The Case of the Nervous Accomplice

Chapter 6

Mason unlocked the exit door of his private office.

Della Street looked up from the evening newspaper. “How goes it?” she asked.

“We’ve got work to do, Della. Thanks for the note.”

“Chief, did you notice her shoes and stockings?”

“I didn’t see any difference, Della. They looked just the same to me.”

“Well, they aren’t the same. The other shoes, the ones she wore this morning, were open-toed and had a small design in red leather at the instep. The shoes she had on this afternoon were solid white sport shoes, with no design in color and no open toes.”

“What about the stockings?” Mason asked.

“Well, Chief, this morning when she was in I took particular notice of the way she was dressed — you know how we women are about such matters — and I was impressed by the way she had matched every piece of her outer clothing. Her white shoes with just enough red trim to match the off-white jacket with red trim, the white bag and white pleated skirt. But I especially took note of her stockings. They were a very soft flesh shade, so that they blended in with the white skirt and shoes and yet did not make her legs appear too pale, and they were seamless. That was important with that outfit.

“But this afternoon when she was in, she wore hose that were on the beige side — and they had seams.”

“Well, of course, she could have changed them,” Mason said.

“When? Didn’t she take you up there to the house and then go directly to the beauty shop?”

“I think that was her plan. I didn’t cross-examine her to find out if she’d changed her plans.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Mason said, grinning, “I thought it would be better not to know the answers. Thanks for the tip, Della, but after all, she’s our client. We’re representing her. We take her story at face value.”

“What do we do now?”

“We go down to Paul Drake’s office. He’s probably got that taxi located by this time, and Mrs. Harlan is going to call his number as soon as she gets a friend of hers located.”

“Was her gun in the car?” Della Street asked.

Mason’s face was wooden. “Someone had broken into the glove compartment. The gun was missing. Let’s go.”

Mason held the door open for her, and they walked down the corridor to Paul Drake’s office.

The girl at the switchboard looked up, recognized Mason, nodded and pointed to the wooden gate which barred a long passageway, on each side of which were numerous small offices.

Mason worked the hidden catch on the gate, opened it for Della Street, and they walked down to Paul Drake’s office.

Drake looked up as they entered, nodded, and then devoted his attention to earphones which were clamped over his head.

Mason raised his eyebrows in silent interrogation, and Drake threw a switch which put the sound on a loudspeaker.

Mason heard the voice of a taxicab dispatcher droning off directions. “Cab three-twenty-eight to the Brown Derby in Hollywood, a Mr. Culber... Come in, two-fourteen... come in, two-fourteen...” A man’s gruff voice said, “Cab two-fourteen on a call to eighty-one hundred block on South Figueroa...”

Drake switched off the loudspeaker, took one of the headphones from his ear, said, “Hi, Perry. How are you, Della? Just a monitoring chore.”

“Keeping track of seven-sixty-one?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. I’m on the frequency of the Red Line dispatching office.”

Mason said, “Gosh, Paul, I hadn’t thought of tuning in on their wavelength so as to keep track of their cabs. I thought you’d have to put out operatives. Where did you get that gadget?”

“Oh, we keep them around,” Drake said. “Occasionally, it’s a good thing to monitor police calls, find out about taxicabs, and so forth. It saves us a lot of leg work, and sometimes the cab companies don’t want to give out that information.”

“Heard anything from Mrs. Harlan?” Mason asked.

Drake shook his head, then said, “Wait a minute. Here’s cab seven-sixty-one now.”

Drake made a note on a pad of paper and said, “He’s out in Beverly Hills, coming in on Sunset toward Hollywood, running empty, has completed a call.”

Mason said, “Hang it! I wish we’d hear from that Harlan woman, but after all, she had a few things to take care of.”

“What’s the idea?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “You should know me better than that, Paul. I just want to keep a taxicab located, that’s all.”

“Witness?” Drake asked.

Mason grinned, winked at Della Street and said, “Witness.”

They waited for an impatient twenty minutes, then the phone rang. Paul Drake answered the phone, said, “Yes... oh yes... Mrs. Harlan.”

Mason reached for the phone. “I’ll take it, Paul. Where’s cab seven-sixty-one?”

Drake said, “The last reports we had he’d picked up a fare and — wait a minute, here’s something coming in now.”

