The Case of the Spurious Spinster

Chapter 8

Perry Mason rang the chimes in Susan Fisher’s apartment and received no answer.

He frowned at Delia Street, tried the door. The door was locked. Again he sounded the chimes.

“I can’t understand it,” Mason said. “I told her to stay in her apartment and be where she could be reached instantly on the telephone.”

“What do you suppose has happened?” Della Street asked.

“Whatever it was,” Mason said, “it was something of sufficient importance to cause her to break the promise she made me and... unless, of course, she was confronted with some emergency and called Paul Drake. Let’s see if she left a message there.”

They went back down to the ground floor, found a telephone booth and called Drake.

“Perry Mason,” the lawyer said. “What have you heard from Susan Fisher — anything?”

“She telephoned at six o’clock,” Drake said. “She told me that something had come up which was so exceedingly confidential she didn’t dare breathe a word of it, but that she was going to have to be out for a while. She asked me to relay the message to you.”

“Did you try to pump her to find out what it was?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t get to first base. She was evidently in a breathless hurry. She said to tell you things were going to be all right and for you not to worry.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “I’ll keep in touch with you. She’ll let you know when she gets back.”

The lawyer hung up the telephone, emerged from the booth and shook his head in response to Della Street’s unspoken question. “She’s gone out,” he said. “She left rather a cryptic message for Paul Drake. He said she was in a breathless hurry. Under the circumstances, Della, I guess we go and eat. Everybody seems to be standing us up tonight.”

“Those,” Della Street announced, “are words that ring musical chimes in my brain. Those words tinkle upon my eardrums with the effect of music — we eat.”

Mason said, “Well, we’ll do it on the installment plan, Della. I notice there’s a cocktail lounge a couple of blocks down the street. We’ll go down there, have a cocktail, then get back here in about twenty minutes, check on our client once more and then if she isn’t in we’ll go get a nice dinner.”

Della Street said, “May I offer an amendment?”

“What is it?”

“Long experience with you has taught me that the bird in the hand is far, far better than two in the bush. In place of having a cocktail now and eats later, let’s forget the cocktail and put in the half-hour at the restaurant around the corner. I would much prefer digesting a meat loaf in my stomach than to get through until midnight on the promise of a filet mignon. Meat is more nourishing than words.”

“Okay,” Mason said, laughing, “but I want to be back here within thirty minutes at the outside. There’s something about this case which worries me.”

They went to a little restaurant around the corner where the service was prompt. As Della Street had jokingly surmised, there was meat loaf and gravy ready for immediate service.

Within thirty minutes they were back and Mason had parked his car in front of Sue Fisher’s apartment house.

Mason was escorting Della Street to the door when a slender figure in a long raincoat with a hat pulled low, started to push open the door, then suddenly stopped with a gasp.

“Mr. Mason!” Susan Fisher exclaimed.

Mason looked at the garb — the man’s hat, the sweater, the slacks, the raincoat, the flat shoes — and said, “Now, what are you doing masquerading as a man?”

“I... I don’t know,” Susan Fisher said. “Oh, am I glad to see you! Oh, I... I was hoping that I could get in touch with you.”

Mason said, “You could have been in touch with me if you’d only followed my instructions and remained in your apartment.”

“I know, I know, but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?’·’

“Because she telephoned me.”

“Who?”

“Amelia Corning.”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted me to do something without anybody knowing about it.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?” he asked.

“I... is it all right to talk here?”

“Probably not,” Mason said. “Let’s go up to your apartment... look, child, you’re shaking.”

“I know I’m shaking. I’m so nervous I feel like I could wilt on the doorstep.”

The lawyer escorted her to the elevator, then down the hallway. Della Street said, “Let me have your key, dear, and I’ll unlock the door.”

After they had entered the apartment Mason said, “All right, Susan, let’s have it.”

Susan seated herself, started twisting her gloves nervously as though wringing water from them.

“Go on,” Mason said encouragingly. And then added, “We may not have much time, you know.”

Susan said, “She telephoned and told me exactly what to do. She told me to take a pencil and write down her instructions in shorthand.”

“What were they?”

“I have them in my notebook but they’re etched in my mind. She told me to go to the office of the drive-yourself car company that is only four blocks away, to rent an automobile, then to go up Mulholland Drive to an intersection she described, then on one and three-tenths miles to a service station. At the service station I was to go on down the road for another two-tenths of a mile. There was a wide place there and I was to park the car. Then I was to walk back to the service station and ask for a one-gallon can of gasoline. She said I was to take the can of gasoline, pay for it, take it down and put it in the car — that anyone driving at night should be equipped for any emergency.”

