The Case of the Spurious Spinster

Chapter 3

Della Street, looking over the rim of her demitasse cup, said in a low voice, “Unless my judgment of facial expression is in error, the young woman who just entered the place unescorted and is now standing by the reservations desk is the one who telephoned Paul Drake and is so concerned about the dishonest management of the company where she works.”

Mason, who had his back to the entrance, said, “Give me a run-down, Della. While she’s waiting, give me the benefit of your feminine appraisal.”

“Not bad-looking, from a masculine standpoint,” Della Street said. “A nice figure, curves in the right places; rather modest, demure—”

“Not from a masculine standpoint,” Mason interrupted. “Masculine observations of women are notoriously inaccurate. Let me have it from the feminine viewpoint, Della.”

“I don’t know how much she makes,” Della Street said, “but on a secretarial salary I would say that the clothes she’s wearing indicate she’s alone in the world. She isn’t supporting any mother, father, or younger brothers. She knows how to wear her clothes, too. She’s neat — what you’d call well groomed.”

“What color hair?”

“Darkish. Not coal black. Sort of a dark chestnut.”

“Natural?” Mason asked.

“Heaven knows,” Della Street said, “particularly at this distance. You probably couldn’t tell anyway.”

“Eyes?” Mason asked.

“Rather dark. You can’t get the color from here. Either black or dark brown. She’s a little lady. She’s nervous but making a determined effort to be self-contained... Oh, oh, she’s got the head waiter now. Here she comes.”

The headwaiter said apologetically, “The young woman says she has an appointment, Mr. Mason.”

Mason arose.

Della Street said, “Are you Susan Fisher?” and when the other nodded, extended her hand. “I’m Della Street, Mr. Mason’s confidential secretary, and this is Mr. Mason.”

“Won’t you sit down?” Mason invited.

“I... I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Mason. I shouldn’t have disturbed you at dinner but this is a matter of the greatest importance.”

“All right,” Mason said, “let’s hear what it’s all about. Would you like a dessert, a liqueur, some coffee? I take it you’ve dined...”

“Yes. I had a snack — I have to be in the lobby of the Arthenium Hotel in exactly thirty minutes.”

“Well, then,” Mason said, “perhaps you’d better not waste time with coffee. Just sit down here and tell me everything that happened.”

It took Susan Fisher ten full minutes of rapid conversation to describe the events of the day.

When she had finished, Mason’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at his wristwatch. “Well,” he said, “there isn’t time to head things off.”

“What do you mean? There’s almost twenty minutes. There—”

“No,” Mason said, “I meant to get witnesses who can verify the contents of the shoe box.”

“You think we should have?”

Mason nodded. “I think you should have had a witness as soon as you discovered what was in the box.”

“Why?”

“You don’t know how much was in there,” Mason said. “Neither does anyone else.”

“I know, but the shoe box is intact in the safe.”

“Who knows it’s intact?”

“Why, I do. I...”

Her dismayed voice trailed away into silence.

“Exactly,” Mason said. “You assume that the box is intact but suppose someone should claim there’s two thousand or five thousand dollars missing?”

“Yes,” she said. “I see your point.”

“Particularly in case that someone should want to discredit you,” Mason said.

“And why would anyone want to do that?”

“Because,” Mason told her, “apparently you have information about irregularities in the company. Under those circumstances some guilty party might very well try to involve you first.”

Mason abruptly signaled the waiter. “I think we’ll get over to the Arthenium Hotel as early as possible,” Mason told Susan. “Even if Campbell should show up only five minutes early, that would give us an extra five minutes and we may need it.”

“Then you’ll... you’ll represent me?”

Mason nodded. “At least to the extent of looking into it.”

She let her fingers close gratefully on his wrist. “Oh, Mr. Mason, I can’t tell you what it means to me. I’m beginning to realize... Well, this could have quite a blow-up and I... Gosh, I am in rather a vulnerable position as far as that money is concerned.”

“Carleton is too young to have counted it?”

“Heavens, yes.”

“How much money would you say was in the box?”

“I don’t know. It was a shoe box just crammed full of hundred-dollar bills. That could be quite a large amount, I take it.”

Mason nodded. The waiter brought the check. Mason signed it and nodded to Della Street.

“It’s only a block,” Mason said. “There’s no use getting the car out, then trying to find a parking place at the Arthenium. We’ll walk.”

They left the café and as they walked over to the lobby of the hotel Mason said, “Now, when we walk in, introduce me to Campbell as your lawyer if he’s there. If he isn’t, introduce me to him as soon as he walks in and then let me do the talking.”