“You ready, Mrs. Harlan?” Mason asked on the line.

“All ready.”

“You have Ruth Marvel with you?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl,” Mason said approvingly. “Hold on for a minute.”

Drake said, “Cab seven-sixty-one has picked up a fare in Hollywood and is going out to the end of North La Brea. There’s a movie actress has a swank place out there, and he has a call to her house.”

“This is made to order, Mrs. Harlan,” Mason said. “Go out almost to the end of North La Brea, park your car and wait. The Red Line cab will be cruising back toward town, looking for fares. Be sure you get out past the point where Franklin Street runs into La Brea. And be sure you take the Red Line cab going south. I’ll wait here until you phone me. Now make it fast. You can just about make connections with the cab. If I don’t hear from you in fifteen minutes, I’ll assume that you have made connections. If you haven’t, call me back in fifteen minutes. Is that clear?”

“That’s clear.”

“Get going,” Mason said.

“I’m going,” she said, and he heard the click of the telephone.

Mason dropped into one of Drake’s chairs, said, “Why don’t you get some decent chairs here, Paul?”

“I can’t afford it,” Drake told him, grinning.

“I pay you enough so you could have—”

“It isn’t that,” Drake interrupted. “I can’t afford to have my clients relax the way you do. I want to keep them on the edge of the chair. Still want me to monitor seven-sixty-one?”

“Yes,” Mason said. “I’d like to see if he makes a pickup coming back from his run.”

Mason lit a cigarette, picked up one of the late issues of the Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, and became immersed in the section dealing with criminal law, case notes and comments.

Della Street sat quietly, waiting, knowing that this period of suspense would start Mason pacing the floor unless his mind was kept occupied. She raised her forefinger to her lips in a signal to Paul Drake.

Drake nodded to show that he understood.

The office became silent, Drake holding the earphones, from time to time making notes, Mason completely absorbed in his reading, Della Street occasionally exchanging signals with Drake.

Drake, at length, looked up at Della Street, nodded, held thumb and forefinger together in a circle.

Della Street started to say something, then changed her mind and waited until Mason had finished reading the journal and tossed it to one side.

“Any news, Paul?”

“Cab seven-sixty-one reports that it picked up a fare on North La Brea and is on a trip to look at some property that’s for sale in the southwestern part of the city.”

Mason grinned at Della Street. “Okay, Della, let’s go back to our office and wait this one out. Then I’ll buy you dinner.”

“How about me?” Drake asked.

“What about you?”

“Dinner?”

“Oh, sure,” Mason said. “Good Lord, Paul, I wouldn’t want you to sit here and work without dinner.”

Drake took off the headphones, clicked the switch, stretched and yawned. “A good steak and French-fried potatoes will go good after all the—”

“It’ll be a job getting it sent up,” Mason interrupted.

“Now, wait a minute,” Drake protested. “You mean I can have dinner but I can’t go out?”

“Sure,” Mason said. “Get anything you want sent up, but stick around on the end of that telephone for a while. Things are going to happen.”

Drake sighed. “I should have known it. I’ve ruined my stomach earning per diems and eating hamburgers, while you and Della are collecting big fees and reveling in juicy steaks.”

“Just one of the inequities of the world,” Mason assured him, grinning. “Want me to order a couple of hamburgers for you, Paul? How do you want them — with relish and chopped onion or—?”

“Go to hell,” Drake said.

Mason grinned at him, motioned to Della, and they walked out.

“Can you,” Della Street asked, “tell me what you’re up to?”

Mason shook his head. “Better not. See if you can get Herbert Doxey on the telephone, Della.”

Della Street walked rapidly down the corridor, fitted her latchkey to the lock of the door to Mason’s private office. They entered and Della Street ran through the telephone directory, jotted down a number.

“Got it?” Mason asked.

“I think so.”

Della Street dialed the number, then after a moment said, “Mr. Doxey...? Just a moment. Mr. Mason wants to talk with you.”

She nodded, and Mason picked up his own telephone, said, “Mr. Doxey, Perry Mason talking. I would like to know a little more about the holdings of the Sylvan Glade Development Company. Can you tell me just how many acres are in the property, how much of it is level property, how much of it is on the hill, and whether there has been a survey to determine the exact boundary on the north?”

