Erle Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Shapely Shadow

Foreword

From time to time I have tried to emphasize the importance of legal medicine by writing brief forewords to the Perry Mason books and dedicating them to outstanding figures in the field. It is, of course, only natural that nearly all of these men have been doctors of medicine, for the most part those who have specialized in forensic pathology.

I now want to make a dedication to a man who is a lawyer, rather than a doctor, and who has done much to advance the cause of legal medicine.

Marshall Houts, a former member of the FBI, an undercover investigator during the war in foreign countries, an attorney at law, a former college professor in the field of criminal law, has worked with me for years in the Court of Last Resort.

In recent years he has devoted much of his time to the field of legal medicine, trying to see that attorneys understand the importance of having an arsenal of medical facts at their command; trying to see that the average general practitioner who is called as a witness will have some idea of the courtroom procedure, the tricks of cross-examination and a knowledge of the traps which shrewd attorneys quite frequently lay for the medical witness who is more versed in the science of medicine than in a knowledge of courtroom technique.

While a comparatively young man, Houts already has authored several books which have attracted considerable attention: From Evidence to Proof; From Arrest to Release; Courtroom Medicine, and The Rules of Evidence. He is at present working upon a more ambitious program — one by which the medical doctor who has had little or no courtroom experience but who finds himself a witness in a case, can understand the problems of the procedures involved in court. He is also editor in chief of Trauma, a bimonthly medico-legal publication which gives lawyers an invaluable aid in coping with the medical problems which arise in the courtroom.

For years we have been close personal friends. We have worked together on investigations for the Court of Last Resort and many of the Court of Last Resort presentations I have made from time to time have been founded upon the investigative work of Houts.

The reason I am dedicating this book to him, however, is because of the outstanding work he is doing in the field of legal medicine.

It is important that the public understand the importance of legal medicine and that more and more specialists in the field be developed. Modern civilization is becoming quite complex and we must keep pace with the numerous problems which are presented by this complex existence.

Marshall Houts is making a great contribution in the field and so I dedicate this book to my friend

MARSHALL HOUTS.

Erle Stanley Gardner

Chapter One

Della Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary, opened the door of the lawyer’s private office, then stood facing the lawyer, her shapely hips pressing the palms of her flattened hands against the door leading to the reception room.

Mason regarded her quizzically. “Now what mischief are you up to?” he asked.

“Mischief?” she inquired demurely.

“Mischief,” Mason repeated. “Long experience has taught me that when you place your hips and the palms of your hands against the door and then look at me with that particular expression, it’s because you feel you have some particularly delectable tidbit of information. Come on, Della, out with it. Is Gertie, at the switchboard, studying another diet which is guaranteed to take off ten pounds in two weeks?”

Della Street shook her head. “It’s a client,” she said.

Mason frowned, then suddenly smiled. “Knowing you as I do,” he said, “the client is a beautiful young woman with an air of mystery about her and you’re dying to find out what it’s all about. You’re just a little afraid that I won’t agree to see her because we have an appointment in fifteen minutes and you’re hoping to arouse my curiosity with this build-up.”

Della Street moved slowly away from the door and came toward the lawyer’s desk.

“Am I right?”

She nodded. “Except, she’s not beautiful but she could be beautiful.”

“What do you mean by that?” Mason asked.

“Apparently,” Della Street said, “she has deliberately tried to make herself unbeautiful.”

“And that is part of the mystery?”

“It’s intriguing,” Della Street said. “Looks like the groundwork for the good old Hollywood touch, the plain little girl who suddenly blossoms into a Cinderella.”

“And you think this one will blossom?”

“Under your influence, yes. Did you ever see a movie where they didn’t? These days when women spend so much money making themselves beautiful, it’s darned intriguing to see one who has gone to great pains to look less beautiful than she is.”

Mason said, “What about the statistics, Della?”

“Her name is Janice Wainwright. She’s well proportioned with curves, but not bulges. She is chestnut brown — brown hair, brown eyes and a certain amount of warmth.”

“The way you’re describing her,” Mason said, “you make her sound like an article of merchandise you’re trying to sell. Now, come on, Della, out with it. What’s the mystery?”

“Well,” Della Street said, “I think she’s running away from someone or something, and I have an idea she’s got hold of some very damaging piece of evidence which she won’t let out of her possession. She’s carrying a brand-new suitcase which apparently is quite heavy, and she can’t quit worrying about it. She seems to be afraid someone might steal it right here in the office. She sits so that one foot is kept pressing against the suitcase. She keeps her hand dangling so that the tips of her gloved fingers are only a quarter of an inch from the handle of the suitcase and occasionally she moves her hand, brushing her fingers against the suitcase, just reassuring herself that it’s still there.”

“And did she tell you what she wanted?” Mason asked.

“She says it’s a very confidential matter and it has to do with a problem in ethics. She says she won’t take much time but she simply must see you. She wanted to know how much you charged for an office consultation.”

“What did you tell her?” Mason asked.

“I told her it depended on the problem, the amount of money involved and things of that sort; that she’d have to talk with you in person.”

“And so,” Mason said, “you came in to sell me on the idea of seeing her. You know we have an appointment within a few minutes with John Sears. You know that he never wants to wait for as much as a minute. You know that a month ago we adopted a rule we would see people by appointment only and— What the devil, send her in, Della.”

Della rewarded him with a smile, went out and returned with a remarkably well shaped young woman who was carrying a heavy new suitcase and whose eyes showed apprehension.

Mason noted the little touches Della Street had described: the lipstick which made the mouth seem too thin and too straight, the large horn-rimmed spectacles, the austerity of the clothes and the flat-heeled shoes.

“How do you do, Miss Wainwright,” Mason said. “I’m Perry Mason. I have this morning pretty well filled up with appointments. My first one is due in a little less than fifteen minutes. You’ll have to be brief.

“Della Street, my confidential secretary, will take notes.

“Now then, I’m sorry to have to rush you, but can you come to the point with as few preliminaries as possible?”

She smiled her acknowledgment, said, “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Mason. It’s... it’s about a matter of ethics.”

“What sort of ethics?”

She indicated the suitcase. “Do I have the right to open this?”

“Does it belong to you?”

“Technically speaking, no.”

“Whom does it belong to?”

“Morley Theilman.”

“Who’s he?”

“My boss.”

“Do you have any idea what’s in the suitcase?”

She looked at Mason for some two or three seconds as though debating whether, now that the chips were down, she wanted to go through with it or not. Then, reaching a decision, said, “I think it’s money.”

“And what about the money?”

“I think it’s blackmail.”

“And what are you supposed to do with it?”

“I’m supposed to deliver it to the blackmailer — that is, leave it where he can get it.”

“And what do you want to do?” Mason asked, his eyes probing her face. “Did you want to call the police or—”

“Heavens, no! I wanted to know if I had the right to open the suitcase.”

“For what purpose?”

“To see what’s in it.”

“Perhaps,” Mason said, looking at his watch, “you’d better sit down there in that chair and give me the details just as rapidly as you can. Just sketch the highlights.”

She seated herself, smoothed her dress, said, “I’m Mr. Theilman’s confidential secretary. I have been his secretary for six years. I know him. I know his every mood. I... I can read his mind.”

Mason, glancing at Della Street, said, “I think every good secretary can do that.”

“I open his mail,” she said, “all of his mail. I separate it and arrange it in the order of its importance. He trusts me absolutely. We are... we have been... well, very close.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed slightly. “He’s married?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a happy marriage?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Anything emotional between you?”

“No.”

“His wife is perhaps inclined to be jealous?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I’m still his secretary.”

“How long has he been married?”

“Four years.”

“And,” Mason said, “so that she won’t be jealous and so that she won’t try to exert pressure to get him to let you go and hire someone less attractive, you have deliberately tried to belittle your charms. Is that right?”

She hesitated for a flicker of an eyelash, then met his eyes and said, “Yes.”

“Do you care for him that much?”

“I care that much.”

“You mean you’re in love with him?”

“No. I respect him. I... It’s hard to explain. I am in love, not with my boss but with my job. It has become my life. I understand my work. I understand him. He depends on me and he needs me. I think a woman likes to feel that she’s needed.”

“When you go home,” Mason said, “after office hours, do you take off the disguise?”

“Sometimes.”

“Has his wife ever seen you without the disguise?”

“Yes, I think so, shortly after the marriage; but I don’t think she noticed me — then.”

“Do you see her often?”

“No.”

“All right,” Mason said, looking at his watch, “now tell me what makes you think this is blackmail.”

“Well,” she said, “I open all of Mr. Theilman’s mail. A few days ago he told me that in case any envelope was received bearing the return address of A. B. Vidal, I wasn’t to open it. I was to pass it along to him unopened.”

“That aroused your curiosity?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“Such a letter was received?”

“Yes.”

“And you did open it and—”

“No, Mr. Mason, I didn’t. Just a moment, Mr. Mason. I’ll show you the letter itself.”

She opened her purse and reached inside.

Mason and Della Street exchanged swift glances.

Janice Wainwright extracted a folded sheet of paper and unfolded it.

“Now, just how did you get this?” Mason asked.

“Well, when I saw a torn piece of paper in the waste-basket that had some words pasted on it, I assumed that must be the letter and— I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Mason, but my curiosity got the better of me, although I was simply trying to protect Mr. Theilman.”

“You rummaged around in the wastebasket, found the other torn pieces of the letter and put them together?” Mason asked.

She nodded.

Mason took the letter and read it, holding it so Della Street could see the printed words. The letter read: GET MONEY. INSTRUCTIONS ON TELEPHONE. FAILURE WILL BE FATAL.

“How about the envelope it came in?” Mason asked.

Again Janice reached in her purse and took out an envelope. The envelope was addressed to Morley L. Theilman, Bernard Building, Room 628; and in the upper left-hand corner there was a return address of A. B. Vidal, General Delivery. The envelope had been addressed on a typewriter.

“When did you get this?” Mason asked.

“This morning. The letter was in the morning mail. I found it in the wastebasket about an hour ago.”

“Now tell me about the suitcase,” Mason said.

“Well, this morning after that letter I could tell Mr. Theilman was exceptionally nervous. He told me to go down to a luggage store and get a suitcase. He said it was to be just a plain suitcase but he wanted it strong and durable. He said the handle, particularly, had to be strong and he wanted one with sides so strong that the salesman could stand on it. He said he’d seen suitcases demonstrated in that way in some of the magazine ads.”

“What happened?”

“I went down and bought this suitcase... Now then, here’s what happened, Mr. Mason. The suitcase has a lock and there were two keys to the lock when it was sold to me. I... I took one of those keys before I delivered it to Mr. Theilman.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess perhaps I was thinking about... well, about what I’m thinking now.”

“All right,” Mason said. “What happened?”

“He took the suitcase and went into his office. The suitcase was empty. When he came back, it was locked and it was heavy.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“He told me that there was a very delicate mission that I must perform; that he wanted me to take this suitcase and be very, very careful not to let it out of my possession; not to let anything happen to it. I was to go to the Union Depot and go to the place where they have the lockers — you know, the baggage lockers where you pay twenty-five cents, deposit baggage and get a key.”

Mason nodded.

“I was to go to locker FO82 and put this suitcase in there. I was to take out the key, put the key in an envelope addressed to A. B. Vidal, General Delivery, put stamps on the envelope and put it in the mail. Then I was to return to the office.”

“How long ago did you receive these instructions?” Mason asked.

“Just about twenty minutes ago.”

“Now, what was to happen if this locker was already in use? Suppose someone had put baggage in there and had taken the key out. Then what?”

“Then I was to use any one of the four adjacent lockers in the same row as FO82 and to the left of that locker.”

“And why do you want to do what you want to do?” Mason asked.

She said, “I’m fighting against time, Mr. Mason. I’ve got a taxicab waiting downstairs. I want to open the suitcase and see what’s in it and if, as I rather suspect, it’s full of money, I want to take the numbers on some of the bills — all of them, if we have time.”

“Why didn’t you just open it?” Mason asked.

“I wanted to consult a lawyer and see whether it’s legal.”

“You’re sure you haven’t opened the suitcase?”

She shook her head.

“You don’t know what’s in it?”

“Only that it’s heavy and it feels like there is a lot of money in it. I want you to tell me what’s legal and to vouch for the fact that I’ve tried to act within the law in case anything should come up afterwards.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “What assurance would we have that you haven’t already opened the suitcase, or that if we should open it and find it’s full of money that you won’t open it again as soon as you leave here and take out part of the money?”

“Why, Mr. Mason, I... I... Why, I wouldn’t do anything like that. Can’t you understand, the fact that I wouldn’t even open it in the first place just to peek at the contents until I had consulted you should be all the guarantee you need of my honesty.”

Her big brown eyes grew wide with an expression of naive innocence as she looked at the lawyer.

“Mr. Theilman didn’t authorize you to look in the suitcase?”

“No. He gave me just the instructions that I’ve told you.”

“Then why do you want to pry into his private affairs?”

“Because he’s being blackmailed and I want to help him. The victim of blackmail is always helpless. He doesn’t have courage to go to the police and—”

“You don’t know this is blackmail,” Mason said. “It may be a business deal.”

“It may be a business deal, in which event I’m his confidential secretary and no word of it will ever leak out. I’m only trying to help the man and I... I did so hope you’d understand, Mr. Mason.”

Mason said, “How much money do you have in your purse?”

“About thirty dollars.”

“Give me a dollar,” Mason said.

She handed him a dollar.

“Make out a receipt,” Mason said to Della Street. “Make it to Janice Wainwright for consultation.”

Della Street went to her secretarial desk, opened a receipt book, made out a receipt and handed it to Janice Wainwright.

“All right,” Mason said, “give me the key.”

Janice Wainwright again reached in her purse and took out a key.

Mason gave the suitcase a heave, brought it up to his desk, fitted the key and snapped the lock, then opened the suitcase. The interior was filled with twenty-dollar bills fastened together in packages with rubber bands.

“Get me a dictating machine,” Mason said to Della Street, “and then move over that tape recorder, Della.”

When he had the tape recording machine and the dictating machine set up, Mason said to Della Street, “Unfasten those rubber bands, read as many numbers as you can within the next ten minutes into that tape recorder. I’ll do the same thing with the dictating machine here.”

Mason snapped off the rubber bands, picked up the microphone and dictated, “L68519985B, L65810983B, L77582344B, G78342831A, I14877664A.”

By the time he had finished with this last number, Della Street had the tape recording machine set up and started reading numbers from twenty-dollar bills.

For ten minutes they dictated a steady stream of numbers. Then Mason said, “We can’t hope to get through with this whole bunch of bills in any reasonable time, Miss Wainwright. After all, Mr. Theilman will be expecting you to get back and—”

“I was thinking of that,” she interrupted impatiently. “You have enough to establish the identity of quite a few of the bills and — I think — well, I’d like to close up the suitcase and go now if I may — that is, if you think it’s all right.”

Mason nodded, snapped the rubber bands back into place on the last package of bills he had been holding in his hand, waited until Della Street had done the same with the bills she was holding, then fitted them back into the suitcase, closed the suitcase, snapped the lock into position and turned the key.

“You say you have a cab waiting downstairs, Miss Wainwright?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Mason said, “on your way.”

As Janice Wainwright got to her feet, Mason said, “Now, there’s one precaution I’m going to take in the interests of safety for both of us.”

“What’s that?”

“My secretary, Della Street, is going with you,” Mason said. “She’ll see that you go down to the Union Depot and follow instructions exactly. She’ll be in a position to swear that from the time we closed the suitcase here in the office you didn’t reopen the suitcase, that you would have had no opportunity to have taken any of the money. And to make doubly certain you won’t have opened the suitcase, I’ll keep the key.”

For a moment Janice hesitated, as though the idea didn’t appeal to her in the least. Then she said demurely, “Very well, Mr. Mason. Anything you say. If that’s the way you think it should be done, that’s the way I want to do it.”

“That,” Mason said, “is the way I think it should be done.” He nodded to Della Street.

Chapter Two

It was quarter past twelve when Della Street returned to the office.

“Everything okay?” Mason asked.

She circled her thumb and forefinger, indicating that everything was all right.

“You got the suitcase in the box?” Mason asked.

“And mailed the key.”

“The suitcase went in there and was locked up?”

“That’s right,” she said. “And I took occasion to do a little snooping, just to be sure. I told her I wanted to see the envelope so that in case I had to report to you I could report everything was all right. So then she suggested that I be the one to mail the envelope and I took her up on it.”

“The envelope was sealed?”

“Sealed, stamped, and addressed to A. B. Vidal, General Delivery. Why, Chief? Why are you so suspicious of her?”

“I’m not exactly suspicious of her,” Mason said, “I’m distrustful of the whole set of circumstances.”

“Why?”

“To begin with,” Mason said, “why should this mysterious blackmailer go to all the trouble of cutting these words out of newspapers? That must have taken quite some time and quite a bit of newspaper reading.”

“But,” Della Street said, “in that way they can’t trace him through his handwriting or typewriting.”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “So then he goes ahead and addresses an envelope to Morley Theilman on a type-writer and puts his return address on it, A. B. Vidal, General Delivery. Typewriting is as distinctive as handwriting. If our blackmailer was going to take chances with a typewriter on the envelope, why didn’t he go all the way and type the message?”

Della Street said, “I’ll bet he went into a typewriter store and asked to look at a used machine and then, while apparently testing it, addressed the envelope.”

“Then why didn’t he go all the way and type the message on that machine as well?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“Neither do I,” Mason said.

Della Street frowned, then said, “Isn’t it axiomatic that crooks always manage to do something that traps them?”

“Statistics seem to so indicate,” Mason said dryly, “but it’s unusual for a man to go out of his way to trap himself. You know, he could have cut Theilman’s name and address out of a telephone directory and pasted it on the envelope. Let’s see if Paul Drake’s in his office, Della. I just want to check on a couple of aspects of this problem.”

Della Street regarded him curiously for a moment, then placed the call to the Drake Detective Agency, which was on the same floor of the building where Mason had his offices.

“He’s just leaving for lunch,” Della Street said.

“Ask” him to come down, will you, Della?”

Della Street relayed the request and a moment later walked over to open the corridor door in response to Drake’s code knock.

Paul Drake, tall, slow-moving, with long arms and legs, grinned at Mason, turned to Della Street, said, “Hi, Beautiful,” then turned back to the lawyer. “Whatever it is, Perry, I hope it doesn’t interfere with my lunch.”

“It probably won’t,” Mason said. “How about staking an operative out at the post office?”

“Where at the post office?”

“At the General Delivery window. I want to get a line on a person who picks up a letter addressed to A. B. Vidal, General Delivery.”

“Can it wait until after lunch?” Drake asked.

“It can, but I don’t think it should,” Mason said. “Here’s the telephone. Get an operative on the job.”

“Well,” Drake said, “I was thinking of saving you a little money.”

“How come?”

“I’ve worked with the postal inspectors a couple of times,” Drake said, “and I think they’d do me a favor. They could save you the cost of one operative. You see, you can’t cover a place absolutely with one operative. A man can stand on his feet and lounge around only so long, and operatives, being human beings, have to powder their noses and report occasionally on the telephone.

“Now, if it’s all right for us to take a postal inspector into our confidence, I know I can fix it up so that I could just have one man waiting outside the building where he wouldn’t attract attention and the minute anyone showed up at a window and asked for mail addressed to A. B. Vidal, he would be stalled until my man could get a signal and be on the job.”

Mason nodded. “How long would it take a letter mailed in a post office box at the Union Depot to get delivered to General Delivery, Paul?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Drake said, “but I’d guess it wouldn’t take very long.”

Mason said, “Go to lunch, then drive down to the post office, contact your friend the postal inspector, tell him that I’m working on something that I don’t fully understand. It may tie in with a postal crime and it may not. I just don’t know. We want to find out about A. B. Vidal.”

“That’s a cinch,” Drake said. “Tell you what I’ll do, Perry. I’ll get my man on the phone and he’ll spot the letter as it comes in. He’ll call my office the minute the letter comes in and then I’ll have an operative down there and we’ll pick up Vidal. Now, after we get him, what do you want done with him?”

“I want to find out who he is, where he goes, what he does, and everything you can about him — whether he’s driving his own car or a rented car; whether he’s using a taxi and, above all, I want to find out where I can put my finger on him in case I want him.”

“Can do,” Drake said. “It’ll take a couple of men to do a job like that.”

“Use a couple of men, then,” Mason said. “And telephone your friend the inspector.”

Drake looked at his watch, said, “As a matter of fact he doesn’t go to lunch until one o’clock. I’ll give him a ring right now, take him out to lunch and get his co-operation.”

“Remember,” Mason said, “I want to check that envelope before it’s delivered. Be sure you don’t eat so much lunch that the letter is put in the General Delivery, Vidal comes and gets it and goes out, and—”

“Leave it to me,” Drake said. “After I’ve talked with my friend for five minutes, he’ll ring up the post office and put a stop order on the delivery. Regardless of when it comes in, it won’t get delivered until my men get on the job... There’s one thing, though, Perry. He’ll want to know the minute we find we’re working on something involving a violation of the postal laws.”

“Okay,” Mason said, “we’ll go that far with him — that is, I think we will. You can tell him that the minute you know there’s been a violation of the postal laws, you’ll let him know.”

“Meaning that you may not tell me?” Drake asked.

“Meaning you can promise him that much,” Mason said, “and no more.”

Drake stretched, yawned, said, “Okay. On my way, Perry. Forget about it. Everything will be okay. Tomorrow morning we’ll give you all the answers.”

Chapter Three

Mason, entering the office with the morning newspaper under his arm, grinned at Della Street, tossed his hat onto the bust of Blackstone which frowned austerely from the top of a filing cabinet, said, “What’s new, Della?”

“Your friend, Janice Wainwright, would like to talk with you just as soon as you come in. She seems very upset.”

“Oh, yes,” Mason said, “the letter. What about it? Have we a report on A. B. Vidal?”

“We have not,” Della Street said. “Paul Drake kept two men on the job until the General Delivery window-closed, then he put them on again this morning. He’s been tipped off in confidence that the letter to A. B. Vidal is waiting in General Delivery — an envelope which apparently contains some heavy object, such as a key.”

Mason nodded, said, “Janice leave a telephone number?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t the office number where she works. Shall I call her?”

“Go ahead. Let’s see what she wants.”

A few moments later Della Street nodded to Perry Mason, who picked up the phone and said, “Yes, Miss Wainwright. This is Mason. What’s the trouble?”

“Oh, Mr. Mason,” she said, “I’m so glad you called. Mr. Theilman seems to have disappeared. The police have been asking me questions and I just — well, I didn’t give them any answers that would help. I... I just don’t know what to do.”

“All right,” Mason said, “steady down. Now, let’s get this thing in order. You say he’s disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Well... of course I don’t know, but his wife does. She notified the police.”

“And what caused her to notify the police?”

“Well, he telephoned from Bakersfield last night. He’d been up there on business. He telephoned about eight o’clock and said she could expect him at eleven or eleven-thirty — just to go to bed and go to sleep, not to wait up for him. Well, when he hadn’t shown up by three, she telephoned the police and asked them to check with the highway patrol and see if there’d been any accident. The police did that and told her that there was none that involved her husband.

“So she was very much relieved and went back to bed and went to sleep. However, at seven o’clock when he hadn’t shown up she became worried again and called the business associate with whom he had been in conference in Bakersfield.”

“Who’s that?” Mason asked.

“Cole B. Troy. He and Mr. Theilman have some business interest together in the vicinity of Bakersfield — some real estate deals they’re putting across.”

“And what did Mr. Troy say?”

“He said Mr. Theilman left about nine o’clock; that he said something about phoning Mrs. Theilman, and had made a call while they were having dinner.”

“And then?” Mason asked.

“Well, then Mrs. Theilman called the police again and when I opened up the office at eight this morning there was a detective there who asked me some questions about whether Mr. Theilman had any appointments this morning, whether I expected him in, and if I knew anything that could have caused him to remain away from home.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason said, “that’s just a little unusual. Ordinarily they’d give a wife a little reassurance and wait for a while before they did anything, or simply put out a bulletin on missing persons. Sending a detective to a man’s office isn’t exactly routine procedure. Did he say why he was there?”

“Simply that Mr. Theilman seemed to have disappeared between Bakersfield and his home last night, and they wanted to know something about him.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. “A plain-clothes officer?”

“That’s right.”

“A detective?”

“That’s what he said.”

“And you haven’t heard anything from Theilman?” Mason asked.

“No.”

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“Two-thirty yesterday afternoon.”

“And what happened then?”

“He phoned that he wouldn’t be back in the office any more, that he had to drive to Bakersfield, that he was going to be in conference with Cole Troy, that I could reach him there if anything of any great importance turned up, but he didn’t think it would. He thought everything was under control.”

“He’d asked you about the suitcase?”

“Oh, yes, as soon as I got back to the office.”

“And about you leaving it in the locker?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And he seemed to be somewhat relieved after he found out what you had done?”

“Yes.”

“Now, you didn’t tell him anything about stopping here, or anything about that?”

“Heavens, no! I wouldn’t let him know that for worlds — I can try to protect him, Mr. Mason, but I... well, I simply couldn’t interfere in his business affairs.”

“All right,” Mason said, “be very, very careful that you don’t lie to any officers who ask you questions. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to tell them everything you know. Simply be careful that you don’t lie. Say that you are not in a position to discuss Mr. Theilman’s business affairs, that he left the office early yesterday, and that was the last you saw of him.

“Now, if they ask you if anything unusual happened yesterday, tell them that Mr. Theilman’s business was frequently unusual and there were all sorts of things that happened yesterday, but they are things that you don’t feel free to discuss without his consent.

“Now, remember that. Leave yourself a margin of safety so that if anything happens and you have to testify as to exactly what happened, you don’t make yourself out a liar. Keep in the role of a confidential secretary who is protecting the interests of her employer. You understand that?”

“I understand, Mr. Mason.”

“All right,” Mason told her. “If you hear anything more, ring me up, and if it’s after office hours and this office is closed, ring up the Drake Detective Agency. They have offices here in the building and Paul Drake does my work. Leave a message for Paul Drake.”

“The Drake Detective Agency?”

“That’s right. They have a twenty-four-hour service.”

“Heavens, Mr. Mason, they don’t know anything about... about my coming to see you, do they?”

“No,” Mason said. “They are doing some investigative work for me, that’s all. Now, let me ask you one more thing. Had you ever heard of A. B. Vidal before his name came up in connection with this mysterious business deal?”

“No.”

“Mr. Theilman had never had any dealings with him that you know of?”

“No.”

“All right,” Mason said. “Sit tight and be careful you don’t lie. Where are you now? The number we called isn’t the office number.”

“I know it isn’t. After the officer called, I became panic-stricken. I was afraid to stay there in the office until I’d talked with you. So I closed up the office and hurried back to my apartment.”

“Go back to the office,” Mason instructed. “Act as naturally as possible. Don’t lie to the police. On the other hand, don’t tell them anything about this suitcase or the letter. Tell the police you’ll need specific authorization from your boss before you tell them anything.”

“This detective said Mrs. Theilman had said it would be all right for me to tell them anything I knew — in a business way.”

“Are you working for Mrs. Theilman?”

“No.”

“All right, then. Do as I’ve told you.”

“Yes, Mr. Mason.”

“But don’t lie,” Mason warned again.

Mason dropped the telephone back in the cradle, looked at Della Street thoughtfully, said, “Get Paul Drake for me, Della.”

A few moments later Drake’s code knock sounded on the office door.

“How’s everything coming, Paul?” Mason asked.

“So-so,” Drake said. “We’re sitting on the deal at the post office. There’s a letter there for A. B. Vidal. I guess Della told you. I reported to her.”

“All right,” Mason said. “What do you know about the locker system down at the Union Depot?”

“Quite a bit,” Drake said. “Why?”

“I want to look in a locker.”

“That can be arranged very easily, if all you want to do is look. If you want to search anything that’s on the inside, the situation is different.”

“You know the people that run the lockers?”

“That’s right. They have a troubleshooter and I’ve done him a favor once or twice before.”

“Let’s go take a look,” Mason said, “and I think you’d better come along, Della.”

“What locker do you want to look into?”

“I’ll tell them when I get there,” Mason said. “I just wouldn’t be too surprised, Paul, if— Well, I’m not going to commit myself now. Let’s go.”

“My car or yours?” Drake asked.

“Yours,” Mason said. “I want to think while you drive.”

“I’ll make a phone call first and have this man meet us there,” Drake said. “He’s a good egg.”

“He’ll be there by the time we are?”

“Sure. He’s on the job off and on all the time. He’s a troubleshooter and serviceman.”

“They have a master key that enables them to get into any of those lockers?” Mason asked.

Drake said, “I know they do, but I’ve never gone into details of the modus operandi. I know I can get you a look, however.”

“You do your telephoning,” Mason said, “and we’ll meet you down in the lobby.”

Mason and Della Street took the elevator to the lobby, waited some three minutes before Drake showed up with the announcement that everything was all fixed, that a man by the name of Smith would be waiting for them when they drove up.

They walked through to the parking lot, got in Drake’s car, and Mason was thoughtfully silent during the entire ride to the station.

They parked their car and as they walked toward the main entrance an unobtrusive individual in a gray business suit, whose keen eyes were masked under bushy eyebrows, stepped forward and shook hands with Paul Drake.

Drake said to Mason, “Meet Smitty, Perry. And this is Miss Street, Perry Mason’s confidential secretary.”

Smith shook hands, said, “What numbered locker did you want to look into?”

“FO82,” Mason said.

“Can you tell me why?”

Mason looked the man in the eyes and said, “No.”

Smith grinned, said, “Well, at least that makes it simple. Now, I’ll open that particular locker and look inside, but we’re not going to touch anything that’s in there. Understand?”

“That’s all right,” Mason said. “I want to look, that’s all.”

Smith said, “Wait here a moment. I’ll get the key.”

“They have an office here someplace,” Drake said, as Smith moved away. “Let’s go locate this locker.”

Della Street said, “I can—”

Mason nudged her into silence. “We can look around,” he said, “and get the thing located.”

They walked around the banks of lockers. Della Street, putting her hand on Mason’s arm, exerted an almost imperceptible pressure guiding him to the proper bank.

“Well, here it is, first rattle out of the box,” Mason said, “FO82.”

“The key’s gone,” Drake said. “That means somebody has put a coin in the slot, put something in, taken the key and—”

“Here comes Mr. Smith now,” Della Street said.

Smith said, “Well, I see you folks found it all right. Now, you’ll have to stand back. I have to be sure that you don’t touch anything.”

Mason said, “Mr. Smith, I wonder if you can tell me how these things work. I observe you have a notice on these lockers stating that the storage is only for twenty-four hours and that at the end of that time articles left in the lockers will be removed. Now, how do you measure that twenty-four hours in time?”

“We don’t,” Smith said, grinning.

“Well, what do you do?” Drake asked.

“We approximate it,” Smith said. “What the average person doesn’t notice is this little meter that’s up here. Now, for instance, the number two-eight-four is on that meter. It’s very small and cunningly concealed so you wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking for it.

