The Case of the Reluctant Model

Chapter Eight

It was three-thirty in the afternoon when the taxicab Perry Mason had taken at the Redding Airport deposited him at the Western Union Telegraph office.

Mason, with his most disarming smile, said, “My name is Stigler. I had twenty-five dollars wired to my wife’s sister, Maxine Lindsay, from Eugene with identification waived. I’m wondering if she’s picked up the money yet.”

The clerk hesitated a moment, then consulted files and said, “No, No, Mr. Stigler, she hasn’t.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “I hoped I could get here ahead of her. She may need more than that. Thanks a lot. I’ll wait outside. She should be here any minute.”

Mason went out to the street, found a phone booth at a service station where he could keep an eye on the telegraph office and put through a call to Paul Drake.

“Hello, Paul,” Mason said. “I’m up in Redding. She hasn’t picked up the wire yet. Do you know where she is?”

“She should be there almost any minute,” Drake said. “My man reported from Chico. She stopped there and had something to eat, had her tires checked, had gas put in the car. She didn’t have the tank filled. She only had enough gas put in to get her through to Redding. She’s evidently right down to her last penny but she should be showing up.”

“Thanks,” Mason said. “I’ll get in touch with her here.”

“What about my operatives?” Drake asked. “Do you want them to keep on after you take over?”

“I’ll have to let you know on that,” Mason said, “but have them stay on the job unless I give you instructions to call them off. And of course they aren’t supposed to give me a tumble in case they recognize me.”

“Hell’s bells,” Drake said disgustedly, “these are professionals. Don’t worry. You may not even be able to spot them.”

Mason hung up the telephone, walked out to stand at the curb. He had been there about twenty minutes when Maxine Lindsay, her eyes slightly bloodshot, her face gray with weariness, drove up and slowed to a crawl as she looked for a parking place.

Eventually she settled on the service station from which Mason had been telephoning. She drove the car in and said, “Can I leave my car here while I go to the telegraph office long enough to get some money? Then I’m going to want my tank filled up.”

“I’ll fill it now, ma’am, and you can pay when you get back,” the attendant said.

“No, I... I prefer it this way. I’m expecting some money at the telegraph office but if I don’t get it I might not be able to pay.”

The attendant looked at her sympathetically and said, “I’ll park it right over here, ma’am. I’m sure you’ll have the money waiting for you.”

“Oh, I hope so,” Maxine told him, giving him a wan smile, and then leaving the car started walking wearily down the sidewalk.

She was so thoroughly tired that she hardly noticed when Mason fell into step beside her.

At length sensing the presence of someone keeping pace with her she glanced up with annoyance. “I beg your pardon, if you—” She gasped, faltered, came to a dead stop.

“I’m sorry I had to do it this way, Maxine,” Mason said, “but we have to talk.”

“I... You... How in the world did you get here?”

“By making good connections at Sacramento with a Pacific Airlines plane,” Mason said. “Are you tired, Maxine?”

“I’m bushed.”

“Hungry?”

“I had something to eat in Chico. I couldn’t go any longer. I’d been living on coffee. It took my last dime.”

“All right,” Mason said, “there’s twenty-five dollars waiting for you at the telegraph office. Shall we go and get that?”

“How... how in the world do you know all these things?”

“It’s my business,” Mason said. “Twenty-five dollars sent to you by Phoebe Stigler from Eugene, Oregon.”

“All right,” Maxine said, “if you know that much I presume you know the rest of it.”

Mason smiled enigmatically. “Let’s go get the money, Maxine, and then we’ll sit down over a cup of coffee and talk.”

“I haven’t got time,” she said. “I’ve got to get on. I’ve just got to keep slogging along that damned road and I’m so tired.”

“Come on,” Mason said, “let’s get the money and then we’ll talk it over. Perhaps you won’t have to keep on hurrying.”

The lawyer walked into the telegraph office, smiled and nodded at the clerk, pushed Maxine forward.

“Do you have a wire for me, Maxine Lindsay?” she asked.

“Yes, we do, Miss Lindsay. Will you sign here, please? You were expecting some money?”

“That’s right.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five dollars.”

“Who from?”

“Phoebe Stigler of Eugene, Oregon.”

“Just sign here, please.”

Maxine signed her name, the clerk handed her two tens and a five and exchanged smiles with Mason.

