The Case of the Rolling Bones

Chapter 5

Perry Mason, with Della Street at his side, drove rapidly toward the city.

“What happened in the sanitarium?” Della asked. “Everyone came out in a hurry, and they hustled Phyllis Leeds off in the sheriff’s car.”

Mason sketched the highlights of what had taken place.

“What’ll happen next?” Della Street asked.

“We’ll go to the office,” he said. “Phyllis Leeds will probably telephone us that her uncle is at home. The court will want him brought in when the habeas corpus hearing is reopened. That’ll be all there is to it.”

“Where will that leave us?” Della asked.

“All finished,” Mason said, “unless Leeds wants us to do something about that twenty thousand dollar check.”

“Do you think he will?”

“No,” Mason admitted, “I think he’ll be sore we’ve done as much as we have. — And I can’t get over my hunch that John Milicant is really L. C. Conway.”

“Has Paul Drake found out anything?”

“I haven’t been in touch with him for a while,” Mason said. “He telephoned he had some routine stuff to report. I told him to let it wait until after the habeas corpus. I’ll step on it and get back to the office in time to hear what he has to say before we go back to court.”

“You’re stepping on it now, Chief,” she said, glancing at the speedometer.

Mason grinned. “You haven’t seen anything yet. Look at this.”

“I’m looking,” she observed, “—and you missed that boulevard stop entirely.”

“I didn’t miss it,” Mason said. “I took it in my stride.”

“Stride is right. You...” She broke off as the low wail of a siren directly behind them signaled them over to the curb.

In stolid silence, Mason sat at the wheel while the officers pulled alongside. One of them, leaving the prowl car, started to make out a ticket. The other stood with an arrogant foot on the running board and bawled, “Where’s the fire?”

“Central and Clark,” Mason said.

The officer seemed taken aback. “What’s burning?” he asked.

“My office.”

“Say, are you kidding me, or on the square?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “All I know is what I heard on the telephone. My important papers are in danger. Naturally, I want to get there.”

“Let’s see your card, buddy.”

Mason handed him a card. “Perry Mason, eh? Okay, let that ticket go, Jim. Let’s take this guy up to his office. If it’s a stall, we’ll see that he gets the limit. You follow me.”

The prowl car took the lead, siren screaming. Mason fell in behind.

“As I was observing,” he said to Della, as they flashed through an intersection where traffic was frozen into inactivity by the screaming siren of the police car, “I take ’em in my stride.”

“You’ll get the limit for this,” she warned.

“At any rate, we’ll get to the office,” he said.

“And waste time explaining to a lot of cops.”

“No,” Mason said, deftly dodging a truck, “you can’t explain to these birds. This is one thing you can’t explain.”

“Chief, what are you going to do about it?”

“Darned if I know,” he admitted, with a grin, “but it’s a swell ride, isn’t it, Della?”

“Listen, Chief, you can be as goofy as you want, but count me out.”

He risked flashing her a swift glance. “Kidding?” he asked.

“No, I mean it.”

“Getting chicken, Della?”

“You can call it that if you want,” she said indignantly. “I’m going to get out.”

“How? I can’t stop now.”

“No, but there’ll be an opportunity... Here, they’re slowing down for that traffic jam. Chief, let me out!”

Mason slammed on the brakes. His profile was granite-hard. “Okay, baby,” he said. “Write your own ticket.”

“I’d rather do that than take the one the cops will write,” she said, opening the door and jumping to the street just as the traffic jam ahead resolved itself, and Mason speeded up, following the siren of the police car.

They cut speed somewhat as they turned into the main artery. The officers ceased using the siren, worked their way through a traffic signal and parked in front of a reserved zone. Mason slid his car to a stop behind them.

“No sign of a fire here,” one of the officers said belligerently.

“It’s up in my office, I tell you, just a small fire. My God, you didn’t think the building was afire, did you?”

The officers exchanged glances and sized Mason up. “Okay, Jim,” the leader said, “you go up with this bird; I’ll stay here. If this thing is a stall, pinch him for reckless driving. We can take him to headquarters on that. Perry Mason, attorney-at-law, eh? — Well, brother, you’re like a lot of these wise guys. There’s a little law you don’t know.”

Mason shrugged his shoulders. A boyish, carefree grin was on his face. “Wasn’t that a swell ride?” he asked.

“Come on,” the officer announced, grabbing Mason’s elbow and half pushing him through the doorway and into the elevator.

Mason lit a nonchalant cigarette while the elevator deposited him at his floor. “Okay, buddy,” the officer said, “you find the fire.”