“That number two-eight-four means that two hundred and eighty-four quarters have been dropped into this slot since this particular lock was put on.

“Every night around eleven o’clock an attendant comes down here and checks the number of the locker and the number on the meter and writes the numbers down.

“Now, tomorrow night at eleven o’clock, if this man comes down and notices that the number is still two-eight-four, he’ll know that somebody has kept that locker inactive for twenty-four hours, that he’s put something in it and has walked away with the key.

“Quite naturally the company doesn’t want to have people use these as a permanent storage place for articles. We get quite a turnover on these. Some of them are used a good many times a day. It costs money to rent the space, it costs money to keep the lockers up.”

“Go on,” Mason said. “What happens?”

“Well, if this man checks this number and finds that the same number is on here that was on twenty-four hours previously, he opens the locker.”

“How does he do that?” Mason asked.

“He takes the entire lock off.”

“While the locker is closed and locked?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

“How can he do that?”

Smith said to Paul Drake, “I take it you folks want to look in here.”

“That’s right, Smitty.”

“Well, I’m going to take a look in but I don’t want anybody touching anything. Understand?”

Drake nodded.

Smith turned to Mason inquiringly.

“That’s okay with me,” Mason said.

“Now,” Smith said, “here’s the way we change the lock.”

He took a passkey from his pocket, turned up a circular metal shield which was at the top end of the lock, inserted the passkey, and said, “This removes the entire lock. Now, if we find that someone has used these lockers more than twenty-four hours, of course that person has the key with him and we want to put this locker back into operation. So we simply remove the entire lock and put in a new lock with the key in it. We take the baggage out and leave it where the applicant can claim it by properly identifying it. Then the locker is back in service because there’s a new lock and the key is in it, and whoever wants to use it can do so by simply depositing twenty-five cents, putting his baggage in, taking the key out, and his baggage is reasonably safe until he wants to come back.”

“Sounds interesting,” Mason said. “You’re now going to remove this lock?”

“I’m going to remove the lock,” Smith said.

He turned the passkey. There was an audible click, and Smith lifted out the entire lock, sliding it off the catch on the door as he did so and letting the door swing free.

“Well, you see,” he said, “we have here an unusual situation. Usually when a person has left with the key, there’s baggage in here, but this time someone has gone away with the key and the locker is empty.”

“Empty!” Mason exclaimed.

“That’s right,” Smith said, pulling the door all the way back.

Mason, Paul Drake and Della Street peered inside.

“Now, how could that have happened?” Mason asked.

“Only one way,” Smith said. “The man had the key. He came back, put the key in the locker, opened it, took out whatever was inside, then put in another quarter, locked the thing up and took the key with him.”

“Why would he do that?” Mason asked.

“All right,” Smith said, grinning, “I’ll counter with another question. Why are you interested in this particular locker?”

Mason smiled. “I guess you’ve established your point, Smith.”

“Looks like I have,” Smith said. “I’ll just put a new lock on here and we’ll put this locker back into operation. When this man shows up with his key, he’ll find that it doesn’t fit the lock that’s on the door. He’ll fool around for four or five minutes trying to make the key fit. He’ll look at the number on the key and the number on the locker and scratch his head and walk around and try it a couple more times, then he’ll go to the station-master to try and find out what’s wrong.”

“Not this man,” Mason said. “I think that key is permanently out of circulation.”

“Well, it’s okay with me,” Smith said. “We’ve got a duplicate key. We’ll put that lock back in service on another locker.”

Mason said, “You’ve been of great service to us. Would a little folding compensation by way of thanks be out of place?”

“Forget it,” Smith said. “I’m glad to do it as an accommodation to Paul Drake. He’s helped us out a time or two. Anything else I can do for you people?”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

Smith shook hands. “Mighty glad to have met you, Mr. Mason. Any time I can do you any good down here, let me know.”

He turned to Drake, said, “Okay, Paul, be seeing you.”

“Thanks, Smitty,” Paul said, and led the way toward the parking lot where he had left his car.

On the way back to the office Drake said, “Now I suppose that this A. B. Vidal becomes very important and you’ll want to have me take extra precautions to—”

“On the contrary,” Mason said, “A. B. Vidal is out of the picture as far as we’re concerned.”

“What do you mean?”

“He never existed,” Mason said.

“There’s a letter for him there,” Drake reminded the lawyer.

“I know there is,” Mason said, “but you can see what happened. This man, whoever he was — and we’ll call him Vidal for want of a better name — went to this row of lockers. He put twenty-five cents in each of five lockers, took the keys out and had duplicates made. Then he came back and put the keys in the locks and left them.

“He waited somewhere in the station until he saw someone put the package that he wanted in that particular locker. He had instructed that person to take the key out and mail it to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery. That was just a blind, something to throw people off the track.

“Just as soon as this person was out of the station, Mr. Vidal walked up to the locker, fitted his duplicate key, opened it, took the package out, then put in another quarter and closed the door and locked it. In that way he was able to take his key with him. He’s got possession of the package he wanted, and left no trace.”

“But what would have happened if some innocent traveler had come up and put a suitcase in that particular locker?” Drake asked.

“Vidal had thought of that. He had keys to the four adjacent lockers. He gave his party instructions to go to FO82 if it was unoccupied. Otherwise, to take any unoccupied locker to the left on the same tier... You can see what happened. He had keys to all of those.”

“I take it,” Drake said, “there’s quite a story here and you’re dealing with someone who has a lot of brains and a carefully worked-out plan.”

“You’re right on everything except there being quite a story,” Mason said. “There isn’t any story. So far there’s only a chapter.”

“And I’m to call off my men at the post office?”

“That’s right.”

“Remember this,” Drake said, “the postal inspector knows that we were interested in a letter sent to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery.”

Mason thoughtfully digested that information, then said, “Well, we can’t help it now, Paul. Just call your men off and tell the postal inspector that you’ve changed your mind about being interested in the Vidal letter.”

Della Street said, “It seems a shame, since Mr. Smith was so nice, that we can’t tell him that all he needs to do is to go to the post office and ask for a letter addressed to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery. He can tell them he’s Mr. Vidal and they’ll give him the letter and then he’ll have his key back.”

“That’s right,” Mason said.

“What’s right?” Paul asked, glancing suspiciously at Perry Mason.

“It’s a shame that we can’t tell him,” Mason said dryly.

Chapter Four

Within fifteen minutes of the time Mason returned to his office, Paul Drake was tapping his code knock on the door to the lawyer’s private office.

“Something new?” Mason asked as Della Street opened the door.

“Your friend, A. B. Vidal,” Drake said.

“What about him?”

“The police want to know about him.”

Mason pursed his lips. “Why the police?”

“I’m darned if I know. They don’t confide in me. They want me to confide in them. But in any event, they’re anxious to get information about Vidal. It seems that they think he’s connected with a blackmail setup involving Morley L. Theilman. Now then, do you know Theilman?”

Mason said, “As you have so aptly expressed it, Paul, the police don’t confide in you, they want you to confide in them. And when I hire a private detective I don’t always confide in him, I want him to confide in me.”

“Well,” Drake said, “I managed to excuse myself for a minute, but this detective was waiting for me when I got back. He’s in my office now and he’s asking rather insistent questions.”

“How do the police tie Vidal in with you?” Mason asked.

“They had a tip that Vidal was using the mails to blackmail Morley Theilman. Theilman, it seems, has become for the moment unavailable, and the police in checking with the postal authorities found that I had been interested in Mr. Vidal. They want to know why I was interested.

“Now then, Perry, I presume all this ties in with this locker at the Union Depot, but I can’t tell them so without your permission. On the other hand, I can’t withhold any information that has to do with a crime.”

“You say this detective is in your office now?”

“Yes. He’s waiting. He thinks I’m phoning.”

Mason pushed back his chair. “All right, Paul, I’ll go back to the office with you and we’ll talk with this detective.”

Drake’s face showed his relief. “That’s swell,” he said.

“The detective know I’m mixed in it?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know,” Drake said, “probably he does. The police know I do your work. I told this detective that before I answered his questions I would have to put through a telephone call and wanted to go into another office to put it through. He could have surmised I wanted to come down here and talk with you personally.”

“What’s his name?” Mason asked.

“Orland.”

“Let’s go have a chat with him,” Mason said. He nodded to Della Street. “You tend the store, Della. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Mason walked down the corridor with Paul Drake to the offices of the Drake Detective Agency. Drake led the way down to his little cubbyhole of a private office which contained a desk, a swivel chair, a battery of telephones on the desk, and two smaller chairs at opposite corners.

“Mr. Orland,” Drake said, “I want you to meet Perry Mason.”

The man who rose from the chair was quietly dressed, of average build, and soft-spoken. “How are you, Mr. Mason?” he said. “I’ve seen you around Headquarters and up in court, but I’ve never met you.”

Mason said, “I employed Paul Drake in this matter. Now, what do you want to know?”

“I want to know everything you know about A. B. Vidal.”

Mason said, “I can’t tell you very much about him.”

“You were making inquiries of the postal authorities?”

“That’s right.”

“May I ask why?”

Mason said, “There’s an envelope containing a key to locker FO82 at the Union Depot. As nearly as I know, the envelope contains that key and nothing else. It was addressed to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery. I wanted to get a line on Vidal when he picked it up.”

“How do you know what’s in the envelope?” the detective asked.

“I know because my confidential secretary, Della Street, put the key in the envelope, sealed the envelope, and then put the envelope in the mailbox.”

“And what’s in locker FO82?” Orland asked.

“Nothing.”

Orland’s face showed surprise. “What?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Mason said, “nothing.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I made it a point to find out.”

“May I ask how?”

Mason said, “Paul Drake, again. You’ll run on this anyway so we may just as well cover the ground right now and get it out of our system.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you. You mean that you mailed a key to an empty locker?”

Mason said, “We mailed the key to a locker.”

“And what was in the locker at the time you mailed the key?”

Mason said, “To the best of my knowledge, a suitcase was in the locker.”

“What was in the suitcase?”

“That,” Mason said, “is something I can’t tell you.”

“Because you don’t know?”

Mason said, “I will repeat. That is something I can’t tell you.”

“Because it would be violating the confidence of a client if you did?”

Mason said, “I will again repeat. That is something I can’t tell you.”

Orland looked at Paul Drake. “You don’t have the same professional privileges an attorney does, Drake.”

Mason said, “Drake knows nothing about any suitcase, nothing about Della Street having put the key in the envelope and mailed it. He entered the picture only to get a line on A. B. Vidal and after that to find out something about the contents of the locker.”

“And how did you find that out?”

“We got the locker service company to open the locker. They changed the lock, incidentally, so that the key that is in the envelope at the post office, while it is marked FO82, will no longer open that particular locker because there is now a new lock and a new number on that locker.”

Orland said, “Well, that helps. We had been trying to unwind red tape so we could open that envelope and see exactly what was in it. It was evident there was a key in it and apparently it was a key to a locker somewhere. Your statement, as far as it goes, has been a big help but it stops short of what we want.”

“That’s all I can tell you,” Mason said.

“Once more you have used that expression, ‘all you can tell me.’”

“It seems to cover the situation,” Mason said.

“What do you know about Morley L. Theilman?”

“I never met the man in my life.”

Orland said, “His wife thinks he was being blackmailed. She thinks he had given this blackmailer quite a sum of money, that the blackmailer was using the name A. B. Vidal and that Vidal was using the mails. Apparently you thought so too.”

“Where’s Theilman now?” Mason asked.

“That,” Orland said, “is something we’re trying to establish. He doesn’t seem to be in his usual haunts, and when a man disappears at a time when he’s being blackmailed, we always like to get as much information as we can.”

“Do you folks have anything on this A. B. Vidal?” Mason asked. “Does he have a record? Do you know anything about him?”

Orland grinned and said, “I’m sure I can’t tell you, Mr. Mason.”

Mason smiled. “I can appreciate your position,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“I’d like to know the things you say you can’t tell me,” Orland said.

“And,” Mason told him, “I would like to know the things you say you can’t tell me.”

Orland turned to Paul Drake. “Mason has done most of the talking here,” he said. “Now I’d like to hear from you. Remember, you have a license. You’re bound by business ethics and you can’t hold out information dealing with the commission of a crime. Now then, Mr. Drake, without any interruptions, please, tell us exactly what you know.”

Drake said easily, “What Perry has told you has taken a big load off my mind. Perry wanted me to pick up the trail of an A. B. Vidal at the post office when Vidal called for a letter. I naturally wanted to make it as painless as possible and so I got in touch with one of my friends who is a postal inspector, told him I had reason to believe Vidal might be using the mails in connection with the commission of a crime, and arranged to be notified when a letter came in for Vidal. I fixed things so I could put a stake-out on the job, and when Vidal picked up the letter I could have my men get a line on him.”

“And the locker at the Union Depot?” Orland asked.

“Mason said he wanted to find out something about the lockers at the Union Depot. He asked me if I could help him and I told him I thought I could, that I’d helped out a fellow down there who—”

“What’s his name?” Orland interrupted.

“Smith.”

“Smitty, eh?” Orland said. “Sure. I know him. What happened?”

Drake said, “I phoned Smitty and asked him to meet me. We got down there and Mr. Mason—”

“Now, just a minute. Who do you mean by ‘we’?”

“Perry Mason, his secretary, Della Street, and me.”

“You all went down there?”

“That’s right. We returned only a few minutes ago.”

“And what happened?”

“Smitty met us down there. Mason told him he wanted to take a look in locker FO82, and Smitty told him he’d inspect the locker but Mason couldn’t touch anything that was in it. Smitty opened the locker. There was nothing in it.”

“You’re still keeping men at the post office?” Orland asked.

“I am not. I withdrew the men and told the postal inspectors not to bother with Vidal as far as I was concerned.”

“You did that on your own, or in accordance with instructions from Perry Mason?”

Drake looked helplessly at Perry Mason.

“He was acting on my instructions,” Mason said.

“Okay,” Orland said, “that’s all I need to know — provided that’s all you know, Drake.”

“That,” Drake said, “is all I know.”

Orland turned to Mason.

“And that,” Mason said, “is all I can tell you.”

Orland left the office.

Mason turned to Drake. “All right, Paul,” he said, “you’re in the clear. You’ve told him everything you know.”

“Thanks a lot,” Drake said. “The fact that you came in here like that and did the job you did helped me out a lot.”

“All right,” Mason told him. “You’ve told him all you knew at the time. Now then, you’re going to learn some more. It’s all right for you to tell the police what you know when they ask you questions. You don’t have to run down the hall to tell them something you find out after the police have left.”

“Now, wait a minute, Perry,” Drake remonstrated, “I don’t want to know anything that—”

“Do you want a job or not?”

“I’m running an agency. I need all the jobs I can get.”

“All right,” Mason said, “you’ve got a job.”

“What is it?”

“Morley Theilman,” Mason said. “I want to know about him.”

“What about him?”

“I’d like to find where he is at the present time. Last night he was in Bakersfield. He was with Cole B. Troy, a business associate. He left Troy about nine o’clock. He never reached home. His wife called the police.

“Now I want to find Theilman. Put some men on the job and see what you can find out.”

“If the police are working on it, they’ll have run down all the leads,” Drake said.

“Exactly,” Mason told him, “but since the police aren’t confiding in us, I want to get all the information they have and more, if possible.”

“Okay,” Drake said. “I’ve got a good correspondent in Bakersfield. I can pick up the phone and get him on the job.”

“There’s the phone,” Mason said, “pick it up.”

As Drake reached for the phone, Mason left the office, pausing in Drake’s reception room to ask the switchboard operator to notify Della Street not to expect him back before noon.

Chapter Five

Perry Mason, consulting the address he had copied from the phone book, turned into Dillington Drive, a winding road which followed the contour of the hill and looked out over a lazy, haze-filled valley.

The lawyer drove slowly and stopped at number 631, a modern house of flat roof, glass sliding panels, and sloping lawn. His watch showed the time to be eleven-ten.

Mason climbed a gentle incline on broad cement steppingstones and pressed a button.

Chimes sounded in the interior of the house. A few moments later a door opened and a strikingly beautiful woman in her late twenties stood looking up at the lawyer with clear blue eyes.

“Mrs. Theilman?” Mason asked.

“Yes,” she said guardedly.

“I’m Perry Mason, an attorney,” the lawyer said. “I would like to talk with you — about your husband.”

“Come in,” she invited.

Mason entered a room which was mellow with subdued sunlight filtering through pearl-gray drapes. There was wall-to-wall oyster-shell-colored carpeting on the floor. The chairs were deep and comfortable. The whole room, while tastefully decorated, gave the impression that it had been designed for living, rather than to conform to any particular style of interior decoration.

“Won’t you be seated, Mr. Mason?”

Mason thanked her, seated himself, and said, “Mrs. Theilman, I’m sorry that I can’t put all of my cards on the table at this time. I understand, however, that you are anxious to get information concerning your husband, and I am just as anxious as you are.

“I am representing an undisclosed client. I am satisfied that I am not representing any interests that are adverse to you. Otherwise I would not be here. As far as I know, there is no reason why you can’t talk frankly with me and, to the best of my knowledge at the present time, I think it would be to your interest to do so.”

“Did my husband consult you?” she asked.

Mason said, “Frankly, he did not, Mrs. Theilman, although I have the feeling that my interest in the matter may be connected with what is best for him.

“Now I’m going to tell you very frankly the reason I am here. You have reported to the police that your husband has disappeared. You have apparently reported to the police that you felt your husband was being blackmailed by an individual named A. B. Vidal. The police have questioned me because of an interest I had shown in Mr. Vidal sometime earlier. I gave the police all the information I was able to give them.”

“You’re not representing Mr. Vidal, are you?”

“No, I’ve never seen Vidal in my life as far as I know, and from all the information I have at the present time I consider his interests are adverse to those of your husband.”

“I think,” she said cautiously, “I’d want to know a little more about your connection with the case and just what your interest is, Mr. Mason.”

Mason said, “I can tell you this much. I had reason to believe A. B. Vidal might be trying to blackmail your husband. My secretary put the key to locker FO82 at the Union Depot in an envelope and mailed it to A. B. Vidal, General Delivery. That was shortly before noon yesterday.

“I hired a private detective agency to keep watch on the post office and when A. B. Vidal called for the envelope with the key in it I wanted him shadowed. I wanted to find out who he was; I wanted to get the license number of the car he was driving; I wanted to get his general appearance and find out where he went.”

Her face showed sudden interest. “Were you able to do this?”

“I was not,” Mason said, “for the simple reason that Vidal was too smart to be caught in that kind of a trap. The whole business of mailing the key to him at General Delivery was simply a decoy. He had evidently prepared a duplicate key to the locker and so was able to remove what was in the locker without calling for the envelope. He then deposited a quarter in the slot, removed the duplicate key and left the locker locked and empty.”

“You’ve told that to the police?”

“Yes.”

“If your secretary mailed the key to Mr. Vidal, then she must have been the one who opened the locker and put the package, or whatever it was, in the locker in the first place.”

“That doesn’t necessarily follow,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t want to deceive you and I wouldn’t want you to deceive yourself. All I can say is that my secretary did put the key in an envelope and mailed it to Vidal at General Delivery.”

“You aren’t my husband’s lawyer?”

“As far as I know,” Mason said, “I have never met your husband.”

“Then if you aren’t connected with Vidal and you aren’t connected with my husband, how did you get into the case?”

“I didn’t say that I wasn’t connected with your husband, Mrs. Theilman. Actually I am not retained by him directly, but I do feel that my client has your husband’s best interests at heart.”

“Can’t you explain more than that?”

Mason shook his head and said, “I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Theilman said, “The person using the name A. B. Vidal is, in my opinion, using that name as an alias.”

“You think he is a blackmailer?”

“I know it.”

“Can you tell me how you know it?”

Mrs. Theilman thought things over for a few moments.

“I can assure you,” Mason went on, “that if I had any interests which I felt were adverse to yours, or if my client did, I would not be here. If I wanted to get any information from you under those circumstances, I would have asked you to give me the name of an attorney who was representing you and with whom I could deal.

“At the present time I am here simply in the capacity of one who seeks information from a witness. I am trying only to get factual information.”

“All right,” she said, “I’ll give you factual information, Mr. Mason. I’ll give it to you in the same way that you have given the factual information to me. I will tell you what I have told the police. I will not put all my cards on the table until you are in a position to put all your cards on the table.”

“All right,” Mason said, “can you tell me what you told the police?”

“My husband came home from the office yesterday afternoon about two o’clock. He seemed very much concerned. He said that he had to go to Bakersfield. He wanted to change his clothes and asked me to get out another suit for him. I did, and he put on the fresh suit.

“As is my habit, I went through the pockets of the suit he had taken off, which I was going to send out to be cleaned and pressed. I wanted to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten anything.”

“This was after he’d put on the other suit?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“And he’d taken the things out of the pockets of the other suit himself?”

“Yes, he always does. I wasn’t transferring things from his pockets. I wasn’t even in the room while he was changing. I came in and picked up the discarded suit which he had tossed on a chair and simply went through the pockets to make sure he had left nothing. Quite frequently he leaves a knife or some keys or coins, or something of that sort. I guess all men do that. They have so many pockets and — well, when they’re in a hurry...”

“I understand,” Mason said, smiling. “I’ve been guilty quite a few times myself.”

“Well,” she said, “there was a letter in the inside breast pocket of the coat. When I took it out I couldn’t help but see what it was. It was a letter that had been composed of words cut from a newspaper, or newspapers, and pasted together so that it made a message.”

“Do you remember the message?” Mason asked.

“I can recite it verbatim,” she said. “It was, get money. instructions on telephone. failure will be fatal.”

“You didn’t make any copy?”

“No. I simply remembered it.”

“Go on,” Mason said.

“There was an envelope in the pocket,” she said. “It evidently was the envelope the letter had come in. It was just an ordinary stamped envelope with my husband’s name and address typewritten on it, and up in the upper left-hand corner the return address was A. B. Vidal, General Delivery.”

“So what did you do?” Mason asked.

She said, “My husband was in the bathroom, shaving with an electric razor. He had left his coat, that is, the coat of the fresh suit that he was going to wear, on a hanger. I took the letter and the envelope and slipped them into the inside breast pocket and quietly left the room.

“Since he had said nothing to me about this, I felt that it might be embarrassing if I asked him for an explanation and— Well, Mr. Mason, I’m one of those wives who doesn’t believe in asking for explanations or in embarrassing a husband. I feel that if my husband has anything he wants to tell me, he will tell me. If he doesn’t tell me, it is because he either doesn’t want to worry me or because he doesn’t want me to know.”

“This letter, however, caused you some concern?” Mason asked.

“The letter, plus the fact that for some time I have had a feeling my husband had something on his mind, something that was worrying him.”

“Do you know anything about your husband’s financial affairs?”

“Very little. We sign joint income tax returns, but I simply sign my name on the dotted line without even bothering to look at the amount of the tax.”

“You aren’t in the habit of discussing financial affairs with your husband?”

“My husband,” she said, “gives me a very generous allowance. That’s all I ask and all I want. I run the house from that, and from time to time my husband makes me presents of a new car or things of that sort. I buy my clothes from my allowance.”

“It is ample?” Mason asked.

“Quite ample,” she said, smiling.

Mason swept his eye up and down and said smilingly, “It seems to be very ample indeed, and spent with superb taste.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“And then your husband left for Bakersfield?” Mason asked.

“I assume that he did. He got in his car and drove away and he was in quite a hurry.”

“Now,” Mason said, “you’re to the north of Los Angeles. About how long does it take your husband to get from the house to his office?”

“Around half an hour. Of course he tries to avoid the congested traffic whenever possible. He is an early riser and he tries to get to the office before the daily morning traffic jam and he tries to get back early in the afternoon. When he can’t do it, he telephones and says that he won’t be home until late. He then waits until after six o’clock in the evening before he starts. He doesn’t like traffic jams.”

“I see,” Mason said. “Now, you saw this message that had been prepared by pasting together words that had been cut from the newspaper.”

“Yes.”

“They were pasted on a sheet of paper.”

“Yes.”

“Now,” Mason said, “I’m going to ask you to think carefully, Mrs. Theilman, because this answer may be important. Had those words been torn in any way?”

“What do you mean, torn?”

“Torn in two and then pasted together again?”

“No. They had been cut neatly with a pair of scissors.”

“No evidence of tearing?”

“None whatever.”

“The address on the envelope,” Mason said, “was it the address of your husband’s office or—”

“Frankly, I didn’t notice that. He gets quite a bit of mail here at the house.”

“I don’t suppose you noticed the envelope when it came in.”

“Heavens, no. I just glance through the mail that comes in and if it’s for my husband I put it on a little table to the right of the door. He picks it up when he comes in.”

“How much mail does he have come to the house?”

“Not too much but still quite a bit. Mostly it’s unimportant mail, circulars and things of that sort. Naturally his business mail comes to the office.”

“But this one came to the house?”

“It could have. I remembered only my husband’s name being on the envelope and the name of A. B. Vidal being in the upper left-hand corner. I saw it for only a second or two.”

“Your husband doesn’t come home to lunch?”

“No. He eats lunch in town.”

“And this time he came home about two o’clock in the afternoon?”

“It was a little before two. I don’t know the exact time.”

“And there was some mail for him that you had placed on the table?”

“There were, I think, three letters.”

“Do you remember whether they were business letters; that is, whether the envelopes had been addressed in handwriting or—”

She smiled and said, “There were no scented envelopes addressed in a feminine handwriting, if that’s what you mean, Mr. Mason. I would have noticed those. No, there were just three or four letters that were the ordinary type of business letter one would expect. That is, the envelopes indicated it was just a batch of routine mail.”

“But this letter from Vidal may have been one of the three or four letters?”

“I think it must have been. I can’t tell positively.”

“Did you notice the envelope at that time?”

“Mr. Mason, it’s just as I’ve told you, I don’t know when that envelope came in.”

“Did you notice the postmark on the envelope?” Mason asked.

“You mean when I took it out of his pocket?”

“Yes.”

“No. I didn’t want to pry into his affairs. I saw the message and of course I was startled. I looked at the envelope and I remembered the name of A. B. Vidal on the return address and, of course, the address of General Delivery. But I didn’t— It’s difficult to explain, Mr. Mason. I didn’t want to pry into my husband’s affairs. I simply took the letter, looked at it, felt in the pocket, found the envelope was in there, and transferred both letter and envelope to his other suit. Of course, I was concerned but I still didn’t want to pry. I’m not the sort of wife who is jealous or prying. I think wives who have those reactions are simply torturing themselves and undermining the very foundation of their marriage.”

“You’re happily married?” Mason asked.

“Very happily married.”

“This is a delicate question,” Mason said, “but are you— Well, is your husband approximately the same age as you are? I gather he isn’t because he has evidently been in business long enough to establish himself financially and you are...”

“Yes, yes. Go on,” she said, smiling, as Mason hesitated. “A woman always likes to hear that.”

“Well, you’re quite young,” Mason said.

“Thank you,” she said.

After a moment’s silence she added, “I’m not as young as you think, but I am younger than my husband, Mr. Mason, and since I know the other questions which will naturally be in your mind, I am a second wife. My husband was married to a woman who was nagging, jealous and the exact antithesis of what I try to be. She was inordinately suspicious, she kept asking him for explanations of everything he did, she undermined the happiness of the marriage by making home a place which Mr. Theilman wanted to avoid.”

“Was it this house?” Mason asked.

“Heavens, no,” she said. “I didn’t want to have anything around me that would remind me of that woman. I had Morley, my husband, sell that house furnished and we moved into this place and I furnished it according to my own ideas.”

“You did a very fine job,” Mason said, looking appreciatively around the room.

“Thank you again.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “you reported to the police that your husband had disappeared.”

“That’s right.”

“Did the letter which you had read from A. B. Vidal have anything to do with that?”

“A great deal,” she said, “a very great deal. If it hadn’t been for that, I probably wouldn’t have even given it a second thought.”

“He telephoned you last night?”

“About eight o’clock last night. He said he would be back around eleven or eleven-thirty. He telephoned from Bakersfield. When he hadn’t shown up by three o’clock, I became worried. I asked the police to check accidents and hospitals and when that report was negative I was very much relieved, and was able to go back to bed and sleep. I assure you, Mr. Mason, that I understand there are times when a man can change his mind about going home. I don’t expect any husband of mine to be a plaster saint. He wasn’t when I married him, and I’m not foolish enough to think that marriage to me is going to change him. Just the same, when he wasn’t home by seven, when I awoke, I became seriously alarmed.”

“What, generally, is the nature of your husband’s business?”

“Real estate. He speculates — buys and sells and subdivides.”

“You mean he acts as a realtor on—”

“Lord, no! The real estate commissions on sales wouldn’t pay office overhead — not the way my husband does things. He’s a speculator.”

“I take it then, he has quite a pretentious office.”

“On the contrary, his actual office is... well, it’s well furnished and all that, but my husband does a great deal of his business on the outside. He doesn’t wait for people to come to him. He goes out and meets opportunity halfway.”

“How many secretaries?” Mason asked casually.

“One.”

“What’s her name?”

“Janice Wainwright... I get so exasperated at that girl, I sometimes want to grab her and pull her hair.”

“Why?” Mason asked. “Does she—”

“Make passes? Anything but. That’s the trouble with her. Ever since I entered the picture she’s become the most mouse-like little creature you ever saw. She fixes her mouth so it looks positively hideous. She slicks her hair back and wears huge spectacles — the most unbecoming type she can possibly get.”

“You say this was since you entered the picture?”

“Since I entered the picture,” Mrs. Theilman said.

“Then you knew her before that time?”

“I had seen her,” she said cautiously, “yes.”

“And she wasn’t like that before your marriage?”

“Heavens, no. She was an attractive girl.”

“Do you think your husband knew she was attractive?”

“Of course he knew she was attractive. He’d hired her, hadn’t he? And his first marriage had been unhappy for a period of some ten years. And if he hadn’t made passes at her, he was just a plain damn fool. And, further-more, I think she was pretty much in love with him then, and I know she’s in love with him now.”

“How do you know that?” Mason asked.

“Because she’s making herself look all frumpy so I won’t try to get her fired. Whenever a girl does that... Well, if she thinks that much of a man she thinks a lot of him.”

“In other words, then, her effort to make herself look plain has back-fired. It’s had exactly the opposite effect of what she was trying to achieve.”

“It certainly has. It shows that she’s in love with Morley. At least, it convinces me she is.”

“And you don’t resent it?”

“Why should I resent it? If the girl wants to be in love with him, that’s her business.”

“And despite the fact you think there may have been some, let us say romantic interludes, you still make no effort to have him get a new secretary?”

Mrs. Theilman’s laugh was throaty. “Look, Mr. Mason,” she said, “this conversation is taking a highly personal turn.”

Mason smiled and said, “I’m sorry if I’ve gone too far.”

“You haven’t,” she said, “you’ve just opened a few doors and I walked through. I’m a frank creature myself and I accept the biological facts of life at face value.