Mason placed his hand on Maxine’s elbow and said, “Come on, we’ll go get that car filled up and then get a cup of coffee.”

They walked back to the filling station where Maxine left instructions about the car, then went across to a restaurant. Maxine slumped into a seat in a booth and rested her chin on her hand.

“You’ve had quite a drive,” Mason said. “You shouldn’t be going on until you’ve had some sleep.”

“I’ve got to get there. I’ve simply got to get there.”

Mason told the waitress, “Fill up two coffee cups and bring a pitcher with coffee in it.

“Cream, sugar?” he asked Maxine.

She shook her head and said, “No more. It puts on too many inches.”

The waitress looked at Mason inquiringly.

“Just black for me,” Mason said.

The waitress left and in a short time returned with two cups of coffee, then brought two small metal pots.

“We use these for hot water, mostly,” she said, “but I’ve filled them up with coffee.”

“That’s fine,” Mason told her and handed her a five-dollar bill. “Please take care of the check for us,” he said, “and put the rest in your pocket. We don’t want to be disturbed.”

The face of the waitress lit up. She said, “Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anything else I can do?”

“Not a thing.”

“If there’s anything you want, just hold up your hand. I’ll be watching.”

Maxine put a spoon in the coffee, stirred it, raised the spoon to her lips, sipped the coffee tentatively to determine the temperature, then again settled back into a dejected attitude.

“Now, you wanted us to look after the canary,” Mason said.

She looked up and barely nodded.

“But,” Mason said, “there wasn’t any canary.”

She had started to raise the coffee cup to her lips, looking at Mason with tired eyes. Suddenly she became alert, holding the coffee cup arrested halfway to her lips.

“There wasn’t what?”

“There wasn’t any canary,” Mason said.

“What are you talking about? Of course there’s a canary! Dickey was there in his cage... He’s the one I was worrying about.”

“There wasn’t any canary,” Mason said.

“But, Mr. Mason... I don’t understand... There had to be. Dickey was there. Dickey, the canary.”

“No canary,” Mason said, “but there was something else.”

“What do you mean, something else?”

“A corpse,” Mason said, “in your shower.”

The coffee cup wobbled as she started to put it back on the saucer.

“The corpse of Collin Durant, sprawled in your shower, shot in the back, very, very dead. He...”

The coffee cup dropped from her nerveless fingers. Hot coffee spilled over the table. Not until some of it trickled to her lap and the hot liquid had burned through her dress did Maxine scream.

Mason held up his hand.

The attentive waitress was instantly on the job.

“We’ve had an accident,” Mason said.

The waitress gave Mason a shrewd, searching look. Then, with her face a mask, said, “I’ll get a towel. Would you like to move over to another booth?”

Maxine moved out into the aisle, shook her skirt, took a napkin and sponged at the coffee stain. Her face seemed as white as the plaster on the wall.

“Right in here and sit down,” Mason said.

The waitress appeared with a towel, mopped up the spilled coffee, hurried away to get another cup of coffee and brought it back to them in the next booth.

Mason said, “Now, get hold of yourself. Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t know Durant’s body was in your apartment when you gave Della Street the key and told her to go up?”

“Honest, Mr. Mason, I didn’t... You aren’t lying to me, are you?”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“That,” she said, after a moment, “changes things a lot.”

“I thought it would,” Mason said. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me how.”

“You’re not — you’re not trying to trap me, are you, Mr. Mason?”

“What do you mean?”

“Collin Durant is— He’s really dead?”

“He’s dead,” Mason said. “He was evidently shot in the back, perhaps two or three times. His body fell forward in your bathroom. I wouldn’t want to make anything more than a guess right now but as a guess I’d say that he was searching the apartment when he was killed, that he stepped into the bathroom, parted the shower curtains, and that, as he did so, someone put a small-caliber revolver right up against the back of his coat and pulled the trigger two or three times. Now, does that mean anything to you?”

She said, “I didn’t do it, if that’s what you want to know.”

“Suppose,” Mason said, “you tell me a little bit about Durant.”

“Durant was a... a devil.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

She said, “Durant had the most horrible pair of ears in the world. He heard everything and he forgot nothing. He would encourage people to talk, getting them to tell about their own affairs, about their own background. He’d be the most attentive, sympathetic listener in the world, and he’d be remembering everything he heard. Sometimes I think he must have gone home and put everything on a tape recorder or something and kept notebooks.