“He’ll resent that,” Susan Fisher warned.

“I know he will,” Mason said. “But he’s going to resent me anyway and I think you need someone to represent you right from the start.”

“But after all, Mr. Mason, Miss Corning is the real boss. She’s over Mr. Campbell. She’s over everyone. She’s the one who pays my salary. I thought I should explain that to him and then perhaps we should wait to see if he makes some accusation of—”

“That’s not what I’m thinking of at all,” Mason said.

“But that’s the only reason I wanted you to be there — to tell him that under the law I was not only entitled to do what I did, but obligated to.”

Mason said, “I’m thinking of that shoe box full of money.”

“Well, it’s there in the safe and—”

“And,” Mason interrupted, “if Endicott Campbell simply decided to go to the office, open the safe, take out the shoe box full of money and place it where it would never be seen again, you haven’t any way on earth of proving that the shoe box was ever there.”

“Do you think he’d do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Mason said, “but when a man has a shoe box full of hundred-dollar bills in his closet I take rather a dim view of his integrity and the Department of Internal Revenue shares my doubts... Well, here we are. Let’s go in.”

Susan Fisher, speechless with apprehension, walked through the door as Mason held it open for her.

Della Street squeezed Susan’s arm with her fingers. “It’s all right, Miss Fisher,” she said. “Just have confidence in Mr. Mason. He was simply trying to tell you the reason he wanted to conduct the conversation.”

“But heavens,” Susan Fisher said, “he... Of course, Mr. Campbell wouldn’t do a thing like that, but if he did...”

“Exactly,” Della Street said. “If he did, then what?”

“I don’t know,” Susan Fisher conceded.

“See him here?” Mason asked, as they looked around the lobby.

She shook her head.

Mason regarded his watch and frowned. “It’s a situation where we need every minute we can get... How is he generally on keeping appointments?”

“Quite prompt.”

“Well,” Mason said, “let’s hope he gets here a little early.”

Mason glanced at his watch, then began to pace the floor.

“One thing’s certain,” Susan Fisher said. “He’s going to have to be here right on the dot at eight forty-five. That’s the time Miss Corning said for him to be here and she explained she didn’t want him even as much as a minute late.”

They waited until eight thirty-five.

Mason said impatiently, “I want to talk with him before he goes up to see her. I want to see what—”

“Here he comes now,” Susan Fisher interrupted, nodding her head towards the entrance to the lobby.

Mason studied the man who came striding towards the elevators: a figure in the late thirties with broad shoulders, a fairly slim waist, a powerful neck, a heavy jaw, thick eyebrows, and eyes that seemed strangely intent.

The man came walking towards them and apparently was so preoccupied that it wasn’t until he was within a few feet of Susan Fisher that he noticed her.

“Susan,” he said, “what in the world is the meaning of all this? I—”

“I want you to know Mr. Perry Mason, the lawyer,” Susan said, “and his secretary, Della Street. Mr. Mason is going to be my lawyer.”

If she had pulled out a gun and fired a shot point-blank at Endicott Campbell he couldn’t have come to a more abrupt stop or seemed more dismayed.

“An attorney!” he exclaimed.

“Exactly,” Mason said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “How are you, Mr. Campbell? I’m representing Susan Fisher.”

“But what in the world does she need an attorney for?” Endicott Campbell asked.

“That remains to be seen,” Mason said. “Did you wish to discuss certain matters with her?”

“I asked her here to discuss certain private business problems and they’re problems which affect the company. Some of them are confidential. I don’t care to have an audience.”

Mason, seeing advantage in Campbell’s surprise, took the initiative, said, “There was the matter of a shoe box containing some hundred-dollar bills, Mr. Campbell. You seemed to question my client’s word about that and that’s one of the things I want to have settled.”

“That’s one of the things I want to have settled,” Campbell said, turning savagely to face Susan Fisher. “Now then, Susan, what the devil did you mean by trying to hide behind a seven-year-old boy and drag him into your peculations?”

“What in the world are you talking about?” Susan asked.

“You know very well what I mean. This cock-and-bull story you dreamed up about Carleton having a shoe box full of money.”

“But he had it.”

“Bosh!” Campbell said. “He didn’t have any such thing.”

“Have you asked him?” Mason inquired.

Campbell whirled to Mason and said, “I don’t need to ask him. And as far as I’m concerned you have no official status in this party at all.”

Mason said, “You have just accused my client of peculations. The accusation was made in the presence of witnesses. Now, just what do you mean by peculations?”