Doxey cleared his throat importantly. “I have all that information in the form of an estimate by contractors as to the cost of leveling and hauling. You see, Mr. Mason, at the time we started it hadn’t occurred to us that it would be possible to sell the dirt for the freeway fill. So we had bids as to the estimated amount of yardage and the cost of moving. There was a survey of the northern boundary, but the stakes aren’t there any more.”

“Where are they?”

“Some of them went down with that slide which followed the rain and some of them caved in when the contractor was taking out dirt on the Claffin property.”

“I see,” Mason said. “In other words, they deliberately excavated some of our property?”

“Not exactly, but they excavated close enough to it so that there was a cave-in.”

Mason said, “I would like to see Mr. Lutts at the earliest possible moment.”

“You and about ten other people,” Doxey said.

“How’s that?” Mason asked.

Doxey laughed. “Your little stock transaction set off a chain reaction. Everybody wants to know how much you paid for that stock, and somehow there seems to be a rumor that my father-in-law is in the market for a lot more stock in the company.”

“To take the place of the holdings which he sold me?” Mason asked.

Doxey said, “He doesn’t confide in me. I was merely giving you the rumor which has resulted in a whole flock of phone calls. I’ve been trying to find him myself.”

“If he should come in,” Mason said, “tell him that I’m looking for him.”

“Thank you,” Doxey said. “I will. Can you leave a number where he can call you?”

“Have him call me at my office.”

“Won’t your switchboard be disconnected?”

“No, I’m connecting the main trunk line through to my private office.”

“Very well, I’ll have him call.”

“As soon as he comes in,” Mason said.

Doxey said dubiously, “Well, there are quite a few other messages, Mr. Mason. It seems as though everyone wants him to call the minute he comes in. However, I’ll see that he gets your message.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “Tell him that it’s important.”

Mason hung up, said to Della Street, “The board is connected so that incoming calls will be received in here, Della?”

She nodded.

After a while, Della Street said, “Chief, are you in the clear, protecting Mrs. Harlan on this thing?”

“I don’t know. Of course, I only know what my client told me, and that’s a sacred confidence.”

“What about the canons of ethics?”

“The first duty of a lawyer is to protect his client. You have to understand the relative values, Della.

“Take, for instance, the case of a doctor speeding to the bedside of a patient who is critically ill. He’s probably violating a whole assortment of traffic laws, but the emergency makes it advisable to do so. He has to use his own judgment.”

Della Street shook her head, “Every time I argue with you, I get the worst of it. And yet—”

The telephone rang. Della Street picked up the receiver, said, “Perry Mason’s office... Yes, he is, Mrs. Harlan. I’ll put him on.”

She nodded to Mason and he picked up the telephone on his desk, while Della Street continued to listen in on her telephone.

“It’s all right, Mr. Mason. I’m back home.”

“It’s all right to talk?”

“Yes.”

“You recognized the cab driver?”

“Yes, of course.”

“It’s the same one?”

“Yes.”

“No question about it?”

“No, none whatever.”

“He didn’t recognize you?”

“He didn’t pay the slightest attention to me, Mr. Mason. I had Ruth flag him down. After we got in the cab I told him where I wanted him to go, but I was seated in such a position that I was directly behind his back. He turned around and saw Ruth, but I don’t think he even gave me a good look — and, of course, I was dressed differently.”

“You have the taxicab receipt, showing a meter reading of two dollars and ninety-five cents?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “Leave that receipt in your purse.”

“And what do I do now?”

“Now, you simply relax and forget everything — provided you’ve been telling me the truth and you didn’t pull any triggers.”

“I have been telling you the truth, Mr. Mason.”

“All right, fine. Go ahead and enjoy your fifth wedding anniversary.”

“You can’t enjoy a wedding anniversary without a husband.”

“You expect him home, don’t you?”

“I expect him home, yes. I’m all jittery. I’m so nervous I don’t feel that I can—”

“Do what I told you to do,” Mason said. “Forget everything. This is a crucial period as far as your marriage is concerned. You’ve sacrificed a lot in order to get this opportunity. Now, go ahead and capitalize on it.”

“I’ll... I’ll do my best.”

“And that,” Mason told her, “should be pretty good.”

“Make no mistake about it, Mr. Mason, it’s going to be damn good,” she said and hung up.