“He’d pick up every piece of gossip, every little thing from lots of different people and then he’d start correlating them, putting them all together, fitting them into a pattern until gradually he knew more about you than you could possibly realize.”

“Blackmail?” Mason asked.

“It wasn’t exactly blackmail,” she said. “It was trying to build himself up, trying to get what he wanted, trying to get influence. I don’t think he used it for money but— Still, I don’t know.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Nearly three years.”

“And what was his hold on you?”

She looked up at Mason, then lowered her eyes, started to say something, checked herself.

“Go on,” Mason said. “I’m going to find out anyway. You may as well tell me.”

She said after a moment, “He knew certain things about me.”

“I gathered as much,” Mason said dryly and waited for her to go on.

She didn’t go on, but sipped her coffee with weary resignation.

“All right,” Mason said, ‘let’s begin on another angle. Who’s Phoebe Stigler?”

“My sister.”

“Married?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Happily?”

“Very happy.”

“What’s her husband’s name?”

“Homer Hardin Stigler. He’s a big real estate operator and financier in Eugene.”

“What,” Mason asked, “was Durant’s hold on you?”

“I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Because it... it’s something I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Come, come,” Mason said, “the world has moved a long ways since the time when some purple chapter in a girl’s history would—”

She said, “Oh, don’t be silly! It isn’t anything of that sort. After all, Mr. Mason, I’ve been around. I’ve made a living being an artists’ model. I’m not a prude and I’m not dumb.”

Mason, watching her shrewdly, tried a shot in the dark. “I know,” he said sympathetically, “it’s not that it involves you, but it does involve your sister.”

She stiffened as though she had been shocked with an electric current. “What are you saying?... What do you know?”

“I know a great deal,” Mason said, “and I intend to find out more — if I have to.”

“How could you possibly find those things out?”

“The way I find out everything,” Mason said. “It costs money but I get the information. How did I know you were here? How did I know you had wired your sister to send you twenty-five dollars here and waive identification? How did I know where you were? How did I know that you had a hard time finding a motel you felt you could afford last night in Bakersfield?”

“How do you know these things?” she asked.

“I make it my business to find out,” Mason told her. “I have to do it. If you want to tell me about your sister, I’ll try and co-operate as far as I can. If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out anyway and then I won’t be under any obligations.”

“You mustn’t — you mustn’t ask questions, particularly around Eugene. That would be...”

She broke off as though the mere contemplation of what might happen filled her with panic.

“Then,” Mason said, “you’d better tell me of your own accord so I’ll know what to do and what not to do.”

Maxine hesitated for a moment, then refilled the coffee cup from the container, closed her eyes wearily, said, “I just don’t have the strength to struggle, Mr. Mason. I— No, I’m not going to tell you. I can’t, but Durant had a hold on me.”

“And,” Mason said, “he had a good racket. He’d brand a painting as a forgery, have you pass the word that he’d declared it a forgery. Then when a lawsuit was filed, you’d skip out and not be available. How many times has he worked this?”

“He’s never worked it. I didn’t know he ever did anything of the sort,” she said.

“The painting Lattimer Rankin sold that was supposed to have been forged?”

She said, “I just don’t understand that. There’s something weird about that.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “Tell me what happened.”

“Well,” she said, “we were at this party and Durant told me the painting was a forgery. I got mad because I knew that Rankin had sold that painting and I knew he wouldn’t be fooled on a matter of that sort and I didn’t like the idea of Collin Durant talking that way and I told him so. And he dared me to go and tell Rankin what he had said. Then he told me I must tell him.”

“So then what?”

“I thought it over for a while and then went to Mr. Rankin. I didn’t really intend to tell him what Collin had said, but I did ask him if there could be any possible doubt about the authenticity of that painting, and Rankin said ‘heavens no’ and wanted to know why I was asking... Finally he got the whole story out of me and was furious.

“So then I became frightened. I simply couldn’t have Collin angry with me. So I told him about my conversation with Rankin.”

“Was he angry?” Mason asked.

“No, he was pleased. He said I’d done exactly what he wanted. He told me that I was to stay with it, that if Rankin went to a lawyer and they asked me to make an affidavit that I was to tell exactly what had happened and swear to it.

“He said he wanted Rankin to see a lawyer. He was tremendously pleased — that is, at first.”

“Go ahead,” Mason said.