“She knows what I mean,” Campbell said, “and I don’t think I need to elaborate on it in view of the fact that you quite obviously are simply tagging along here hoping that you can find some grounds for a damage suit... Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Perry Mason, you’re going to have something a lot more serious to occupy your attention if you’re going to represent this young woman.”

Campbell turned again to Susan Fisher. “Now then, since you apparently would like to trap me into making accusations I’ll simply content myself with asking questions. What about that box of money that you told me about over the telephone?”

“What do you want to know about it?”

“Where did you put it?”

“In the safe.”

“And then what did you do with it?”

“Nothing. I left it in the safe.”

“Well, it isn’t there now,” Endicott Campbell said.

“What!” she exclaimed.

“What’s more, you know it... All right, I won’t make any accusations in view of the fact that you’re represented by competent counsel. However, I’ll just state this, Susan Fisher, that you told me about having a box of hundred-dollar bills in your possession in the office. Now I’m calling on you to produce that box of hundred-dollar bills.”

“I take it,” Mason said dryly, “you have already been to the office.”

Campbell turned to face him, studied him with hostile eyes and said, “I see no reason to answer that question. On the other hand, I see no reason not to answer the question. I have been to the office. I have opened the safe. I have looked for the box where she said it was and it wasn’t there.”

“And,” Mason said, “what does that prove?”

“It proves she’s lying.”

“In what way?”

“All right,” Campbell said, “I’ll put it this way. Let her prove she isn’t lying. She didn’t have any witnesses as to the amount of money in that box. She didn’t even have any witnesses as to the existence of the box.”

“And you think she should have?” Mason said.

“It would have been a commendable precaution as far as her veracity is concerned.”

“So you went to the office and there wasn’t any box in the safe.”

“That’s right.”

“No money, no box?”

“No money, no box.”

“And who were your witnesses?”

“My witnesses? What do you mean?”

“It would have been a commendable precaution,” Mason said.

“Why, you... you—!” Campbell sputtered.

“At some stage of the inquiry,” Mason said, “you might be interrogated as to how anyone knows you didn’t find the box there.”

“Well, I didn’t, and I think my word is good enough to stand up in any court of law.”

“That will depend on several things,” Mason said.

“Such as what?” Campbell sneered.

“On the manner in which you’re cross-examined,” Mason said, “and how you comport yourself on cross-examination... Now, I believe you have an appointment with Amelia Corning?”

“I do.”

“And I want to see Amelia Corning,” Mason said. He turned to Sue Fisher. “What’s her suite, Miss Fisher?”

“The Presidential Suite on the twenty-first floor.”

“Then we all may as well go up,” Mason said. “I’d like to ask Miss Corning a few questions and I’d also like to make certain that Mr. Campbell doesn’t make any insinuations or plant any prejudices in Miss Corning’s mind before we have a chance to get a showdown on this.”

“You can’t come up,” Campbell said. “This is a private appointment. This is a matter of business and you have no right to horn in on it.”

“And who,” Mason asked, “is going to stop me?”

Campbell squared his shoulders, then regarded the rugged features and broad shoulders of the lawyer. “Before you go too far with this thing,” he said, “it might interest you to know that I am considered a very good boxer.”

“And before you go too far with this thing,” Mason told him, “it might interest you to know that I’m considered one hell of a good fighter.”

With that the lawyer turned his back on Campbell and marched towards the elevators.

Della Street took Susan Fisher’s arm, followed the lawyer.

Campbell started to follow them, then turned and said, “All right, I’ll get the house detective if I have to.”

Mason paused for a moment thoughtfully, watching the departing Campbell.

“Will he get the house detective?” Della Street asked.

“I don’t know,” Mason said, “but first I think he’ll go to the room telephones, get Miss Corning, and ask her not to see us.”

“I’m satisfied she’ll see me,” Susan Fisher said. “She’s nice and she likes me. She distrusts him already.”

“Well, let’s go and find out how she feels,” Mason suggested.

They entered one of the elevators, went to the twenty-first floor and Susan Fisher led the way down the corridor to the Presidential Suite.

Mason pressed the bell button on the door. They could hear chimes and farther in the interior of the suite they could hear the presistent and intermittent ringing of a telephone bell.

Mason tried the bell buzzer again and knocked at the door. He frowned, and said, “She wanted the appointment at eight forty-five, Miss Fisher?”

“That’s right, and it was to be on the dot,” Susan said.

Mason looked at his watch. “It’s twelve minutes to nine now.”