“Now then, Mr. Mason, you can look around here and you see a very fine house, expensively furnished, and you can rest assured that I have no intention of letting some secretary grab my man away from me. I don’t care how Janice feels toward Morley. The thing that I’m concerned with is how Morley feels toward Janice. If she wants to make herself unattractive so she can hang around him, that’s okay with me. If she wants to make herself attractive, that’s still okay. And if he can’t forget what you have delicately referred to as romantic interludes, that’s still okay.

“But let that woman or any other woman start trying to get her hands into my security, and I’ll jerk the rug out from under her so fast she won’t know when she hit the floor... And I won’t do it by being a little bitch or making a scene or fixing things so my husband doesn’t want to come home nights.

“In short, Mr. Mason, the point is that I know my way around and I’m also smart enough to know that any time Morley L. Theilman isn’t happier at home than he is any other place, he isn’t going to want to come home.

“What’s more, I’m not foolish enough to try and hold a man by a sense of legal obligation. In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Mason, but I’m quite certain you have, I have looks and I don’t intend to waste those looks on any man who doesn’t appreciate them.

“According to my book that’s the main trouble with unhappy marriages. If a woman finds her husband is slipping, she doesn’t have guts enough and nerve enough to stand up and face the facts and clear out of the picture while she still is attractive to other men. She temporizes and nags and becomes frustrated and loses her looks and then the inevitable happens and she’s cast out on the world and sings the same old familiar dirge that she gave her husband the best years of her life.

“I’m giving Morley Theilman the best years of my life and I want him to know it and I want him to appreciate it and I want to be compensated for it.

“Now then, Mr. Mason, somehow or other you’ve drawn me out and know a lot more about me than I permit most men to know. You have a very adroit way of getting people to talk. I’ve said all I want to and I probably wouldn’t have said that much if it hadn’t been for the fact that I’m worried sick about Morley and I needed a shoulder to cry on.

“Now then, I’ve done my crying and that’s that.”

“You say you’re worried about your husband?”

“Of course I’m worried about him.”

“You think something may have happened to him?”

“Mr. Mason, I’m not clairvoyant. I’m a wife. And I’m a worried wife. And if you were in my position I think you’d be worried.

“I gather that you’re looking for my husband. Somehow I have an idea your methods are going to be highly personalized, somewhat individual and perhaps a little more spectacular than those of the police. I’m not going to detain you any longer. I want you to get on the job... I don’t suppose you’d be in a position to accept a retainer from me and act as my attorney?”

“Do you think you need one?”

“I’ve asked you a question. Answer my question and then I’ll answer yours.”

“No,” said Mason thoughtfully, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be in a position to accept a retainer from you. I might, but on the other hand certain interests might become adverse. I don’t think they would, but there’s always that outside possibility.”

“That answers my question,” she said, “and because of that answer there’s no reason for me to answer yours... I’ll tell you this much, Mr. Mason. I think Morley is in trouble. I think he’s in deep trouble and I think he’s dealing with people who could play rough.”

She rose and walked toward the door. “Thank you for dropping in, Mr. Mason, it was a pleasure meeting you.”

The lawyer followed her to the door, conscious of her superb figure, the well-tailored, tight-fitting dress; conscious also of the fact that she knew he was appraising her figure and didn’t resent it.

At the doorway she turned suddenly and extended her hand. Her blue eyes laughed up into his. “Thank you very much, Mr. Mason,” she said, “for all that you’ve told me.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more,” Mason said.

“But you did,” she answered.

“Did what?” Mason asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Told me more,” she said. “More, perhaps, than you realized,” and with that she gently closed the door.

Back in his office Mason said to Della Street, “Anything new from Paul, Della?”

“Not yet.”

“All right,” Mason said. “I have a job for you.”

“What?”

“Go grab a quick lunch and look up the case of Theilman versus Theilman,” Mason said. “See if the case came to trial or whether it was settled. Find out the exact dates. Look in the newspaper files and see what you can dig up.”

Della Street put a notebook and some pencils into her purse, smiled at Mason and said, “On my way. What was Mrs. Theilman like?”

“That,” Mason said, “is hard to tell. She’s difficult to describe.”

“Oh-oh,” Della Street said.

“What’s the matter?”

“When a man refers to a woman as being difficult to describe, and she’s young, attractive, and has been a corespondent...”

“What makes you think she was a corespondent?” Mason asked.

“The same thing that makes you think so,” Della Street said. “That’s why you’re sending me out to look up the reports on the case, isn’t it?”

“I guess it is.” Mason grinned.

“I’m quite sure it is,” Della Street said, and went out.

Chapter Six

In an hour and a half Della Street was back in the office.

“Well?” Mason asked.

She said, “There’s a difference in viewpoint.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said Mrs. Theilman was hard to describe. She might be hard for a man to describe but she’s easy for a woman.”

“How do you describe her?” Mason asked.

“You wouldn’t like it,” she said.

“No?”

“No.”

“What did you find out?”

“The woman who is now Mrs. Morley Theilman,” Della Street said, “was in Las Vegas wearing the highly impossible name of Day Dawns. She was a hostess, an entertainer, a show girl, and she had her eye out for the main chance.”

“You mean she was for sale?” Mason asked.

Della Street said, “Let’s put it this way. She was for rent. Now she’s on a long-term lease.”

“You mean she was a cheap little—?”

“Don’t be silly,” Della Street interrupted. “There was nothing cheap about her. She’s class to her finger tips and, believe it or not, there’s nothing common about her. But she knew which side of the bread had the butter. In fact, she studied all there was to know about butter.

“Of course, we must remember that some of the things I got were contained in the complaint of Carlotta Theilman versus Morley Theilman, in which Day Dawns was named as a corespondent.”

“Pictures?” Mason asked.

“Scads of pictures.”

“I mean of Carlotta.”

“Carlotta wasn’t photogenic,” Della Street said. “And Carlotta let her figure get out of hand — the exact opposite of her successor, whose figure was always very much in hand.

“Carlotta, of course, was no match for Day Dawns. It was perhaps this feeling of futility that caused her to exhibit so much bitterness.”

“What happened with the divorce suit?” Mason asked.

“Settled. Carlotta Theilman apparently got something like half a million dollars in cash. Morley bought his way out.”

“He seems to have had plenty left,” Mason said.

“Have you ever seen his picture?” Della Street asked.

Mason shook his head.

“He looks like a go-getter,” she said, “even in the newspaper pictures. He has an aggressive, dynamic, masculine personality — somehow you get the impression he isn’t a one-woman man.”

“Isn’t or wasn’t?” Mason asked.

Della Street frowned. “I hadn’t thought of it in exactly that light,” she said.“Well, think of it now.”

After a moment Della Street shook her head. “I can’t tell just from pictures,” she said. “I could tell if I saw him. You know, Chief, this Janice Wainwright may not be so dumb. There’s just a chance she might be playing things on a long-time basis.”

“She isn’t fooling Mrs. Theilman any,” Mason said.

“What makes you think she isn’t?”

“Mrs. Theilman has noticed that Janice has done everything she could to submerge her beauty and appear to be plain and unattractive.”

Della Street said, “And you say she isn’t fooling Mrs. Theilman?”

“No.”

“That may be the greatest fooling of all,” Della Street said. “The second Mrs. Theilman is a plaything, a highly polished, perfectly poised, expensive plaything. She’s on her way up. As long as she’s on her way up, she’s going to keep planning. She doesn’t intend to remain static. When she quits moving up, she’ll move out.

“After she’s been with Morley Theilman long enough to get a good property settlement, she isn’t going to remain with a man fifteen years her senior and settle down.

“She’s going to keep a tight hold on Morley Theilman until she’s entirely finished with him. When she is entirely finished with him, Morley Theilman is going to have had all that he wants of sleek sex. He’s going to look around for the plain, sincere, sweet, simple and honest in life. Janice Wainwright just may be grooming herself for the part of the third Mrs. Theilman.

“The second Mrs. Theilman is working for a goal — an objective. She’s swapping physical charm for future security. Janice Wainwright is in love.”

“With a man fifteen years her senior?” Mason asked.

“Make it ten,” Della Street said.

She opened her purse, took out her notebook, thumbed through the pages and said, “At the time of the divorce Morley Theilman was thirty-four. That was four years ago. It makes him thirty-eight now. Janice is probably about twenty-eight.”

“Well,” Mason said, “I guess we’d better talk with our client, Della, and find out just what the situation is. Give her a ring.”

Della Street put through the call and shook her head. “No answer at Theilman’s office.”

“What was the number Janice gave you this morning?”

“I have it here,” Della Street said. “She said it was the number of her apartment.”

“Let’s try her there,” Mason said.

Della Street dialed the number, then said, “No answer there either.”

Mason frowned. “She should be calling in.”

“She should be, for a fact,” Della Street said dryly. “Something seems to tell me that the dollar she paid by way of retainer has probably been expended in detective fees by this time.”

“I wouldn’t doubt,” Mason agreed, grinning. “That’s a case that sneaked up on me from behind, Della. I didn’t want to take her money. I was curious. I wanted to find out what the case was all about, and the dollar retainer that I took was simply for the purpose of protecting me so there could be no question of my professional privilege.”

“I know,” she said sympathetically. “I was just kidding, Chief. I felt exactly the same way. I’d have cried if you’d turned her down. There’s something about her — a pathetic something — yet I can’t help but think that she’s playing it awfully smart.”

“Could be,” Mason agreed. “She—”

He broke off as Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door.

“Let Paul in,” Mason said. “Let’s see if we can get some more facts to work on.”

Della Street opened the door, and Paul Drake, with his customary, “Hi, Beautiful,” moved over to the client’s big leather chair, deposited a brief case, pulled out a notebook, elevated one knee over the arm of the chair and said to Mason, “Well, I have a collection of statistics but I can’t put them together.”

“Tell me what you know,” Mason said.

“Cole B. Troy at Bakersfield,” Drake said. “A business associate of Morley Theilman. Not a full partner but associated in some of the real estate deals Theilman has up around Bakersfield.

“Theilman was with Troy yesterday afternoon. He arrived about four-thirty. They were in conference until six. Then they went out to dinner and after dinner they went briefly to Troy’s office.

“Theilman put through a call to his wife to tell her that he would be home at eleven or a little after, that his wife wasn’t to wait up for him.

“After that call the two men talked for about an hour in the office at Bakersfield, but by nine o’clock they had covered all the matters Theilman wanted to discuss, so the conference broke up.”

“Then what?” Mason asked.

“Now we come to the thing that may be important,” Drake said. “After Theilman left the office, Troy said he walked over to the window and looked down at the street, that he didn’t have any particular reason for going to the window. He certainly didn’t want to watch Theilman. But Theilman had left him with some business problems to think over and he just automatically walked over to the window and stood there looking down on the street. He saw Theilman leave the office and cross over to the corner, then go to the parking lot where he had his car.

“Now then, Troy says that some woman was shadowing Theilman. He says that he couldn’t get a look at her face and couldn’t recognize her, but she was a shapely woman. He saw only her back. He says she walked with what he describes as hippy grace.”

“She wasn’t just walking along the street?” Mason asked.

“That’s what he thought at the time. He didn’t pay too much attention to it. But since Theilman seems to have disappeared and Troy is giving the matter a lot more thought, now he believes the woman was shadowing Theilman. She kept just about the same distance behind him and walked along in exactly the same path Theilman had taken.”

“Theilman didn’t look back?”

“He didn’t look back.”

Mason frowned. “Then this woman wasn’t trying particularly to be inconspicuous,” he said. “At that hour of the night you know and I know a shadow couldn’t just dog along behind a person, keeping a uniform distance.”

“Not a professional shadow,” Drake said. “This, of course, was an amateur.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, for one thing, the way she acted.”

“And what happened?”

“Troy doesn’t know. He saw Theilman reach the corner, go around the corner and start for the parking lot. He saw the woman keeping just about the same distance, following along behind, reach the corner and turn toward the parking lot. After they passed the corner, the building on the corner shut them from his view.”

“He didn’t recognize the woman?”

Drake shook his head. “He only saw her back.”

“Evidently he noticed her.”

“He noticed her shape. And about all he can say is that in his opinion she was young and shapely.”

“What does he mean by young?”

“Somewhere in the twenties.”

“It’s hard to tell a woman’s age from her back,” Mason said.

“Are you telling me?” Drake grinned. “Now then, I suppose you want the latest on Theilman.”

“What’s the latest on Theilman?”

“He hasn’t been found.”

“That was the earliest,” Mason said.

“However,” Drake said, “we have another angle on the case — or another curve, if you want to call it that. His secretary has also disappeared.”

“What!” Mason said.

“That’s right — and that, in case you want to know, has lessened the police activity very much.

“This morning, when Mrs. Theilman had reported her husband had disappeared and gave them information leading them to believe that her husband might have been blackmailed, the police took a very keen and instant interest.

“Now then, having found that Theilman’s secretary has also disappeared, the police are still going through the motions but they’re conducting their investigation with a somewhat cynical smile.

“They’ve made inquiries at Theilman’s bank and find that he has been diverting a good many securities into the form of cash during the past three weeks.”

“For three weeks?” Mason asked.

“Three weeks.”

“What happened yesterday morning, anything?”

“Yesterday morning,” Drake said, “Theilman got another five thousand in cash.”

“Only five thousand?” Mason asked.

“Don’t say ‘only’ in that tone of voice when you’re talking about five thousand,” Drake said, “particularly when you carry it in the form of cash in twenty-dollar bills.”

“It was in twenty-dollar bills?”

“That’s the way he wanted it, yes.”

“Let’s see,” Mason said. “Five thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills would be...”

“Two hundred and fifty twenty-dollar bills,” Drake said.

Mason opened his billfold, took out some bills of various denominations, placed them in a pile on the desk.

“How much paper money do you have with you, Paul?”

“Don’t be silly,” Drake said, “you’re talking to a detective.”

Della Street opened her purse. “I’ve got some fives and ones. Will that help?”

“They all weigh about the same,” Mason said. “Here, Della. Go out and weigh these bills on the postal scales and see approximately how much they run.”

Della Street took the bills Mason had handed her, went to the outer office and returned to hand the bills back to Perry Mason. “They run about twenty to the ounce,” she said.

“All right,” Mason said, pulling forth a scratch pad, “let’s say twenty bills to the ounce. That would be three hundred and twenty bills to the pound. That would be six thousand, four hundred dollars if they were all twenty-dollar bills. Ten pounds would be sixty-four thousand dollars. Twenty pounds would be a hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars. Twenty-five pounds, a hundred and sixty thousand dollars.”

“Hey, wait a minute, you two!” Paul Drake said. “What the heck. You’re getting into high finance. What are you trying to do, figure how much a million dollars in twenty-dollar bills would weigh?”

“Something like that,” Mason said, frowning thoughtfully across the desk at Della Street.

“Well,” Drake said, “your man Theilman drew out five thousand dollars yesterday morning. As I said, he’d been drawing out money from time to time.”

“All in twenty-dollar bills?” Mason asked.

“I believe so. The banker wasn’t communicative on a general basis. He answered police questions when they were put to him specifically, but he protected himself and his depositor wherever he could.

“Now then,” Drake went on, “we come to the juicy chapter in Theilman’s life.”

“You mean his divorce?”

“His divorce and remarriage,” Drake said. “Theilman is a guy who sees green pastures on the other side of the fence.”

“An optical illusion?” Mason asked.

“Not in this case,” Drake said. “You should have seen the pasture.”

“I saw it,” Mason said.

“The heck you did!”

Mason nodded.

“Ever see it in a bathing suit?”

Mason shook his head.

“Take a look,” Drake invited, taking a photograph from his brief case. He passed the picture across to Mason.

Della Street moved over to look over the lawyer’s shoulder.

“Is that a bathing suit?” Della Street asked.

“That’s what it’s supposed to be — at least, according to the caption on the photograph. That was a publicity photograph released when the corespondent in the case was appearing in Las Vegas.”

“That,” Della Street announced, “is a green pasture. There’s no optical illusion about that.”

“There isn’t, for a fact,” Drake said. “However, the thing that I thought you’d be interested in was the fact that Day Dawns took a flying trip to the Orient and, strangely enough, that trip coincided with a business trip which Morley Theilman took to Hong Kong; a fact which was duly noted by Carlotta Theilman’s investigators and which you will find incorporated in the complaint for divorce filed by Carlotta Theilman.”

“I trust it was an enjoyable trip,” Mason said.

“It must have been,” Drake said, “but the thing that should interest you particularly, and which will probably interest the police when they find it out, is that when Day Dawns secured her passport she naturally secured it under her own name rather than her stage name.”

“And the correct name?” Mason asked.

“The correct name,” Drake said dryly, “was Agnes Bernice Vidal.”

“What!” Mason exclaimed.

Drake grinned. “It’s always a pleasure to uncover information that gives you a jolt, Perry.”

Mason glanced at Della Street and then back to Paul Drake. “I’ll be damned!” he said.

“Thought you’d like to know,” Drake said. “So far the police, apparently, haven’t stumbled onto that choice bit of information. When they do get it, it’s possible they may take a little more interest in the case.”

Mason was thoughtful. “I can’t help remembering,” he said, “that the second Mrs. Theilman observed that if anyone tried to tamper with her security she’d jerk the rug out from under them so fast they wouldn’t know what had happened until they hit the floor.”

“Well,” Drake said, “what I’m reporting may or may not be rug-jerking. I’m simply giving you the facts. It’s up to you to put them together. But in view of your comments about five thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills weighing somewhat less than a pound, I am beginning to think that you know facts that I don’t want to know.”

“You may have something there,” Mason admitted.

“In that case,” Drake said, “having dropped my bombshell, I’ll retire to my dugout and let you mop up the pieces.”

Mason stopped him at the door. “You have another job, Paul, and I want some fast action — find that secretary.”

Della Street moved over to her typewriter.

“You got a description?” Drake asked.

Mason nodded toward Della Street. “Della’s typing it out for you now, Paul — name, age, clothes, all the things one woman notices about another woman.”

Chapter Seven

When Paul Drake had left the office Mason turned to Della Street. “Well,” he asked, “what about the description you gave Paul? Did you paint her as a demure young thing?”

“Not to Paul,” she said. “I gave him a physical description. Color of hair, color of eyes, the clothes she was wearing and all that.”

“You mentioned that she was made up to look rather plain and severe?” Mason asked.

“I definitely did not,” she said. “I have an idea that when we find Miss Janice Wainwright we will find that there has been a very remarkable transformation; that she spent hours in a beauty parlor and has emerged from the cocoon of repression as a full-fledged butterfly”

Mason said, “Perhaps it’s time, young lady, that you and I compared notes.”

“I think it is,” she said, smiling.

“Suppose you start,” Mason said.

“Well, I might be able to do a better job if you’d tell me the salient points of your conversation with the second Mrs. Theilman.”

“The salient points?” Mason asked.

“That’s right. Never mind the curves, just the points.”

“Well,” Mason said, “first, Morley Theilman was tremendously anxious to make certain that everyone knew he was being blackmailed by A. B. Vidal.”

“Check,” Della Street said.

“In the first place,” Mason said, “there was this mysterious letter from A. B. Vidal; the instructions to Janice Wainwright not to open any mail from Vidal — something that would naturally arouse her curiosity. Then there was the receipt of the letter and the fact that the letter was torn into several pieces and tossed into the wastebasket where the printed headlines pasted on the torn paper would have been so conspicuous as to have aroused the curiosity of anyone.”

Della Street nodded.

“Now then,” Mason said, “the same letter apparently was received by Theilman at his house. He told his wife he was going to Bakersfield for a conference with Cole B. Troy — and asked her to get out a fresh suit of clothes. Then he went into the bathroom and ran an electric razor over his face. That was after he had put on the trousers of the fresh suit of clothes, leaving the coat of that suit and the rumpled old suit in the bedroom.”

“A fresh suit of clothes to go and confer with a business associate in Bakersfield?” Della Street asked. “A fresh suit of clothes to take a hundred-mile ride in an automobile?”

“You don’t get the point,” Mason said. “The fresh suit of clothes was so that his wife would have an opportunity to follow her custom of going through the pockets of the suit he’d taken off to see if he’d left anything in the pockets.”

“Oh, I see,” Della Street said, “and in the pockets of the discarded suit she found this second letter from A. B. Vidal?”

“Exactly,” Mason said.

“So we have the mysterious Mr. Vidal sending identical blackmail notes to the office and to the house?’ Della Street asked.

“That’s right,” Mason said. “But there’s one thing that puzzles me.”

“What’s that?”

“Let us suppose,” Mason said, “that Morley Theilman wanted everyone to know he was being blackmailed; he wanted to vanish under mysterious circumstances; he wanted to draw money out of the bank so it wouldn’t be noticed. He invented a fictitious blackmailer. He sent himself blackmail letters which everyone would know about when he had disappeared.

“Let us further suppose he went down to the Union Depot and secured keys to several lockers and had duplicates made of those keys. Then he gave his secretary the job of buying a suitcase, after having first aroused her curiosity and her suspicions... But why, in the name of common sense, would he select a name for his fictitious blackmailer that was his wife’s real name?”

“I didn’t go all the way with you,” Della Street said. “I went off on a detour.”

“What’s the detour?” Mason asked.

“When you talked about having aroused the curiosity of the secretary. I am afraid, Mr. Perry Mason, that this secretary is playing a very smooth, smart game. I think that the shapely shadow that was seen by Mr. Cole B. Troy in Bakersfield following Mr. Theilman to the place where he had parked his car was none other than the demure secretary, Janice Wainwright. I think she had by that time been to a beauty shop and had emerged radiantly beautiful. I think that she joined the restless and sexually adventurous Morley Theilman.

“I think Theilman and his secretary spent the night together, then Morley Theilman, under an assumed name, went to the place where they had probably already established a dual indentity. I think that Janice Wainwright telephoned here this morning, but I don’t think she was talking from her apartment, although she gave us the number of her apartment. I think she was actually standing right by the side of a grinning Morley Theilman when she telephoned.

“I think Mr. Theilman had his arm around her waist and a smug expression on his face. I think there was a suitcase containing approximately a hundred and seventy-five or two hundred thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills on the floor beside them, and I think that Mr. Theilman and his demure secretary are now starting out on a new life under a new name. I think that when the second Mrs. Theilman starts trying to put together the various odds and ends of business affairs, she will find that she has been left holding an empty sack; that Theilman’s obligations far exceed his assets.”

“And,” Mason said, “you think that I have been made a dupe in this scheme.”

“I wouldn’t say a dupe,” Della Street said. “You were faced with a situation where you could take only one course of action. Remember that I’m a woman. I should have seen through the subterfuge. She fooled me one hundred per cent. I desperately wanted you to take that case. I felt sympathetic and curious and tremendously intrigued. There’s something about a woman who deliberately tries to disguise her beauty that arouses curiosity.”

Mason got up from his chair and started pacing the floor.

“Well,” Della Street asked, “don’t you agree with me?”

“As far as you go,” Mason said.

“Heavens!” Della Street said. “I thought I’d gone all the way.”

Mason said, “Just suppose the second Mrs. Theilman isn’t as dumb as you’ve painted her in that picture. Suppose the second Mrs. Theilman wondered why her husband wanted to put on a fresh suit in order to go to Bakersfield and see a masculine business associate. Suppose she also started wondering why he was shaving at that time in the afternoon in order to go and keep a business appointment.

“So, suppose the second Mrs. Theilman, thinking things over, got in her car, drove over to Bakersfield and picked up her husband’s trail. Suppose she watched the office of Cole B. Troy until her husband left. Suppose that she was the shapely shadow Troy saw tailing Theilman across the street.”

Della Street’s eyes widened. “That could be, all right,” she said, “but remember that Theilman telephoned his wife at eight o’clock...”

“How do you know he did?” Mason said. “Theilman probably told his wife he’d telephone her at eight o’clock and let her know whether he’d be home or not. So the second Mrs. Theilman simply said that she had received the telephone call. Cole Troy doesn’t know who Theilman called. All he knows is that Theilman said he was calling his wife.”

“Yes,” Della Street conceded, “that would complicate matters very much. If Mrs. Theilman was shadowing her husband and the runaway secretary, she would know where they went, what the new identity was that they had built up. She might even know where the suitcase containing the cash was secreted. It would make a very complicated situation, if she is a dangerous antagonist.”

“She is a very dangerous antagonist,” Mason said, “and if anything should happen and Morley Theilman should be found dead, Janice Wainwright would have a perfect murder charge draped around her neck. The seductive second Mrs. Theilman would then become a weeping widow and inherit all of the money, including the suitcase full of cash.”

Della Street’s eyes widened. “Don’t, Chief,” she said, “you terrify me.”

Mason, pacing the floor, said, “The minute you begin to assume that that shapely shadow was cast by the seductive figure of the second Mrs. Theilman, you open up a whole train of possibilities that are completely fascinating.”

“Completely frightening,” Della Street amended.

“Well,” Mason observed, “the police have slowed down their attempts to locate Theilman. We have Paul Drake on the job. We’ll keep in touch with him, and since you should be instantly available in case something breaks, I suggest, Miss Street, that we finish up here and then you accompany me to cocktails, dinner and perhaps a little dancing. From time to time we will call Paul Drake and see if he has uncovered anything new.”

“This invitation, I take it, is strictly in the interests of business and a more efficient operation of the office,” Della Street said.

“It will so appear on the statement of expenses you will prepare for the Bureau of Internal Revenue,” Mason said. “As to any other and ulterior motive, on the advice of counsel I decline to answer.”

Della Street’s eyes searched his face. “On the ground that it might tend to incriminate you?”

“I’d better discuss that after the second cocktail,” Mason said.

“Not if you want me to look the income tax investigator squarely in the eye and explain to him that the evening was a necessary business expense in order to justify a charge of one dollar by way of retainer.”

Mason grinned. “On second thought, Della, until we get a more substantial retainer, you had better consider the evening one of social activity.”

Chapter Eight

Mason and Della Street returned to their table after the second dance and as Mason seated Della Street and moved around to his after-dinner coffee, he said, “Well, that was a relaxing dinner. I suppose we’ll have to call Paul Drake now, and get back to the mundane affairs of human emotions in the raw.”

Della Street glanced at her watch. “Heavens, it’s been two hours!”

“Finish your coffee,” Mason said. “We’ll call him on the way out.”

Fifteen minutes later, after Mason had signed the check, Della Street paused at the telephone booth and her nimble fingers dialed the number of Drake’s office.

Mason, lounging against the open door of the booth, watched Della Street’s features with appreciative eyes. “Did I ever tell you you’re a remarkably beautiful woman?” he asked.

“Hush!” she said. “You interfere with my dialing. I... Hello, Paul, Della... What?... Yes, he’s right here... Okay, I’ll put him on.”

Della Street said to Mason, “Back to business, Lochinvar. Paul Drake has struck pay dirt.”

Della Street slid out of the telephone booth and handed the receiver to Mason. Mason stepped to the phone. “Yes, Paul. What is it?”

“We’ve located your missing secretary.”

“Janice Wainwright?”

“Right.”

“Where?”

“Las Vegas.”

“What’s she doing?”

“Living it up.”

“Alone?”

“Apparently. At least at the moment.”

“Under her own name?”

“We don’t know what name she’s using,” Drake said, “because we haven’t traced her to her headquarters as yet. We picked her up at the gambling tables, and I have a man on her tail. He’ll report when she gets to where she’s staying... Where the hell have you been, Perry? I’ve been sitting on this information for an hour and a half and I want to know what to do — whether I should put two men on the job or—”

“Don’t take any chances on losing her,” Mason said. “I want to get over there and I want to pick her up... How did you locate her, Paul?”

“Easy,” Drake said. “Whenever someone disappears with a married man, the first place we look is Las Vegas, the second is Tijuana.”

“Come on,” Mason said, “it wasn’t that simple.”

“Well, actually,” Drake said, “it was easier than that. Your girl spent the late morning and early afternoon at the beauty shop. She confided to the operator who worked on her that she was taking the six o’clock plane for Las Vegas. So I simply telephoned my Las Vegas correspondent to be at the airfield and pick her up when she left the plane.”

“She came in alone?” Mason asked.

“Alone.”

“And she hasn’t registered anywhere yet?”

“No. She checked her bag at the Union Pacific Depot. Apparently she’s waiting for someone to join her. The Union Pacific crack train, The City of Los Angeles, is due in Las Vegas at eleven-twenty tonight. Mean-while our subject is frittering away money at the Double Take Casino.”

Mason looked at his watch.

“Okay, Paul,” he said. “Ring up your correspondents in Las Vegas. Put on all the men necessary to make sure that girl doesn’t slip through your fingers. I’m going to try to get there by eleven-twenty.”

“You can’t make it now,” Drake said.

“The hell I can’t,” Mason said. “I’ll get a fast twin-motored airplane and—”

“You still can’t make it,” Drake said. “Not now.”

“I’ll make it,” Mason said. “You cover the deal at your end and I’ll worry about the transportation.”

Della Street slipped into the adjoining telephone booth, dropped a dime and started dialing.

“Okay,” Drake said, “we’ll have men on the job. Now, you know this girl when you see her?”

“I think so. I saw her before she’d removed the disguise.”

“What do you mean, the disguise?” Drake asked.

“When she was the ugly duckling,” Mason said. “However, you wouldn’t understand, Paul. I’m satisfied she’s going to be at the depot at eleven-twenty. Della and I will try to be there, but put enough men on the job so they can keep you advised by telephone where this girl is, and if we miss her at the depot we’ll telephone your office, find out where she is and pick her up.”

Mason slammed up the receiver, jerked open the door of the phone booth and looked in on Della Street inquiringly. “You’re getting a plane?” he asked.

Della Street nodded.

Mason turned to a waiter. “Get me a taxi,” he said. “Have it waiting in front of the place with the motor running, all ready to take off. We’re in a hurry. ”

Chapter Nine

At ten minutes past eleven a taxicab deposited Perry Mason and Della Street in front of the Union Pacific Depot at Las Vegas.

Mason tossed a twenty-dollar bill to the cabdriver, took Della’s arm and hurried into the depot.

Some two dozen people were in the waiting room, some sitting reading, some standing, some chatting.

Mason gave the room a swift once-over and then his face showed disappointment.

Della Street’s elbow nudged him sharply in the ribs.

Mason turned to follow the direction of her gaze.

“What?” he asked.

“Over there,” Della Street said.

“I don’t see...”

Then the devastating beauty who was standing a little to the right of the door gave herself away by a quick, gasping intake of breath as her eyes rested on Perry Mason and Della Street.

Della took the initiative and started moving forward. After a split second, Mason came striding along, catching up with her as they confronted Janice Wainwright.

“Well?” Mason said.

“I... You—”

“Come on,” Mason said, “out with it. You’ve played me for a sucker. Now let’s have the story.”

“I... I didn’t play you for anything. I... I think you’re grand. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you for worlds.”

“All right,” Mason said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m waiting for the Domeliner, The City of Los Angeles.”

“I gathered as much,” Mason said. “And you expect Mr. Theilman in on the train?”

“Not Mr. Theilman,” she said, “Mrs. Theilman.”

“Mrs. Theilman!” Mason exclaimed.

