The Case of the Troubled Trustee

Chapter Twenty-Four

Perry Mason, Lt. Tragg, Della Street, Paul Drake and one of Drake's operatives huddled in the dark shadows of a g'roup of stunted trees.

In their nostrils was the sour smell of a city dump.

"You certainly picked a sweet-smelling place," Lt. Tragg said.

Drake, speaking in a hushed voice, said, "It was the only one that we could find that gave us what we wanted."

Tragg said, "Now, let's have this definitely understood. There's to be no publicity."

"No publicity unless you give it publicity," Mason said.

"I don't publicize my wild goose chases," Tragg said. "I don't want the D.A.'s office to know anything about this, and I'm risking my official neck just trying to play ball with you."

"I've put the cards on the table," Mason said.

"You certainly did, and I never saw such a collection of jokers in my life," Tragg grunted.

Paul Drake nervously reached for a cigarette, then checked himself as he remembered the admonition of no smoking.

Night insects shrilled in the distance. Somewhere a chorus of frogs started croaking, then lapsed into silence, then started croaking again.

"Suppose no one calls him?" Tragg asked.

"At five minutes past nine," Mason said, "one of Drake's operatives will call him. The phone will ring and the man in the booth will pick up the receiver just as though it were a bona fide call."

"And then?" Tragg asked.

"Then he'll start for here."

"And if anyone calls?"

"We'll know we're on the right track," Mason said.

"Well," Tragg told him, "that's the trouble with amateurs. You get crazy ideas. I'll bet ten to one no one calls him."

"We'll know pretty quick," Mason said, consulting his wrist watch and then raising the antenna on a walkie-talkie.

"He isn't carrying a walkie-talkie with him, is he?" Tragg asked.

"No," Mason said. "But he does have a citizen's band transceiver on his car, but I wanted to use a walkietalkie for receiving because we don't want to have any loud noises."

Suddenly the walkie-talkie in the hands of Perry Mason made squawking noises, then a little pinched voice said, "Do you read me?"

"I read you. Come in," Mason said. "What's happened?"

"I'm on my way out."

"Call?"

"Only the decoy one we'd arranged."

"Okay," Mason said, his voice showing disappointment, "we'll follow plan number two. Over and off."

The lawyer snapped down the antenna on the walkietalkie.

"Well," he said dejectedly, "it looks as if you win, Lieutenant."

Tragg snorted. "I would have bet you a hundred to one-a thousand to one."

"Well," Mason said, "the only chance now is that someone was watching and will follow him in a car."

"That's a good ten-thousand-to-one bet," Tragg said. "I'm holding you to your promise, Mason, that you'll never betray me on this."

"You have my word," Mason told him. "Come on, let's deploy out into the shadows near the road. Drake's man is instructed to get out of the car and walk directly toward the dump for thirty-five paces, then stop, stand in the open for a few seconds, and then move into the shadows and drop to the ground."

Tragg said, "All right, we've stuck our necks out this far. Now we'll play along with your plan number two."

They moved slowly according to prearranged plan into the dense shadows near the roadway.

"How long will it take him to get here?" Tragg asked.

"We figured twelve minutes on a trial run this afternoon," Mason said.

"All right," Tragg said, "I've held the bag on your snipe hunting this far and I may as well throw twelve minutes down the rathole."

They waited until headlights appeared on the dirt road-headlights which danced up and down over the bumpy road, at times sending a beam up into the trees, at times pointing down as the car negotiated the bumps.

"That road is full of nails and tire hazards," Drake said. "I'll bet we have tire trouble with one of these cars."

"Don't be so pessimistic," Mason said. "Lieutenant Tragg has infected you with the gloom bug."

The car came to a stop. The headlights were switched off. A dark figure jumped from the car, walked rapidly for thirty-five steps, then stood for approximately thirty seconds, then moved into the shadows and dropped to the ground.

"Well," Tragg said, "the show's over. We may as well call it a night and go home."