“Well, of course my talk with Rankin started things. The next thing I knew you were sending for me and asking me questions and wanting me to sign an affidavit.”

“And then what happened?”

She said, “Your secretary, Della Street, may not remember it but while she was preparing the affidavit I said I wanted to call a friend of mine. The person I called was Collin Durant. I told him that I found myself in your office and that your secretary was preparing an affidavit for me to sign.”

“And what did he say?”

“He laughed and told me that was exactly what he wanted and to go ahead and sign it. He said he wanted me to be a witness.”

“Then what?”

“Then the suit was filed and there was that newspaper publicity and then Durant came to me and told me I had to get out of the country.”

“Now, that was last night?” Mason asked.

“Yes. Things have been happening so fast it seems like a week ago. Yes, it was last night.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “this is important. It’s very important. What time was it that he came to you?”

“It was about six o’clock.”

Mason said, “Then that would have been an hour or an hour and a half before he came to me.”

“He saw you yesterday?”

“That’s right. He came to me in a restaurant and told me that you were a publicity seeker, that you were trying to stir up trouble in order to further your own interests, and that no little trollop, as he expressed it, was going to bounce her curves off his reputation just in order to bask in the limelight.”

“And that was when?”

“That was no later than seven-thirty.” Mason said.

“But I can’t understand it,” she said. “He wanted me to tell Rankin.”

Mason said, “Let’s get this straight. He came to you yesterday and told you you had to leave the country, didn’t he?”

“He told me that I had to disappear, yes. That I had to get out of town so that no one could find me. He said that I mustn’t be available so that my deposition could be taken and that I mustn’t be a witness, and that I would have to go where you couldn’t find me.”

“And you started right away?”

“No, no. He was coming back.”

“What was he coming back for?”

“To give me money.”

“To give you money?”

“That’s right.”

“As a bribe?”

“No, no. As traveling expenses. I was to get started and I was to go down to Mexico and just disappear.”

“And he was going to give you your traveling expenses?”

“That’s right.”

“When?”

“Well, he came there about six o’clock and told me that he’d be back within an hour with money if he could get it. If he wasn’t back in an hour with the money, I was to leave the apartment, go to the bus terminal and wait for him there. He said he’d be there if he missed me at the apartment.”

“He didn’t come back to the apartment?”

“He never came.”

“So what did you do?”

“I waited for a good hour and then left the place and went to the bus terminal, just as he had told me to. I was in a panic. I didn’t really have money enough to travel, but Collin had told me to get out — and he meant it.”

“He told you he wanted you to be where I couldn’t find you?”

“Yes. He said you’d try to take my deposition and he couldn’t have that happen.”

“Yet in spite of that you got in touch with me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you see? I couldn’t call you from my apartment or from anyplace where he’d know I was calling. But you’d been so nice... I hated to let you down. So I went to the bus terminal. I was to meet him there if he didn’t get to the apartment in an hour. He said to wait there at the terminal until eight o’clock.”

“And you decided to risk a call to me?”

“Yes. I wanted to let you know I was leaving — I felt you were entitled to that much. I remembered what you’d told me about getting in touch with the Drake Detective Agency after office hours and I called them and told them I simply had to get in touch with you.

“I felt you’d protect my confidence and Durant would never know I had called you... Well, then it got past eight o’clock and he didn’t show up at the terminal as he had promised. I was desperate. I left the number there — and then you called. I just wanted to tell you I was leaving — but you wanted to see me — and by that time I’d made up my mind Durant wasn’t going to meet me or give me any money and that I’d have to get out on my own... So I decided to meet you and explain as much as I dared, and then drive up to my sister’s place. I knew Durant could locate me there if he really wanted... and give me the money to go to Mexico.”

Mason said, “Maxine, I’m not your attorney, but I do feel that I should tell you one thing in fairness to you.”

“What?”

“The police are going to look at things in an entirely different manner than you do.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” she said wearily.

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, “pay attention. The police are going to think that Durant had some hold on you, that he was trying to get you to do something that you didn’t want to do.”

“Well, they’re right. I told you that, Mr. Mason. I’d admit it.”

“And,” Mason went on, “that Durant told you he was coming back to your place with money — not at six-thirty, not at seven-thirty, but at about eight o’clock. That he came up there at eight o’clock. That you had an argument. That he was telling you what you had to do and you didn’t want to do it. That he was a shrewd chiseler who was holding something over you and he had an idea that perhaps you had a detective concealed in the apartment somewhere so he decided to reassure himself as to that before he committed himself by making any statements.