“Yes. She’s coming to join me here and—”

She was interrupted by the blast of the air whistle and the rumble of the train.

“This,” Mason said, “is going to be good. Step right out and meet Mrs. Theilman. We’ll be a little behind you. Don’t say anything about us being here.”

Mason turned to Della Street and grinned. “I think,” he said, “that the next few minutes are going to be rather eventful and quite satisfying.”

Janice Wainwright started to say something, then checked herself and ran out to the side of the train to stand looking at the long line of pullmans that came to a gliding stop.

“Good heavens,” Mason said, as Janice ran forward, “how in the world did you ever recognize her?”

“I had a mental image of what she’d look like after she’d fluffed her hair out, fixed her mouth right, and done things to her eyelashes,” Della Street said.

“She’s a knockout!” Mason exclaimed.

“Remind me someday,” Della Street observed, “to glamourize my personality.”

“You don’t need it,” Mason said.

“Every woman needs it,” she said, somewhat wistfully. And then added, “Men being what they are.”

The train had come to a stop. Doors glided open. Porters stood helping passengers off the train. Janice Wainwright stood looking first to the left, then to the right.

As the seconds passed Mason said, “Now, if she’s putting on an act, she’s the best little actress in the world. But somehow I’m becoming increasingly skeptical. I...”

A woman got off the train, stood looking around as though expecting to meet someone, started to walk toward the depot, paused, turned and walked toward Janice Wainwright.

Janice watched her for a moment, turned away, then suddenly swung back to look at her a second time.

“Janice!” the woman said.

“Why, Mrs. Theilman!” Janice exclaimed. “Good heavens, I didn’t recognize you. What have you done to yourself?”

Mason and Della Street exchanged glances.

“Good Lord,” Mason said, “the Mrs. Theilman! The first Mrs. Theilman!”

“Oh-oh,” Della Street observed.

Janice Wainwright shook hands with the woman. Then she pressed her hand against the woman’s arm and led her toward where Mason and Della Street were standing.

“Mrs. Theilman,” Janice said, “I would like to present my friends, Miss Della Street and Mr. Perry Mason, the lawyer.”

“Perry Mason!” the woman exclaimed.

The lawyer bowed.

“Well, my goodness.”

Janice said nervously, “This is Mrs. Theilman. She is... that is, was...”

“The ex-wife of her boss,” Mrs. Theilman explained.

“I hardly knew you,” Janice said. “You’ve really taken off weight.”

“Thirty-five pounds.” Mrs. Theilman said. “I’m down to a hundred and twenty-one and I’m going to stay that way. I had to learn the hard way what happens to a woman when she lets her figure go.”

Mason said, “We don’t want to intrude, but I wanted to see Miss Wainwright about a matter of some importance. I just arrived in Las Vegas. We got in by plane and came directly to the depot. Now, if you folks have something to discuss, I don’t want to interfere, but since it’s quite late and we have to get back to Los Angeles, I would like to have a few minutes alone with Miss Wainwright.”

“Well, that’s quite all right with me,” Mrs. Theilman said. “I’m in no hurry to get back and I may be here for a couple of days. I always liked Las Vegas until— Well, I guess you know all the scandal, Mr. Mason. If you don’t, you’ll learn it anyhow... One of these Las Vegas cuties decided my husband would be a soft touch for her and started all the snaky-hipped tricks of professional seduction. He fell for it like a ton of bricks.”

Janice Wainwright said hurriedly, “If you could wait just a few minutes, Mrs. Theilman, if it wouldn’t be asking too much, I—”

“Not at all,” she said, “but I’m not going to wait here in a stuffy old depot. I want action. I’ll go down to the Double Take Casino. I always was lucky there.”

“All right, we’ll be there in just a few minutes,” Janice said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all... My, Mr. Mason, I’ve heard so much about you. I didn’t expect to be meeting you, particularly in Las Vegas. Can you tell me just what your interest is in—?”

“I think I’ll have to be the one who explains that,” Janice interposed hurriedly. “I’ll— If you’re sure you don’t mind, Mrs. Theilman...”

“No, no. Run along and have your talk,” Mrs. Theilman said. “You’ll find me at the Double Take Casino, and if I’ve got a good-looking man in tow by that time, don’t interrupt. I take it this can keep until morning.”

Janice Wainwright seemed undecided.

“It’s all right,” Mrs. Theilman said, and bowing to Della Street, smiling at Mason, turned and walked away.

Janice Wainwright stood looking after her. “Heavens,” she said, “I’d never have recognized the woman. Look at that figure.”

“Quite a figure,” Mason said. “I take it that it wasn’t always like that.”

“Lord, no I She says she’s taken off thirty-five pounds. I’ll bet she’s taken off forty-five. Why, the woman was positively matronly and now... well, just look at her.”

“I’m looking,” Mason said.

Once more Della Street’s elbow made contact with the lawyer’s ribs.

“All right,” Mason said, “now tell me what this is all about and talk fast. You’ve left me in a most embarrassing position. You knew that Mr. Theilman had disappeared.”

She laughed and said, “He had to disappear, but he’ll reappear tomorrow and then everything will be all right. I’m sorry that I— Well, I guess I sort of goofed, Mr. Mason. I fell for the build-up myself. I should have had more confidence in the man I was working for.”

Mason said, “You came to my office with a suitcase full of money. You —”

“Oh, Mr. Mason, I’m so sorry about that! There’s one thing that I can tell you, however. You’re going to be compensated for all the work you’ve done and all the trouble you’ve been to. That’s one thing that I insisted on.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “Now suppose you tell me what it’s all about.”

She said, “Will you believe me, Mr. Mason, when I tell you that even when I telephoned you this morning I didn’t know a thing in the world of what it was all about?”

“Keep talking,” Mason said. “I’m getting rather skeptical these days. Go ahead. What’s your version?”

“It isn’t a version,” she said. “It’s the truth.”

“All right, what’s the truth?”

“Well, the explanation is simple when you come right down to it. There wasn’t any blackmailer and there wasn’t any blackmail.”

“All right, go on,” Mason said. “What’s the story?”

“Well,” she said, “when Mr. Theilman and his first wife were divorced, she got quite a large property settlement. Some of it was in cash and some of it was in the form of stock in a corporation that Mr. Theilman controls — that is, he always has controlled it.

“But recently Mr. Theilman found out that a move was being made by interests that are hostile to him to get control of the corporation. He never was able to find out exactly who was back of it because whoever it is, is working through dummies and through attorneys. But as soon as Mr. Theilman found out what was going on, he naturally wanted to keep them from getting control.

“Now then, Mrs. Theilman — that is, Carlotta Theilman, the first Mrs. Theilman — has so much stock that her holdings are very, very important. In fact, Mr. Theilman’s whole future may pivot on what she does with her stock.

“Now, naturally Mr. Theilman wasn’t in a position to approach her himself. He had quite a conference with Cole Troy over in Bakersfield about the whole situation and when he left Bakersfield Mr. Theilman was very, very much concerned about things. He had tried to approach Carlotta through dummies, but Carlotta said simply that she wouldn’t deal with anyone except with Mr. Theilman personally.

“Of course, now I realize why she adopted that position.”

“Why?” Mason asked.

“Because she’s changed her appearance so much she’s become really beautiful, the way she was when Mr. Theilman first married her. Heaven knows what sacrifices she’s made in the way of diet, exercise and how much she spent for beauty treatments, but she looks fifteen years younger and — well, you saw her figure. You’d never have believed that— Well, I think she must have weighed a good hundred and sixty pounds — and of course she’s done things to her hair and—”

“Never mind all that,” Mason said. “I want to know what happened after you telephoned me this morning.”

“Mr. Theilman telephoned me.”

“Telephoned you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Right after I telephoned you, almost as soon as I had hung up the phone.”

“And what did he want?”

“He wanted me to go to a beauty parlor, get some money from the safe, go to Las Vegas, meet Carlotta Theilman and wait for him.”

“And where was he when he phoned?”

“At Palmdale subdivision — about twenty-seven miles out of Bakersfield.”

“What’s at Palmdale subdivision?”

“A subdivision that went broke. He and Troy picked it up for a song.”

“It’s property they are subdividing?”

“Well, it’s a long story. There had been a subdivision there and the subdivision had gone kaput. Mr. Theilman bought it for a song and he feels that it’s going to be immensely valuable in a few years. The only trouble is they started the subdivision too soon.”

“All right,” Mason said, “tell me some more about why you’re here.”

“Mr. Theilman told me that he wanted to keep entirely out of sight. He said that he must have Carlotta’s proxy — I call her Carlotta. I shouldn’t. It’s Mrs. Carlotta Theilman, the first—”

“Never mind the protocol,” Mason said. “She’s waiting and I’m waiting. Call her Carlotta or anything else, but tell me what happened.”

“Well, he told me to come here and meet Carlotta. He said he was going to have to see her personally and that his wife wouldn’t like that. He said I had to help him, keep the secret and be prepared to swear I was with Carlotta all the time if it ever leaked out.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked him where he’d been and told him his wife was frantic. That seemed to puzzle him. He said that she shouldn’t be, that he’d made arrangements to let her know he was going to be gone for a few days on a business trip. He said he’d phone her later on, but in the meantime I wasn’t to tell anyone I’d heard from him.

“He told me to go to the cash drawer in the safe and take enough money for expenses. He said I was to get myself dolled up and get up here to Las Vegas and meet Carlotta when she came in on the eleven-twenty train; that I was to tell her that he was going to come up here and join her, but I was to stay with her all the time.

“While he didn’t say so in so many words, I knew he wanted to fix things so if the present Mrs. Theilman learned about it, he could show that the whole thing was a business matter.

“On the other hand, I can see I’m going to have troubles because I see what that woman’s trying to do now. She’s made herself attractive and she’s preparing now to go into competition with the present Mrs. Theilman... Oh, Mr. Mason, it’s such a mixed-up business and I do so hope I can do the job right.”

“You got yourself all prettied up for the occasion,” Mason said.

“Yes, that was— Well, Mr. Theilman told me to and— Gosh, Mr. Mason, I get so tired of going around looking just plain efficient and, well, plain efficient. I—”

“I know what you mean,” Mason said. “How often do you break away and get yourself glamoured up?”

“This is the first time in two years that I’ve really gone all the way.”

“Has Mr. Theilman ever seen you like this?”

“Yes... of course... That’s why he told me to get myself prettied up and make myself as glamorous as possible.”

Mason looked at her with exasperation. “Why do you insist on making yourself look so drab?”

“I thought... I felt— That is, I think it’s expedient under the circumstances.”

Mason said, “All right. We’ll get the rest of the explanation afterwards. I’ve been put to more trouble over your intrigue and lack of frankness... Why didn’t you telephone me and tell me you’d heard from Mr. Theilman and everything was all right?”

“I was told not to tell a soul, Mr. Mason. I told Mr. Theilman about having been to see you. I confessed the whole thing and I told him that you were so nice to me, that you’d only taken a dollar and— Well, Mr. Theilman said to take two hundred and fifty dollars and told me to give that to you, and to tell you to send a bill to him for any expenses that you’d been to.

“Here.”

Janice Wainwright opened her purse, took out a roll of bills around which an elastic had been fastened, thrust it into Mason’s hands, said, “I hope you’ll forgive me, Mr. Mason.”

Mason turned to Della Street, grinned and said, “I guess the one I have to forgive is myself. My damned curiosity... All right, you go pick up Mrs. Theilman at the casino and have a good time... Now, you told Mr. Theilman that his wife was worried about him?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said he couldn’t understand it because he’d arranged for her to have a message that he was going to be away for several days on a business deal. He seemed very much concerned about that. He promised me that he’d get in touch with her very shortly, and I assume that he did so.”

“Is there a phone up there in that subdivision, the place you refer to as the Palmdale subdivision?”

“No, not right there. The nearest one is at a service station about two miles down the road.”

Mason said, “Well, you go ahead and—”

A dry, husky voice from behind Mason’s shoulder said, “Of course I don’t like to interrupt, but if you’re entirely finished, Mr. Mason, I—”

Mason whirled. “Lieutenant Tragg!” he exclaimed.

Tragg smiled and raised his hat to Della Street. “How do you do, Della?”

Janice Wainwright looked from one to the other.

“Lieutenant Tragg, Los Angeles Homicide,” Mason said. “What are you doing here?”

Tragg smiled and said, “Permit me to introduce my companion, Lieutenant Sophia, of the Las Vegas police force.

“And now, answering your question, Mr. Mason, I am here to interrogate Janice Wainwright in connection with the murder of her employer, Morley L. Theilman.”

Chapter Ten

Janice Wainwright swayed slightly; her face grew white with emotion.

“Mr. Theilman... dead!”

“Murdered,” Lt. Tragg supplemented.

“Why, he couldn’t be. He was alive and well when I—”

“Just a minute, Janice,” Mason cut in. “Until we know more of the peculiar circumstances in this case, in view of what has happened, I don’t want you to make any statement whatever. No statement at all, do you understand?”

“I don’t know whether she understands or not,” Lt. Sophia said, “but we understand. You’re not in your own bailiwick now, Mr. Mason. You’re in the State of Nevada. You’re not an attorney here and you’re not admitted to practice before the Nevada courts. You just keep out of it.”

The police officer interposed his shoulder between Mason and Janice Wainwright.

“Don’t answer any questions,” Mason said. “Don’t—”

Lt. Sophia’s shoulder pushed into Mason’s chest. The officer grabbed Janice Wainwright’s arm. “Come on, Janice,” he said. “You’re going places.”

Lt. Tragg said, “Sorry, Perry, but that’s the way it is,” and the two officers hurried Janice Wainwright out of the door of the depot and into a waiting police car.

Outside the depot the train rumbled noisily as the pullmans started gathering speed.

Della Street looked at Perry Mason with dismay on her face.

“Well,” Mason said, “now we’ll go down to the casino and break the news to Mrs. Carlotta Theilman.”

“Provided,” Della Street reminded him, “she doesn’t have a good-looking man in tow... Gosh, Chief, what does this mean?”

“It means,” Mason said, “that Janice Wainwright has been put into a virtually indefensible position, unless we can get busy and find some means of corroborating her story.

“I’m going down to the casino. You get on that telephone, call Paul Drake and tell him to find out everything he can about Theilman’s murder — when the body was discovered, where it was discovered and all about it. I’m going down and see what I can find out from Mrs. Carlotta Theilman before the officers know she’s in town.”

Mason left the depot, hurried down the street to the Double Take Casino.

The lawyer opened the door and went in. His ears were assailed by the sound of hundreds of slot machines grinding away, and occasionally a voice saying, “Number seventeen just hit the jackpot! Number seventeen, another jackpot!”

There would be an interlude of a few seconds, then the voice would drone out, “Another jackpot. This one for a hundred and twenty-five dollars on a double. Another jackpot on seventy-four and seventy-five.”

Mason looked around the place and, after covering the slot machines, moved over to the roulette tables, walked around as quietly and as inconspicuously as possible.

After the lawyer had been there some five minutes, Della Street joined him.

“Get Paul all right?” Mason asked.

“Yes. It was news to him. He’s putting out men on the job. They’ve evidently kept it pretty quiet, or else the murder has just been discovered... Where’s Carlotta?”

“I don’t see her,” Mason said. “She’s apparently not in here.”

They walked around, looking the place over. Mason approached a guard, said, “I’m looking for a woman who came in here about ten minutes ago, maybe twenty minutes ago. She’s thirty-five, perhaps, but looks to be about thirty. She—”

The guard said, “All women who are thirty-five look to be about thirty in this joint.”

Mason grinned.

Della Street said, “She was all in red and was carrying a fur scarf over her arm. She had a very good figure — like this.” Della gestured.

The guard said, “Oh, that woman! She came in here, played the nickel slot machine, hit a twenty-dollar jackpot on the third play, was paid off, and then a police officer stepped in, asked her if she’d mind going with him — and that’s it, she went.”

Mason thanked the guard and he and Della Street walked out to the pavement.

“Now what?” Della Street asked.

“As the officer so aptly pointed out,” Mason said, “technically I am not an attorney in the State of Nevada. I have not been admitted to practice here.”

“And so,” Della asked, “we do what?”

“We get a local attorney out of bed,” Mason said, “and get her on the job. I know a woman attorney here who has more on the ball than most of the men I know of. She’s sheer dynamite and she has enough sex appeal so that she can put her stuff across with the police where a man would fall on his face. Let me call her.”

“You certainly do have a wide circle of feminine acquaintances,” Della Street said. “Is this woman hard to describe?”

“This woman,” Mason said, “isn’t hard to describe, Della. She’s beautiful and she’s dynamite.”

Mason vanished into a phone booth, emerged some three minutes later and said, “I’m to call back in ten minutes. She’ll find out what’s what.”

Under those circumstances,” Della Street said, “it might be advisable for us to tempt the goddess of fortune. We certainly wouldn’t want to have it said we came to Las Vegas, Nevada, without staking something on the wheel of chance.”

“Let us stake,” Mason said. “Here’s a silver-dollar machine that looks very hospitable, Della. Let me show you.”

The lawyer put in a dollar, pulled the lever down, and the machine promptly clicked out sixteen silver dollars.

“You see?” Mason said. “It’s that easy.”

“My, my,” Della Street said, “how long has this been going on? To think that I am wasting my time in a law office.”

Mason, holding the silver dollars in his hand, played twice more on a slot machine, then moved over to the roulette table, dropped all but the last of his dollars unsuccessfully, then a bet on number twenty-seven paid off.

As Mason was raking in the money, he looked up to see Della Street looking over his shoulder. “Is this your lucky day?” she asked.

Mason grinned, slipped the silver dollars into his pocket, said, “I’ll tell you in a few seconds, Della.”

The lawyer vanished into the phone booth, came out and shook his head. “This is not our lucky day,” he said.

“You mean she’s talked?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said, “but they’ve played it smart. They got her to sign a waiver of extradition and sirened their way out to the airport. Probably just about this time they’re taking off on an airplane, where Lieutenant Sophia, Lieutenant Tragg and our client are having a nice tete-a-tete.”

“And Carlotta Theilman?” Della Street asked.

“Carlotta,” Mason said, “by this time has undoubtedly told the police everything she knows.”

“Well,” Della Street said, “I guess that means we return to the airport and our chartered plane.”

“We’ve done all the good we can do here,” Mason said. And then, after a moment, added, “And just about all the damage.”

The lawyer hailed a taxicab. “The airport,” he said. Then, feeling his pockets, laughed and said, “Any objection to taking your pay in silver dollars?”

“Up here,” the cabdriver said, “I’ll take my pay in anything except promissory notes. I’d even take your I.O.U. You don’t remember me. I took you from the airport to the depot. You gave me a twenty then. That establishes a good line of credit as far as you’re concerned.”

“Which reminds me you have a fee in your pocket,” Della Street said.

“That’s right,” Mason observed, taking the roll of bills from his coat pocket and unsnapping the elastic. “I believe I should turn this over to the bookkeeping department. It can be entered on the credit side of the ledger along with the one dollar we received for retainer.

“Two hundred and fifty dollars,” Mason counted. “Twelve twenties and a ten.”

Mason put the currency back in his pocket, said to the cabdriver, “Say, do you know where Police Headquarters are here?”

“Sure,” the driver said.

“All right,” Mason said, “never mind the airport, drive down to Police Headquarters. Get a place where you can see the entrance, park the car and wait.”

Della Street glanced inquiringly at Mason, then settled back against the cushions.

The cabdriver turned around inquiringly. “All right for me to ask what business you have at Police Headquarters?”

“I’m a lawyer,” Mason said. “I want to interview a witness.”

“Oh, that’s different. Just wanted to know,” the driver said.

After a few minutes the driver slid the cab in against the curb. “How’s this?” he asked.

“This is okay,” Mason said. “Shut off the motor and wait.”

They waited for twenty minutes before Carlotta Theilman emerged from the police station. An officer looked up and down the street.

“All right,” Mason said to the cabdriver, “put on your lights, slide up to the entrance as though you’re vacant.”

“Then what?”

“Then leave it to me,” Mason said.

The cabdriver started the motor, slid up to the entrance to the police station.

Mrs. Theilman, seeing the cab coming, turned and gave her hand to the officer who had escorted her to the door.

The officer smiled and stepped back inside.

The cab came to a halt. Mrs. Theilman stepped forward.

Mason opened the door and raised his hat. “Permit me, Mrs. Theilman,” he said. “Right inside.”

For a moment she drew back, then laughed and said, “My, you startled me, Mr. Mason. You— Were you waiting here?”

“Just driving by,” Mason said breezily. “Get in.”

The officer who had stepped inside the station looked back just as Mason finished assisting Mrs. Theilman into the cab. The officer opened the door and started for the cab.

Mason slammed the cab door, said to the driver, “Step on it, buddy. Straight down the street.”

A few blocks farther down the street Mason said, “Stop at the first motel that has a vacancy sign.”

The lawyer turned to Mrs. Theilman. “I don’t want to intrude on your feelings at this time, Mrs. Theilman, but there are some things I must know.”

She said, “People have been intruding on my feelings for the last four years, Mr. Mason. Sometimes I don’t think I have any feelings left. I guess tonight is the finish. I’m just numb, that’s all.”

The cabdriver said, “Here’s a motel.”

“Fine,” Mason said, “turn in here.”

The lawyer said to Della Street, “Explain the circumstances at the desk. Give them some money, whatever is necessary.”

The lawyer handed the cabdriver fifteen silver dollars. “Will this cover it this far?” he asked.

The cabdriver grinned and touched his cap.

“All right,” Mason said, “we’re square this far, now just put it on waiting time.”

A few moments later, when they were ensconced in the comfortable parlor room of a suite, Mason said, “Would you mind telling us just what happened, Mrs. Theilman?”

“Beginning when?”

“Quite a ways back,” Mason said.

“Well,” Carlotta said, “I don’t care particularly about talking about the breakup of my marriage. It’s simply that I was such a fool. I don’t know why a woman will let her man go under circumstances of that sort. I guess one’s pride gets hurt first. I know in my case I was hurt because I couldn’t compete.

“After I came to my senses, I decided that I would compete. There isn’t any such thing as a woman being outmoded or outmodeled if she makes up her mind that she isn’t going to be outmoded or outmodeled.

“By that I don’t mean that you can turn back the hands of the clock, but you certainly can use the weapons nature gave you, and you can sharpen those weapons enormously. Any man in your own age bracket will take notice — even some of the younger ones.”

“So you started sharpening weapons?” Mason asked.

“After it was too late, I started sharpening my weapons and then, when Morley wanted to deal with me on a business matter, I made up my mind that I’d let him look over the arsenal.”

“He approached you?” Mason asked.

“A lawyer approached me.”

“In his behalf?”

“He didn’t say so in so many words, but I knew he was representing Morley, although he said his client was someone else.”

“When was this?”

“The latter part of last week. He said that he wanted to get proxies on my stock or wanted to buy the stock. Then he came again early this afternoon.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him the stock wasn’t for sale and that as far as proxies were concerned it made a great deal of difference who wanted the proxies.”

“So then he told you that your former husband wanted them?”

“No, at least not in so many words. He said time was short and that his client had to keep in the background. So I told him that he could give me a hundred dollars to show his good faith and to cover expenses, and that I’d take the train tonight to Las Vegas and his client could meet me there and we’d discuss matters.”

“Then what happened?”

“He gave me the money for expenses and I came up here. I was hoping Morley would be alone.”

“Had other people been trying to get your stock?”

“Plenty of them. During the last three weeks there had been several telephone calls from people who said they were brokers.”

“These were offers for the purchase of the stock?”

“Offers for proxies,” she said. “They didn’t want the stock as much as they wanted the voting power.”

“And in this financial transaction with your husband, did you have any figure in mind?”

She said, “There was only one figure that I ever wanted him to be interested in — mine.”

Peremptory knuckles sounded on the door.

Mason got up and opened it.

A police officer said, “You know, Mr. Mason, you could wear out your welcome in Las Vegas mighty fast.”

“This woman is a witness,” Mason said. “She’s been at Police Headquarters and made her statement. You’re finished with her now.”

“That’s what you think,” the officer told him. “You’re the one who’s finished with her. We have orders to see that you are escorted to the airport, Mr. Mason.”

“And if I don’t go?” Mason asked.

“Oh, you don’t need to go,” the officer said, “but you’d want to be careful — very, very careful that you didn’t violate any of the laws or any city ordinances while you’re here, Mr. Mason. We wouldn’t want to have anything happen to you and we’d be certain to keep a close eye on you. If you violated any ordinance — and we have lots of them — you’d be seriously inconvenienced.”

“That’s okay,” Mason told him. “As a matter of fact, we had finished. We were just leaving anyway.”

“That’s fine,” the officer said. “We’ll drive you folks down to the airport. You don’t need your cab.”

Chapter Eleven

Paul Drake, his skin oily with fatigue, a stubble showing along the angle of his jaw, was still at work in his office when Mason and Della Street came in at three-thirty in the morning.

“What do you know, Paul?” Mason asked.

“Not too much,” Drake said. “The body was found up at a subdivision in the mountains back of Palmdale. It’s a place Theilman had purchased after a subdivider went broke on it. There’s one of those real estate office buildings on it — a sharp-roofed little office affair. The body was found in there, face down on the floor.”

“How was he killed?”

“Gun shot, right through the heart. Thirty-eight caliber.”

“Any weapon found?”

“No weapon.”

“Clues?”

“I wouldn’t know all of them,” Drake said, “but there are plenty. There was a thundershower up there during the night and so it’s possible to put certain things together. Two cars had been driven in there before the thundershower, Theilman’s Cadillac and Janice Wain-Wright’s Ford. The thundershower dampened the ground. There was just one set of tracks going through the damp ground. Those were the tracks of Janice Wainwright’s automobile when she left the place.

“So you can figure what happened. Theilman intended to drive home and reach there about eleven o’clock. When he left Troy’s office in Bakersfield, Janice Wainwright, all dolled up like a million dollars, followed him to where he had the car parked. After he had telephoned his wife—”

“Now, wait a minute,” Mason interrupted. “I’m a suspicious guy. Do we know that he telephoned his wife?”

“Sure we do. He went to a phone booth and used his telephone credit card. He put through a person-to-person call to his wife. They have a record of it there on the call sheet.”

“He called his wife and talked to her?”

“That’s right, at least the call was completed.”

“Scratch one form,” Mason said.

“What do you mean, scratch one form?”

“Troy saw a shapely shadow,” Mason said. “Anyone who has seen the second Mrs. Theilman is impressed by her shape. I was hoping that she had perhaps followed her husband to Bakersfield and was following him back.”

“In that case somebody must have accepted the telephone call in her name,” Drake said.

“All right, go on. What else, Paul?”

“Well, there’s nothing to it, Perry. You can put the whole thing together. That thundershower traps your client. There was a bed up in that little real estate house and evidently it wasn’t the first time Theilman had stayed up there, and probably wasn’t the first time your client stayed up there. Theilman told his wife only that he was going over to Bakersfield to have a business conference with Cole Troy. Actually he shaved in the middle of the afternoon and put on a fresh suit of clothes. Now you tell me: Does a man about to take a hundred-mile drive to meet another man on a business conference do those things? Not on your life. He had a date with Janice Wainwright. They quarreled. She killed him and skipped out with the dough. That thunder-shower and the tracks of her car have trapped her.”

“All right,” Mason said resignedly. “What is the D.A.’s office doing, Paul? Going to have a preliminary?”

“No one knows yet,” Drake said, “but I don’t think so because they’re issuing subpoenas to appear before the grand jury and—”

There was a short, sharp ring on Drake’s telephone. Drake picked it up, said, “Yes,” then before he had time to say anything else the door opened and Lt. Tragg stood smiling in the doorway.

“Well, gentlemen,” Tragg said, “we all seem to be working late.”

Mason grinned. “This isn’t late, Tragg, it’s early. We’re starting a new day.”

“That’s fine,” Tragg said. “Start it right, then. I have a little present for you and Della Street, Perry.”

“What is it?” Mason asked.

Tragg handed out two folded papers. “Subpoenas duces tecum to appear before the grand jury,” he said, “in its investigation of the murder of Morley L. Theilman.”

“You can’t make an attorney a witness against his client,” Mason said, “and that same protection applies to the secretary.”

“I know, I know,” Tragg said. “We don’t want your testimony, Mason, we just want the things that are in your possession — the tape recording and the disc showing the numbers on the twenty-dollar bills that were in the suitcase your client took to your office.”

Mason’s face was without expression. “You assume, then, that such articles are in existence?”

“I know they’re in existence,” Tragg said.

“It will be a pleasure to co-operate with you in any way as far as factual evidence is concerned, Lieutenant.”

“I was sure it would be,” Tragg said ironically. “Please be very careful not to let any of the evidence get destroyed, Mr. Mason, and be sure to bring it with you when you appear before the grand jury.

“Well, I know you folks are tired. You’ve certainly had a hard day and quite a night. I don’t want to interfere with your sleep so I’ll be leaving.”

Tragg smiled, bowed and left the office.

“Well, there you are,” Drake said.

“That,” Mason announced, “means that Janice Wainwright has talked. She’s told the police everything she knows, including her story of the visit to my office and the fact that we took down the numbers of those twenty-dollar bills. The police couldn’t have learned about that any other way.”

Drake studied Mason thoughtfully. “You seemed awfully damned willing to give Tragg that evidence. Aren’t you going to try to hold it out?”

“No. Why should we hold it out? We’ll go before the grand jury and give them anything we have.”

“Say,” Drake said suddenly, “your client didn’t pay you any fees or anything in twenty-dollar bills, did she, Perry?”

Mason looked at him in surprise. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

“I was just wondering,” Drake said.

Mason said suavely, “If you’ll read the subpoena duces tecum quite carefully, Paul, you’ll find that while we’re ordered to produce any records which we made in the office of the numbers of those bills, there’s nothing said about producing any money which might have been given to me by my client.”

Drake said, “Now look, Perry, don’t try to cut any corners on this thing. These boys mean business this time, and they’re not fooling around with any preliminary hearing. They’re going to get the testimony in front of a grand jury, get an indictment, and take your client into court in front of a jury.”

“Fine,” Mason said. “I’m always willing to take my chances in front of a jury. Well, we’ll be shoving off, Paul.”

Mason and Della Street left the office. Mason gave Della Street some bills. “Take these down and put them in the safe before you go home, will you, Della?”

“What is this?” Della Street asked.

“I believe we received two hundred and fifty dollars from our client,” Mason said.

“Is this the same two hundred and fifty dollars?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” Mason said. “I’ve mixed the money all up with my own money, I’m afraid, and I know I’ve spent some money, including the cash tip we gave the pilot of the plane. After all, there isn’t any restraining order telling me not to spend money, and so far there’s been no subpoena to produce money we’ve received from our client.”

Chapter Twelve

Judge Lloyd L. Seymour nodded to the deputy district attorney.

“Does the prosecution wish to make an opening statement?” he said.

Manlove P. Ruskin, one of Hamilton Burger’s best trial deputies, arose, bowed to the court and advanced to the jury.

