Chapter Three

Mason and Della Street entered The Blue Ox promptly at seven-thirty. The headwaiter came forward deferentially. “Your booth is ready, Mr. Mason, and you have someone waiting.”

“Has that someone been here long?” Mason asked.

“About five minutes.”

“Description?”

“Rather tall woman with a commanding presence, somewhere in her early thirties or perhaps her late twenties...”

Della Street winked at Perry Mason.

“Ever the diplomat,” Mason said. “I’ll be sure to tell her. All right, lead the way, Pierre.”

The headwaiter ushered them to Mason’s booth. As he pulled aside the curtain, Ellen Adair looked up apprehensively, and her face showed relief as she saw Mason and Della Street.

“You’re a little early,” Mason said.

She nodded.

“Cocktail?” Mason asked.

“A dry Martini, please.”

“Two Bacardis and a dry Martini,” Mason said to Pierre. “Will you see that we get them Pierre?”

“Right away.”

“Hungry?” Mason asked.

“Not particularly.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “keep your voice low and tell me what this is all about.”

“Mr. Mason,” she said, “I have some money. I am not wealthy. I have the money which came to me from my mother’s estate, and I have some savings. I am the head buyer at French, Coleman and Swazey, and for reasons which I can’t go into I simply can’t afford to have my identity disclosed. That is, I can’t afford to be discovered as Ellen Calvert.”

“Can you tell me why?”

She hesitated a moment, then slowly shook her head.

“These people from Cloverville, or this one person, at least,” Mason said, “do you know him? Do you have any ideas? Pudgy, forty-five, partially bald, with...”

She shook her head before Mason had finished the description.

A waitress brought their cocktails.

“Give us ten minutes,” Mason said, “and then bring us another round and the menu, please.”

The waitress nodded and withdrew.

“You won a beauty contest and you were pregnant,” Mason said.

“Yes.”

“Pregnancy requires two people. Who was the other person?”

“Do you have to know?”

“If I’m going to help you, I do.”

She sipped her cocktail thoughtfully, then said, “I was eighteen. I was good-looking. People said I was beautiful. I thought the world was my oyster. The man in the case was about five years older. He was the son of a very wealthy man, a... a social big shot. I was flattered by his attention. I was also in love.”

“Was he in love?” Mason asked.

She hesitated, then looked Mason in the eyes and said, “I don’t know. At the time I thought not.”

“Why do you say that?” Mason asked.

She said, “I was looking forward to a career. I had everything. Then, all of a sudden, the whole structure collapsed. I found I was pregnant.

“Remember this was twenty years ago, Mr. Mason. When I realized the situation, I went into a complete panic.”

“You got in touch with your boyfriend?”

“At once.”

“And what did he do?”

“He was just as frightened as I was, but his father was president of a big company. My boyfriend told me not to worry, that they had a man whose duty it was to build public relations to give the company a good image. He said that person would know how I could get fixed up.”

“And you?”

“I told him I didn’t want that — that I couldn’t go to an abortionist. He asked me if I was old-fashioned or something, and we left each other with a feeling of mutual irritation. He couldn’t see my position; I couldn’t see his.”

“And what happened?”

“This expert in the field of public relations knew what to do all right,” she said. “The next day I received an envelope by special messenger. There was no return address on the envelope. I opened it, and there were ten hundred-dollar bills in it. The next day I read in the paper that my boyfriend had left that afternoon on an extensive European trip. I never saw him again.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.”

Mason toyed with the stem of his cocktail glass. “I think you do,” he said.

“Well,” she admitted after a few moments, “I know this much: about a year after he returned from Europe he married a young woman whom he had met on the trip. The marriage was not particularly happy from all I can learn, but they stayed together.”

“What happened to her?” Mason asked.

“She died about a year and a half ago.”

“Any children?”

“No.”

“What about the boy’s father?”

“His father died ten years ago, and the son inherited the company.”

Mason said, “Has it occurred to you that this letter to The Cloverville Gazette suggesting that you would make a very fine subject for a story in ‘Cloverville’s Yesterdays’ was not just accidental but was part of a well-laid plan to locate you?”

“Has it occurred to you?” she countered.

“In the light of subsequent developments I think it is a logical explanation,” Mason said.

“All right,” she admitted, “it occurred to me. It occurred to me as soon as I saw the column. It occurred to me when I had a blind panic. It occurred to me when I went to your office to enlist your aid.”

“Any idea who it might be?” Mason asked.

The shake of her head was too emphatic and too instantaneous.

Mason smiled. “You are a little too emphatic in your denial, Ellen. How about the man who is the father of your child?”

“I haven’t said anything about a child.”

“You have very carefully avoided saying anything about a child,” Mason said. “But you admit you went in a blind panic. You were opposed to abortion. A logical explanation is that you had a child, that that child must be nineteen years old at the moment.

“You have made your mistakes; you have lived them down; you have established yourself in a new position of responsibility; you have a career.

“Times have changed. The fact that you may have had an illegitimate child nineteen years ago means little today. It would, of course, cause a few uplifted eyebrows, but nothing to get panicky about.

“Therefore,” Mason said, “I conclude that your panic is because of something concerning this child.”

“You are too... too damned logical,” she said.

“And correct?”