“And why was all this?” Mason asked.

“She said that she wanted to get me to drive her to Mojave and she didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing. She said she absolutely had to interview a man in Mojave before the banks opened tomorrow.”

“Did she say why?”

“No.”

“Or what name?”

“No.”

“And what about the clothes you’re wearing?”

“She said I was to get a man’s hat that had a good broad brim, that I was to wear slacks, a sweater, and a raincoat, that I must wear flat shoes so I could do quite a bit of walking, if necessary.

“And she told me the nicest things, Mr. Mason. She told me that she had checked very carefully on me, that she appreciated my candor and my straightforward sincerity as well as my loyalty to the company. She told me that she was going to throw Endicott Campbell out and that I was going to be placed in an executive position. She said—”

“Never mind all that,” Mason said. “Tell me exactly what happened. What else did she say about instructions, and what did you do?”

“I did exactly as she told me. I knew that there was a broom closet here where the janitor kept some old clothes and I knew he had this broad-brimmed hat there, so I borrowed it. I had a heavy opaque raincoat. I left so that I got to the designated place on Mulholland Drive a good twenty minutes before the appointed time. I parked the car, went to the gasoline station, got the one-gallon can of gasoline and went back to the place and waited and waited and waited and waited.”

“The man gave you the one-gallon can of gasoline,” Mason asked, “the man at the service station? He didn’t offer to drive you down to where your car was standing?”

“No. Miss Corning told me that if he did that, I wasn’t to encourage him. She said she didn’t think he’d do it, however, because only one man would be on duty.”

“He didn’t offer to drive you?”

“He wanted to, all right, but he said he was there alone. If there had been two of them, he would have driven me down. He even contemplated closing up the station long enough to drive me down there, but I didn’t encourage him and... I guess he was afraid someone would come along and find the station closed and report it.”

“What about the rented car?” Mason asked.

“I waited and waited, and when she didn’t show up I took the rented car back and paid the rental. She had told me to do that if she didn’t meet me there by seven-fifty. She said if she wasn’t there by that time I was to leave at once and return to the apartment, turning in the rented car. I asked what I should do with the can of gas and she specifically told me not to return it to the gas station, but to throw it in the bushes by the side of the road.”

“Where did you get the money to pay for the car?”

“This other woman gave me money for expenses when I was working there at the office yesterday morning. Miss Corning told me to use that money and that she’d replace it.”

“What time did she tell you she’d be there,” Mason asked, “at this rendezvous on Mulholland Drive?”

“She didn’t tell me. She told me to be there by at least fifteen minutes past seven and to wait until exactly seven-fifty. She said that she would join me during that interval if she could.”

“When did this call come in?”

“About... oh, I guess it was five forty-five.”

Mason glanced at Della Street. “That couldn’t have been too long after we talked with her.”

“She told me that she had talked with you on the phone, Mr. Mason. I wanted to know if she knew where I could reach you, and she said no, you couldn’t be reached, that you were out of the city but that you’d telephoned her.”

“You’re sure it was her voice on the telephone?” Mason asked.

“Oh, yes, I’m quite sure. She has certain little mannerisms of speaking and I have a good ear for voices on the telephone. I’m quite certain it was she.”

“You turned the car in and walked here from the car-rental agency?”

She hesitated.

“Did you?”

“No. Mr. Mason, I know I shouldn’t have, but I was so upset... I stopped at the cocktail lounge and had a drink. I needed it.”

“They know you there?”

“Yes. The bartender is very nice. I stop in there once in a while.”

“How long were you there?”

“Not long — ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Then you came here?”

“Yes.”

Mason frowned. “The thing simply doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You can’t fit it together any way so it does make sense... did Miss Corning tell you anything about her sister or her business manager from South America?”

“Not a thing,” Susan said.

“Look here, Susan,” Mason said. “This woman is from South America. She hasn’t been here for years. She couldn’t have given you all that detailed information. She couldn’t have known about the distances, whether or not the attendant at the service station was alone, or—”

“Oh, but she could,” Susan interrupted. “She said she’d engaged a detective agency and that all of these things were bits of a puzzle that would all fit together. She said the persons who had been planning to loot the company were planning a meeting that we were going to walk in on. She said that by the time you returned to town we’d have all the evidence you needed... and it was Miss Corning, all right. I knew her voice. There couldn’t be any mistake.”