“He looked in the kitchenette, then he looked in the bathroom, jerked the curtains of the shower aside to see if you had someone planted there, and that as he stood there with his back to you, you whipped a gun out of your purse and shot him in the back. Then you dashed out, tried to communicate with me, made up all this story about what he was doing, and all this song and dance about the canary and gave Della Street the key to your apartment with the idea that she was to go and get the canary; that you did all this simply so you could get out of the state and have a head-start; and that when Della Street went to the apartment and discovered Durant’s body and notified the police, you’d have a story to tell and an alibi of sorts.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Mason, I didn’t kill him. I—”

“I’m telling you what the police are going to think,” Mason said, “and the assumption on which they’re going to work.”

“They could never prove anything like that,” she said, “because it isn’t so, not any of it. I didn’t kill him.”

“Can you prove you didn’t?” Mason asked.

She looked at him with dawning apprehension on her face.

“After all,” Mason said, “he was killed in your apartment and while they haven’t found the murder weapon yet, there’s always a chance that...”

The lawyer broke off at the look on her face.

“I see I’m beginning to register now,” he said.

“The gun that killed him. What kind of a gun was it?”

“Apparently a small-caliber revolver,” Mason said.

“I... I—”

“Go on,” Mason told her.

“I had such a gun in the apartment. I kept it right in the dresser drawer — for protection.”

Mason’s smile was skeptical.

“You must believe me, Mr. Mason, you simply must!”

“I’d like to,” Mason said. “You make a good impression. But after all, Maxine, this is your first attempt at concocting a story. Remember, I’ve heard hundreds of them.”

“But this isn’t a story that I’m concocting. It’s the truth.”

Mason said, “I know, Maxine. You go ahead and handle it the way you want to. I just felt that it was my duty to point out to you that the police were going to build a case against you.”

“But what can I do?”

“I don’t know,” Mason told her, “and remember this, Maxine. I am not your lawyer. I would suggest that you go from here to the best lawyer in Redding; that you use the twenty-five dollars you have received as a retainer, and that you tell him you understand a man has been found murdered in your apartment in Los Angeles. You ask him to get in touch with the police and see if they want to interrogate you.”

She said, “Collin Durant was playing his cards close to his chest. He told me that Mr. Olney’s picture was a fake; to tell Rankin. Then, after I’d told Mr. Rankin, he said that was exactly what he’d wanted me to do.”

“Did he tell you why he wanted you to tell Rankin?”

“He said he was laying for Mr. Rankin.”

“And that he wanted Rankin to sue him?”

“Not in so many words. He just said he was laying for Rankin.”

“Not Olney?”

“No, just Rankin. Then he came to me and told me that I had to get out fast. He said I had an hour but that I was to walk out casually without taking even so much as a toothbrush. He said he’d meet me at the bus terminal before eight o’clock if he didn’t get back to the apartment before I left. He said I was to go to Mexico, that I could stay in Acapulco if I wanted, but that I had to take the bus to El Paso, and then go on down to Mexico City.”

“Did he have a key to your apartment?”

“Not that way. He had one last night. He made me give him one of mine.”

“Last night?”

“Yes. I had two keys. I gave him one and then later I gave Miss Street the other.”

“Why did he want one of your keys if you were leaving?”

“He said he was going to check the apartment and make certain I hadn’t left any notes or made it seem I’d skipped out. He said I was to take just the clothes I was wearing, no suitcase, nothing. I was just to walk out — casually.

“He seemed particularly afraid someone would see me leaving carrying a suitcase. He felt detectives might be keeping an eye on me.”

Mason shook his head. “It won’t work, Maxine. That story won’t stand up. Go to a lawyer here. Then you ring up your sister and see if she and your brother-in-law will stand back of you and...”

Mason broke off at the expression on Maxine’s face.

“You mean they wouldn’t?” Mason asked.

“Oh, my God,” she said, “I can’t. I simply can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t let them get dragged into it.”

“Dragged into it?” Mason said. “To the extent that they are relatives of yours and that you were on your way to join them, they’re already in it.”