Mason strode down the corridor, jerked open the door to the entrance room of his office. A blast of pungent smoke met his nostrils. The girl who customarily occupied the information desk was dashing madly about with a cup of water. The stenographers were staring with startled eyes.

“Where’s the fire?” Mason shouted at the girl with a water glass.

“In your private office,” she said. “I think we got it in time.”

Mason and the officer reached the private office. A wastebasket filled with charred papers was sending up wisps of smoke. A hole had been burnt in the carpet. The side of Mason’s desk was scorched.

The girl from the switchboard, a tall, thin girl with spectacles, talked rapidly as Mason and the officer surveyed the damage. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know what it was. You were on the telephone, and I screamed, when I saw the smoke, that the place was on fire. I don’t know how those papers got started. One of the girls must have been in your private office and dropped ashes from her cigarette. It had a pretty good start before I found it, but it’s all right now. How did you ever get here so quickly?”

Mason said, “I’ll fire those girls. Find out which one did it, and give her her time. That’s one thing I’ve particularly cautioned them against.” He whirled to the officer, thrust out his hand, and said, “Thanks to you, Jim, old boy, we got here in time. The girls might not have been able to handle it. There are valuable papers in that desk, also some darn good cigars. How about taking a handful for you and your buddy?”

The officer was grinning. “Well, now,” he said, “that’s better. Who was it said, ‘A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke?’”

Mason, handing out a double handful of cigars, said, “No, Jim, I can’t subscribe to those sentiments. Recent events have convinced me that women are vastly underrated.”

The officer said, “Well, you may have something at that.”

Mason escorted the officer to the corridor.

“Say, what happened to the girl who was in the car with you?” the officer asked.

Mason laughed. “She couldn’t stand the pace,” he said. “Frightened her to death.”

As the cage took the officer down, an ascending elevator paused to discharge Della Street. Mason looked at her and laughed. “Well,” he said, “you fooled me.”

Her voice showed nerve strain. “I had to. I wasn’t certain I could put it across, so I didn’t want to tell you about it. Did it work?”

“I’ll say it worked! Incidentally, Gertrude gets a raise in pay.”

“She needs it,” Della Street said. “What are you doing out here in the corridor?”

“Just getting rid of the cops.”

They walked down the corridor together. Mason latch-keyed the office door to find Gertrude down on hands and knees scrubbing at the charred carpet.

“Gertrude,” he said, “arise and receive the benediction of the Order of Traffic Violators. You’re a girl after my own heart. In the bottom right-hand drawer of that desk you’ll find a bottle of whiskey and glasses. While you’re pouring the whiskey, Della will make out the check which raises your salary twenty dollars a month, effective from the first of last month. — Were you frightened?”

She looked at him with emotions struggling into expression. “A twenty dollar raise!” she exclaimed.

Mason nodded.

She said, “Gee... Thanks, Mr. Mason. I... I...”

Mason gravely opened the desk drawer, took out a bottle of whiskey and glasses. Gertrude Lade, tall, thin as a rail, her figure angular, her face plain, took the glass of whiskey Mason handed her, grinned at them, and said, “Here’s regards.” She tossed off the whiskey in a single swallow, handed Mason back the empty glass, and said, “Listen, Mr. Mason, any time you want anything pulled around here, don’t be afraid to call on me, and... thanks for that raise.”

She turned and walked with long-legged strides through the door to the outer office.

Mason finished his whiskey, set down the empty glass, grinned at Della Street, and said, “She talks like a trouper.”

“She sure does,” Della Street said. “I was afraid I’d have to argue with her. I didn’t. All I said was, ‘The boss is in a jam. Go into his office and set fire to a wastebasket where it’ll do about ten dollars’ worth of damage.” I waited for her to ask questions and argue. All she said was,’Is that all?‘”

Mason chuckled, picked up the telephone, and said, “Tell Paul Drake to come in, Gertrude.” He hung up the telephone, looked at Della Street, and chuckled again. “Getting a girl for that information desk and switchboard has been something of a job,” he said, “but I think we have one now. That remark of hers is priceless.”

“Her voice didn’t show the least excitement,” Della Street said. “She was just as casual about it as though I’d told her to mail a letter.”

Mason said, “Well, we’d better get this whiskey away before Drake comes in, or he’ll mooch our booze as well as our cigarettes. Della, call Emily Milicant, and tell her I want to see her as soon as she can get here.”

Della Street gathered up the empty glasses. “I’ll wash these, and bring them back,” she said.

A few seconds later, Drake knocked at the door, and Mason let him in.