“We weren’t up here right on the button,” Della Street said.

“I have an idea it would be just like her to wait just about thirty seconds, then if Mr. Campbell hadn’t shown up to get out of the suite,” Susan Fisher said.

“But she has to use a wheelchair?”

“Yes, she can walk a step or two, I think, but she has to hang on to something when she walks. She does nearly everything in the wheelchair.”

Mason looked up and down the corridor, was looking towards the elevators when Campbell, accompanied by a quietly dressed, thoughtful-eyed individual, emerged from the elevators and started walking down the corridor.

“This,” Mason said, “looks very much like the house detective.”

“That isn’t the way I thought house detectives looked,” Susan Fisher said.

“That,” Mason told her smiling, “is the way they all look.”

“What way, Mr. Mason?”

“The way people think they don’t look,” Mason said, and stepped forward. “There seems to be no answer in this suite,” Mason said to the house detective.

“Should there be?” the man asked.

“We would think so,” Mason said.

The man shook his head. “The occupant of this suite checked out a little after five o’clock this afternoon.”

“What!” Susan Fisher exclaimed.

“I’m just going to verify the information,” the house detective said. “On our books the suite is listed as vacant. The bill was paid in cash and the woman who was in here checked out.”

The house detective produced a key from his pocket, said, “I want you folks to notice that I’m not entering a suite that is registered on our books as being occupied. This is a vacant suite, I’m simply going in to look around and inspect the suite to see whether the maids have cleaned up and left soap, towels, and clean linen.”

The house detective clicked back the lock, swung the door wide, stood aside, and bowed to Della Street. “Ladies first,” he said.

Della and Susan Fisher entered, followed by Endicott Campbell. Mason and the house detective brought up the rear.

It was a spacious suite, equipped with television, icebox, a little bar with a glassed-in shelf for bottles and glasses, cocktail mixers, and a thermidor for ice. There were two bedrooms, two baths, a spacious living room.

The entire suite was not only vacant but in that state of orderly cleanliness which marks vacant hotel rooms.

“That’s what I thought,” the house detective said.

Campbell was not content with the man’s pronouncement. He went prowling around through the bathrooms, looking in odd comers, inspecting the clean towels, even looking on the tile floor of the bathroom.

Suddenly he turned to Susan Fisher and said, “How do we know Miss Corning was here at all?”

Mason caught her eye and warned her to silence. “You might look at the hotel records,” he suggested.

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Endicott Campbell said.

“Well, since we’re making this a joint investigation,” Mason said, “we may as well follow through on it ourselves.”

“Now, look here,” the house detective interposed, “we don’t want to do anything that’s going to involve us in any publicity.”

“Certainly not,” Mason said. “All you want to do is to get the facts so that you won’t be involved in any publicity.”

The house detective narrowed his eyes. “How do you know the facts won’t involve us in any publicity?”

“I don’t,” Mason said cheerfully. “However, I’m assuming that you haven’t anything to conceal and I know we haven’t anything to conceal. I’m sure Endicott Campbell hasn’t anything to conceal.”

“I don’t like that. I object to the insinuation,” Campbell said.

“What insinuation?” Mason said.

“That I have anything to conceal.”

“I specifically said you didn’t have.”

“Well, I’m not going to argue with you. Come on, let’s go down to the desk and see what the records show.”

They left the suite, went down to the registration desk, and the house detective explained the situation to the registration clerk.

The man at the desk spoke guardedly. “I wasn’t on duty this morning. I understand that when this party came in she was in a wheelchair and was accompanied by a young woman who signed the register at the request of Miss Corning. The suite had been reserved for her, although it was reserved for Monday morning instead of this morning. I have talked with the clerk who was on duty this morning. I understand he asked her how long she was going to be here and she said probably two or three weeks. The young woman who was with her was the one who signed the register.”

“That was I,” Susan Fisher said. “She asked me to sign for her because she was in her wheelchair.”

“Wasn’t that highly irregular?” Campbell asked the clerk.

“It was unusual,” the clerk conceded. “It wasn’t irregular in view of Miss Corning’s prominence and the fact that she intended to be here for a while... Of course, as I say, I wasn’t on duty at the time. I understand quite a few people were checking in, baggage was piled up in the lobby and a woman in a wheelchair is certainly entitled to some consideration.”

“She seems to have received plenty,” Campbell said dryly.

“What we’re interested in,” Mason said, “is what happened afterwards. Do you know about that?”

“I’ll have to refer you to the cashier. I was on duty when she checked out. I saw her going out and I wondered if she might be checking out but then dismissed it because our reservation list showed she was going to be here some little time.”