She hesitated a moment, then met his eyes. “And correct. I am going to protect him... my child.”

“It was a boy, then,” Mason said.

“Very well; it’s a son, and I am going to protect him.”

“From what?”

“From his father.”

“A boy is entitled to a father,” Mason said.

“During the formative years he’s entitled to a father whom he can look up to and respect — not a heel who runs off to Europe and leaves a pregnant sweetheart behind to face the music by herself.”

“And more than that?” Mason asked.

“I can’t tell him,” she said. “I have to protect him.”

“From the knowledge that he is illegitimate?”

“Partially that.”

“I think,” Mason said, “you’d better tell me the truth.”

The waitress brought the second round of cocktails and the menus. They ordered three steaks. The waitress withdrew.

Ellen Adair picked up her cocktail glass, drained a good half of it. “Don’t try to corner me,” she said.

“I’m simply trying to get the information I’m going to need so that I can help you,” Mason told her.

“All right,” she said; “I’ll tell you this much: I was a young, foolish, unsophisticated, good-looking girl. I was pregnant. I had a thousand dollars. That was every cent I had to my name. I know now what the public-relations man or troubleshooter or whatever you want to call him had in mind. He thought that I would use some of the money to go away from home and then use the rest of it for an abortion, then return to my parents with some story about having been emotionally disturbed and...”

“But you didn’t do that,” Mason said.

“I didn’t do that,” she said. “I came out here and got a job.”

“What kind of a job?”

“Doing housework.”

“And what happened?”

“It wasn’t long before the woman I was working for, who was very shrewd and rather suspicious, found out I was pregnant.

“She and her husband were childless. They had been trying to adopt a baby. They couldn’t adopt one because of personal reasons that had nothing to do with their competency as parents.

“The woman suggested that we move to San Francisco, that when it came time for the baby to arrive I go to the hospital and take her name, that the birth certificate would show the child as hers. They promised to treat him as their own child. They were nice people.”

“That was done?” Mason asked.

“That was done.”

“The boy thinks those people are his parents?”

“Yes.”

“Does he know you?”

She tossed off the last of her cocktail. “That, Mr. Mason, is something that is none of your business. I have told you enough so you can understand my position, so you can realize that I want protection. I am in a position to pay your fee.

“All I can say is that those people must never, never, never find me.”

“You mean never, never, never find your son?”

“It’s the same thing.”

“The boy’s real father,” Mason said, “inherited a rather large company when his father died?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“And, by the same token, is now rather wealthy?”

“I suppose so.”

“He would be in a position to give your boy a first-class education?”

“He could probably be made to support him and educate him in accordance with his style of life, but my son is now nineteen years old and any advantage he could get would be far outweighed by corresponding disadvantages.”

“But,” Mason said, “suppose the boy’s father should die?”

“All right,” she said; “with that lawyer mind of yours you’ve probably put your finger on the sore spot.”

“Which is?” Mason asked.

“That the boy’s real father is now single and childless, that he has two half brothers who have no interest whatever in the manufacturing plant. If the man in question should die without a will, and without children, they would be in a position to inherit. If there was a child, even an illegitimate child, who could show up, the situation would be different. If the man in the case should leave a will stating that he has reason to believe that somewhere he has a son or a daughter, that the bulk of his property is to go to that son or daughter — well, the half brothers would be out of luck.”

“What kind of people are they?” Mason asked.

“Do you have to ask that question? Can’t you see what is happening?” She pushed aside her cocktail glass. “And that’s all the information you’re going to get, Mr. Mason. It is your job to build a fence around me, to keep me concealed. Get a substitute, do anything you have to. Let the boy’s father feel that his son is dead.”

Mason slowly shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Your boy has rights.”

“I’m his mother.”

“And the man in the case is his father,” Mason said.

“Unworthy to be his father.”

“Unworthy or not,” Mason said, “the father has rights. And the boy has rights too. Now I’ll go this far with you: I’ll try to keep them from finding you, at least for the moment. But I’m not going to do anything of which my conscience wouldn’t approve.”

“I don’t think I want you on that basis,” she said.

“You don’t have to have me,” Mason told her. “You have given me twenty dollars. That pays you up in full of account to date. If you want to get some other attorney, you are at liberty to do so.”

“But you’ve been to a lot of expense. You’ve hired detectives and...”

“That,” Mason said, “will be my contribution to the cause.”

She hesitated a moment, then suddenly pushed back her chair. “As an attorney, Mr. Mason, you have to respect my confidence. You can’t divulge any of the information I have given you. I don’t know how much money you have spent on detectives, but here are two one-hundred-dollar bills. You may consider that you have withdrawn from the case or that the case has been withdrawn from you. The more I see of you, the more I think you will be too damned conscientious, and there are factors involved which you know nothing about.

“I am no longer hungry. I’ll leave it to you to exercise the masculine prerogative of picking up the check.

“Good night.” Her chin held high, she swept out of the booth.

Mason looked at the two one-hundred-dollar bills she had left on the table, looked ruefully at Della Street. “Is there a cat in your apartment building?” he asked. “A cat or a dog?”

“The people next door have a cat.”

“When the waitress brings Ellen Adair’s steak,” Mason said, “we’ll ask her to bring a Bowser bag. You can tell the cat that it’s an ill wind that blows no one good.”