Mason said, “I’m afraid you’ve either been a credulous little fool, or that Miss Corning has exposed herself to danger and may have been injured — and in that event you’re really in trouble.”

“But, Mr. Mason, what could I do? Absolutely everything depends on having the confidence and the backing of Miss Corning. I couldn’t do anything except what I did... She said her detectives had just reported and that there was no time to spare. She said she’d have given ten thousand dollars if they’d reported a little earlier and before you had phoned her. She said she thought you were in Mojave.”

Abruptly Mason started pacing the floor, his eyes level-lidded with concentration.

“What’s the matter?” Susan Fisher asked. “Do you suppose...?”

Della Street, knowing the lawyer’s habits of thought, motioned Sue to silence with a finger on her lips.

Mason paced back and forth for nearly two minutes. Suddenly he whirled. “All right, Sue, can you draw me an accurate diagram of the place where you parked the car?”

“Of course. She gave me a description of mileage and I took it down in shorthand and—”

“Where’s the shorthand?”

“Right here.”

“Have you transcribed it?”

“No.”

“Do you have a typewriter here?”

“Yes.”

“Write out the description,” Mason said, “just as fast as you can. Then sit right here in this apartment. Don’t leave until I tell you to, no matter what happens.”

Spurred by the urgency of his manner, Sue Fisher uncovered a typewriter, ratcheted in paper and typed out the driving directions.

Mason studied the paper for a moment, folded it, shoved it in his pocket, said to Della Street, “Come on, Della.”

“I’m to wait here?” Sue Fisher asked.

“Right here,” Mason instructed, “and if Miss Corning phones find out where she is, then call Paul Drake and tell him. In the meantime, I’m going to phone Paul Drake to put a bodyguard on duty here.”

“Suppose she phones and tells me to go out to join her and—”

“Find out where she is, phone Drake’s agency, and then do exactly as she says. If you notice a man following you, don’t be afraid. That will be Drake’s man.”

Mason hurried Della Street to the elevator, paused to phone instructions to Paul Drake from the booth in the lobby, then hurried to his car.

“We’re going out there?” Della Street asked.

Mason nodded.

“Why? What do you expect to find?”

Mason said, “We may be in time to prevent a murder.”

“Chief, you think... you mean...?”

“Exactly,” Mason said.

Ordinarily an exponent of careful, safe driving, Mason on this occasion crowded his car into speed.

“You’ll be picked up,” Della Street warned as Mason shot through a changing traffic signal.

“So much the better,” Mason told her. “We’ll impress an officer into service and take him along.”

But there were no officers. The lawyer drove up on Mulholland Drive and started checking distances.

“This is the service station,” Della Street said.

Mason, tight-lipped, nodded grimly, slowed his speed and moved cautiously down the road.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Della Street said. “That’s the place right there, where she had the car parked, Chief.”

“I know it,” Mason said. “I don’t want to leave our car parked there.”

He drove on another hundred yards before he found a place where he could park the car. He took a flashlight from the glove compartment. “Come on, Della,” he said.

The lawyer’s long legs set a pace which forced Della Street to keep at a half-trot in order to keep up with him. They came back to the cleared place in the road where there were marks of tires in the soft soil.

The questing beam of Mason’s flashlight moved around through the brush.

“Precisely what are you looking for?” Della Street asked.

Abruptly the beam of the flashlight answered her question as it came to rest on a red one-gallon can which had been thrown over into the brush.

“The gasoline can,” Della Street said. “It must be empty!”

Mason nodded.

“Do we pick it up and...?”

“We touch nothing,” Mason said. “This way, Della.”

Automobiles which had been driven through the low brush out towards the steep slope had made a roadway which consisted of but little more than two parallel lines of broken low brush.

Mason led the way to a point where there was a cleared space right at the edge of the steep slope. Petting parties had parked here, then turned their cars and gone back to the highway so that there had been left a circular space virtually devoid of vegetation.

Mason switched out the flashlight and listened.

From Mulholland Drive there was the occasional whine of a car. Far, far below, the noises of the city, muted by distance, furnished a rumbling undertone. A sea of twinkling lights stretched as far as the eye could see until a dark segment marked the location of the ocean. Overhead, stars blazed in tranquil steadiness.