“She did have suitcases with her?” Mason asked.

“She had baggage with her, yes.”

The clerk called the assistant manager who in turn got in touch with the cashier. It appeared that Miss Corning had checked out shortly after five o’clock that afternoon.

Mason led the way from the cashier’s desk to the doorman, who regarded the folded bill which Mason pressed into his hand with respectful attention.

“A woman with dark glasses, in a wheelchair,” Mason said, “checked out somewhere around five o’clock and...”

“Oh, yes, yes, I remember her. I remember her very well.”

“Did she leave in a private car, or in a taxicab?”

“A taxicab.”

“Do you know which one?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t remember the man... Now, wait a minute, I do, too. I remember his face. I don’t remember the cab but I remember the driver. He’s here quite frequently and... Now, wait a minute. I saw him back here in line a little while ago. He’s... Let’s take a look down the line here. I think he’s the fourth or fifth cab in line.”

They walked rapidly down the sidewalk in a compact group. The doorman stopped in front of a cab, said, “Yes, this is the one.”

The cab driver seemed somewhat apprehensive. “What is it?” he asked, lowering the window of the cab.

Mason said, “We’re trying to locate a woman who left here in a wheelchair about five o’clock. She went in your cab and...”

“Oh, yes,” the driver said. “I took her down to the Union Station.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know. She paid me off and got a redcap.”

“She was taking a train somewhere?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Well,” Mason said, “that seems to be all we can do at this end.” He thanked the cab driver, turned back towards the entrance to the hotel.

Endicott Campbell waited a second or so, then forged rapidly ahead to come abreast of the attorney. “Look here, Mason,” he said. “Has it ever occurred to you that this woman was carrying away with her records of the corporation; records which are confidential and which are exceedingly important; records which the corporation must have; records which should never have been taken from the office of the corporation?”

“How much of the corporation’s stock does Miss Corning own?” Mason asked.

“About ninety per cent,” Campbell said.

Mason smiled at him, “That’s your answer.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Campbell told him belligerently. “That’s not the answer. You can’t dismiss something like that with a wisecrack.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m responsible for the records.”

“Then I’ll put it another way,” Mason said. “To whom are you responsible?”

“The stockholders.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “I’ll ask you again. How much stock does Amelia Corning own?”

“Oh, the devil!” Campbell said, and turning on his heel walked quickly away.

Mason grinned at the house detective, shook hands, said,“I think we can handle this thing all right so there’ll be no publicity.”

“You do the best you can,” the house detective said. “You know things of that sort don’t look good in the papers. We’re running a very conservative hotel here and—”

“I understand,” Mason said. “We’ll do all we can to cooperate with you and—”

Mason let his voice cease abruptly.

The house detective grinned. “Sure, sure. We’ll cooperate with you, too, Mr. Mason. Anything you want, you just call on me. The name’s Bailey. Colton, C-o-l-t-o-n C. Bailey. You just ask for me and I’ll do anything I can.”

“Thanks a lot,” Mason told him, and turned to the two young women. “Let’s go finish our dinner,” he said, and led the way back towards the Candelabra Café.

“Oh, I beg a thousand pardons,” Susan Fisher said. “I thought you had finished your dinner.”

“We had,” Mason said, “but I didn’t want the house detective to know just where we were going.”

“Where are you going?”

“To my office,” Mason said. “We’re going to get Paul Drake on the trail of Amelia Corning and we’re going to try to reach her before Endicott Campbell does. When Endicott Campbell left I feel certain he was planning to do a little amateur detective work of his own. Unless I miss my guess he’s on his way to the Union Depot right now and when he gets there he’ll start checking with the various redcaps, trying to find out just what happened.”

“Then aren’t you afraid he’s beating you to the punch?” Susan Fisher said.

“Not necessarily,” Mason told her. “There are ways of going about these things. Up in the office we have a timetable. We’ll check what trains were pulling out at about that time. We’ll get Paul Drake to put some professionals on the job and we’ll find out what tickets were sold. Campbell may find out where she went after she got to the Union Depot before we do, but I’ll bet we find out where she is now before Endicott Campbell does. That is, unless he’s shrewd enough to hire professional detectives.”

“And then what?”

“Then,” Mason said, “we’ll wait in my office until we get some definite word. A woman who is nearly blind and confined to a wheelchair can’t simply vanish into thin air.”

The lawyer retrieved his car from the restaurant parking attendant. They drove to Mason’s office. Della Street rang Paul Drake and asked him to come to the office.