“I wasn’t... I wasn’t going to join them. I was just going to explain things to them and get money enough to keep on going up to Canada or someplace where no one could find me — only I intended to tell them I’d keep in touch with them and if Collin Durant wanted to know where I was I’d tell him where he could get in touch with me... I wouldn’t bring trouble to their house. I wouldn’t—”

“Don’t try to lie to me,” Mason said, “at least in such a bungling manner. You were streaking your way up the coast in order to be with them. You sent your sister a wire to send you money. It was just the amount of money you needed to get food for yourself and gas for the car in order to get up there.”

Maxine slid over into the corner, put her head up against the wall of the booth, and closed her eyes wearily.

“I give up,” she said at length. “I can’t convince you and I’m telling you the truth... I’m so darned tired!”

“Want to make a confession?” Mason asked. “And remember, Maxine, I’m not your lawyer. Anything you tell me won’t be confidential.”

“Mr. Mason, you’ve got to help me.”

“I can’t help you.”

“Why not?”

“I have other interests.”

“In the— You mean with Mr. Rankin?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head and said, “Rankin has nothing to do with this.”

“I can’t help you,” Mason said, “at least not without his permission.”

She kept her eyes closed, kept herself propped in the corner of the booth. “I give in, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I’ll tell you what Durant had on me.

“My sister married Homer Stigler. That was years ago. He went overseas in the army. While he was away she met someone who had a glib line of chatter and it all happened at a time when her marriage was just about ready to break up.

“Homer had been gallivanting around a little bit overseas and Phoebe had heard about it. She decided the marriage was on the rocks, but she didn’t write him one of the ‘Dear John’ letters because she had heard so much about those and how they disrupted morale in the armed services. She thought she would just carry on until he came back and then she’d tell him. Or she’d let him make the first move.

“So the next thing Phoebe knew she was pregnant and then things dragged along for a while and then just before the baby was born she got a letter from Homer stating that he’d made a fool of himself, that he’d been tangled up with this girl overseas but that it was simply one of those physical affairs that happen when a man is kept away from home and is hungry for feminine companionship and he begged forgiveness and told her that he would be home in six months and wanted to begin all over again and that she was the only woman he had ever really loved.

“By that time Phoebe had found out that this man she had been interested in was just a playboy and a heel. As soon as he found out about her condition, he had dropped her like a hot potato.

“Phoebe realized she wanted to save her marriage if she could — and well, I became the fall guy.”

“What do you mean?” Mason asked.

“She wrote him that I had had an affair, that I was going to have a baby and that she had invited me to come and live with her. And that when the baby was to be born we were going down to California and I could have the baby and then we’d put it out for adoption.”

“And what happened?” Mason asked.

“We went to California. Phoebe had the baby but she used my name and we got the child in one of the homes, and then Phoebe returned to Oregon, and Homer came home and they were very happy. And then Homer suggested that they adopt my baby, a little boy.

“Well, that’s the situation. Homer and Phoebe adopted the baby, I signed the necessary papers, and Homer thinks I am the erring sister who had an illegitimate child... And they’re very, very happy.”

“What would have happened if Phoebe had told him the truth at the time?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. Homer is peculiar. He’s intense, he’s very possessive and he’s — well, he’s like all men.”

“What would happen if she told him now?”

“He’d kill her and kill himself. He’d hit the ceiling. He’s temperamental and— Oh, my Lord, if he ever found out now!”

“How did Durant find out?” Mason asked.

“Now, there’s something,” she said. “I don’t know how he found out but he certainly made it a point to find out and he did find out. He had that secret and he held it over me. There were times when I could have killed him. He—”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason interrupted. “Watch your— Oh-oh!”

Maxine looked up quickly. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Permit me to introduce the two gentlemen who are standing behind you,” Mason said. “One of them is Lieutenant Arthur Tragg of Homicide from Los Angeles, and I presume the other one is a member of the Redding police force.”

“Sergeant Cole Arlington of the Shasta County Sheriffs office,” Tragg said cheerfully. “Now, what was it that you were telling Mr. Mason, Miss Lindsay? Something about someone whom you could kill? Were you by any chance referring to Mr. Collin Max Durant?”

“Just a minute, Maxine,” Mason said. “I’m going to telephone Lattimer Rankin and get his permission to represent you. For some reason I believe your story.”

“I’m glad you do,” Tragg said. “I think the young woman probably needs an attorney. We’d like to ask her some questions.”