“What a beautiful, beautiful spot,” Della Street said. “Wouldn’t this make an ideal—” She broke off abruptly with a half-scream.

Mason’s flashlight, which had been switched on once more and was exploring the edges of the clearing, came to rest on a sprawled shape lying on its back in the unmistakably grotesque posture of death.

Mason moved closer.

The odor of raw gasoline permeated the atmosphere.

The lawyer’s flashlight came to rest on the features.

“Chief,” Della Street said, half-hysterically, “it’s Lowry — Ken Lowry, the manager of the mine.”

Mason nodded. The beam of the flashlight continued to move.

“And here are account books,” Della Street said, “all soaked in gasoline.”

Mason nodded, approached the body of Ken Lowry. The lawyer bent over him and felt for a pulse.

“All right, Della,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Chief, what happened? What...?”

“We were too late to prevent a murder,” Mason said. “We may have been early enough to have prevented the destruction of evidence.”

“You mean fire?”

Mason nodded. “Let’s be careful, Della. There’s probably a cold-blooded murderer watching everything we do.”

He retraced his steps to Mulholland Drive, took Della Street’s hand in his and ran down to where he had left his car. He jumped in the car, drove it to the service station.

“Got a phone?” he asked the attendant.

The man nodded, motioned to a telephone.

Mason hurried inside, dialed police headquarters. “Homicide,” he said.

A moment later, when he had the connection completed, he inquired, “Lieutenant Tragg happen to be there?”

“He dropped in for a minute and is just leaving. I can perhaps catch him in the corridor if—”

“Get him!” Mason shouted. “Tell him it’s Perry Mason. Tell him it’s important.”

Mason heard a voice shouting at the other end of the line, “Hey, grab Tragg! Don’t let him leave the building.”

Several seconds later, Mason could hear the sound of footsteps approaching the telephone and Tragg’s voice saying, “Yes, hello... Tragg talking.”

Mason said, “You aren’t going to like this any more than I do, Lieutenant. I’ve found a body.”

“I see,” Tragg said dryly. “And you are quite correct.”

“In what?”

“In that I don’t like it any more than you do, probably not as much. Now, where are you and what’s it all about?”

Mason said, “The body is soaked in gasoline and I believe the murderer intended to set fire not only to the body but to some documentary evidence that is nearby. I’m going back and try to prevent it. Get officers up on Mulholland Drive just as fast as you can. I’m going to try and stand guard. I’ll put Della Street on the telephone. She’ll tell you where I am and how to get here.”

Mason handed the phone to Della Street.

“You talk with him, give him directions,” he said. “I’m going back.”

“No, no,” she cried. “It’s dangerous. You can’t... you’re unarmed...”

“Once this evidence gets destroyed,” Mason said, “our client goes to the gas chamber. I don’t think the murderer will start the fire if he knows there’s a witness.”

“He’ll kill the witness,” Della Street said.

“You tell Tragg how to get here,” Mason said. “That’s the best you can do. Tell him to rush up a radio prowl car and then get up here himself.”

The lawyer gave Della Street no more time to argue but dashed past the startled attendant at the station, jumped into his car, drove back to the wide place in the road, turned his car so that the headlights were shining down the road which had been made by petting parties, shut off the motor and rolled down the windows. He sat there watching the roadway, which was outlined in the beam of the headlights, listening intently.

Mason had waited some ten minutes when he heard the distant sound of a wailing siren. The wailing rapidly grew to a scream. The rays of a blood-red spotlight tinged the brush with a sinister glow, then etched Mason’s car into brilliance.

The siren died to a throaty gurgle. An officer leaving the car came hurrying over to Mason’s car, his hand on his gun.

“All right,” he said, “what is it?”

Mason said, “I’m Perry Mason, the attorney. I telephoned Homicide and asked Lieutenant Tragg to get out here as soon as he could and to send a radio car out here at the first opportunity. There’s a body over there about a hundred yards from the road and it’s soaked with gasoline. I think the murderer intended to set fire to the body but was interrupted by my arrival.”

“Oh, you do, eh? And how did you happen to arrive so opportunely?”

“I was running down a clue,” Mason said.

“A clue to what?”

“A clue to an entirely different matter, although it may have been connected with the murder.”

“Who’s the person who was murdered, do you know?”