A few moments later Paul Drake’s peculiarly spaced knock sounded on the door of Mason’s private office and Della Street let the detective in.

Mason said, “Paul, this is Susan Fisher. She’s an employee of the Corning Mining, Smelting & Investment Company. The company is pretty much a one-man outfit that’s owned by Amelia Corning, a wealthy woman who’s been living in South America.

“Miss Corning is about fifty-five years old, nearly blind, wears very large-lensed dark blue glasses, and apparently because of arthritis has to spend most of her time in a wheel chair. She was at the Arthenium Hotel. She checked out shortly after five o’clock, and took a cab to the Union Depot.”

Drake, his manner indolent to the point of suggesting chronic laziness, listened with a bland expression which masked the professional competence with which he was sizing up Susan Fisher.

“What do you want done?” he asked Mason.

“Find her,” Mason said.

Drake walked quietly towards the outer office. “I’ll use the phone in your reception room, if you don’t mind. It won’t disturb you so much.”

Drake gave Susan Fisher a vaguely reassuring smile, vanished into the outer office.

“He’s good?” Sue Fisher asked.

“The best,” Mason said.

Drake returned to the private office after some ten minutes, said, “I’ve been playing tunes on your telephone, Perry. I’ve got men on the job. I’ve got men covering the taxi companies and broadcasting inquiries over their communications system asking for information. I’ll have three men at the depot within ten minutes, probably less. They’ll be interrogating the cab starter, the redcaps; inquiring at the ticket windows.”

“Good work, Paul,” Mason said.

Della Street handed a neatly typewritten piece of paper to Paul Drake. “These are the scheduled trains on both Southern Pacific and Santa Fé leaving after four PM tonight.”

Paul Drake folded the paper, slipped it in his pocket, said, “Thanks, Della.” And then added, after a moment, “Great minds run in the same channel.”

“Meaning you’ve already checked on the timetables?” Mason asked.

“Meaning the first thing my men will do when they reach the depot after giving it a quick once-over to see if she’s still there in the waiting-room will be to find the outgoing trains. If she’s on a train, Perry, I take it you’d like to know where she is before the train reaches its destination.”

“That’s right,” Mason said.

“Any ideas?” Drake asked.

Mason said, “There’s a train that goes up to Sacramento. It goes through Mojave. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the person we want was a passenger to Mojave.”

“Good heavens!” Sue Fisher exclaimed. “I’ll bet that’s exactly what she did.”

“If she waited for that train,” Della Street said, “she would have been in the waiting-room for some little time.”

Mason nodded.

“Any ideas why she would have checked out of the hotel and gone to the depot in order to put in the time waiting in a public waiting-room when she could have put in the time just as well in a luxurious suite at the Arthenium?”

“Now, wait a minute,” Drake said, “you’re going at this thing all backwards. You’re starting out with a surmise and then trying to fit facts to it. Now, let’s first find out the facts, and then we’ll make our surmises afterwards — okay?”

“Okay,” Mason said, grinning.

“All right,” Drake assured them, “I’m going down to my office and start handling calls from there.”

He left the office and Sue Fisher turned uneasily to Mason. “You haven’t asked me for money yet.”

“That’s right, I haven’t,” Mason told her, smiling.

“I’m a working girl on a salary, Mr. Mason, and— Well, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mr. Drake, but I simply can’t afford all these detectives and all of this high-priced action.”

“That’s all right,” Mason told her. “Right at the present time this is my party.”

“But even so, Mr. Mason, I just haven’t got enough—”

“Miss Corning has money,” Mason interposed.

She raised puzzled eyebrows.

Mason merely smiled.

After a few moments, Sue Fisher said, “But, Mr. Mason, Miss Corning isn’t going to pay for my legal expenses.”

“Certainly not,” Mason told her. “But I think we may be helping Miss Corning do something that she wants to do very much indeed. This makes for a very interesting situation.”

Della Street smiled at Susan Fisher and said, “Just get a magazine from the outer office and make yourself comfortable. We have work to do and we’re going to have to utilize every minute.”

Della Street went to her office and presently the keyboard of her typewriter exploded into noise. Mason picked up a copy of the “Advance Decisions,” and said to Sue Fisher, “I’m so busy that it’s awfully hard to keep up on these new decisions. If it weren’t for moments like these I wouldn’t be able to catch up.”

Sue nodded, went to the waiting-room, then tiptoed back with several magazines. She tried to read for a while, then, finding herself too excited to get lost in the printed page, left the magazines on her lap and sat quietly watching Mason’s face, noticing that his concentration was so great that he seemed to have completely dismissed her from his mind.