“May it please the Court, and you ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “the prosecution in this case intends to prove that the defendant, Janice Wainwright, knew that her employer, the decedent, Morley L. Theilman, was collecting large sums of money in cash. This money was in the form of twenty-dollar bills.

“We can only speculate as to the use Mr. Theilman intended to make of those twenty-dollar bills, but we will furnish sufficient evidence to show that he did have those twenty-dollar bills and he intended to make some use of them.

“We propose to show that the defendant had a suitcase containing some twenty-five or thirty pounds of twenty-dollar bills, an amount estimated at perhaps as much as two hundred thousand dollars; that she made a dupe of her present counsel, Perry Mason, making him think he was helping her in protecting the interests of her employer, whereas, as a matter of fact, she deliberately intended to kill her employer and steal the money.

“We propose to show that she lured her employer to an abandoned realty subdivision in the mountains back of Palmdale and there killed him; that she then went to Las Vegas, Nevada, claiming that she was acting under instructions of her employer, knowing that her employer was dead and could never contradict anything she chose to say.

“However, we propose to show that the well-laid scheme of the defendant had several weak points, several holes which will become readily apparent as the evidence develops.

“We propose to show that Cole B. Troy, an associate of Morley Theilman, saw a young woman meeting the description of the defendant shadowing Morley Theilman when he left Bakersfield on the night before his death.

“We propose to show that when Mr. Theilman left the office of Cole B. Troy he had no intention other than that of driving directly to his home to the north of this city. That he was shadowed by the defendant who accosted him and inveigled him into going to the mountain subdivision to spend the night with her.

“We propose to show indisputably, by circumstantial evidence, that the defendant in this case appropriated to her own use monies which had been withdrawn by the decedent from his bank in the form of cash. We propose to show that the motive for the murder was the theft of a large sum of money, perhaps as much as two hundred thousand dollars in cash.

“We will prove to you, by circumstantial evidence which cannot be refuted, that the parties drove to this rendezvous in the mountains back of Palmdale, that there was a thunderstorm in the early hours of the morning, and that this thunderstorm so moistened the soil in front of the cabin where the body was found that it would have been impossible for any automobile to have driven up to that cabin, or driven away from it, without leaving tracks in the soft mud; that the only tracks which were left driving away from the scene of the shooting were those made by the defendant’s car.

“On the strength of that evidence we shall ask for a verdict of first-degree murder.”

Ruskin again bowed to the court, returned to the counsel table and sat down.

“Does the defense have any opening statement?” Judge Seymour asked.

“The defense does,” Mason said.

He arose and faced the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I ask you to bear in mind the fact that all of this evidence which has been indicated by the prosecutor is circumstantial evidence. We expect to show that these circumstances are all fully capable of being explained by a reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt.”

“If the Court please,” Ruskin said, “this is not the time or the place to argue the case. If the defense counsel wishes to state what he expects to prove, we have no objection. If he wishes to argue the case, he should wait until the proper time.”

“Very well, Your Honor,” Mason said gravely, and turning to the jury, said, “We expect to prove that the defendant is innocent.” Then he walked back to his place at the counsel table, seating himself.

A ripple of merriment sounded in the courtroom, and some of the jurors were seen to smile.

Judge Seymour said, “The prosecution will proceed with its case.”

Ruskin called a licensed surveyor who introduced road maps showing the location of the subdivision, a sketch map of the place where the body was found, showing the interior of the building, the position of the body, and the relationship of the building to the surrounding terrain.

He then called a photographer who introduced in evidence pictures that had been taken showing the body, the terrain, and the interior and the exterior of the building.

“Call Mr. Marcus,” Ruskin said.

Marcus proved to be a meteorologist who stated that on the early morning of Wednesday, the fourth, there was a thundershower in the mountains back of Palm-dale; that this shower, while of brief duration, was somewhat violent and that it was accompanied by a precipitation which could only be estimated but which in his opinion was amply sufficient to account for the softness of the ground in front of the little structure which had been used as an office in the real estate subdivision.

Photographs were introduced showing the muddy section in question and showing the tracks of an automobile crossing this muddy section.

“Cross-examine,” Ruskin said to Perry Mason.

Mason seemed quite affable as he rose and bowed to the witness. “Do you know what time the thundershower occurred?” he asked.

“It was approximately five o’clock in the morning.”

“What do you mean by approximately?”

“Well, I’ll put it this way. It was between four-thirty and five-thirty a.m. In view of the fact that the thunderstorm was exceedingly localized in its sweep over the locale, it is impossible to pin the time down any closer than that. But I can say definitely it was between four-thirty and five-thirty.”

“That was on the morning of Wednesday, the fourth?”

“That is correct.”

“How much did it rain at this particular locality?”

“From an inspection of the ground I would say that it must have rained approximately twenty-five hundredths of an inch, perhaps a little more. But there is a slope in front of the structure in question, and water collected in there to a greater extent than would otherwise have been the case. The ground was quite soft, soft enough to have shown tracks — particularly the tracks of automobiles.”

“Did you notice any tracks of automobiles?”

“I did. There was one car, a Cadillac, on the far side of the soft ground. It was parked in front of the structure. It had left no tracks. There were tracks made by an automobile leading from the structure to the highway.”

“And how far was the highway from the structure?”

“There is a surfaced highway within a hundred and fifty feet of the structure. This is not a main highway but it is, nevertheless, a surfaced highway. By that I mean it is surfaced so that it did not soften in the rain and as a result there are no tracks on it, that is, identifiable tracks. It is, however, possible to see the tracks made by the one automobile which came through the soft spot in front of the structure. Those tracks turned downhill on the surfaced highway and left muddied imprints for a distance of perhaps twenty-five feet. The imprints were quite plain at the time the car entered upon the paved highway and then faded out until it became impossible to identify them.”

“Thank you,” Mason said, “that’s all.”

Ruskin called an expert on moulage who testified to photographing the tracks, to making moulages, which he introduced and which showed, in turn, the tracks of all four tires.

“Were these tracks sufficiently distinct so that you could identify the makes of tires that were on the automobile?” Ruskin asked.

“I could, yes, sir. Three of the tires were identical in make. The other one was a different tire. The other one had a small defect in the tread.”

“What tire was that?”

“The tire on the right front wheel.”

“It was a sufficient defect so that it could be identified in the tracks in the soft soil?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Now then,” Ruskin went on, “have you examined a car registered in the name of the defendant, Janice Wainwright, with license number GVB 393?”

“I have.”

“Have you made molds of the tires on that car?”

“I have.”

“Do you have them with you?”

“I do.”

The witness introduced the moulages with appropriate designations, and they were introduced in evidence.

Ruskin said, “Will you please take the moulage casts of the tracks which you found at the scene of the crime and the molds which you made of the tires, and see if they fit?”

The witness said, “I have here moulages of the tracks left at the scene of the crime. These moulages were made in transparent plastic. It is possible to take these moulages and put them over the molds of the tires in order to show the manner in which the tires would fit into the tracks.”

“Will you do this, please, for the benefit of the Court and the jury?”

The witness demonstrated each moulage in turn.

“We would like to have all of this material introduced in evidence,” Ruskin said, “as People’s Exhibits J-i, J-2, J-3, J-4 and so on, putting a number on each exhibit and having all of the moulages under People’s Exhibit J.”

“No objection,” Mason said.

“Cross-examine,” Ruskin said.

“I take it,” Mason said to the witness, “that in making all of these casts and moulages and models you used the greatest care to see that there was no error in measurement?”

“That is true,” the witness said.

“When the tires were on the ground, there was a pressure of several hundred pounds on each wheel?” Mason asked.

“That is correct.”

“And when you made the models of the tires, this pressure was removed from the tires?”

“Well... yes.”

“Then even if the defendant’s tires did make those tracks, the models of the tires should not fit into the moulage of the tracks because of the absence of this pressure.”

“I tried to compensate for that.”

“How did you compensate for it?”

“I partially deflated the tires and put sufficient pressure on them to duplicate the flattening out that would have taken place if the weight of the car had been on the tires.”

“What standard did you use? How did you determine what number of pounds pressure?”

“I used my judgment.”

“In other words,” Mason said, “you deflated the tires and then you put just sufficient pressure on the tire in the process of duplicating it so that the treads would be sure to fit into these tracks.”

“That is not fair,” the witness said, “nor is it an accurate statement of what I did.”

“But you did take this factor into consideration?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“And used your judgment as to how much this factor should influence the resulting models and moulages?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That’s all.”

“Just a moment,” Ruskin said, “I have a question on redirect. Is there anything in the deflation of these tires, or the method which you used, which would alter in any way the tread of the tires?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s all,” Ruskin said.

“I have a question on recross-examination. I will ask the witness if the things he did, did not change the dimensions of the tire.”

“The things I did may have changed the dimensions, but the tread wasn’t altered.”

“You did change the dimensions of the tire.”

“All right, if you want to put it that way,” the witness said irritably. “I changed the dimensions of the tire.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “I was quite certain you had.”

The jurors exchanged glances indicating a certain amount of perplexity.

Ruskin called the cashier of the bank where Morley Theilman had his account. The banker testified, somewhat reluctantly, that over a period of some three weeks Morley Theilman had been withdrawing money in the form of cash; money which had invariably been withdrawn in the form of twenty-dollar bills; that the withdrawals had amounted to something over a hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars during the three weeks’ time. That on Tuesday, the third, the decedent had drawn out five thousand dollars in cash in the form of twenty-dollar bills.

“Cross-examine,” Ruskin said.

“No questions,” Mason announced.

“I will call Cole B. Troy as a witness,” Ruskin said.

Troy identified himself as having been interested in several business ventures with the decedent, Morley Theilman, and as having been in conference with Theilman on the evening of Tuesday, the third; he testified that the conference had taken place in Bakersfield; that Theilman phoned his wife about eight saying he would be home around eleven or eleven-thirty, then had left his office about nine o’clock stating that he was driving back to his home in Los Angeles and wanted to be home by eleven.

“And what did you do after Mr. Theilman left the office?” Ruskin asked.

“I paced the floor idly for a couple of turns and wound up standing at the window looking down on the street.”

“Now, I will show you this diagram of the street which shows the location of your office and ask you if that diagram is a correct presentation of the street intersection and the location of your office?”

“It is.”

“Now then, while you were standing at the window, what did you see?”

“I saw Morley Theilman cross to the curb, stand a moment, then walk diagonally across the street.”

“I’m going to put this diagram on the blackboard,” Ruskin said, “and ask if you can mark on there with an X the approximate spot where you first saw Mr. Theilman.”

“Well, it was about here,” the witness said, making a mark.

“Now make another mark X at the point where you saw him hesitate on the curb.”

The witness made a mark.

“Now can you make a line indicating the direction which Mr. Theilman took in crossing the street on a diagonal?”

The witness made the line on the sketch.

“And then what? Just what did Mr. Theilman do? Make a line to indicate his motions after he crossed the street.”

“Well,” Troy said, “he crossed the other sidewalk on a diagonal to the corner, then walked around the corner. After that I was unable to see him because of the building on the opposite corner.”

“You continued to stand at the window?”

“I did.”

“And what did you see after that, if anything?”

“Within a matter of seconds after Theilman had started across the street,” Troy said, “I saw the shadow of a woman.”

“You first saw the woman’s shadow?”

“Yes.”

“That was before you saw the woman herself?”

“Yes.”

“Did you notice anything about that shadow, anything that was peculiar?”

“It was a very shapely shadow; that is, the shadow itself intrigued me because it appeared to be cast by a young woman who was... well, shapely.”

“But you could only see her shadow at that time?”

“That’s right.”

“And where was that shadow?”

“It was cast by a street light at the corner. The woman was out of my sight but from looking down overhead I could see the shadow.”

“Will you indicate on the diagram about where this shadow was?”

The witness indicated.

“Now, did you ever see this woman?”

“Yes, I did.”

“When?”

“Well, when Mr. Theilman was... oh, approximately halfway across the street.”

“And what happened then?”

“The woman moved out of the shadows and stood almost directly beneath my window.”

“You couldn’t see her clearly at that point?”

“No, just her head and shoulders.”

“Then what?”

“Then, as Mr. Theilman crossed the street, she moved along behind him.”

“How far behind?”

“I would say... oh, about twenty feet.”

“And you could see her more clearly at that time?”

“Certainly. As she moved off the sidewalk I got a very good view of her back.”

“Can you describe her?”

“She was, I would say, a young woman; that is, probably under thirty. She was well formed and she wore... well, it was some kind of a rather tight-fitting skirt or dress. I can’t remember exactly how she was dressed except I noticed she was — well, she lived up to what I had expected from looking at her shadow.”

“And you continued to watch her?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Until she was out of sight.”

“And where did she go?”

“She followed the exact course taken by Mr. Theilman.”

“You may inquire,” Ruskin said, turning to Perry Mason.

“Theilman phoned his wife about eight?” Mason asked.

“Yes.”

“Did he use your office phone?”

“No. We were leaving a restaurant. He used a phone booth.”

“Did you hear the conversation?”

“No.”

“How do you know he phoned his wife?”

“He said he was going to phone her and went to the phone booth.”

“Let’s go back to this shapely shadow,” Mason said. “You were at your office window?”

“Yes.”

“You watched Theilman after he came in sight?” Mason asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you saw the shadow of this young woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you say that after she became visible, that is, after she had moved out into your line of vision, you continued to watch her until she vanished around the corner?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And she was about how far behind Mr. Theilman?”

“I would say twenty feet.”

“Now, let’s approximate the distance on this diagram. How wide is this street, do you know?”

“I think it is sixty feet.”

“And the sidewalks are about how wide?”

“Oh, perhaps ten feet.”

“So that would be a distance of eighty feet across the street.”

“Yes.”

“That is in a straight line, however. On a diagonal the distance would be greater.”

“Yes.”

“How much greater?”

“Oh, perhaps... perhaps a hundred and twenty feet.”

“Now,” Mason said, “you have testified that you watched Mr. Theilman cross the street and lost sight of him when he went around the corner where the building obstructed your view.”

“That’s right.”

“But you have also testified that you were watching this young woman from the time you first saw her, and evidently you saw her when Theilman had covered only some twenty feet of the distance. Now, which were you watching, the young woman or Theilman?”

“I was watching them both.”

“On whom were your eyes focused, Theilman or the woman?”

“On... well, I guess sort of in between them.”

“Then you weren’t watching the woman?”

“I was watching her but my eyes weren’t focused on her.”

“And you weren’t watching Theilman?”

“I was watching him but my eyes weren’t focused on him.”

“In other words, while a good-looking woman with a seductive figure was crossing the street, you didn’t look at her but kept your eyes focused at a point approximately ten feet ahead of her?”

“Well... No, I guess that’s not right. I... I was looking back and forth at both of them.”

“Can you describe this woman’s walk?”

“It was very graceful, very sinuous, very... well, hippy.”

“And you took your eyes off that seductive walk, off that graceful glide, off those swaying hips in order to watch Theilman, who was some twenty feet ahead of her?”

“Well, no,” Troy admitted. “When you come right down to it and put it that way, Mr. Mason, I don’t think I did. I kept my eyes on the girl.”

“Then you were mistaken in saying that you were watching Theilman?”

“Yes. I saw him generally but I was watching the girl. My eyes were on her.”

“Then you were completely mistaken in stating that your eyes were focused at a point midway between the young woman and Theilman?”

“I hadn’t given it any thought when I answered that question, Mr. Mason.”

“In other words, you answered a question while you were under oath without thinking?”

“Well, I guess I did.”

“And so gave a wrong answer?”

“Yes, sir, I did. I must have.”

“Thank you,” Mason said, with exaggerated politeness. “I was quite satisfied you had. Were there any other questions you were asked which you answered without thinking?”

“No.”

“You’re thinking now?”

“Yes.”

“That is all,” Mason said.

“I will call Mrs. Morley L. Theilman to the stand,” Ruskin said.

The second Mrs. Theilman, attired in black, her eyes demurely downcast, moved slowly forward, held up her right hand and was sworn and took her place on the witness stand.

Ruskin’s voice as he questioned the witness held that note of synthetic sympathy which is the stock-in-trade of some prosecutors examining bereaved widows.

“Mrs. Theilman,” Ruskin said, “we have to perform the disagreeable duty of identifying the decedent. You are the widow of Morley L. Theilman and you were, I believe, called upon to identify his body after it had been found in the place referred to generally as the Palmdale subdivision?”

“That is right,” she said.

“You saw the body?”

“I did.”

“Can you identify it?”

“Yes, it was the body of my husband, Morley L. Theilman.”

“Now then,” Ruskin went on, “directing your attention to Tuesday, the third — that would be the day before the body was found — can you tell us about the time you last saw your husband, where he was and what he did?”

Slowly and in a low voice, the witness described how Theilman had returned from his office, stated that he wanted to go to Bakersfield; that he asked for a fresh suit of clothes; that while he was in the bathroom shaving she had gone through the pockets of the discarded suit, had found the threatening letter and the envelope in which it came, and had read the printed demand for money, then had put the letter and envelope in the pocket of the fresh suit that her husband was going to wear.

“And was this the suit that he was wearing at the time of his death?” Ruskin asked.

“It was,” she said.

“You may cross-examine,” Ruskin said.

Mason rose, walked a few paces toward the witness stand and stood facing the slender woman with the downcast eyes.

“Mrs. Theilman,” he said, “where did you first meet your husband?”

“In Las Vegas, Nevada,” she answered in a low voice.

“What were you doing at the time?”

“Objected to,” Ruskin said, “as incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, not proper cross-examination. It makes no difference what she was doing. It makes no difference when she met the decedent or how she met him.”

“I think I will overrule the objection,” Judge Seymour said. “In a case of this sort I certainly intend to give the defendant every latitude in the field of cross-examination. Counsel undoubtedly has some point in mind or he wouldn’t have gone into this. You may answer the question.”

“I was working in a rather varied capacity.”

“Describe the varied capacities,” Mason said.

Her voice grew a little stronger. Her eyes raised long enough to flash a glance of gathering animosity at Mason. “I guess the best way to describe it is to say that I was a show girl.”

“You showed yourself in bathing suits, did you not?”

“At times, yes.”

“You were a hostess?”

“Yes.”

“A shill?”

“I don’t know what you mean by a shill.”

“You put on daringly cut evening gowns that were tight and clinging and circulated around the gambling tables?”

“All evening gowns that are any good are tight and clinging,” she said.

“And yours was tight and clinging?”

“Yes.”

“And you circulated around the gaming tables?”

“Yes.”

“And made yourself easy to pick up?”

“I wasn’t picked up.”

“We’ll put it this way,” Mason said. “It was easy to get acquainted with you?”

“I was a hostess.”

“And, as such, it was easy to get acquainted with you?”

“I was simply doing my duty as a hostess.”

“It was easy to get acquainted with you?”

“I suppose so.”

“You made it that way?”

“If you want to put it that way, yes.”

“And you were particularly easy to get acquainted with as far as wealthy men were concerned who were in a position to spend money on the gambling tables. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes!” she snapped.

“And, having become acquainted with them, you made it a point to encourage them in their gambling. You kept hanging around the gambling tables doing a little gambling of your own and chatting with these men so that they would continue their gambling after they might otherwise have quit.”

“As a hostess I tried to be attractive.”

“And you were frequently at the gambling tables?”

“Yes.”

“You used chips?”

“Always.”

“Now then, when you first met Morley L. Theilman, he was gambling at a table, was he not?”

“I believe he was.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Yes, I think he was.”

“And you were gambling at that table?”

“Yes.”

“With chips?”

“I’ve told you. I always used chips.”

“And they were a special chip, were they not? They were not redeem-able. You had these chips given to you. You gambled with them but they couldn’t be redeemed for money. Your gambling was simply an act.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you want these jurors to believe you don’t know what is meant by the term ‘shill’?” Mason asked.

“I’ve heard the term used.”

“Have you ever used it?”

“I... I may have.”

“Did you use the term without knowing what it meant?”

“Well, I knew what it meant in the sense that I used it.”

“And what was the sense in which you used it?”

“Well, a shill is a come-on.”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “So when you told me that you didn’t know what a shill meant, you were not being entirely frank, were you?”

“Oh, Your Honor,” Ruskin said, “this is attempting to browbeat the witness. The question is argumentative, it is not proper cross-examination, it—”

“Overruled,” Judge Seymour snapped.

“Answer the question,” Mason said.

“Well, I didn’t know the sense in which you used the term. You made it sound rather... rather...”

“Undignified?” Mason prompted.

“Something like that.”

“You considered yourself dignified?”

“I tried to be dignified.”

“And ladylike?”

“Yes.”

“But, nevertheless, to use your own words, you were a come-on.”

She bit her lip. “Oh, all right. I was a come-on.”

“Now,” Mason said, “when you first met Morley L. Theilman, you went to a table where he was already gambling, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Did someone direct you to go to that table, some person who represented your employer and who pointed out Morley Theilman to you? Didn’t this person tell you to go over there and get to work on him? Isn’t that right?”

“The expression, ‘get to work on him,’ wasn’t used.”

“But you knew what was meant?”

“As a hostess I went to the table, and when Mr. Theilman won, I smiled at him and that broke the ice.”

“What ice?” Mason asked.

“Well, you know, it gave him a chance to get acquainted.”

“Did you think there was ice?”

“I used the expression as a figure of speech.”

“And I am using it as a figure of speech,” Mason said. “I didn’t mean that there were icicles dripping all over this tight-clinging gown that you were wearing. I realized that you referred to ice in a figurative manner of speaking and I used the term in the same sense. Now, was there any ice to break?”

“It depends on how you look at it.”

“You went over there to get acquainted with him?”

“Well...”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes,” she blazed. And then suddenly raising her voice and her eyes, said, “I was employed as a hostess. You don’t need to act so dumb, Perry Mason. You’ve been to Las Vegas.”

Mason bowed and said, “Exactly. And thank you very much, Mrs. Theilman. I was simply trying to get the picture clear for the jurors.”

“If the Court please,” Ruskin said, “I must insist that counsel’s attitude toward this witness is manifestly unfair, that he is browbeating the witness and trying to put her in a false light before the jury. This woman is a widow. She has been bereaved by a crime of murder committed by—”

“Now, just a minute,” Mason interrupted. “There is no question before the Court; there is no reason for counsel to argue the case at this time.”

“But I object to having this woman held up in front of this jury as a strumpet,” Ruskin shouted.

“And I object to having her held up as a mealy-mouthed, persecuted, bereaved widow simply so the prosecutor can play on the sympathies of the jury,” Mason retorted.

Judge Seymour frowned. “There is at the present time no question before the Court, therefore there is no reason to make an objection. The jurors are called upon to see the witnesses, to watch their demeanor on the stand, to form their own opinions as to the facts. The prosecutor has one theory of the case, the defense has another. Please try to avoid personalities, gentlemen. You may proceed, Mr. Mason.”

By this time all vestige of the fragile, helpless, bereaved widow had left the witness. She was sitting slightly forward on the witness stand, her chin up, her eyes blazing with anger at Perry Mason.

“Now then,” Mason said, “you saw this letter in your husband’s pocket.”

“If you want to call it a letter — a blackmail demand,” she snapped.

“And the envelope.”

“And the envelope,” she mimicked.

“And the envelope had the return address in the upper left-hand corner and the name of A. B. Vidal.”

“And,” she mimicked, “the envelope had the name in the upper left-hand corner, A. B. Vidal.”

She was now thoroughly angry and making no attempt to conceal her emotions.

“Now, you say this was a blackmail letter,” Mason said. “How do you know it was blackmail?”

“How do I know anything?” she blazed. “What did you think it was, an invitation to a dance?”

There was a titter of merriment in the courtroom which Judge Seymour frowned into silence.

“And the return address on the envelope gave the name of A. B. Vidal.”

Again she mimicked him. “The return address on the envelope gave the name of A. B. Vidal, Mr. Mason.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “please tell the jury what your maiden name was, Mrs. Theilman.”

“My name,” she said, “was Day Dawns.”

“Was that the name with which you were christened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was there at the time but I couldn’t remember the occurrence.”

“Was that the name you used when you first entered school?” Mason asked.

“I don’t remember when I first entered school.”

“Was it the name you used at the age of twelve?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “It was a professional name, as you should realize, Mr. Mason. It was intended to be a professional name.”

“I see,” Mason said, “and what was your real name?”

“I...”

“Yes, go on,” Mason said.

“Agnes,” she said.

“Agnes what?”

“Agnes Vidal!” she shouted.

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That is all.”

Ruskin said, in a quietly soothing voice, “Now, just a moment, Mrs. Theilman. I can appreciate your anger at being subjected to the veiled insinuations of counsel. I am asking you now please to face the jury and explain to them why the name A. B. Vidal meant nothing to you when you saw it on the upper left-hand corner of this envelope as a return address.”

“I felt,” she said, struggling to get back into her act of demure bereavement, “that some blackmailer was using the name Vidal in order to impress my husband that he knew... well, all about me.”

“Did you send this letter?”

“Indeed not.”

“Did you have anything to do with it?”

“Certainly not.”

“Did you know about it being sent?”

“Only what I have stated in my testimony.”

“Therefore, what impression did the name A. B. Vidal make on your mind?”

Judge Seymour glanced at Mason. “Is there any objection to the witness testifying to the thoughts that were in her mind?”

“Not in the least,” Mason said. “I would like to cross-examine the witness on that point.”

The witness again glared at Mason and raised her voice angrily. “I was simply sure that it was blackmail, that someone was using this name in order to impress my husband.”

“That’s all my redirect examination,” Ruskin said.

“Recross?” Judge Seymour asked Mason.

“Thank you, Your Honor. I would like to ask the witness what there was in her past that would make it seem to her that the use of her maiden name would have connotations of blackmail in the mind of her husband.”

“Just a minute, just a minute,” Ruskin shouted, jumping to his feet. “The witness didn’t say anything of the sort. The question is improper. It’s argumentative, it calls for facts not in evidence, it has to do with intangibles, it’s no part of cross-examination.”

“On the contrary,” Mason said, “the prosecution opened the door, the witness was asked about her frame of mind, and I insist that my question is based upon a fair interpretation of the witness’s answer.”

“I think the prosecution may have opened the door,” Judge Seymour said, “but that doesn’t mean that we can spend our time going into matters which are not relevant. However, in view of the nature of the redirect examination, I am going to permit this one question.”

“May I have the question read, please?” Mrs. Theilman asked.

The court reporter read the question. “I would like to ask the witness what there was in her past that would make it seem to her that the use of her maiden name would have connotations of blackmail in the mind of her husband.”

The witness hesitated.

“You understand the question?” Mason asked.

“I’m not sure that I do.”

“What was there in your past which would make you feel that the use of your name was connected with blackmail?”

“Nothing!” she fairly spat at him. “Absolutely nothing!”

Mason smiled urbanely. “Thank you,” he said, “that concludes my recross-examination.”

“That’s all,” Ruskin said.

The witness, still angry, got up from the witness stand and strode around the counsel table, glaring at Mason as she passed.

Mason turned to Janice Wainwright who was seated directly behind him and whispered reassuringly. “That demolishes the picture of the demure little widow, bowed down by grief,” he said.

Ruskin, recognizing Mason’s tactics and realizing the extent to which the picture he had wished to create in the minds of the jury had been marred by Mrs. Theilman’s anger, called Lt. Tragg to the stand.

Lt. Tragg, his manner crisply professional, described the scene of the murder. He had, he explained, been called in to co-operate with men from the sheriff’s office because he had been working on the case after it appeared that Morley Theilman had vanished following receipt of a blackmail letter.

Calmly, unemotionally and objectively he described the conditions in the building which had been used as a real estate office. There was a davenport which could be made into a double bed, a toilet and shower, a somewhat battered desk, several chairs, a counter running the length of the place, a storage cupboard in which there were old contracts of sale and descriptive brochures.

The body lay face down on the floor with the right hand stretched slightly above the head, the left hand on a level with the left hip.

The body, Lt. Tragg pointed out, was quite stiff at that time. The phenomenon known as rigor mortis had fully developed so as to encompass the entire body.

“What time was it that you first saw the body?” Ruskin asked.

“It was seven-twenty-seven p.m.”

“That was on Wednesday, the fourth?” Ruskin asked.

“That is correct.”

“Do you know of your own knowledge when the body had first been discovered?”

“Not of my own knowledge, no.”

“You know when you were first notified?”

“Yes.”

“What time was that?”

“Shortly before six o’clock.”

“You may inquire,” Ruskin said.

“Was the davenport made into a bed?” Mason asked.

“No, sir. It had been folded back as a davenport.”

“How do you know it had been folded back? How do you know it had ever been unfolded?”

“I don’t know.” Tragg said at length.

“Thank you. That’s all,” Mason said.

“Doctor Lombard G. Jasper,” Ruskin announced.

Dr. Jasper came forward, was sworn, testified that he was an assistant autopsy surgeon, that he had examined the body of Morley L. Theilman before it had been moved from the real estate office where it was found; that his examination was at approximately seven-thirty on Wednesday, the fourth; that in his opinion the time of death had been somewhere between the hours of midnight and five o’clock in the morning.

“Cross-examine,” Ruskin snapped.

“How do you fix the time of death, Doctor?” Mason asked.

“By various factors which furnish the trained forensic pathologist with clues.”

Mason asked, “And what are these various factors which furnish the forensic pathologist with clues?”

“Post-mortem lividity, for one.”

“What else?”

“The development of rigor mortis — the time of onset, the time of duration and the time of departure.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “let’s forget the technical patter, Doctor, if we may, and describe these things in terms the jury can understand. What is post-mortem lividity?”

“It is a distinctive color of the corpse due to the gravitational settling and subsequent coagulation of blood in the capillaries.”

“I see you’re not doing very well,” Perry Mason said. “Perhaps I can help you clarify things a little, Doctor. During life there is a blood pressure, is there not?”

“Yes.”

“After death this blood pressure is reduced to zero?”

“Yes.”

“So the blood naturally settles to the lower parts of the body of the deceased.”

“Yes.”

“And, since it ceases to circulate, it begins to coagulate.”

“Yes.”

“So the lower parts of the body have a peculiar color, a certain so-called lividity due to this settling and coagulation of the blood?”

“Yes.”

“How soon after death does that post-mortem lividity begin to establish itself? That is, how soon after death does it become evident?”

“Well, it begins to be apparent in from one to two hours after death.”

“And remains how long after death?”

“For some considerable period of time.”

“As much as twelve hours?”

“Oh, yes.”

“As much as twenty-four hours?”

“Yes.”

“Therefore,” Mason said, “when you refer to postmortem lividity as indicating the time of death, it would only show that a man had been dead for more than one hour. Isn’t that right?”

“No. Post-mortem lividity continues to develop. The color is an indication of the time of death.”

“Is there any difference between post-mortem lividity at the end of five hours and at the end of ten hours?”

“By five hours I would consider that post-mortem lividity had been fully developed.”

“And post-mortem lividity was fully developed in the body that you saw?”

“Yes.”

“So all that you can say as a result of post-mortem lividity is that the body of the man you saw had been lying there for more than five hours, that death had occurred more than five hours earlier. Is that right?”