“To the best of my belief,” Mason said, “the body is that of Kenneth Lowry, who was employed as manager of a mine operated by the Mojave Monarch Mining Company.”

The officer hesitated a moment, then said, “You wait right here. Don’t move. Don’t go away. Don’t get out of the car.”

The officer went back and conferred with the other officer, then took a powerful hand flashlight and started walking down the road, being careful to keep to one side in the brush so as not to obliterate any tracks.

Mason sat there waiting.

Another twelve minutes passed and a second siren screamed in the distance. A short time later, another police car pulled to a stop. Lt. Tragg alighted, and crossed over to Mason’s car.

“What’s the idea, Mason?”

“I was reporting a body, that’s all.”

“Murder?”

“I would gather as much.”

“Weapon?”

“I didn’t see any.”

“Identity?”

“I believe it is Kenneth Lowry, the manager of the Mojave Monarch mine.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“Yes.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Late this afternoon. I saw him then for the first and last time.”

“Where?”

“In Mojave.”

“Then he must have followed you over here.”

“He may have preceded me,” Mason said.

“All right, what’s your interest in the Mojave Monarch?”

“I was checking some of the financial affairs.”

“Who for?”

“A client.”

“Who’s the client?”

“At the moment,” Mason said, “I am not at liberty to divulge the client. However, I am going to make one suggestion, Lieutenant.’’

“What’s that?”

“Amelia Corning was staying at the Arthenium Hotel. She seems to have left the hotel rather mysteriously. She had an appointment with me at seven-thirty and she wasn’t there to keep it. I have every reason to believe that prompt action on the part of the police may prevent her murder.”

Tragg asked, “Where’s the body?”

“Right down this little road,” Mason said. “I’ve kept my headlights on the road and one of the officers from the radio car has gone down there and presumably is staying near the body to see that nothing is touched.”

Tragg walked over to the radio car, conferred with the officer who was in that car, gave him some orders in a low voice, then returned to Mason’s car.

“Come on,” Tragg said to the lawyer, “let’s go. Leave your headlights on. If your battery runs down you can get another one at this service station down the road. Let’s keep some light on the scene.”

Tragg walked over to the car in which he had arrived, said a few words and a photographer with a strobe light, a technician with a fingerprint case, emerged from the car.

Tragg said to Mason, “Lead the way, Perry. Keep off to the side of the road. Don’t obliterate any tracks.”

Mason said, “I’ve walked down here once before. At that time, I didn’t know there was a corpse down here, so I left my tracks in the roadway. But when I came back I kept to the brush.”

“Okay,” Tragg said, “your tracks are here. Let’s try not to leave any more.”

Mason, picking his way through the knee-high brush to the side of the road, led the way down towards the clearing.

The flashlight of the officer from the radio car winked a signal.

“Over this way,” the officer called.

Tragg and the group skirted the clearing, came to where the officer was standing.

“Lieutenant Tragg,” Tragg announced. “What do you have here, Officer?”

“Evidently a murder,” the officer said. “The body is soaked in gasoline and some books there are soaked in gasoline. There’s a stiletto-type letter opener, that’s evidently the murder weapon. I felt perhaps someone might be around here waiting to toss a match and set fire to the whole business so I was keeping guard.”

“Good work,” Tragg said. He turned to Mason. “All right, Mason, we’ll furnish you with an escort back to your car. Don’t leave until I question you.”

“I’m going down as far as the service station,” Mason said. “You can reach me there.”

“Why the service station?”

“Della Street’s there.”

“All right. Go that far, no farther. Stay there.”

Tragg said to the officer, “Take him back to the car. See he gets in the car and drives down to the service station. Keep him out in the brush, to one side of the road so he doesn’t leave any tracks.”

One of the men bending over the body said, “Lieutenant, this man hasn’t been dead any time at all.”

“But he’s dead?” Tragg asked.

“He’s dead.”

“Okay,” Tragg said. “Set up your photographic outfit and start getting some pictures. All right, Mason, this is where you came in.”

The officer, holding Mason’s arm, led the way through the brush, keeping well to one side of the road. When the lawyer had returned to his car the officer said, “Now, you’re driving down to the service station.”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll follow you that far,” the officer said.

“Okay,” Mason told him.

The lawyer started his car, swung out on to Mulholland Drive, drove back to the service station. The police car followed behind him. After Mason had swung in at the service station, the police car made a U-turn and went back.