The phone shattered the silence within thirty minutes after Paul Drake had left the room. Della Street, hurrying to the telephone, said, “Hello,” then said, “Yes, what is it, Paul?”

She listened with a frown, then said, “I think you’d better come down... Yes, she’s still here.”

Della Street hung up the telephone and said, “Paul’s corning down. They’ve uncovered a peculiar situation.”

“I thought perhaps they would,” Mason said, putting down the paper-backed “Advance Decisions.”

Della Street moved over to stand by the door.

“He has his offices on this floor?” Susan Fisher asked.

Mason nodded.

Drake’s knock sounded on the door and Della Street had the door open with the first touch of the detective’s knuckles.

“Well?” Mason asked, as Drake entered the room.

Drake shook his head. “Something goofy, Perry.”

“What?”

“All right,” Drake said, “here’s what happened. She made no attempt to cover up on her arrival at the depot. She attracted a lot of attention. She had four suitcases. Two of them were very heavy, as though they contained books of some sort.”

“Or bottles,” Mason said, grinning.

“Or bottles,” Drake admitted. “Somehow the redcap thought they were books.

“She wanted the suitcases put in some of the key lockers, where you drop a quarter, put in the suitcase, close the door, turn the key, and walk away.”

Mason nodded.

“She got rid of all the suitcases, gave the porter a good tip, and then went whizzing along in her wheelchair towards the ladies’ room — and completely disappeared.

“Didn’t enter the ladies’ room?” Mason asked.

“No one knows. From that point she just vanished into thin air.”

“You covered the trains?”

“Train dispatchers, redcap porters, ticket sellers, everybody. We got the redcap porter who had put the suitcases in the lockers for her to point out the lockers. We got one of the locker superintendents with a pass-key to open them.”

“Empty?” Mason asked.

“Empty,” Drake said.

“That,” Mason said, “is what I was afraid of.”

“What?” Susan Fisher asked.

Mason’s face hardened. “I told you,” he said, “that a woman of fifty-five, with dark blue glasses, a woman who is almost blind and confined to a wheelchair couldn’t go to a public place like the Union Depot and simply disappear into thin air.”

“I know you did,” Sue Fisher said, “but—”

Mason smiled as she broke off.

Sue Fisher went on, “But she seems to have done it?”

Mason turned to Paul Drake. “Paul,” he said, “I want you to close up every possible avenue out of that Union Depot. I want your men to get to work and cover everything. Everything, you understand? I want to know every way by which a person could leave that depot, and I want every one of those ways checked. I don’t care if they have to stay on the job all night.”

“Will do,” Drake promised, and left the office.

Sue Fisher said, “Can you tell me what you’re afraid of, Mr. Mason?”

Mason said, “A woman of that sort couldn’t vanish into thin air. Therefore, if she did vanish into thin air, we have to start out with the idea that our premise is wrong.”

“You mean that she couldn’t do what she actually did?”

“No,” Mason said, “I mean that she wasn’t a woman of that description.”

“You mean...? Are you trying to tell me that...?”

“Suppose,” Mason suggested, “this woman was an impostor? You don’t know Amelia Corning. You’re the only one who saw her. She called you and said she was Amelia Corning. She looked like the Amelia Corning you’ve had described to you. You went down to the airport. She was sitting there surrounded with luggage with South American labels — that alone may be a significant fact.”

“What do you mean?”

Mason said, “Under ordinary circumstances, the baggage would have been held in the checkroom of the airport. This woman was sitting in the lobby in a wheelchair. She had the baggage around her. Now, how did she get it there? Obviously she didn’t go and pick up the baggage and carry it in a wheelchair. Therefore, she must have had a porter bring it to her.

“Now, why would she have done that? It would have been far more logical for her to have left the baggage stored in the baggage room until she had her transportation ready and then she’d let the porter take it out to the place where her transportation was waiting.

“The idea of a woman sitting right in the middle of the lobby in a wheelchair with baggage piled around her and that baggage ostentatiously plastered with labels of South American hotels indicates that she was very, very anxious to have you identify her the moment you walked in and to take her for granted.

“That thing bothered me,” Mason said, “when you told me about it. But afterwards, after you described her character, I came to the conclusion she might be just the sort of person who would insist on keeping her baggage under her eye, so I tried to dismiss the thought from my mind. However, that’s one of the reasons I’ve been worried about this case.”

