

Moffgat said, shortly, “You might get angry.”

“Not me,” Mrs. Sims said. “I didn’t have a thing to do with it. All I want to know is where I stand.”

Mason said, “I left instructions to have a demurrer filed this afternoon in that case.”

Mrs. Bradisson, who had kept in the background, said, “James, I suppose we have discharged our obligations as directors and can go now.”

Bradisson seemed somewhat reluctant to leave.

Dorina Crofton walked around the table, stood by the corner, then impulsively crossed over to the place near the stove where her mother was standing, and kissed her.

“What’s that for?” Mrs. Sims asked.

“For luck,” Dorina said, laughing.

There was a moment of general confusion with people moving around the big kitchen, Bradisson holding the door open for his mother, Mason on his feet bowing and expressing his pleasure at having met the others.

As the swinging door to the kitchen closed on the parting directors, Moffgat said, “I have a stipulation I’d like you to sign, Mason. I’ve left my brief case in the other room. If you’ll pardon me a moment...”

“Watch him,” Clarke said tersely when Moffgat had left the room. “He’s full of tricks. He’s putting something up to Jim right now. That business of leaving his brief case was just a stall.”

Mason said in a low, hurried voice, “That stipulation probably means he wants to take the deposition of Pete Sims. He may want to take yours.”

“Why?”

Mason smiled. “A general fishing expedition. Once he gets you before a notary public, he will start asking questions designed to trap you in connection with this other matter. Sorry I had to do what I did with reference to that stock, but we were working against minutes.”

“Quite all right,” Clarke said, laughing.

“You see,” Mason said, “I didn’t have time to explain it to you, but the law in regard to corporation directors is rather obscure. It isn’t like being elected to some office where you have to qualify by taking an oath of office. Under the pooling agreement your shares were voted by Salty. Naturally, Salty thought they were doing you a favor putting you on the board of directors.”

Salty Bowers said sheepishly, “They were so doggone nice about it, I thought they were really and truly trying to patch up all the differences. I feel like kicking myself.”

“No need to feel that way,” Mason said. “It was a clever legal trap.”

“Darn clever,” Banning Clarke said. “But I suppose if they ever get to checking up on the time element there was a period of five or ten minutes during which I actually was a director and therefore—”

Mason frowned, glanced warningly toward Nell Sims.

Banning Clarke laughed. “She’s all right. I would trust her and Dorina with my life.”

Mason said, “Well, just to make this thing legal and get me out of a mess in case there should be an investigation, take your pen and trace over the signature on this stock certificate. I want you to do it in the presence of witnesses. I’d particularly like to have Dorina Crofton here to see you do it because she was with me when—”

“I’m afraid she’s left,” Nell Sims interrupted. “That’s the way with youngsters these days — go streaking out just as soon as they get an opportunity. Time was, when I was a girl, that you wouldn’t think of going out without getting your parents’ permission.”

“She’s a mighty good girl,” Banning Clarke said with feeling.

“She’s all right, the way girls go nowadays,” Mrs. Sims announced; “but she’s too independent.”

“Not too independent,” Nell Sims sniffed. “Children overdo it. As the twig is bent, so the branch is broken.”

Banning Clarke grinned at Mason and took out his fountain pen, and Mason unfolded the stock certificate.

“When Moffgat comes back,” Mason said, “if it looks as though he has any papers to serve on you, I’ll cough twice. When I do, make some excuse to get out, and then keep under cover so he can’t serve you with a subpoena. I distrust that man and—”

The swinging door pushed open, Moffgat was talking almost as he entered the room. “Well, Mr. Mason, I am hoping our adverse interests as counsel won’t interfere with our friendly relations.” He was smiling affably now, and his manner had undergone a complete change, as though Jim Bradisson had given him definite instructions to try a new approach.

Mason whipped the stock certificate out from under Banning Clarke’s hand before the pen had a chance to touch the paper. Under cover of reaching across the table for the teapot, he folded the stock certificate and slipped it in the inside pocket of his coat.

Moffgat noticed the fountain pen in Banning Clarke’s hand, frowned with concentration, but said suavely enough, “I have here stipulation, Mr. Mason, for the taking of the deposition of Peter Sims, one of the defendants in that fraud case. I’d like to take the deposition tomorrow if that isn’t too short notice. I think it’s vitally important to have a clarification of the issues.” Moffgat pulled a cardboard filing jacket from his brief case, opened it, and handed Mason a blue-backed legal document.

Della Street, sitting at Mason’s side, glanced toward the filing jacket and nudged Mason’s elbow.

Mason coughed twice.

Banning Clarke pushed back his chair, said, “Excuse me. I will get a drink of water.”

He moved over toward the sink, glanced toward the table, saw that Mason was reading the stipulation with the greatest care, that Moffgat was watching him with slightly narrowed eyes.

Quietly, Banning Clarke slipped out through the back door.

Mason said, “If we are going to take the deposition of Pete Sims as one party to the controversy, I’d like to take the deposition of James Bradisson at the same time.”

“Why do you want his deposition?”

“He’s the president of the corporation, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And the one with whom Pete Sims had his dealings shortly prior to the execution of the contract which is now claimed to be fraudulent?”

“Yes.”

“I want his deposition,” Mason said. “If you’re going to take the deposition of one party, I want the deposition of the other.”

Moffgat yielded the point reluctantly. “Interline it in pen and ink,” he said. “And while you are doing it, put in the name Banning Clarke.”

“He’s not a party to the controversy. You have no right to take his deposition,” Mason said.

Moffgat’s smile was crafty. “He is in poor health. I have a right to take a deposition to perpetuate his testimony. He’s a material witness.”

“To what?”

“To something connected with this controversy.”

“What?”

“I’ll disclose that at the proper time.”

“Then I won’t include his name in the stipulation,” Mason said.

Moffgat said, “You don’t have to. I have anticipated your refusal and secured a court order and a subpoena. Under those circumstances, since it will save your client the annoyance and embarrassment of having the subpoena served on him, you’d better have his name included in the deposition.”

Mason merely inserted in pen and ink the words, “Also the deposition of James Bradisson, at the same time and place.”

Moffgat seemed definitely annoyed. “I warn you, Mr. Mason, that I shall serve that subpoena at the first available opportunity without regard for the convenience of Banning Clarke.”

“That,” Mason announced, slipping his fountain pen back into his pocket, “is your privilege.”

Moffgat blotted Mason’s signature, signed his own name, handed Mason a copy of the stipulation, returned the filing jacket to his brief case.

“And now,” he said, “if you’ll pardon me, I’ll join the Bradissons. I’ll see you tomorrow, Counselor.”

He had no sooner left the room than Mrs. Sims, walking over to the icebox, said, “I’ve got something in here to take the taste of that lawyer out of your mouth. I wasn’t going to bring it out while he was here because he’d be wanting a piece.”

She took out a lemon pie. The dark gold of the browned top was dotted with little amber-colored globules.

Mason glanced at Della Street, then smiled contentedly. “If I were a cat,” he said to Mrs. Sims, “I’d stretch out in front of the fireplace and start purring.”

Salty looked at his watch. “Gee, I’m sorry I walked into that trap, Mr. Mason.”

“You don’t need to be. It was cleverly baited. Look here, Salty — Moffgat is going to slip out there and try to serve that subpoena on Banning Clarke. Do you suppose Banning can keep out of his way?”

Salty chuckled. “Give him ten seconds’ head start out there in the dark and the Devil himself couldn’t find him!”