Della Street smiled at Mason, opened her purse and took out some ragged bits of cloth.

“What’s that?” Mason asked.

“One beautiful pair of nylon stockings cut all to pieces by brush. Is that a legitimate expense?”

“That’s a legitimate expense for you and deductible for me,” Mason said.

“It’ll look nice on the expense account,” she said. “One pair of nylon hose for secretary.”

Mason grinned. “It won’t appear on the expense account in exactly those words, Della. Let’s get Paul Drake.”

The service station attendant came crowding forward eagerly. “Say, what’s this all about?” he asked.

“A murder down the road,” Mason said.

“Gosh, how did it all happen?”

“No one knows exactly,” Mason said. “There’s a gasoline can down there. You didn’t sell anybody a gallon can of gasoline recently, did you?”

“Say, I sure did,” the man said, “about an hour and a half ago, and I’ve been wondering what the heck happened.”

“To whom did you sell it?”

“A young woman who was wearing a man’s hat with a long raincoat. She kept the hat pulled down over her eyes.”

“Blonde?” Mason asked, glancing significantly at Della Street.

“I don’t know.”

“A blonde, blue eyes, about five feet two and a half, about twenty-seven years old?”

“I thought she was younger.”

“How much younger?”

“Well, I don’t know. She may have been twenty-seven.”

“Blue eyes,” Mason said positively.

The attendant frowned. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not entirely certain as to that.”

“Then you didn’t get a very good look at her?”

“No, I didn’t get a very good look at her. She came in and wanted a gallon of gas. I remember wondering why she was wearing a man’s hat and... well, I wondered just what was going on down there. A girl being out alone that way, running out of gasoline — I wanted to drive her back down to her car, but I was here all alone.”

“Rather a brassy individual?” Mason asked. “The kind who would be wandering around at night dressed in men’s clothes?”

“I’m not so certain she was dressed in men’s clothes. She had this raincoat and the hat.”

“It was a man’s hat.”

“It was a man’s hat, all right.”

“Rather wide brim?”

“Wide-brimmed and she kept the brim sort of pulled down.”

“But you could see her eyes were blue?”

“Now wait a minute. I’m not so certain about her eyes.”

“You can’t swear they were blue?”

The attendant hesitated and said, “No, I can’t swear they were blue.”

“Then you can’t swear what color they were?”

“I... no, I guess I couldn’t.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “Della, you talk with him, will you, and make notes on what he says? Try and get a description of this young woman.”

Mason lowered his right eye in a swift wink. “I’m going to use the phone,” he said to the attendant.

The attendant seemed only too willing to talk with Della Street.

Mason went over to the telephone, called Paul Drake’s office. When he had the detective on the line, he said, “What’s new with Endicott Campbell, Paul?”

“I think you’re locking the stable after the horse has been stolen,” Drake said. “We haven’t been able to pick up his trail. He isn’t at home and we can’t find him.”

“Keep trying,” Mason said. “When you do find him, don’t let him out of your sight — that’s important. Now, here’s something else, Paul.”

“What?”

“We’ve simply got to find Carleton Campbell — that’s the seven-year-old boy who’s in the custody of this English governess, Elizabeth Dow.”

“Have a heart,” Drake said. “We’re doing all we can on that, Perry.”

“Do even better than that,” Mason said. “There’s been a murder. Ken Lowry, the manager of the Mojave Monarch, has been killed. I was talking with him this afternoon. He must have got to thinking things over after we left and decided perhaps he’d told me too much, or else he put two and two together from things I had told him.

“Now, he may have started for Los Angeles to see Endicott Campbell or he may have started for Los Angeles to see Amelia Corning at the Arthenium Hotel. My best guess is that he went to see Miss Corning. He could have found out she was in town in some way; she might have telephoned him for all we know.

“Miss Corning has disappeared. She had an appointment with me at seven-thirty and didn’t keep it. She’s a stickler for keeping appointments right on the dot. I want you to find out everything you can and I want to find it out fast.”

“Where are you sitting in this thing?” Drake asked.

“More or less in the middle,” Mason said. “I seem to have been playing tag with a murderer somewhere and I’m not sure who the murderer is.”

“But you have a suspicion?”

“I have a suspicion,” Mason said. “I’m going to need proof.