“Well... there were other factors.”

“Never mind the other factors right now,” Mason said. “I’m talking about post-mortem lividity alone. Isn’t it a fact that all you could learn from the post-mortem lividity of that body in the condition that you saw it, and I am talking now, Doctor, about post-mortem lividity alone, is that in your opinion the man had been dead more than five hours?”

The doctor hesitated perceptibly.

“Yes or no?” Mason asked.

“Yes,” Dr. Jasper said at length.

“Now we’ll come to the other phenomenon which you mentioned, rigor mortis. Can you describe rigor mortis so the jury will understand it?”

“It is a stiffening of the body due to chemical changes within the muscle tissue. Immediately after death the body is very limp. Then a certain stiffness begins to develop in the face and jaws and goes down the neck, chest, arms, abdomen and finally the entire body is involved.

“Then after a period which may be somewhat variable, the rigor begins to leave the body in the same order that it appeared. First, the neck and face become limp, then the disappearance of the rigor continues on down the body until finally the entire body becomes limp once more.”

“And in this body that you saw, rigor had become fully developed?”

“That’s right.”

“Therefore you were led to believe that death had taken place, when?”

“As I said, between midnight and five o’clock in the morning.”

“Is the development of rigor a constant factor?” Mason asked.

“Not necessarily.”

“Normally, within what time limits does it develop?”

“Within eight to twelve hours.”

“Eight hours?” Mason asked.

“Conceivably, yes.”

“Then, in a body in which rigor mortis was fully developed at seven-thirty in the evening, it is possible, is it not, that death could have occurred as late as ten-thirty in the morning?”

“Well, it could have, yes.”

“And that is well within the so-called normal limits?”

“Yes.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “isn’t it a fact that there are other factors which hasten the onset of rigor mortis? Isn’t it a fact that where a person has been murdered at a time when he was engaged in physical activity, or in the course of a struggle, rigor may develop much sooner?”

“I believe that is true.”

“And temperature is also a factor.”

“Yes.”

“There are cases, are there not, where rigor mortis has fully developed almost instantly, Doctor?”

“Well, within very short times.”

“Almost instantly?”

“It depends on what you mean by instantly.”

“Within a few minutes, say ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Now, Doctor, when you were asked about the time of death and how you fixed it, you stated that there were certain phenomena which were in the nature of clues to the trained forensic pathologist and you mentioned two — rigor mortis and post-mortem lividity. Now, since we have seen that post-mortem lividity develops within one or two hours after death and that in the body that you examined it meant nothing more than that death had taken place in your opinion five hours before, and since it now appears that rigor mortis is a variable factor, I am going to ask you what other factors entered into your mind in fixing the time of death?”

“There were no other medical factors.”

“No other medical factors?” Mason asked, his tone reflecting incredulous surprise.

“None,” Dr. Jasper snapped.

“Isn’t it generally conceded that estimating the time of death by rigor mortis is apt to lead to incorrect deductions?”

“I don’t know. I would say that rigor mortis was a certain barometer.”

“Rather an uncertain barometer, isn’t it, Doctor, since it can appear a few minutes after death, or may be delayed as much as twelve hours?”

“Well, those are extreme cases.”

“How do you know that this wasn’t an extreme case?” Mason asked.

The doctor fidgeted uneasily.

“Speak up,” Mason said. “How do you know this wasn’t an extreme case?”

“I don’t,” the doctor admitted.

“How about body temperature?” Mason asked. “Isn’t that considered the most reliable way of determining the time of death?”

“Body temperature is a factor, yes.”

“Perhaps one of the most reliable factors?”

“It is a factor.”

“It is quite reliable?”

“Fairly so. But it varies.”

“It isn’t subject to as many variations as rigor mortis is, is it?”

“Well, it depends.”

“Doctor, I am going to ask you if you didn’t write an article in the Journal of Forensic Medicine, Pathology and Crime Detection entitled, ‘Determining the Time of Death’ and if in that article, which was published in December of last year, you didn’t state that of all the methods of determining the time of death, rigor mortis was perhaps the most generally unreliable and that the drop in body temperature was perhaps the most reliable?”

The doctor fidgeted on the witness stand. “I don’t remember expressing it in exactly that way,” he said.

Mason opened his brief case, whipped out a copy of the publication and said, “Perhaps you would like to refresh your memory from reading this, Doctor?”

“Well, no. I now remember what I said,” the witness admitted. “I believe I did say something like that.”

“Then why are you trying to build up rigor mortis as a more or less infallible time of death in this case and minimizing the body temperature factor?”

“I’m not doing any such thing,” the doctor protested indignantly.

“You have fixed the time of death from two clues which you have stated in your testimony were of value to the.forensic pathologist — postmortem lividity and rigor mortis. Now, what about temperature, Doctor? Did you take the temperature?”

“I did not take the body temperature.”

“Oh, you did not?”

“No, not at that time. The body when I saw it was fully clothed and the only means of taking the body temperature are... well, the body should be unclothed at that time.”

“And when the body was removed it was clothed?”

“Yes.”

“And after the clothes were removed from the body, was the temperature taken?”

“Apparently it was not,” the doctor admitted. “There was some confusion. Someone thought I had taken the temperature. I thought someone else had. In any event, the temperature was not taken.”

“So then,” Mason said, “you’re trying to fix the time of death simply by two things: post-mortem lividity and rigor mortis. Now, in your article, Doctor, you stated that rigor mortis was one of the least dependable indications as to the time of death because varying conditions could affect the onset and development of rigor, and you said nothing whatever about post-mortem lividity. You didn’t even mention it as a factor.”

“Well... no.”

“Isn’t it a fact, Doctor, that someone blundered, and the body temperature was not taken, and because you wanted to make your testimony sound impressive you mentioned post-mortem lividity as being a factor in enabling you to reach your conclusion as to the time of death? Isn’t it a fact that post-mortem lividity, under these circumstances, is meaningless?”

“I object,” Ruskin said. “That question is unfair. It is—”

“What’s unfair about it?” Judge Seymour asked.

“It puts the witness in a bad light.”

“You are evidently assuming,” Judge Seymour said, “that the answer of the witness will be in the affirmative.”

“Well, it is quite apparent from the entire course of the examination,” Ruskin said. “I think that the doctor has tried to be very fair here and—”

“There’s no need for the deputy prosecutor to try and build up the witness in front of the jury at this time,” Mason said. “Let him do that in his argument.”

“I think the objection will be overruled,” Judge Seymour said, “and there will be no further occasion for argument. Answer the question, Doctor.”

The doctor shifted his position on the witness stand, then finally said, “I tried to give my testimony to the best of my ability. It is my considered opinion that death took place between midnight and five o’clock in the morning. I have mentioned certain medical factors which entered into my opinion and influenced it.”

“And isn’t it a fact that you tried to build up your testimony by using the technical term post-mortem lividity simply for the purpose of impressing the Court and the jury?”

“I used the term because I felt under the circumstances of this case it was proper to use it.”

“But according to your own testimony it only showed that, in your opinion, the man had been dead more than five hours.”

“Well, that’s something,” the doctor said.

“It’s something, Doctor, but how did it happen that you didn’t mention post-mortem lividity when you wrote this article?”

“I probably didn’t think of it.”

“Oh, you mean you wrote this article without thinking?”

“I didn’t have to include everything in it.”

“It slipped your mind?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Or did you feel that if you mentioned post-mortem lividity in an article of this kind in an authoritative publication of this kind, your contemporaries who were fully familiar with the phenomenon of postmortem lividity would hold you up to ridicule?”

“Well, it had no place in an article of that sort.”

“It had no place in an article of that sort,” Mason said, “which was an attempt on your part to cover all of the scientific factors in regard to fixing the time of death.”

“That’s right.”

“Then why does it have a place in your testimony here?”

“Because it was a factor. I admit, not an important factor, but a factor.”

“And simply because it showed in your opinion the man had been dead more than five hours, you immediately used it as a barometer to fix the time of death as being within a bracket of fourteen to nineteen hours before you examined the body?”

“There were other factors.”

“Oh, there were?” Mason said. “I asked you to list those factors and you mentioned only rigor mortis and post-mortem lividity.”

“Those were the medical factors,” the doctor snapped. “There were other factors which influenced my judgment.”

“Oh, there were other factors.”

“Certainly.”

“Such as what?”

“The physical factors.”

“And what do you mean by the physical factors?”

“The time element.”

“And what do you mean by the time element?”

“The thundershower, for instance.”

“I see,” Mason said. “Now we’re beginning to get to the gist of your testimony, Doctor. Because you saw tracks in the soft ground, because you were told what time the thundershower took place, you fixed the time of death in your own mind very largely because of those tracks and what you had been told. And now, when you are called on to give your testimony, you attempt to justify those conclusions, based on hearsay, by bolstering them up with medical jargon.”

“That’s not true.”

“But you can’t fix the time of death within definite limits from postmortem lividity?”

“I’ve already answered that question.”

“And you can’t fix it by rigor mortis?”

“It is a factor.”

“But the main factors in your mind when fixing the time of death were the non-medical factors.”

“They helped me arrive at my opinion, yes.”

“And you aren’t an expert in those matters?”

“I have eyes and can see.”

“So you fixed the time of death by taking into consideration what you have referred to as the nonmedical factors.”

“I will say this: that the circumstantial evidence on the ground indicated very definitely and positively that death had taken place before the thunderstorm. Since I found nothing in the medical facts to negative that assumption, I accepted it in my own mind.”

“Now we’re getting down to the real crux of the matter, Doctor,” Mason said. “I want to be fair with you, but I want you to be fair with me. You actually fixed the time of death in your own mind because of that thundershower and the circumstantial evidence on the ground, and simply because you found no medical evidence which would contradict that conclusion, you went on the stand and swore positively that death occurred between midnight and five o’clock in the morning. Now, let’s be fair. Isn’t that what happened?”

“Generally, that’s what happened,” Dr. Jasper said, “and despite your attempt to distort my testimony, the fact remains that death occurred between midnight and five o’clock in the morning.”

“Because of your interpretation of circumstantial evidence rather than medical evidence?”

“Because of all the factors taken together.”

“The medical factors standing alone don’t enable you to fix the time of death.”

“Not standing alone.”

“In other words, then, the non-medical factors were what influenced you in fixing the time of death, and you regard the medical factors only as corroborating that because they do not contradict it.”

“If you want to put it that way, yes.”

“I want to put it that way,” Mason said, “and that’s all.”

“No further questions on redirect,” Ruskin said wearily.

Dr. Jasper left the witness stand.

Ruskin said, “I will call Mrs. Carlotta Theilman to the witness stand.”

Carlotta came forward, held up her hand and was sworn.

“You are the divorced wife of the decedent?” Ruskin asked.

“That’s right.”

“On the fourth of this month you took the Union Pacific train, The City of Los Angeles, for Las Vegas, did you not?”

“That is correct.”

“Why did you go to Las Vegas?”

“Because I expected to meet my former husband there. I had reason to believe that he wanted to buy certain stock which I had received as part of our divorce settlement.”

“Had you discussed this matter with your ex-husband, Mrs. Theilman?”

“Not with him directly, but I had told someone who I thought was acting for him that I would be in Las Vegas on the train that night and if anyone wanted to negotiate with me for my stock I would be willing to negotiate with them, but I would not deal with any agents, dummies, attorneys or brokers. I wanted to deal with the principal, whoever he was.”

“Did you take that train?”

“I did.”

“And were met by the defendant in Las Vegas?”

“That is right.”

“Cross-examine,” Ruskin said.

“Why did you designate Las Vegas, Mrs. Theilman?” Mason asked.

“Because I felt certain I had been dealing with the agent of my husband. Las Vegas was where our marriage was broken up and I decided I would— Well, I wanted to have the satisfaction of meeting him there.”

Mason said, “You now weigh considerably less than when your marriage broke up, don’t you? You went on a rigorous campaign of diet and exercise in order to... well, let us say, to get back into the running. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Theilman?”

“That is right,” she said savagely, “and I knew my husband — I knew him very well indeed. If he had met me in Las Vegas, I would have given that little strumpet a dose of her own medicine. I—”

“Now, just a minute,” Judge Seymour interrupted. “We won’t have any name calling here, Mrs. Theilman.”

“I was simply trying to answer the question,” she said, “I... I’m sorry, Your Honor.”

“I understand exactly how you feel,” Mason said, bowing. “That’s all, Mrs. Theilman. Thank you.”

Judge Seymour said, “It is past the hour of the afternoon adjournment, gentlemen. I didn’t want to interrupt the cross-examination of this witness. Court will adjourn until nine-thirty tomorrow morning. The jurors will not permit themselves to form or express any opinion as to the merits of the case, nor will they discuss the matter among themselves or permit it to be discussed in their presence. The defendant is remanded to custody. Court will recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.”

Mason turned to the officer and said, “I want to talk with my client briefly before she is returned.”

The officer nodded.

Mason waited until the courtroom had cleared, then turned to Janice Wainwright.

“You see what I’m getting at, Janice,” he said. “Your story is going to be that you talked with Morley Theilman after you talked with me on the morning of the fourth. According to the testimony of the prosecution, Theilman had been dead for some four hours at the time you say you talked with him. I simply had to try to demolish their theory of the time element, although perhaps some of the jurors feel that I was unnecessarily savage with the doctor.”

“I understand,” she said.

“That, however,” Mason said, “doesn’t mean that you were telling the truth.”

“Mr. Mason, I am telling the truth.”

“I believe you,” Mason said, “because it is my duty to believe you. As your attorney I am obligated to accept your story and to see that you have your day in court. But the evidence is very much against you, and some of that circumstantial evidence is damning.”

“Nevertheless, Mr. Mason, I am going to tell you again. I did not go out to that subdivision. I did not see Mr. Theilman from the time he left the office early on the afternoon of the third.”

Mason said, “I have the uneasy feeling that you’re lying to me, Janice, and if you are, it means you have a one-way ticket to the gas chamber.”

“I... I can’t help it. I’ve told you the truth.”

“Now then,” Mason said, “remember this. They subpoenaed the records from our office. They have the numbers of those twenty-dollar bills that were in that suitcase. If they can ever connect you with any of those bills, even one of them, you’re finished. You’re completely sunk.”

“I certainly understand that, Mr. Mason. They can never connect me with that money. I never touched a dime of it. I did exactly what I told you I did. I put that money in the locker and mailed the key in accordance with Mr. Theilman’s instructions. I never went near the locker again. I— Well, you know that I couldn’t have because you kept the key to the suitcase.”

“I kept a key to the suitcase,” Mason said. “There was nothing to have prevented you stopping at a locksmith before you came to the office and having a dozen duplicate keys to that suitcase made.”

“But I didn’t do it.”

“You say you didn’t do it.”

“I’ve told you the truth,” she said defiantly.

“Your car certainly was driven out to that subdivision,” Mason said. “The moulage of the tires can’t be coincidental. Your car went out there.”

“My car did not go out there, Mr. Mason. I tell you I never went out there.”

“All right, then,” Mason said. “Somebody had to frame you. Somebody took your car out, and that’s pretty unlikely.”

“I can’t help it. I didn’t take my car out there.”

“Let’s go back to the fourth,” Mason said. “Now, Mr. Theilman was reported to have disappeared. There was a detective at your office. Where was your car during that time?”

“In the parking lot at the office.”

“Then you got frightened and went to your apartment — at least when you telephoned you said you were at your apartment.”

“Yes.”

“And then what?”

“Then Mr. Theilman telephoned me.”

“And told you to do what?”

“To take some money from the petty cash drawer in the safe, to take the first available evening plane for Las Vegas and meet his first wife when she arrived there on the train. Carlotta doesn’t like to fly.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I got the money from the petty cash in the office safe.”

“How much?”

“He told me to take two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“How much was in there?”

“He tries to keep five hundred dollars there.”

“And you took two hundred and fifty dollars for your expenses on the trip?”

“Yes. I was simply following his instructions.”

“But you also gave me two hundred and fifty dollars as a fee when I saw you in Las Vegas.”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “That also was in accordance with instructions. He told me to give you two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“In cash?”

“He said to give you two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“So you went to the safe where Mr. Theilman keeps five hundred dollars for emergencies. You took two hundred and fifty dollars for your own use as expenses and you took two hundred and fifty dollars to pay me. That’s a total of five hundred dollars. Was there any money left in the cash drawer?”

“No.”

“You took it all?”

“Yes.”

“As the prosecution will point out,” Mason said, “immediately after Mr. Theilman’s death you went to the safe and looted the emergency cash drawer of every cent that was in it.”

She was close to tears. “I did only what he told me to do.”

“And what did you do after that — immediately after you emptied the cash drawer?”

“I went to the beauty shop.”

“And were there how long?”

“About five hours.”

“Did you drive to the beauty shop?”

“It’s in the neighborhood of my apartment.”

“Where was your car?”

“Parked on a side street around from the apartment house.”

“When did you actually see your car after you went to the beauty shop?”

“You mean on the fourth?”

“Yes.”

“Not until about five-thirty when I got in it and drove to the airport.”

Mason said, “You’ve got to get on the witness stand and tell that story and when you tell it, you’re hooked... Now look here, Janice, if you were having an affair with Mr. Theilman, I want you to tell me about it and tell me about it now. If you went out there to meet him at that subdivision...”

“Mr. Mason, I tell you, I didn’t. And I know that Mr. Theilman wasn’t there at the time he phoned me. There isn’t a telephone in that office. It was taken out. The nearest telephone is some two miles down the road.”

“Is there any chance, any chance whatever,” Mason asked, “that you could have been deceived by someone who was impersonating Mr. Theilman, someone who told you—”

“Not a chance in the world,” she interrupted. “I know Mr. Theilman’s voice. As a secretary I’m trained to listen to voices on the telephone.”

Mason shook his head. “Janice,” he said, “it’s an impossible combination of circumstances, and the minute you get on the stand and try to make that story stand up they’ll tear you to pieces.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Well,” Mason said, “if that’s your story, that’s your story, but I have a feeling that you’re still holding out on me. I have a feeling that you’re still trying to deceive me and — well, if you are, it’s going to be your funeral, and when I say it’s going to be your funeral I mean it literally.”

She started to cry. “You don’t trust me.”

Mason looked at her thoughtfully and said, “You puzzle me, Janice, but I’m going to present your case to this jury for everything that’s in it.”

“I wish you’d have more confidence in me,” she said.

“I wish I did too, but the physical evidence contradicts your story. You must have gone out there to that subdivision. You must have been there before that thunderstorm started, and you must have driven away after the thunderstorm.”

“I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t!” she said.

Mason shrugged his shoulders. “All right, Janice, it’s up to you. But I can’t put you on the stand and let you tell that story. It would be better for you never to take the stand, simply to sit tight and adopt the position that the prosecution has to prove you guilty beyond all reasonable doubt and that they haven’t done it.”

“Please, can’t I do that?” she asked eagerly. “Can’t I keep from going on that witness stand?”

“You’re afraid of the witness stand, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I don’t want them to ask me about — how I felt toward Mr. Theilman — what happened before his marriage. You said I didn’t have to.”

“You don’t have to,” Mason said. “The law gives you that right to remain silent, to force the prosecution to prove you guilty beyond all reasonable doubt without any necessity on your part to prove yourself innocent. But I’m going to tell you something as a matter of practical psychology, Janice. If they make out a case and you don’t go on the witness stand, you’re going to be convicted of first-degree murder.

“Because you’re young and attractive, and because of your loyalty to your employer in the years of association, they’ll probably give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to fixing the penalty. They’ll give you life imprisonment instead of the gas chamber, but they’ll convict you of first-degree murder.”

“I can’t help it,” she sobbed.

“Dammit!” Mason said. “I’m afraid I can’t either,” and motioned to the officer that the interview was over.

Chapter Thirteen

Back in his office, Mason moodily paced the floor.

Della Street, accustomed to the lawyer’s moods, sat at her secretarial desk and watched him with anxious eyes.

“What will happen if you don’t put her on the stand?”

“Nine chances out of ten she’ll be convicted,” Mason said. “If I put her on the stand, the way things look now, I think it’s a moral certainty she’ll be convicted.

“Apparently, Della, she was in love with Theilman and prior to Theilman’s second marriage they had some week ends together. Janice is trying to cover up the extent of her feeling for Theilman and undoubtedly would like to keep the evidence of those week ends out of the picture. The prosecution’s cross-examination of Janice about those week ends could tear the girl to pieces and wave the remnants in front of the jury — and if they should find she had any of the money that was in that suitcase, even one lone twenty-dollar bill, she’ll be finished.”

“Well, naturally,” Della Street said.

Mason went on, “There’s just too darned much evidence of blackmail here. There was no need to send Theilman two letters. There was no need to send one to his house and one to his office. And if Theilman was going to tell his secretary not to open any letters from A. B. Vidal, then why would he toss the Vidal letter and envelope in the wastebasket where she would be almost certain to notice them?

“And consider the blackmail letter. It simply told Theilman to get the money. It didn’t tell him to get a suitcase and put it in locker FO82.

“Those instructions must have been given over the telephone. If a blackmailer was going to phone his victim, why first send him a letter?

“Janice now indicates this whole blackmail idea may have been an elaborate cover-up so Theilman could get a large sum of cash and put across a business deal.

“The trouble with that is Theilman is dead. He can’t speak for himself. So when Janice starts speaking for him, everyone is going to listen to what she says with downright suspicion. When she tries to make Theilman’s words give her a defense, the jury won’t believe her... And someone got away with a couple of hundred thousand dollars — all in twenties — ready for spending.”

Della Street shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, we’ve got to make it make sense before we’re through with it,” Mason said. “I’ve got to stand up in front of that jury and have a theory of the case that will make sense. What’s more, it’s got to be such a water-proof, airtight theory that this deputy district attorney can’t rip it apart.

“The way it looks now, there wasn’t any blackmailer. Theilman was working some sort of a razzle-dazzle to make it seem he was being blackmailed, but I can’t prove it.

“The minute Janice Wainwright gets on the stand and tells her story as we know that story, she’s sunk, Della... And if they ever find so much as one twenty-dollar bill from that blackmail money in her possession, she’s going to the gas chamber.”

“You keep saying that, Chief. Do you think she could have?”

“I’m afraid she could have,” Mason said. “You see, she took five hundred dollars out of the cash drawer. Now, let’s suppose this whole thing was an elaborate build-up by Theilman in order to get some money out of the bank and get it in the form of cash so that it would appear he was being blackmailed. He’s very apt to have filled up the five hundred dollars in that petty cash drawer with some of the bills that had been in that suitcase. Hang it, Della, there just isn’t any logical explanation for some of the things in this case, yet I’ve got to have a logical explanation when I stand up in front of that jury.”

“And you’re sure you can’t put Janice on the stand?”

“Not as long as she’s concealing something. I don’t think she realizes the terrific ordeal she would face in a cross-examination by a hostile attorney.

“That’s one of the reasons I treated the second Mrs. Theilman as I did. I wanted Janice to realize that an attorney with a sneering, cynical cross-examination can rip a woman to pieces on the witness stand.”

“Well,” Della Street said indignantly, “Mrs. Theilman had it coming. Here’s a girl that has been around and knows the ropes, who married Theilman because she saw a chance to get her hands on a soft touch. She stole him, Chief — just deliberately stole him from his wife.

“And now she has the audacity to get on the witness stand as the crushed, bereaved little widow. Why, butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Her voice was so low and her manner was so demure and her eyes were so downcast! Why, you know just as well as I do that she’s sitting back and thinking in her own mind just what she’s going to do with all the money she’s inherited from her dead husband.

“She was a shill in a gambling house — a come-on, as she expressed it.

She went over to the table in order to encourage Theilman to do more gambling. He liked what he saw, and she took a physical inventory. She decided that she could move in and... well, that’s it. She just moved in.”

Mason nodded. “How did my cross-examination seem, Della?”

“Believe me,” Della Street said, “to a person sitting back in the courtroom you certainly ripped the mask off that woman. She was making a wonderful impression on the jurors, sitting there so demure and so sweet and so brave. Then you started making her mad, and finally her true character came out. She looked at you as though she could kill you with her bare hands. I’ll bet right now she’s home sticking pins in your image.”

Mason permitted himself a grin. “She probably doesn’t feel passionately fond of me... Hang it, Della, I feel that I have that jury interested. I think that they would like to go along with my theory of the case — only I haven’t got any theory of the case. I don’t dare to get one until the prosecution has put on all its evidence.”

Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door.

Mason opened the door and let the detective in.

“Hi, Perry,” Drake said, and to Della Street, “How are you tonight, Beautiful?”

“We’re still in the saddle,” Mason said, “but we’ve been jolted a few times. I’m afraid... well, I don’t like to think of what’s ahead.”

“I hate to bring you bad news,” Drake said, “but I have a tip for you.”

“What is it?”

“They have a bombshell — a veritable bombshell, that they’re going to drop in your lap at the exact moment they rest the case.

“They feel that you’re planning to get along without putting Janice on the stand; that you’re going to trust to your oratory and to your logic to build up some kind of a theory of the case that will cause some of the jurors to have a reasonable doubt.

“Now they’ve got something that’s going to force you to put Janice on the stand, and when she gets on the stand they’re going to rip her wide open.”

“What is it?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. It’s some bit of evidence they’re holding, and they’re going to throw it at you in the closing minutes and then rest their case. Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, is going to be in court personally when that happens.

“I can also tell you something else. They’re going to jockey around for position so they don’t throw this bomb at you until they have you trapped. They won’t let you jockey the case into a recess or adjournment. They’re going to hit you either in the middle of the morning or in the middle of an afternoon session. Then they’re going to rest their case and it will be up to you to start putting on your case while you’re still groggy from this knockout punch.”

“Is there any chance you can find out what this evidence is?” Mason asked.

Drake shook his head. “They’ve got it guarded as though it were the greatest military secret in the world. There isn’t a chance, Perry, not a chance.”

“But you do know they have this evidence?”

“I got a straight tip,” Drake said. “One of the newsmen is very close to Hamilton Burger. Burger would have a fit if he thought the man had tipped me off.”

“What happened?”

“Burger told him to be in court and to be ready for a most sensational development. He was told that the development would come only a few minutes before the prosecution closed its case; that you would be left out on the end of a limb and they would be standing there with a saw and Hamilton Burger was going to take great delight in sawing off the limb. They wouldn’t tell this newsman any more, so he got mad and came to me to see if I had any idea what this sensational development was going to be. I pretended I had some sort of an idea and as he tried to find out what I knew, I began to get an idea of what he knew.

“I told him that Burger thought he’d saw off the limb you were on, but you’d fool the prosecution at the last minute.”

Mason frowned, resumed pacing the floor.

Drake glanced at Della Street’s apprehensive eyes, then turned back to the lawyer. “Perry,” he said, “I have a hunch. It’s just a hunch, but I have it.”

“Shoot,” Mason said.

“Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that Janice Wainwright didn’t put those blackmail notes together herself?”

Mason turned to Drake. “No,” he said, “I’m not absolutely certain and I wish I could be. I’m not certain of anything in this case. I have a most peculiar feeling that I’m walking a tightrope across a chasm and that somebody has a knife that can cut that rope at any time.”

“That ties in with the confidential tip this reporter got,” Drake said. “How about forgetting it and getting some eats, Perry?”

Mason shook his head.

Della Street said, “This is one of his nights, Paul. He’s going to keep pacing back and forth, wearing out the carpet and drinking coffee.”

“How about you, Beautiful?” Drake asked. “Come on out and have a bite.”

Della Street shook her head. “Thanks, Paul. It’s my place to stay here with Perry.”

“You can’t help him worry,” Drake said.

“No,” she smiled, “but I can help pour the coffee.”

Mason might not have heard them. His eyes level-lidded with thought, he was pacing slowly and methodically back and forth across the office.

Chapter Fourteen

Thirty seconds before nine-thirty a.m. and after the courtroom was filled with restless, whispering spectators; after counsel were at their places at the table; after the jurors had all been seated and in that moment of tense expectation when they waited for Judge Seymour to take the bench, Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, came striding through the side door of the courtroom and seated himself at the prosecutor’s table.

The arrival of the district attorney caused a veritable buzz of comment and it was in the middle of this buzz that the bailiff pounded his gavel and said, “Everybody stand up, please.”

Judge Seymour entered the courtroom, nodded to the jurors and the spectators, said, “Be seated, please. The case of the People versus Janice Wainwright. The defendant is in court, the jurors are all present. Proceed with your case, Mr. Prosecutor.”

“I will call Lieutenant Sophia of the Las Vegas police force,” Ruskin said.

The officer came forward, was sworn and was asked by Ruskin whether or not the defendant had made any statement when she had been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“She did.”

“Was that statement voluntary?”

“It was.”

“Were there any threats?”

“No.”

“Were any inducements held out?”

“There were no inducements and no promises. No threats were made. She was advised of her rights. In fact, she had previously been advised by her attorney not to make any statement — to say nothing.”

“But she did make a statement?”

“She made a statement to Lieutenant Tragg and to me.”

“And there were no inducements of any sort held out?”

“No inducements of any sort. I simply told her that if she was innocent she had nothing to fear, and that if she wanted to make a statement that would convince us of her innocence, the matter wouldn’t go any farther. We’d let her step out of the car and go back to keep her appointment.”

“Very well. Will you tell the Court and the jury what she said?”

“Do you wish to cross-examine on the voir dire?” Judge Seymour asked Mason.

“No, Your Honor. If the defendant said anything, let’s hear what she said.”

“Proceed,” Ruskin said to the witness.

“Well, she said that her employer, Mr. Theilman, had told her not to open any letters which came from A. B. Vidal; that an envelope came from Vidal; that she didn’t open it, but that later on she saw that Mr. Theilman had torn this letter up and put it in the wastebasket; that she had seen it there; that she was curious; that she had put the pieces together; that the letter contained a message telling Theilman to have the blackmail money on pain of death.

“She said that Theilman had then sent her out to buy a suitcase; that when she returned with the suitcase she retained one key and gave Theilman the suitcase with the other key. She said that Theilman apparently never thought about the missing key and didn’t ask her for it; that he took the suitcase, was in his private office for a few minutes, then brought out the suitcase; that at that time it was quite heavy; that it must have weighed twenty-five or thirty pounds; that the suitcase was locked. He told her to take the suitcase and go to the Union Depot and put the suitcase in locker number FO82. She was to take the key to the locker and mail it to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery, Los Angeles. In the event locker FO82 was already occupied, she was to take any one of the other four adjacent lockers in the same tier on the left.”

“And did she tell you what she did?”

“She said she took the suitcase, that she took a cab and went at once to the office of Perry Mason; that she told Mr. Mason she suspected her employer was being blackmailed; that she produced her extra key to the suitcase; that Mr. Mason opened it in her presence and in the presence of Miss Street; that the suitcase was filled with twenty-dollar bills; that they spent several minutes reading numbers from the twenty-dollar bills.

“She said that they read these numbers into a dictating machine and also into a tape recorder; that they then closed and locked the suitcase and Mr. Mason retained the key; that the defendant and Della Street went to the Union Depot, put the suitcase in a locker, and that Della Street was the one who mailed the locker key to A. B. Vidal; that thereafter the witness returned to the office; and that shortly after her return and immediately after lunch, Mr. Theilman stated that he was going home. A short time later he phoned to say he wouldn’t be back in the office.