“Then you yourself feel the woman was an impostor?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “I do know that from the minute you told me about her sitting there in the airport with the luggage around her I began to consider that as a possibility.

“Now, if she’s an impostor, you must admit she made a pretty good haul. She got away with a lot of incriminating evidence against Endicott Campbell, which would give her good grounds for blackmail, and she probably got away with a shoe box containing heaven knows how many thousands of dollars and—”

Mason was interrupted by a half-scream of apprehension. Susan Fisher, her face white, her eyes wide, pressed knuckles to her mouth. There was no mistaking the expression of utter dismay on her face.

“So you see,” Mason said, “I didn’t want to talk fees for a while. I wanted to find out what this was all about. And I don’t want you to get trapped so there isn’t any avenue of escape.”

Sue Fisher managed to blurt out, “What do you mean about your premise being wrong?”

Mason said, “Let’s assume that this woman who had been posing as Amelia Corning was an impostor. Let’s assume she went to the ladies’ room, stepped out of the wheelchair, took off the dark glasses, then walked back out to the entrance not as a helpless cripple, but as a vigorous woman.”

“And someone met her?” Sue Fisher asked.

“Someone must have met her,” Mason said. “Someone who opened the lockers, took out the suitcases, put them in a car, folded the wheelchair, put it in the trunk of the car, then drove the woman who had been posing as Miss Corning out into the city where there is nothing to distinguish one middle-aged woman from a million others.”

“She must have taken that box,” Sue Fisher said in a dismayed whisper.

“She certainly could have,” Mason said. “Now then, Miss Fisher, I want you to go home. I want you to try not to worry. In the event there are any developments of any nature that have any bearing on the case, I want you to call the Drake Detective Agency and leave a message.”

Mason arose, put his hand on her arm, led her gently to the door. “You can get home all right?”

She said, “Of course. All I do is get on a bus, then walk three blocks, and I’m home.”

“Three blocks?” Mason asked.

She nodded.

“How much money do you have?”

“Oh, I have some money left over from what Miss Corning gave me. Did you want a retainer?”

“No,” Mason said. “I want you to treat yourself to a taxicab. Have it deposit you right at the door of your apartment. Don’t leave your apartment at night under any circumstances until after you have called Paul Drake and cleared with him.”

The lawyer walked down the corridor with her to the elevators. After she had taken the elevator, he turned back to Paul Drake’s office. There was no longer any reassuring smile on his face as he faced the detective.

“Okay, Paul,” he said, “keep your men on at the depot, but get some additional men down at the airport. Keep them there.”

Drake frowned. “You mean you expect Miss Corning to show up down there?”

Mason nodded.

“You think she took a cab to the depot, then detoured back to the airport, and is leaving...?”

“Hell, no,” Mason said. “I think she’s corning.”

It took a moment for the significance of what Mason said to dawn on the detective. Then he said, “Oh-oh! What a mess this is going to be!”

Mason said, “Apparently the route she’ll use is to fly to Miami, then take a plane from Miami here. That’s the route this other woman claimed she took, so that’s probably the route Miss Corning is going to take. She’ll clear with Immigration and Customs at Miami, then come on through here.

“You get men to cover the airport and let me know the minute she arrives — and I mean the minute she arrives here — no matter what hour of the day or night. I don’t want her to have an opportunity to get near a telephone or do anything before I see her. Have one of your men approach her, tell her that he’s been assigned to meet her. He doesn’t need to say whether it’s the company that has given him the instructions. He can just make the general statement that he’s been assigned to meet her. He can say he’ll escort her to the hotel. Then have him get me on the phone right away.”

“You’ll go to the airport?” Drake asked.

“There won’t be time,” Mason said. “I’ll be waiting at the Arthenium Hotel when she arrives.”

“And what about Endicott Campbell?”

“Endicott Campbell is making this a battle of wits,” Mason said. “If he can anticipate what’s going to happen he can meet us on an equal footing. Otherwise, I’m going to talk with her first.”

“And Susan Fisher?” Drake asked.

“Within two hours after Miss Corning shows up,” Mason said, “Sue Fisher will be arrested for embezzlement of probably as much as a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She’ll be charged with having spirited away the books and vouchers of the corporation so that there can’t be any actual audit, and be in trouble up to her neck.”

Drake thought that over for a minute, then lugubriously shook his head. “And even you can’t think up any defense that’ll get her out of that trap,” he said.

“Don’t be too sure, Paul,” Mason told him. “You start running interference and I’ll carry the ball. But I want some damn good interference. Now get started.”