"Wait a minute," Mason said. "We've got to give our quarry a chance."

"Your quarry!" Lt. Tragg snorted sarcastically.

"Silence!" Mason warned. "I think I heard the motor of a car."

They remained silent.

Drake said in a harsh whisper, "You're right. A car without headlights!"

The little group remained tense as the sound of a motor became plainly audible, a motor in a car which was being driven without headlights.

Abruptly the car came to a stop.

"If this thing works," Tragg muttered, "I'll be a monkey's uncle." And then after a moment, he added ruefully, "And if it doesn't work and this ever gets out, I'll be the monkey himself."

"Hush!" Mason whispered.

They held their positions, listening and watching. The dark shadows played tricks on their eyes. Once Della Street grasped Mason's arm, said, "Something moved."

No one else, however, had seen the movement.

They waited five minutes. Tragg sucked in his breath, starting to say something when, suddenly, they all saw a figure silhouetted against a patch of night sky.

Mason pressed the button of the powerful flashlight he was holding.

A figure interfused a forearm between eyes and flashlight. There was a glint of metal on blued-steel, then an orange spreading flash and the whistle of a bullet going past Mason's head.

The lawyer extinguished the flashlight. "Come on!" he said.

The group ran forward.

Twice more the reddish orange flame spurted into the night. Twice more they heard the whistle of bullets, then there were no more shots.

"We use plan three!" Mason shouted. "We don't want to kill unless we have to, and we don't want to move in and be sitting ducks."

They froze into immobility for what seemed an interminable period of silence, then, suddenly, they heard the roar of a car motor as it throbbed into life, and a second later headlights came on. The car, a hundred yards down the road, tried to make a U-turn, stalled, backed, crashed into a tree, then started forward.

The group ran to Lt. Tragg's police car which had been hidden in the brush. They climbed in hurriedly. Tragg throbbed the motor into life, switched on the red light, hit the siren, and at the same time called in on the radio asking the dispatcher to head off a car which was proceeding at high speed from the dirt road into the dump, asking that roadblocks be put up on the principal paved roads leading from the dirt road.

The car had traveled wildly, the taillights glowing like red rubies.

Tragg, driving the car with police competency, hustled over the road, gaining on the car ahead.

Abruptly the lights on the other car were switched off.

"Trying to find a side road to turn down," Tragg grunted, and switched on a powerful searchlight.

The searchlight not only held the car ahead in the beam of its illumination but the reflection in the windshield blinded the driver.

Again the lights of the car ahead were switched on, but during the period of dark driving the car had lost valuable ground.

The fleeing car made a screaming turn from the dirt road onto the pavement, and suddenly the blood-red brake lights flared into brilliance as the driver frantically depressed the brake pedal.

A police car was parked broadside in the road, and on each side of the police car were officers with drawn guns.

"I guess that does it," Tragg said.

"Let's hope she doesn't have enough presence of mind to throw the gun away," Mason said. "That's our best evidence."

The fugitive's car skidded to a stop. Mrs. Hedley's hate-distorted features were illuminated by the glaring lights as she slowly got out of her car with her hands up.

Tragg stopped his car immediately behind hers, and the party piled out.

Mrs. Hedley looked at them with venomous hatred. Her eyes came to focus on Perry Mason's face. "How I wish I could have killed you!" she spat at him.

Tragg pushed past her, looked in the automobile and picked up an automatic from the seat.

"This your gun?" he asked.

"See my lawyer," she snapped.

"You won't need to ask any questions," Mason said.

"Take that gun to ballistics. Check the empty cartridge case we found at the seventh tee for what the ballistics experts call the breech-block signature and you'll find the cartridge was fired from that gun."

Another car came driving up behind. Drake's operative got out and said, "Gosh, you folks get a man into all sorts of scrapes."

Perry Mason grinned at him. "When you get on the stand," he said, "tell Hamilton Burger that you were collecting the regular fee of fifty dollars a day and that you were shot at three times-all of which is only part of the day's work."