“The defendant further stated that she didn’t see Mr. Theilman after that, that was the last time she saw him alive; that at about eight-forty on the morning of the fourth she talked with Mr. Mason on the phone, telling him that police had been at the office asking questions about Mr. Theilman; that his wife had reported him missing; that Mason told her not to lie to the police but not to be too available, and not to tell them things unless she was specifically asked about those things.

“She said that almost immediately after she had finished talking with Mr. Mason, Mr. Theilman called her on the telephone.”

“Now, just a moment. Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this,” Ruskin said. “She said that Mr. Theilman called her on the telephone?”

“Yes.”

“And at what time?”

“Immediately after she had finished talking with Perry Mason. She placed the time of her call to Perry Mason at about twenty minutes before nine o’clock in the morning, and placed Mr. Theilman’s call at being perhaps two or three minutes after she had finished talking with Mr. Mason.”

“And what did she say Mr. Theilman told her?”

“Mr. Theilman instructed her to go to the safe, to take two hundred and fifty dollars out of the petty cash drawer, to get a ticket to Las Vegas on an evening plane that night and to meet the Union Pacific Domeliner, The City of Los Angeles, when it came through at eleven-twenty that evening; he told her that his first wife, Carlotta Theilman, would be on that train; that the defendant was to meet her and take her to a hotel Mrs. Theilman would designate.

“According to her story, after they were located in this hotel in Las Vegas, she was to go to the Western Union Telegraph office and send a telegram to Theilman, care of Western Union at Las Vegas, telling him where they were registered; that thereafter the defendant was to remain in the company of Carlotta Theilman until she received different instructions.

“The witness further stated that Theilman told her he was trying to consummate a stock deal with his former wife by which he would either get possession of the stock or be given the exclusive voting privileges on that stock.”

“That was all?”

“That was substantially all,” the witness said.

“Cross-examine,” Ruskin snapped.

Mason glanced at the clock, seemed tremendously bored, said, “I have no questions.”

“Very well,” Ruskin said. “Now, I don’t want to embarrass counsel by putting him on the stand as a witness in a case in which he is representing a defense client. I will, therefore, offer to stipulate with counsel that he and his secretary did make tape recordings and records of certain numbers on the twenty-dollar bills which were in the suitcase that was taken to his office by the defendant; that Mr. Mason and his secretary, Della Street, were subpoenaed on the fifth with subpoenas duces tecum ordering them to appear forthwith before the grand jury, bringing those records with them; that in response to those subpoenas Mr. Mason and his secretary did so appear and produced certain records in the form of tape recordings and the disc from a dictating machine.

“I will further stipulate that I have here a list of numbers of twenty-dollar bills which were taken from the tape recording and the disc. They are arranged for purposes of easy reference. I will assure counsel that these are an accurate transcription of the records which they surrendered to the grand jury and I will ask counsel to stipulate that they may be received in evidence as such, in order to avoid the embarrassment of having counsel or his secretary called as a witness.”

“We appreciate the situation,” Mason said, “and thank counsel for his courtesy. If the prosecutor will assure me that to his knowledge these represent an accurate transcription of the records which we turned over to the grand jury, we will so stipulate.”

“I make such representation and statement,” Ruskin said.

“Very well,” Mason said. “We will stipulate these lists may be received in evidence.”

Judge Seymour said, “It is so ordered. They will be received in evidence as People’s Exhibit, appropriate number. Call your next witness, Mr. Prosecutor.”

With an air of evident triumph, Ruskin said, “Call Dudley Roberts.”

Roberts came forward and was sworn.

“Where do you reside?” Ruskin asked.

“Las Vegas, Nevada.”

“Are you familiar with Perry Mason?”

“I am.”

“And his secretary, Della Street? I will ask Della Street to stand up, please.”

Della Street stood up.

“Yes, I know them both,” Roberts said.

“When did you first see them?”

“On the evening of Wednesday, the fourth.”

“Where?”

“In Las Vegas. They rented my cab.”

“Now then,” Ruskin said triumphantly, “I will show you a twenty-dollar bill, number G78342831A, and ask you if you have ever seen that currency before?”

“I have. It has my initials in the corner.”

“And where did you get that bill?”

“It was given me by Perry Mason in payment of cab fare,” Roberts said.

“Cross-examine,” Ruskin snapped.

Mason got up and walked over to stand in front of the witness. For a long moment he studied the witness carefully.

“Mr. Roberts,” he said, “how many times did I ride with you on the evening of the fourth after Miss Street and I started for the airport?”

“You and Miss Street rode with me from the Double Take Casino down to the police station. First you started to the airport; then you changed your mind and decided to go to the police station.”

“Exactly,” Mason said, “and when did you next have me as a passenger?”

“We waited at the police station and then you picked up a woman there at the police station and took off down the street. The police tried to stop you, but you told me to step on it.”

“And where did we go?”

“You told me to go to the first motel which had a vacancy sign and you stopped there.”

“And told you to wait?”

“Yes.”

“And you waited?”

“Well, I telephoned.”

“To whom did you telephone?”

“I telephoned the police station and told them that the man they had tried to stop had had me drive him to this motel and that you were inside. I have to live in Las Vegas and I’m not going to quarrel with the Las Vegas police.”

“So you deemed it necessary to tell them where I was.”

“I thought it advisable.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, a police car came and the police car took you and the young woman with you down to the airport.”

“What did you do?”

“I took this woman who had been with you, the older woman, back to the Double Take Casino.”

“Now then, I paid you for the trip, did I not?”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t you remember that I paid you in silver dollars? Don’t you remember that we had a conversation in which I asked you if you objected to being paid in silver dollars and you said the only thing you objected to being paid in was in I.O.U.’s or promissory notes?”

“That’s right. That, however, was the time you rode with me to the police station. You paid me this twenty-dollar bill when I took you from the airport to the railroad depot at Las Vegas.”

“And when did you first know that I had paid you this twenty-dollar bill?”

“Well, the police asked me the next day to look through my take of the night before and sure enough, I had this twenty-dollar bill — the one they wanted.”

“It was identified by the number?”

“That’s right.”

“But you didn’t look at the number when I gave you the bill, did you?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know that was the same twenty-dollar bill that I gave you?”

“It had to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it was that twenty-dollar bill.”

“What is there distinctive about it that you remember?”

“I remember I got it from you.”

“But how do you differentiate that twenty-dollar bill from any other twenty dollars?”

“It was the only one I had the next morning.”

“You mean I am the only one who gave you a twenty-dollar bill that night?”

“That’s right.”

“Think carefully,” Mason said, “didn’t anyone else give you a twenty-dollar bill?”

“No. This was the only one.”

“Now, let’s get this straight,” Mason said. “When I paid you that twenty-dollar bill, you didn’t pay any particular attention to it.”

“The deuce I didn’t,” the witness said. “It was a twenty-dollar bill and you told me to keep the change. Whenever a fare tells me to keep the change from a twenty-dollar bill, I remember it.”

“No, no,” Mason said, “what I am getting at is you didn’t look at the number when I gave you the bill.”

“No, I didn’t look at the number. I put it in my pocket.”

“Then how do you know this is the same twenty-dollar bill that I gave you?”

“Because it’s the only twenty-dollar bill I had in my pocket the next morning when the police asked me to check.”

“Now the second time,” Mason said, “I paid you in silver dollars.”

“That’s right. There’s no question about that. You went down to the police station. You started for the airport, then changed your mind and had me go to the police station. You gave me some silver dollars. You had me wait there.

“Then this woman came out of the police station, this older woman. You hustled her into the cab. She thought the cab was empty when she saw me coming.

“You got her in the cab and told me to step on it. The police ran to the door and tried to stop you when they saw that it wasn’t a vacant cab, but you told me to just keep right on going down the street.”

“So what did you do?” Mason asked.

“So I went on down the street until you told me to stop at a motel that had a sign of a vacancy on it. You folks went in there and started talking, and I went to a phone and called the police station and told them where you were.”

“And that phone call resulted in a police car coming out there to the motel?”

“I presume it did. The police came out and picked you up and told you they were going to take you down to the airport personally and see that you got out of town.”

“So this twenty dollars that I gave you had to be the first twenty dollars; that is, it had to be in payment of the first trip.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”

“That was the only twenty dollars you had in your pocket the next morning?”

“That’s right.”

“Now think carefully,” Mason said. “Didn’t you spend something during the evening of the fourth?”

The witness shook his head.

“Think,” Mason said.

“No, I... well, now wait a minute...”

“Yes, go on,” Mason said, as the witness hesitated.

“I... I bought myself a good dinner. I’d had a good evening and I thought I was entitled to a steak. I bought a steak. I think I paid for that with a ten-dollar bill.”

“It could have been a twenty?”

“No, I think it was a ten.”

“Now, after I went to the airport, what did you do?”

“I was there at this motel and the little lady that you’d picked up at the police station was there at the motel.”

“And what happened?”

“She wanted me to take her to the Double Take Casino, and I took her there.”

“She paid you?”

“Of course she paid me. I was running a taxicab.”

“And how did she pay you?”

“In money,” the cabdriver said angrily.

“What I am trying to get at,” Mason said, “is whether she paid you the exact amount, or whether she gave you a bill and you had to make change.”

“She gave me — I don’t remember. She may have had the exact change. I think she gave me some one-dollar bills. I’m not sure.”

“Couldn’t she have given you this twenty-dollar bill?”

“I tell you,” the witness said, “I only had the one twenty-dollar bill in my pocket. I remember you gave me a twenty-dollar bill and told me to keep it. The next morning the police asked me to look through my pockets for twenty-dollar bills and to give them the numbers of the bills. I had this one bill in my pocket and I gave them the number and they had me write my initials on it and took the bill and gave me two tens in place of it.”

“Now, if this woman who was at the motel, whose name, by the way, is Mrs. Theilman, had given you a twenty-dollar bill when you took her to the casino and you had given her change for that bill, and then when you had a steak that night you had paid for it with one of the twenty-dollar bills you had in your pocket, it is possible that this bill could have been given you by Mrs. Theilman. Isn’t that right?”

The witness said, “Sure, that’s right. And if John D. Rockefeller had given me a million dollars, I’d have been a millionaire.”

The courtroom broke into laughter.

Judge Seymour tapped his pencil. “There is no occasion for levity,” he said.

“If the Court please,” Mason said, “I ask the indulgence of the Court in connection with this cross-examination. I feel that as a matter of ethics an attorney should not take the stand, and if he is forced to take the stand, he should then not argue the case to the jury. Because I wish to avoid taking the stand myself, I am trying to clear this matter up by a detailed cross-examination.”

Judge Seymour nodded, said, “You may proceed, Mr. Mason. The Court appreciates your position and I think there is no reason to make any further explanation in the presence of the jury. Proceed with your cross-examination.”

“I would like an answer to my question,” Mason said.

“If your fare to the casino had given you a twenty-dollar bill, isn’t it possible that you could have spent the twenty-dollar bill I gave you when you got your steak dinner?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Will you say it’s impossible?”

“All right,” the witness said, “I’ll say it’s impossible. She didn’t give me any twenty-dollar bill. That was the only twenty-dollar bill I had the next morning.”

“It may have been the only twenty-dollar bill you had the next morning,” Mason said, “but you can’t swear you didn’t spend twenty dollars when you paid for your steak dinner, can you?”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Can you swear that you didn’t?”

“Well, I can’t swear absolutely, positively that I didn’t, no. I don’t think I did, though. In fact, I’m positive I didn’t.”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

Ruskin said suavely, “Well, if you’re positive you didn’t, you can now swear that you didn’t, isn’t that right, Mr. Roberts?”

“Objected to,” Mason said, “as leading and suggestive.”

“It is leading and suggestive,” Judge Seymour said.

“But this is on redirect examination.”

“That doesn’t make any difference. You can’t put words into the mouth of the witness. He’s your witness.”

“Well, did she give you a twenty-dollar bill and you gave her change?” Ruskin asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you positive?”

“Yes, I’m positive she didn’t.”

“That’s all,” Ruskin said.

“Will you swear she didn’t?” Mason asked, smiling.

“All right,” the witness shouted, “I’ll swear she didn’t.”

“A few moments before you said you wouldn’t swear she didn’t,” Mason said. “Now what has changed your mind? Is it the fact that the prosecutor quite obviously wants you to so swear?”

“I object to that,” Ruskin shouted. “That is not proper cross-examination and it isn’t a question of what I want him to swear to.”

“It goes to his bias,” Judge Seymour said. “I think the situation here is obvious, however. Answer the question, Mr. Roberts. The objection is overruled.”

“I’m willing to swear that she didn’t because I know she didn’t. I’m positive of it now. The more I think of it, the more positive I become,” Roberts said.

Ruskin grinned at Mason.

“You’d been thinking of it ever since the fourth of the month, hadn’t you?” Mason asked.

“Off and on.”

“And you weren’t willing to swear that she didn’t give you a twenty-dollar bill a few minutes ago.”

“Well, I’m swearing to it now,” the witness said.

“Because I’ve made you angry?” Mason asked.

“I’m swearing to it.”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

“No further questions,” Ruskin observed.

“Call Louise Pickens,” Ruskin said.

Louise Pickens was a very attractive, curvaceous young woman bubbling good nature and friendliness. The minute she walked forward and held up her hand, took the oath, seated herself and smiled at the jurors, the jurors relaxed their positions and started smiling.

“What’s your occupation?” Ruskin asked.

“I’m a policewoman.”

“Now, I am going to ask you if you are familiar with the words of the message which was testified to as having been on the paper found by Mrs. Theilman in her husband’s pocket.”

“Yes.”

“And did you make any experiments in duplicating that message?”

“I did.”

“What were those experiments?”

“I purchased a Los Angeles Times and a Los Angeles Examiner under date of Tuesday, the third, and found that it was possible to reconstruct that message from words in the headlines of the two papers.”

“And you did so construct such a message?”

“I did.”

“Do you have it with you?”

“I do.”

“May we see it, please?”

“Now, just a moment,” Mason said, “I object to this on the ground that it is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. The fact that the message could have been so constructed is certainly not binding on this defendant.”

“I propose to connect it up,” Ruskin said.

“I think I’ll permit it, Mr. Mason,” Judge Seymour said, “particularly on the strength of counsel’s assurance that it will be connected up. I think it’s within the province of the prosecution’s case to prove how the message could have been constructed. Of course, the jurors will understand that that doesn’t necessarily mean the message was constructed in that way. The objection is overruled.”

Louise Pickens produced the message.

“I move this be received in evidence as People’s Exhibit, appropriate number.”

“I think it is M-i,” the clerk said.

“Very well, it will be received as People’s Exhibit M-1.”

“Subject to the defendant’s objection, if the Court please,” Mason said.

“Subject to the defendant’s objection, which is overruled. It will go in evidence,” Judge Seymour ruled.

“You may inquire,” Ruskin said.

“No questions,” Mason said.

Ruskin looked at the clock, then leaned forward, whispered to Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, for a moment, then said to the Court, “May we have the indulgence of the Court for a moment, please?”

Judge Seymour nodded.

Ruskin and Hamilton Burger engaged in a lengthy whispered conference, from time to time looking at the clock.

At length Burger arose. “If the Court please,” he said, “we have about finished with our case but there is a certain matter of policy which we would like to discuss. Would it be possible for us to ask the Court to adjourn until two o’clock?”

Judge Seymour shook his head. “It is not yet eleven, gentlemen,” he said. “We have a backlog of cases. The courts are all starting half an hour earlier in order to try and get caught up and I don’t feel that I can delay this case. I suggest that you put on some other witness and then you can discuss your strategy during the noon hour.”

Again Burger and Ruskin engaged in a hurried whispered conference. Then Burger said, “Call Wilbur Kenney.”

As Wilbur Kenney came forward and held up his right hand to be sworn, Janice Wainwright whispered to Perry Mason, “Why, he’s the man who has the newsstand at the corner by the office.”

“What’s your occupation?” Burger asked.

“I’m a newsdealer, if you want to put it that way. I peddle papers and a few magazines. I have a corner newsstand.”

“Are you acquainted with the defendant?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve known her for years.”

“Referring to the morning of the third, that would be Tuesday, did you see the defendant?”

“I did.”

“What did she do, if anything?”

“She bought a copy of the Times and the Examiner.”

“And then what?”

“Then she went into the dime store across the street.”

“Then what?”

“Then she went up to her office building and entered the office building.”

“Did you see her again that morning?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“About half an hour later.”

“What did she do?”

“Came down and bought another copy of the Times and another copy of the Examiner.”

There was a startled gasp from spectators in the courtroom as the significance of the testimony began to sink in.

“Now, this was on Tuesday, the third, at about what time?”

“Right around eight-forty-five in the morning. She came to work at eight-thirty and spoke to me as she passed. Then she came down and bought these papers, went across to the dime store, then went up in the office building and came down in about half an hour and bought two more papers.”

“Did she make any statement to you in connection with the second purchase?”

“She said there was some stuff in the papers she’d been cutting out.”

“Thank you,” Hamilton Burger said, and turned triumphantly to Perry Mason. “You may inquire.”

“No questions,” Mason said.

“Call Lucille Rankin,” Hamilton Burger said.

Lucille Rankin came forward and was sworn. “Have you ever seen the defendant in this case before?” Hamilton Burger asked.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“At the five-ten-fifteen-twenty-five-cent and dollar store where I work.”

“When did you see her?”

“On Tuesday, the third.”

“At what time?”

“At approximately eight-forty-five.”

“Did you have any business transactions with her?”

“Yes.”

“What were they?”

“I sold her a pair of scissors.”

“Was there any conversation?”

“Yes, she said she wanted a pair of small scissors that would cut pieces out of a newspaper.”

“Did you observe anything under her arm at the time she made this statement?”

“Yes. She had two newspapers folded under her left arm.”

“Cross-examine,” Hamilton Burger said.

“No questions,” Mason observed affably.

Hamilton Burger said triumphantly, “That concludes the prosecution’s case.”

Mason arose, looked at the clock. “If the Court please, it is rather unusual for a murder case to be handled in such an expeditious manner. The defense is taken somewhat by surprise. I would like to ask for an adjournment until two o’clock this afternoon so that I may confer with my client.”

Judge Seymour shook his head. “We’re trying to get the calendar caught up, Mr. Mason. I admit that it’s unusual for a case of this magnitude to be handled in this expeditious manner, but we still have a good hour. I will state, however, that it is time for us to take our usual morning recess and in place of the usual ten-minute recess I will make it a twenty-minute recess, and that will give you time to confer with your client.”

Judge Seymour turned to the jury. “The Court will take a recess for twenty minutes during which time you will again remember the admonition of the Court not to discuss the case, or permit it to be discussed in your presence, or to form or express any opinion.”

Judge Seymour arose and left the bench.

As the courtroom cleared of spectators, Mason turned to Janice Wainwright. “Well, Janice?” he asked in a whisper.

“Mr. Mason,” she said, “they’re making that look something terrible, but actually it was just an innocent errand that I ran for Mr. Theilman.”

“Go on,” Mason said, “keep talking.”

“Mr. Theilman asked me to run down and get him the morning papers, both of them, and said there was some stuff he wanted to cut out about a real estate development and asked me to get him some scissors. I had to go out and buy some because I’d broken the office pair a few days before.”

“Then what?” Mason asked.

“After I returned to the office, he asked me to go down and get two more papers.”

“What became of those papers?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know. He never put them in the wastebasket, I’m certain of that. But usually he didn’t throw papers in the wastebasket. He would keep old newspapers in the closet. He had a pile of them, and then the janitor would remove them after the pile got so big. We’d save them for wrapping and things of that sort, and sometimes Mr. Theilman would want to refer to a back issue of the paper in order to check some of the real estate ads. But after he’d cut things out of papers usually he put those papers in the wastebasket, only this time he didn’t.”

Mason said, “Janice, I’m going to have to put you on the stand. You must realize that the circumstantial evidence is very black against you. Now, you have an explanation of sorts for everything — ‘Theilman said this, Theilman told me to do that, Theilman told me to do the other, I was following Mr. Theilman’s instructions.’

“Now Mr. Theilman is dead. You can understand what the prosecution is going to do to you once you get on the witness stand. They’re going to insist that you have fabricated a story in which you have deliberately made all the explanations dependent upon what Theilman told you, and that the reason you have done that is because Theilman is dead and can’t contradict you.

“Under those circumstances everything depends on the impression you make on the jurors. You can’t afford to lose your temper, you can’t afford to get hysterical, you can’t afford to start crying. You’ve got to stand up there and take it on the chin.

“You understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do it?”

“Mr. Mason, I... I’m afraid I can’t.”

“I’m afraid you can’t, either,” Mason said grimly. “All right, Janice. You have about fifteen minutes left to start thinking things over. Become composed. Get your story together. I’ve carried the ball up to this point. After court reconvenes you’ll have to carry the ball. Now you sit there and think things over.”

Mason walked away from her and over to where Paul Drake and Della Street were standing.

“Not so good, Perry,” Paul Drake said. “That last was a real bombshell.”

Mason said, “She says she was getting the papers for Mr. Theilman.”

“And very conveniently Mr. Theilman isn’t in a position to contradict her,” Paul Drake said dryly. “I think your client is a liar.”

Mason said, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from practicing law, Paul, it’s that an attorney must be reasonably skeptical of the things his client tells him until he gets into court, and then he must accept every word his client says at face value. He must stand up in front of the jury and show that he believes what his client is saying.”

“I know,” Drake said sympathetically, “but that was quite a bombshell, Perry. That—”

“Well, let’s analyze it,” Perry said. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” Drake said, “that your client went downstairs, got some newspapers, came back and pasted a blackmail message on a sheet of paper. Then she decided she’d make a good job of it so she went down and got another set of newspapers and pasted a blackmail message which was sent to Theilman at his residence.”

“All right, why would she do that?” Mason asked.

“She wanted to be sure he got it.”

“Theilman was in his office. All she had to do was to put that message in with the mail and he was sure to get it, and what’s more she’d know that he had it.”

“Well, perhaps she wanted his wife to know about it,” Drake said.

“On the other hand,” Mason said, “suppose Theilman planned on disappearing and wanted to get as much ready cash as he could. He wanted to leave a blackmail message behind and wanted to be sure that people knew about it. He hoped that Janice Wainwright would look in the wastebasket and find the message there but he didn’t know whether she would be too ethical to dig out the pieces and read it, so he put another message in the inside pocket of his suit and then went home and changed his suit, knowing his wife’s habit of looking through the pockets.”

Drake said, “You’re client is a pretty good-looking babe, Perry. If she backs up that story with enough nylon, and you can make it sound convincing to the jury, you may get a hung jury out of it.”

Mason suddenly stiffened to attention.

Della Street, knowing his every mood, watching him, said, “What is it, Perry?”

Perry snapped his fingers. “Simple,” he said, “and I almost overlooked it.”

“What?”

“If the message was cut from those papers,” Mason said, “then it was either prepared by Theilman or by Janice Wainwright. In either event the message couldn’t have come through the mail, and if that is the case the letter from A. B. Vidal — that is, the addressed envelope — has to be a dummy.”

“But,” Della Street said, “Janice said that that envelope was in the mail... It had to be in that envelope.”

“But it couldn’t have been,” Mason said.

“I’m afraid,” Drake told him, “that that’s one of the things the prosecution is going to pick on. You can see what they’re doing, Perry. Hamilton Burger is here to have the honor of cross-examining your client, of ripping her story to pieces. Once she gets on that witness stand, Hamilton Burger is going to be the hero of the piece and he wouldn’t be in here in that capacity unless he had some card up his sleeve.”

Mason walked across the courtroom, stood looking out of the window regarding the traffic on the street far below with unseeing eyes.

The courtroom again filled with spectators. The bailiff entered. A buzzer summoned the jurors.

Throughout the courtroom was the air of tense expectation which comes before a crucial battle.

“Everybody stand up,” the bailiff said.

Judge Seymour came in from his chambers, walked over to the bench and seated himself. The bailiff’ tapped the gavel. Everyone sat down.

“The jurors are all present, the defendant is in court,” Judge Seymour said. “You may proceed with your case, Mr. Mason.”

“If the Court please,” Mason said, “a matter of some considerable importance has occurred to me during the recess. I would like to recall one of the prosecution’s witnesses for further cross-examination.”

“What witness?” Judge Seymour asked.

“Mrs. Carlotta Theilman.”

Judge Seymour glanced down at the prosecution table.

Hamilton Burger arose. “If the Court please,” he said with quiet dignity, “I believe this is the first time Your Honor has presided in a case where Mr. Mason was representing a defendant. I have been in dozens of those cases. This is all a part of a virtually stereotyped procedure. Counsel always waits until it suits his convenience and then asks to recall a witness for cross-examination, thereby giving undue emphasis to the questions that he asks and thereby frequently securing a much-needed delay.

“In the present case it is quite obvious that defense counsel wants the benefit of a delay in determining whether to put the defendant on the stand or not. I can sympathize with him in his problem, but we have our work to do, the Court has its work to do and the taxpayers are entitled to some consideration. I submit that the purpose of this request for cross-examination is simply to obtain further delay and attempt to stall the case until the hour of the noon adjournment so that counsel can delay his decision whether he wants to put the defendant on the stand or not.”

Judge Seymour said, “I feel that it is incumbent upon defense counsel to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses at one time and not piece-meal. Of course, the Court has it in its discretion to permit a witness to be recalled for further cross-examination even after the prosecution has rested, but the procedure would be irregular and I would be inclined to allow it only in most exceptional circumstances. And since those circumstances do not appear at the present time, I see no reason for granting the motion.”

“May I be heard, Your Honor?” Mason asked.

“Yes, certainly, Mr. Mason. I never wish to preclude argument on the part of counsel.”

“If the Court please,” Mason said, his voice vibrant with sincerity, “this is a case which depends upon circumstantial evidence. One of the items of circumstantial evidence which the prosecution will rely upon in presenting the case to the jury is the identity of this twenty-dollar bill, number... let me see that exhibit, please, Mr. Clerk.”

“There’s no need to delay matters while counsel takes up more time reading the number of that bill into the record,” Hamilton Burger said. “There’s only one twenty-dollar bill introduced in evidence and we don’t need all this red tape and rigmarole which will simply result in further delay.”

“The Court is inclined to agree with the prosecution,” judge Seymour said. “What about the twenty-dollar bill, Mr. Mason?”

“I want to examine Mrs. Carlotta Theilman and ask her if, after my secretary and I were driven to the airport by the police, after she got the taxi driver to take her to the casino, she didn’t pay off the taxi driver with a twenty-dollar bill.”

“What if she did?” Hamilton Burger said. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means a great deal,” Mason said. “It means that this twenty-dollar bill is now established to have been one of the twenty-dollar bills that was in the suitcase at the time it was placed in the locker FO82 at the Union Depot.

“If the defendant had that twenty-dollar bill in her possession, the prosecution is going to claim that it means she was doing the blackmailing, that she was the one who fabricated the letters, that she was the one who secured delivery of that suitcase; that when Mr. Theilman found out about what had happened, she had no alternative except to murder him.

“That twenty-dollar bill therefore becomes a very damning bit of evidence in the case. It is a most important piece of evidence.

“Now, if I can show in any way that the witness Dudley Roberts, the taxi driver, secured or could have secured that twenty-dollar bill from Mrs. Carlotta Theilman, then the entire case of the prosecution is greatly weakened; in fact, it may collapse.”

Judge Seymour frowned thoughtfully, visibly impressed by the argument.

“Oh, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said, “this is the same old story, the same old grandstand. Now, if the Court please, even if there is anything to counsel’s wild theory that Mrs. Carlotta Theilman did give the taxi driver a twenty-dollar bill, it still doesn’t mean anything. Mrs. Carlotta Theilman had no access to that suitcase. She had no opportunity to get one of those twenty-dollar bills. She hadn’t even seen the decedent. She hadn’t been in touch with him. She had only been in touch with the decedent’s secretary, the defendant in this case.

“If, however, she did pay him with a twenty-dollar bill and counsel wishes to establish that fact, it is part of an affirmative showing which counsel should make on defense and as a part of his case. We have no objection whatever to his calling Mrs. Carlotta Theilman as his own witness. He can call her right now if he wants to, as his first witness.”

Judge Seymour said, “I think that is correct, Mr. Mason. I think that’s probably the best way of looking at it.”

“May I be heard in response to that statement, Your Honor?” Mason asked.

“Certainly.”

Mason said, “The district attorney well realizes that there are certain aspects of this case which give the defendant certain technical advantages and of which he would like to deprive the defendant. If it should appear as a part of the prosecution’s case that the cab-driver was paid with a twenty-dollar bill by Mrs. Carlotta Theilman, then it no longer is conclusive proof that the defendant had in her possession any of those twenty-dollar bills which were in that suitcase. And since the case of the prosecution is founded so greatly upon circumstantial evidence, I would then have an opportunity to move the Court to advise the jury to bring in a verdict of acquittal.

“The Court is fully familiar with the rule of law that if the circumstantial evidence can be explained by any other reasonable hypothesis than that of guilt, the courts are obligated to accept such interpretation.”

Judge Seymour thought for a moment, suddenly said, “Very well. This court is a temple of justice. It is not bound by strict red tape or arbitrary rules of procedure. Those rules of procedure, on the other hand, are designed primarily and solely to bring about the administration of justice. I am going to permit the defense to recall Mrs. Carlotta Theilman. You will take the stand, Mrs. Theilman.”

Judge Seymour turned to Perry Mason and said, “And, Mr. Mason, I think I will limit your questions to the one point which you have brought up.”

“Very well, Your Honor,” Mason said.

Hamilton Burger in exasperation looked at the courtroom clock.

A deputy located Mrs. Carlotta Theilman and she returned to the stand.

“You have already been sworn and are still under oath,” Judge Seymour said. “Now, Mr. Mason, you may ask that question.”

Mason said, “Mrs. Theilman, you will recall the evening of the fourth in the city of Las Vegas when we were having a conference in a motel. That conference was interrupted by the police who escorted Della Street and me to the airport, leaving you there in the motel. Now, I believe that it is in evidence that you took a taxi-cab to the Double Take Casino after we had departed.”

“That is right,” she said. “I took the cab that was waiting there.”

“When you arrived at the casino, do you remember how you paid the cabdriver; that is, what money you gave him?”

“Why, yes,” she said. “I remember I gave him a fifty-cent tip and the bill was, I think—”

“What I am trying to get at,” Mason interrupted, “is how you paid him. Did you have the exact amount of cash with you or did you pay him with a larger bill?”

“No,” she said, “I paid him with a five-dollar bill. I remember I had— Now, wait a minute. I didn’t either. I got the five-dollar bills from the taxi driver. I remember I had three five-dollar bills when I entered the Casino. I was playing the twenty-five-cent machine and I turned in two of the five-dollar bills for quarters. I... I received three five-dollar bills and some silver from the cabdriver in change.”