“Now, Amelia Corning’s sister and her South American business agent have moved in at the Arthenium Hotel. Apparently the sister, Sophia Elliott, wears the pants in the family, or tries to. I don’t think that goes too well with Amelia Corning.

“Now, here’s something else that bothers me, Paul. I don’t think that Amelia Corning was too anxious to have her sister and Alfredo Gomez, the business agent, show up. I think they showed up on their own initiative and there may be some friction, some adverse interest somewhere. It’s just a hunch I have.

“I’ve given the police a tip to try and locate Amelia Corning. I told them that she was in danger of being murdered. That will spur them along.”

“Do you think she is in danger?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “I just don’t like the way these other people showed up, and I have a hunch Amelia Corning didn’t either. When I talked with her over the phone and she told me that she’d received a wire from them saying they were corning, she didn’t seem too happy about it.”

“If you have the police working on the thing,” Drake said, “there’s not much I can do. The police will run circles around me.”

“That’s right,” Mason said. “But you just might happen to stumble on something. I’ll tell you one thing, Paul, that you can do.”

“What?”

“Be so ostentatious about looking for her and so apprehensive that you build up the background of apprehension on the part of all concerned.”

“All concerned?”

“That’s right,” Mason said, “all concerned.”

“This is going to turn into quite a job,” Drake said.

“It has turned into quite a job,” Mason told him. “Get busy on it.”

The lawyer hung up the telephone, noting as he did so that Della Street, with her wide and unmistakably beautiful eyes, had hypnotized the service station attendant so that he had hardly noticed Mason had had a telephone conversation, let alone trying to eavesdrop on it.

Mason telephoned for a taxicab to come out to the service station, then joined Della Street, after a moment was able to get her off to one side where he could talk without being overheard.

“Della,” he said, “I’m under orders from the police not to leave here. No one thought to give you any such orders. I’ve telephoned for a taxicab. It will wait here. You take my car and beat it.”

“Where do I go?”

Mason said, “Della, this is important. I don’t want the police to get on Sue Fisher’s trail any sooner than they have to. On the other hand, I don’t dare to have her resort to flight because that would be taken as an indication of guilt. Now, just suppose that you were told by me to go out and try and locate Miss Corning? Where would you go?”

“I don’t know.”

“It is quite a question,” Mason said, “but we must bear in mind that she had some very involved mining interests out in the vicinity of Mojave. We must bear in mind that the murder of Ken Lowry has some rather deep significance. Now, if you should stop by Sue Fisher’s apartment and take her with you so that she could brief you on the various things you wanted to know about, and if you should start to Mojave — well, of course you’re rather tired tonight. I shouldn’t ask you to work day and night. You’ve been going at a high rate of speed all day. You two girls could stop somewhere along the road at a motel. Of course you’d have to be careful to use your own names. And then you could go out and look around Mojave tomorrow. There’s just a chance... just a chance, that you could find something.”

“You want delay, is that it?” Della Street asked.

Mason said, “Tut-tut, Della. You mustn’t jump to conclusions. I am merely asking you to get evidence. I think you could get out there in Mojave, skirmish around and do a pretty good job.”

“Do you want me to report to you?”

“From time to time,” Mason said. “There’s no use reporting to me tonight. Do you have plenty of money?”

“Not too much.”

Mason reached for his billfold, took out two one-hundred-dollar bills.

“All right,” he said, “this should keep you going for a while.”

“How will you get along without your car?”

“Oh, I’ll get along,” Mason said. “I’ll rent a car. You just take this and don’t be in a hurry, Della. Telephone me from time to time.”

“And if the police should catch up with us?”

“If the police should catch up with you,” Mason said, “you might tell Sue Fisher that an attorney generally doesn’t want his client to make any statement unless he is present, and he likes to talk with his client and know the facts before she makes any statements to the police.”

“I think I understand,” Della said. “Wish me luck.”

“On your way,” Mason said.

Della Street went to Mason’s car, jumped in with a swirl of skirt and a generous flash of leg.

The service station attendant watched her as she drove away. “Isn’t that girl a picture actress?” he asked.

Mason shook his head.

“She should be,” the attendant said dreamily. “The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life. Gosh, what eyes! And what a figure!”

Mason’s smile was comprehensive. “And what competence,” he said.

“What does she do?” the attendant asked.

“She’s a very, very competent secretary,” Mason told him.

The attendant stood looking down the road for a moment, then with a sigh went back to the interior of the station.