“Moreover,” Mason said, “I am going to ask you not to answer any questions, not to tell the police anything, until after I have had a chance to do some checking. Then I will make a statement to the police as to your story.” Mason turned to Tragg and said, “And I may tell you, Lieutenant, that Miss Lindsay was on the point of going to an attorney here in Redding and having him call the Los Angeles police and tell them that she had just learned the body of a man had been found in her apartment, and that she would be available for questioning.”

“How very, very nice of her,” Tragg said. “And since she is available for questioning, perhaps she wouldn’t mind coming to Headquarters and making a statement right now.”

“She was on the point of stating that she was available for questioning,” Mason said, “but in view of what she has just told me, she is not going to make any statement to the police. I am going to investigate and make that statement for her.”

“You think she’s that guilty?” Tragg asked.

“I don’t think she’s guilty at all,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t be representing her if I thought she was guilty. I just have the feeling that she’s innocent and that there are other persons involved whose happiness requires that the information she gives to the police be restricted entirely to the matter of what happened with Collin Durant.”

“Well, of course if you adopt that attitude,” Tragg said, “there’s only one thing to do and that’s to charge her with first-degree murder.”

“In which event,” Mason said, “we’ll demand that she be taken at once before the nearest and most accessible magistrate. Now then, if you have a warrant and want to serve it—”

“I don’t have a warrant,” Tragg said. “I want to question her.”

“Go on and question her,” Mason said.

“There’s not much use doing that if she won’t answer.”

“I’ll answer.”

“I don’t want your answers, I want hers.”

“Then go ahead and arrest her and we’ll go to the nearest and most accessible magistrate. Give me just a minute. I want to look up some good fighting trial attorney in Redding who will know the local ropes and who will back my play.”

“Now, wait a minute, wait a minute,” Tragg said, “you’re getting all out of line here. We don’t want to go off half-cocked on this thing. Let’s be reasonable about it.”

“How did you come up?” Mason asked. “Chartered plane?”

“A plane that is available to us on police work of this sort,” Tragg said.

“How big a plane?”

“A twin-motored five-place plane.”

“All right,” Mason said, “I’ll make you this proposition. We’ll agree to get in the plane and return to Los Angeles. I’ll make statements to you on the plane as to what I know about the aspects of the case in which you’re legitimately interested. When you get to Los Angeles, you can do as you see fit. You can have her indicted by the grand jury or do anything you want to, but she’s not going to talk. I’m going to do the talking.”

“What’s she going to do?” Tragg asked.

Mason smiled wryly and said, “All the way back on the airplane this poor kid is going to get some sleep.”

Tragg pursed his lips. “You want to telephone Rankin and get permission to represent her?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Mason said. “I want to be assured there will be no conflicting interests.”

“All right,” Tragg said. “I want to put in a call to Hamilton Burger, the district attorney at Los Angeles, and see how he reacts to this proposition of yours. I don’t think he wants to have an arrest made as yet; that is, I don’t think he wants to have her definitely charged with murder and I’m damned sure he doesn’t want to have her brought before a magistrate in Redding.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “we’ll declare a truce. We’ll leave her with Cole Arlington provided Arlington will agree that he won’t try to question her, and you and I will go put our phone calls through.”

“Let’s go,” Tragg said.

They went to the phone booth. Mason called Lattimer Rankin in Los Angeles. “Rankin,” he said, “I’ve been representing you in regard to that picture of Otto Olney’s. Durant has been murdered. I think they’re going to charge Maxine Lindsay with the murder and I’d like to represent her if you feel there’ll be no conflict of interests. But if I represent her, I’m going to be fighting for her tooth and nail.”

“Go ahead and fight for her,” Rankin said. “She’s a good kid. You say Durant was murdered?”

“That’s right.”

“I hope they find the person that did it,” Rankin said, “because he should have a medal. He—”

“Shut up!” Mason snapped. “Someone may ask you on the witness stand what you said when you heard that Durant had been murdered.”

“Oh, in that case,” Rankin said, “I will testify that I said what a shame it was and how I hoped they got the person who did the killing, and that’s all I’ll say. However, if you want to go ahead and read my mind, Mr. Mason, you’re at perfect liberty to do so. And by all means, represent Maxine.”

Mason hung up, opened the door of the phone booth, grinned at Lt. Tragg and said, “Go ahead and put through your call, Lieutenant, I’ll meet you at the table in the restaurant. I’m going over to see that this deputy sheriff doesn’t start asking too many questions.”