“Then,” Mason said, “you must have given him a twenty-dollar bill.”

“That’s right. I remember now that I did. I had a twenty-dollar bill and gave it to him.”

“Did you only have one twenty-dollar bill in your purse?” Mason asked.

“No, I had several. I think I had, oh, perhaps ten or twelve twenty-dollar bills. I gave him a twenty-dollar bill.”

Mason bowed to the Court. “Thank you, Your Honor,” he said. “That is all.”

Hamilton Burger and his deputy engaged in a whispered conference.

“Do you have any questions on redirect, Mr. Prosecutor?” Judge Seymour asked.

Hamilton Burger, plainly exasperated, got to his feet. “Where did you get this twenty-dollar bill that you gave the taxi driver, Mrs. Theilman?”

“Why, I had it in my purse.”

“And where did you get it when you put it in your purse?”

“I got it from my bank in Los Angeles.”

“Exactly,” Hamilton Burger said, “you couldn’t by any conceivable possibility have received that twenty-dollar bill from your former husband, could you?”

Mason was on his feet before she could answer the question. “Just a moment, Your Honor,” he said. “That question is argumentative; it calls for a conclusion of the witness; it is leading and suggestive. If the prosecution is going to present its case on circumstantial evidence, the circumstances have to speak for themselves. This witness cannot testify to a conclusion.”

“But this is redirect, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” Judge Seymour said. “You can direct the attention of the witness to a certain specific subject on redirect examination but you can’t lead the witness and you certainly can’t put the words in her mouth. The objection is sustained.”

Hamilton Burger made no attempt to conceal his anger. “When had you last seen your ex-husband prior to the time you came to Las Vegas on the fourth, Mrs. Theilman?”

“It had been over two years.”

“When had you last seen his secretary?”

“It had been about the same length of time.”

Hamilton Burger said angrily, “All right, I’ll let the facts speak for themselves,” and sat down.

“Now just a moment, Mrs. Theilman,” Mason said, “I have another question on recross-examination.”

“Now, if the Court please,” Hamilton Burger objected, “this is just what I warned the Court was going to happen. Perry Mason recalled this witness, assuring the Court he only wanted to ask one more question on cross-examination about that twenty-dollar bill. Now he’s trying to prolong this and drag it out with arguments and further questions and general fishing expeditions until the hour for the noon adjournment.”

“I think the prosecution is right, Mr. Mason,” Judge Seymour said. “This witness was recalled only for the purpose of one question.”

“That is quite correct, Your Honor, and that is all I wanted to ask. But the prosecution has taken over and has brought in a lot of new matter. Now I want to ask a question relating to the questions which were brought up on redirect examination by the district attorney.”

“You certainly have that right,” Judge Seymour said. “If your questions relate only to that phase of the interrogation, you can ask them.”

Mason approached the witness. “You say that you hadn’t seen your former husband for a period of about two years?”

“Objected to as already asked and answered,” Hamilton Burger said. “If he keeps this up we’ll be here all day.”

Judge Seymour frowned at the district attorney and said, “The witness could have answered that question in half the time it has taken for your objection. I take it this question is preliminary only, Mr. Mason?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Objection overruled. Answer the question,” Judge Seymour snapped.

“That is right,” the witness said.

“Now then,” Mason said, “have you, or did you, within a period of twenty-four hours before the time of your arrival in Las Vegas have any dealings of any sort with A. B. Vidal?”

“Objected to as not proper cross-examination,” Hamilton Burger shouted.

“Overruled,” Judge Seymour said.

The witness hesitated for a moment, then said, “Since I am under oath I will have to state that I had a telephone conversation with a man who said his name was A. B. Vidal.”

“When did you have this conversation?”

“At eight-thirty p.m. on the evening of the third. That was Tuesday.”

“What did this man want?”

“The same thing the others wanted. He wanted to negotiate with me for my stock.”

“He said his name was Vidal?”

“That’s right. A. B. Vidal.”

“Did he say where he was?”

“It was a long-distance call from Bakersfield.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“Not the voice of A. B. Vidal, but I could hear over the phone someone giving instructions in a low voice and I am satisfied that voice was the voice of my husband. It was an exceptionally good connection and, as it happens, I have keen ears.”

“What was the conversation?” Mason asked.

“I told the person with whom I was talking that if his principal wished to talk with me, I would meet him in Las Vegas, Nevada; that I would take the Union Pacific Domeliner, The City of Los Angeles, on the evening of Wednesday, the fourth. I told this person that I would negotiate, not with any agent, but only with the principal. I said that I knew who the principal was and that if they wanted me to be there and negotiate, they could send me a hundred dollars to cover expenses in the form of cash, and if that money was forthcoming I would meet with the principal in Las Vegas.”

“Then what?” Mason asked.

“With that,” she said, “I hung up the telephone without waiting for any further comment.”

“Did you get the money?”

“I did. The next afternoon the money was brought to my house. It was in an envelope marked ‘Expenses to Las Vegas.’ It contained five twenty-dollar bills.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That’s all.”

Hamilton Burger was on his feet, confronting the witness. “You put this money in your purse?”

“Yes.”

“And took it to Las Vegas with you?”

“Some of it. I bought a ticket with some of the money.”

“You never told me this dummy gave the name of Vidal,” Hamilton Burger accused.

“You never asked me,” the witness said. “I told you a lot of people were trying to get my stock and that I had reason to believe some of them were acting as dummies for my husband. I didn’t go into details because you didn’t ask me.”

Mason smiled at the jury.

Hamilton Burger and Ruskin had a quick, whispered conference. Then abruptly Burger said, “That’s all.”

“That’s all,” Mason said. “I have no further questions.”

Judge Seymour looked at the clock. “Well, gentlemen, we only have fifteen minutes before noon. Does the defense wish to start with its case?”

“We’re quite ready,” Mason said.

“Well, now just a minute,” Hamilton Burger said, and again had a whispered conference with Ruskin. Then he said, “Very well, go ahead. We’ll put on the rest of our evidence by way of rebuttal.”

“Very well,” Judge Seymour said. “Proceed, Mr. Mason.”

Mason smiled at the judge and said, “We have no evidence on the part of the defense, Your Honor. The defense rests. Let’s proceed with the argument.”

“What!” Hamilton Burger shouted.

“The defense rests,” Mason said. “Let us proceed with the argument.”

“Very well, Mr. District Attorney, you may open the argument,” Judge Seymour said.

“We don’t want to argue it at this time, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said. “This move by the defense has taken us completely by surprise.” He looked at the clock. “It lacks only a few minutes of the noon hour of adjournment and... I would suggest that we adjourn until two o’clock. We may wish to move to reopen the case.”

Mason said, “This is the same district attorney who was so concerned about the delay, about stalling the case along and wanting to save the taxpayers’ money. I’m quite ready to go ahead right now. Why not start the arguments?”

Judge Seymour smiled, said, “Well, I think in view of the manner in which this case has been expedited a difference of ten minutes isn’t going to affect the schedule of court or the tax rate in this county. Court will take a recess until two o’clock. The defendant is remanded to custody, the jurors are warned to remember the admonition of the Court not to discuss the matter among yourselves, permit it to be discussed in your presence, or to form or express any opinion. Court will recess until two o’clock.”

Hamilton Burger glared angrily at Mason, got up and pushed his way through the crowd out of the courtroom.

Ruskin paused for a moment, looked at Mason with a half-smile, and left.

“What happened?” Janice Wainwright asked.

“I’m gambling,” Mason said. “I’m gambling with your life and with your liberty, but it’s the only thing to do. I didn’t have time to confer with you and I didn’t want to confer with you. If I had engaged in a whispered conversation as though we had any doubt about the matter, it would have been fatal. The jurors would have seen that conference and would have felt that I had some doubt. The only thing for me to do was to act as though I had every assurance in the world that this jury was going to acquit you, and leave the matter in their hands.”

“I think you did just right,” she said. “That means that I don’t have to get on the stand, doesn’t it?”

“It means you don’t have to get on the stand,” Mason said.

“Thank heavens for that.”

Mason smiled and said, “Chin up, Janice.”

The officer who came forward to take Janice into custody had a reassuring smile.

Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake moved over to one corner of the courtroom, waiting until the spectators had left.

“That was a daring gamble,” Paul Drake said.

“Every once in a while an attorney has to make them,” Mason said. “You have to rely on your own judgment.”

“Those tire tracks still crucify you,” Drake said.

Mason merely grinned, said, “Hamilton Burger’s bombshell turned out to be something of a dud, Paul.”

“The man’s going to have a stroke if you keep on deviling him,” Della Street said.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Mason told them. “Wait until court reconvenes. I have a plan. If it works, Burger will be chewing nails.”

Chapter Fifteen

When court reconvened at two o’clock, Hamilton Burger said, “If the Court please, at this time the prosecution would like to reopen its case.”

Judge Seymour shook his head. “I think not, Mr. Prosecutor,” he said. “The prosecution had that opportunity and elected not to take it. You stated that you would reserve the evidence which you had for rebuttal. Now that the defense has rested there can be no rebuttal. The Court sees no reason for permitting a prosecutor to gamble on what is going to take place and then, in the event he loses, to reshuffle the cards so there will be a new deal. The evidence in the case is closed. Are you ready to proceed with the argument?”

“Under those circumstances,” Hamilton Burger said, “we ask that the Court recess until tomorrow morning in order to give us an opportunity to prepare for argument and we can then put in a full day in argument to the jurors.”

Judge Seymour glanced at Perry Mason. “Does the defense have any objection?”

“The defense wants to proceed,” Mason said. “The district attorney is an officer of the people and paid by the taxpayers. He has expressed himself as being very much concerned at the cost to the taxpayers of undue delay in these matters so we’re quite willing to give the taxpayers a break by proceeding right now.”

“Very well,” Judge Seymour said, “the motion is denied. Proceed with your opening argument, Mr. District Attorney.”

“We waive our opening argument,” Hamilton Burger said.

“Very well, Mr. Mason, proceed for the defense,” Judge Seymour said.

Perry Mason arose, walked over to face the jury, smiled at them and said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is going to be a very brief argument.

“The Court will instruct you that in a case depending upon circumstantial evidence if there is any reasonable hypothesis, other than that of guilt, upon which the circumstantial evidence can be explained, it is your duty to acquit the defendant.

“That is a part of the doctrine of reasonable doubt, which is a part of our law and a part of our basic system of the administration of justice.

“Now then, you people can very readily see what happened in this case. It depends entirely upon circumstantial evidence. You have the story of the defendant through the lips of the police witnesses who told you about her story of the suitcase and the letter which had been composed of headlines clipped from newspapers.

“It now becomes apparent that that letter was not sent through the mail but was prepared by Mr. Theilman himself. He sent his secretary out to get newspapers and scissors and prepared those letters.

“Why did he do it?

“He did it because he was engaged in a fight for control of one of his companies. His former wife, Carlotta Theilman, had the controlling interest in that stock. Theilman wanted it and other people wanted it.

“Carlotta Theilman was still in love with her husband. She felt that his affections had been stolen by an attractive young woman who had made it her business to be attractive and to cultivate her physical charms.

“So what did Carlotta Theilman do? She took herself in hand. She started dieting. She took off forty or fifty pounds. She regained much of her lost beauty. She wanted her husband to see her in her new personality. You can’t blame her for that. She wanted revenge on the woman who had stolen her husband. That’s human nature. You can only sympathize with her for that.

“In the meantime her husband wanted her stock. He felt that she wouldn’t sell it to him if he approached her directly and so he used a dummy. He instructed that dummy to give a fictitious name.

“What fictitious name would the dummy naturally give? He would give whatever name Mr. Theilman had told him he wanted on the stock ledger.

“And what name did Theilman want on the stock ledger?

“He wanted to put the stock in his wife’s name. His wife’s maiden name had been Agnes Bernice Vidal; so he had a dummy telephone his former wife. This dummy was instructed to give his name as A. B. Vidal and to offer Carlotta a cash deal for her stock.

“Why did Theilman want it to be a cash deal?

“Because he didn’t want the mysterious opponent to know what he was doing. He wanted to have this person left in the dark as to the identity of A. B. Vidal.

“When Theilman realized that he had withdrawn so much money that it might attract suspicion, he sent his secretary down to get some newspapers and from the newspapers he clipped out a threatening message — apparently a blackmail message. Then he was careful to tear that message and put it in the wastebasket where his secretary would be sure to see it and, later on, if there should be any question of the cash withdrawals, any person spying on Theilman’s operations would think the cash had been withdrawn to pay a blackmailer, A. B. Vidal. It would never occur to such a spy that A. B. Vidal was Mr. Theilman’s wife and therefore his alter ego.

“However, he was afraid that his secretary might be too ethical to prowl in the wastebaskets so he sent her back down for another set of papers, prepared another message, folded it and put it in his inside coat pocket.

“Then he sent his secretary down to put a suitcase full of money in a locker and to send the key to A. B. Vidal at General Delivery. However, Theilman had a duplicate key to that locker and as soon as his secretary had deposited the suitcase he opened the locker and took out the suitcase. He then had the money necessary to pay Carlotta Theilman in cash for the stock. He wanted to have his dummy, A. B. Vidal, do that, but Mrs. Carlotta Theilman had other ideas. She wanted to sell that stock to Morley Theilman personally so that Morley Theilman could see her new radiant beauty, her svelte figure. That was what any one of you women on the jury would have done. You would have planned an opportunity to revenge yourself on the vampire who had broken up your home.

“The twenty-dollar bill that the cabdriver had was one that he got from Mrs. Carlotta Theilman. She got it from the man who gave the name of A. B. Vidal, the man who was acting as a dummy for her ex-husband, Morley Theilman.

“Now then, we come to the question of the murder.

“If you will note all of the evidence concerning that murder, all of the evidence which implicates the defendant, you will find that it hinges entirely upon one thing: The defendant made a statement to the officers in which she said Morley Theilman had telephoned her, giving her instructions to go to Las Vegas; that the telephone call had been received a little before nine o’clock on the morning of the fourth.

“The theory of the prosecution is that Theilman was dead at that time.

“How do they fix the time of death?

“By rigor mortis which means nothing and post-mortem lividity which means even less.

“The only reason they fix the time of death at that time is because a thundershower was supposed to have moistened the soil, and the tracks of the defendant’s automobile were in that soil.

“Now then, there are photographs in evidence in this case — photographs of the place where the body was found. I ask you to look at those photographs. You will note that this was a real estate development which had gone into disrepair. Evidently there was a lawn in front of the building at one time, the little real estate office where the body was found.

“The theory of the prosecution was that the defendant and the decedent had an amorous interlude at that house; that she killed him and left after the thundershower. The only evidence that she was there is due to the fact that her automobile left tracks through that soft ground, going in one direction.

“The evidence shows that immediately after talking with Mr. Theilman on the fourth, the defendant went to a beauty shop and was there for some five hours. Her car had been parked near her apartment, which was also near the beauty parlor. It was only necessary for someone to take this car, drive it up to the real estate office where that person had arranged to meet Mr. Theilman, shoot him, and then return the defendant’s car to its parking place at the beauty parlor.

“All this murderer needed to do to frame a case against the defendant and to confuse the time of death was to see that the ground was softened in front of the real estate office.

“And how did the murderer do that?

“Notice this photograph, ladies and gentlemen.”

Mason walked over to the clerk’s table, picked up one of the photographs that had been introduced in evidence and returned to face the jury.

“You will notice that there is a hose, neatly coiled, attached to the faucet in front of this house. All anyone needed to do was to drive the defendant’s car up to this house, sprinkle the soil with water from the hose until the soil became muddy, then coil up the hose, drive the defendant’s car through the soft ground, and every bit of circumstantial evidence that has been introduced in this case would be accounted for, and every bit of it would, in the opinion of the murderer, point to the defendant.

“That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is a reasonable hypothesis. I think you will agree with me that it is reasonable.

“The Court is going to instruct you that if there is any reasonable explanation of the circumstantial evidence in this case which is consistent with the innocence of the defendant, you are duty bound under your oath to accept that explanation and acquit the defendant.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We shall expect a verdict of acquittal at your hands.”

Mason turned, walked back and sat down.

“Proceed, Mr. District Attorney,” Judge Seymour said.

Hamilton Burger got to his feet. “Why, Your Honor, we’re not prepared. We— Why, we anticipated counsel’s argument would take all afternoon.”

“Well, counsel’s argument didn’t take all afternoon,” Judge Seymour said. “You may proceed with your argument now.”

Hamilton Burger engaged in a whispered conference, then lumbered forward. “This is all poppycock, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “This is the sheerest nonsense. The defendant in this case, a shrewd, scheming woman, arranged to fake blackmail letters in the name of A. B. Vidal.

“Heaven knows what it was she had on Morley Theilman but it was something that made him get money.

“I want you to see her as I see her — a shrewd, scheming, hypocritical young woman, at times disguising her beauty beneath a mask of ugliness and frumpiness; then at times emerging as a radiant beauty to have an affair with her employer.

“And this theory of the defendant’s about that hose — why, that’s preposterous. That— Why, that’s an abandoned real estate office! That water was shut off when the real estate firm went into bankruptcy. It hasn’t been turned on for months. It—”

“Just a moment, Your Honor,” Perry Mason said. “I assign the remarks of the district attorney as prejudicial misconduct, as stating facts which are not in evidence and facts which are so prejudicial that they cannot be removed by even an admonition of the Court. I ask the Court to declare a mistrial in this case.”

Judge Seymour said, “Mr. District Attorney, is there any evidence in this case, any evidence whatever, about that water being shut off?”

“No, Your Honor, we intended to put it in evidence. It would have been part of our rebuttal.”

“And, Your Honor,” Mason said, “since he couldn’t get it in evidence legitimately, he has deliberately committed misconduct. This is a flagrant instance of deliberate misconduct.”

“I think it is,” Judge Seymour said. “The jury will disregard the remarks of the district attorney; in fact, I... I doubt that the misconduct can be cured by an admonition of the Court.

“Mr. District Attorney, this is very prejudicial misconduct.”

Hamilton Burger said angrily, “Your Honor, I wasn’t going to sit here and let the defense attorney bamboozle the jury into believing that this whole case hinged upon some murderer sprinkling water over the ground in front of that real estate office when there wasn’t any water to sprinkle. It’s preposterous! Simply on the strength of that hose—”

Judge Seymour interrupted, “If you had wanted to argue to the jury that there was no proof that there was water in the pipes, you could have done so with perfect propriety, but you have gone farther and made a positive statement that the water was shut off.”

“Well, it was shut off!” Hamilton Burger snapped.

“That does it,” Judge Seymour said. “The Court is going to grant a mistrial in this case. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the Court regrets very much that this situation has arisen. But it has arisen. The district attorney has been guilty of flagrant misconduct, and I agree with the defense that the prejudicial effect in your minds cannot be removed by any admonition of the Court.

“In other words, the state of the record is now such that in the event you should find the defendant guilty of this crime and an appeal should be taken to the Supreme Court, there is no doubt whatever in my mind that the Supreme Court would reverse the conviction on the ground of the misconduct on the part of the district attorney. In fact, it wouldn’t need to go that far because this Court would unhesitatingly grant a new trial on the strength of that misconduct.

“You may be seated, Mr. District Attorney.”

Hamilton Burger, his face white, his lips quivering with rage, walked over to the counsel table. For a moment he appeared to be about to say something. Then he lowered himself slowly into his chair.

Perry Mason said, “May I be permitted to make one statement to the Court?”

“It depends upon what the statement is,” Judge Seymour said, his manner plainly showing his judicial anger.

“I agree with the Court,” Mason said, “that the misconduct cannot be cured by an admonition of the Court but, rather than have a mistrial, I will stipulate that the case can be reopened so that evidence may be received by calling competent witnesses as to whether or not it was possible for the murderer to have watered the ground through that hose. If the water actually was shut off, I have no desire to take advantage of a situation of that sort. And if the evidence so shows, we will again submit the case. I will again make my argument and the prosecution can make an argument in reply.”

“I’m not going to do any such thing,” Hamilton Burger said.

“You refuse such stipulation?” Judge Seymour asked.

“I do.”

“Under those circumstances,” Judge Seymour said, “the Court has no alternative but to declare a mistrial in the case.”

“Well now, wait a minute, wait a minute,” Hamilton Burger said, “maybe I’d better confer with my deputy about this. If I may have the indulgence of the Court...”

Hamilton Burger, so angry that his face was white, his lips quivering, leaned over to Ruskin and engaged in a whispered conference.

Ruskin argued vehemently in excited whispers.

Hamilton Burger, too angry to listen, glared around the courtroom, then finally reluctantly nodded his head.

“Very well, Your Honor,” he said, “we will accept defendant’s stipulation. We will, of course, have to have a little time within which to subpoena the records of the water company. I happen to know that... well, I won’t state what I know. But I can assure the Court that by three-thirty we can have the records of the water company showing that the water had been shut off for more than a year.”

“Very well, if there is no objection on the part of the defense, the case will be continued until three-thirty when it will be reopened in accordance with the stipulation of the parties for the specific purpose of putting on evidence concerning the water. That is satisfactory to you, Mr. Mason?”

“It is satisfactory to me,” Mason said.

“And to the prosecution?” Judge Seymour asked.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Very well. The court will recess until three-thirty.”

As the courtroom cleared, Paul Drake came forward, frowning.

“What the devil did you do that for, Perry?”

“Do what?” Mason asked, his manner indicating surprise.

“Let Burger off the hook. The judge was granting a mistrial.”

“Sure he was. Then Janice would have remained locked up in jail and would have been tried again and perhaps convicted. I am now about to get her acquitted.”

“You are! How?”

Mason said, “Ever since I saw that photograph showing the coiled hose, I hoped I could get the prosecution to walk into this trap. Now they’re going to try to show the water had been shut off for months.”

“And as soon as they do it, your theory of the murderer sprinkling the ground with a hose goes out the window,” Drake said.

Mason grinned. “And that leaves Hamilton Burger with the job of trying to convince this jury that a man with the wealth of Morley Theilman would pick a place to spend the night with his secretary where there was no water in the bathroom, no water in the faucets!

“Stick around, Paul. You’re going to see something.”

Paul Drake pursed his lips. “I’ll be damned,” he said slowly.

Chapter Sixteen

At three-thirty when court reconvened, Hamilton Burger arose.

“If the Court please,” he said, “I regret having to make a confession. I cannot show that the water in the mains was turned off; in fact, apparently such was not the case. Therefore I have no alternative but to apologize to the Court and stipulate that the Court may declare a mistrial. I am sorry that I exceeded the bounds of propriety. My zeal was such that I over-stepped the limits. I do want to state in self-defense, however, that I did so because I had every reason to believe the water had been shut off and because I was exasperated by that completely fantastic, utterly unsupported theory of the defense that someone stood out there with a hose wetting the ground.”

“Very well,” Judge Seymour said, “in view of that statement of the prosecutor...”

“Just a moment, Your Honor,” Mason said. “May I be heard?”

“What is there to be heard on?” Judge Seymour asked. “Your motion for a mistrial is going to be granted.”

“That motion was withdrawn,” Mason said. “It was withdrawn in favor of a stipulation entered into by the parties that court would adjourn until three-thirty this afternoon and that at that time the district attorney would have witnesses in court to prove that water was not in the pipes.”

“He can’t prove it,” Judge Seymour said. “You have heard his statement.”

“Certainly, I have heard his statement,” Mason said. “His statement shows that the witness would testify the water was in the mains leading to the scene of the murder. My stipulation was that witnesses could be called to show the condition of the water in the pipes. Now let the district attorney call the witnesses.”

“But you had asked for a mistrial,” Judge Seymour said.

“I did at the time. The motion was withdrawn and it is now withdrawn. I want the case to proceed in accordance with the stipulation. I want the witness put on the stand. I don’t want a mistrial. I want to go before this jury with the evidence the way it is and I want a verdict of acquittal at the hands of this jury. We’re entitled to it and we want it.”

Judge Seymour smiled and said, “I now appreciate the strategy of the defense — and it certainly seems to be quite a strategic victory for the defense.

“Very well, Mr. District Attorney, call your witness.”

Hamilton Burger, with poor grace, said, “Your Honor, this is forcing my hand. I had not intended to put this witness on the stand at the present time.”

Judge Seymour said, “You entered into a stipulation with defense counsel, Mr. Prosecutor. I admit that at the time the Court failed to appreciate the subtle strategy back of the stipulation. The Court sees it now.

“The defense stipulated that the motion for a mistrial would be withdrawn to give the prosecution an opportunity to put on a witness testifying to the condition of the water in the water pipes at the scene of the crime.

“The prosecution entered into that stipulation. Now then, you put on your witness to show the conditions, whatever they were, or else dismiss the case — one or the other.”

Burger leaned over, whispered a few words to Ruskin, then strode from the courtroom. Ruskin arose and said, “Call Otto L. Nelson.”

Nelson came forward, was sworn, testified that he was in charge of the records of the Palmdale Mountain Subdivision Mutual Water Company; that water had been shut off at the real estate office of the subdivision for a period of about two years but that service had been reopened on the fourth at nine a.m.

“That’s all. You may cross-examine,” Ruskin said.

Mason smiled. “And who was the one who reopened the service, Mr. Nelson?”

“Cole B. Troy, one of the joint owners of the subdivision.”

“And when was water turned on?”

“Immediately. He asked to have immediate service.”

“Thank you,” Mason said, smiling. “That’s all.”

“That’s our case,” Ruskin said.

“Very well. Proceed with the argument,” Judge Seymour said.

“We waive our opening argument,” Ruskin said.

“And I waive my argument,” Mason said.

“What!” Ruskin shouted. “Why you can’t. The stipulation was that—”

“The stipulation was that the case would be resubmitted,” Judge Seymour interrupted dryly. “You have waived your opening argument. The defense has waived its argument and therefore there is nothing for you to reply to. Therefore you have no closing argument.”

“But the effect of that is to give Perry Mason the opportunity to have argued his case to this jury and then put a muzzle on us.”

“You made the stipulation,” Judge Seymour said. “The stipulation was very plain. The case was to be reopened for evidence and resubmitted to the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the Court is now called upon to give you instructions as to the law of the case. After you have received those instructions, you will retire to deliberate. You will first select a foreman.

“The Court will read the instructions very briefly.”

For fifteen minutes Judge Seymour read the instructions of the Court. Then he swore a bailiff to keep charge of the jury, and the jury retired.

Ruskin stalked out of the courtroom without a word to Perry Mason.

“Well, Perry,” Paul Drake said, “you did it. And the interesting thing is you did it by a damn clever piece of courtroom strategy... How the devil did you know that there was water in those pipes?”

“I knew that the real estate office hadn’t been used for years and the photograph showed a hose coiled up and connected to a water outlet. From there on I had everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

Della Street said admiringly, “You did, as long as you could think at chain-lightning speed.”

“You’re still two paragraphs ahead of me,” Drake admitted.

Chapter Seventeen

Mason, Paul Drake, Della Street and Janice Wainwright sat in Mason’s office having coffee. Janice Wainwright was tearfully happy. Drake from time to time looked at Mason in puzzled bewilderment. Della Street was starry-eyed with pride.

On the desk in front of Mason was a paper fresh from the press with headlines reading, shortest deliberation in courtroom history, mason’s client acquitted in minutes.

“Will you kindly tell me what happened?” Paul Drake asked.

Mason said, “I don’t know what happened. No one will know for sure what happened until Troy is apprehended. I understand he’s now a fugitive from justice.

“Here’s what I think must have happened. Troy and Theilman were partners in certain activities. Theilman trusted Troy but knew someone was giving him a double-cross.

“Troy, working through dummies, was trying to get control of Theilman’s corporation. There was a neck-and-neck race on for stock proxies, and Carlotta Theilman had the controlling interest and was smart enough to know it.”

“All right, so what happened?” Drake asked.

“Theilman didn’t want to deal by check because he wanted to keep the transaction absolutely secret. So he arranged to withdraw large sums of cash so he could make a cash deal with his ex-wife.

“Then he became afraid his present wife would find out about what was going on and think he was going back to Carlotta. So Theilman made up this blackmail plot and planned to use a mysterious Vidal as the villain as far as his secretary was concerned. The Vidal envelope didn’t contain the blackmail letter. It couldn’t have. It was merely the report of one of his dummies who was buying stock in the name of A. B. Vidal. Theilman chose that name because it would mean nothing to his business rivals, yet would be the same as having the stock in his name. And the Vidal envelope in Theilman’s suit pocket was simply coincidental. It had contained a report from his broker who had been instructed to use the name A. B. Vidal.

“One of the blackmail letters Theilman conveniently put in the wastebasket where Janice would find it. The other one he put in the pocket of his suit knowing that his wife would find it.

“At that time Theilman had no idea it was Cole Troy who was behind the attempt to wrest control of the corporation from him. He went over to Bakersfield to talk with Troy about it. He telephoned his wife that he would be home about eleven o’clock or eleven-thirty. Then he had another conference with Troy about the necessity of getting Carlotta’s stock and had Troy call Carlotta, give the name of Vidal and try to get the stock. When Carlotta said she would go to Las Vegas to meet the principal, then Theilman, from Carlotta’s manner and her proposal to meet the principal in Las Vegas, realized that Carlotta knew with whom she was dealing, and that he would have to go to Las Vegas to close the deal.

“So then Theilman told Troy he was sure Carlotta knew he was the one who was trying to get the stock; that he had decided to go to Las Vegas and try to make a deal with her — and the minute Theilman said that he sealed his death warrant because Troy knew then that Carlotta was still in love with Theilman and wouldn’t part with her stock if it meant Theilman’s ruin.

“So Troy promised Theilman that he would telephone Theilman’s house and tell his wife Theilman had to be away for two or three days on a business deal, and suggested that Theilman drive on ahead to Palmdale and that Troy would meet him there the next morning.

“Troy intended to murder Theilman but he didn’t know just how to go about it in order to divert suspicion from himself.

“However, he met Theilman at Palmdale. As they were driving up to the subdivision, Theilman stopped at a telephone booth to phone Janice and gave her her instructions. That gave Troy his heaven-sent opportunity. He knew that Janice was going to spend much of the day at a beauty parlor. He knew it had been raining at the Palmdale subdivision. He felt that he could kill Theilman and blame the crime on Janice. As soon as he and Theilman got to the Palmdale subdivision, Troy shot him. Then Troy remembered the water had been shut off so he had to hurry to get it reconnected. Then he drove to Los Angeles, stole Janice’s car, drove it up to the real estate office, thoroughly wet the ground in front of the building so it would take and hold tracks, and then drove Janice’s car back over the wet ground, feeling certain that by the time the body was discovered everyone would conclude the ground had been dampened by the thundershower.

“Troy almost got away with it. His mistake was that he was in such a hurry to get Janice’s car back that he didn’t have time to remove the hose but left it coiled and attached to the water outlet.”

“But how in the world did you happen to suspect Troy?” Drake asked.

“Because Theilman told Janice he couldn’t understand why his wife hadn’t been notified not to expect him for a few days. That means that after he called his wife at eight o’clock on the night of the third, something came up which caused him to change his mind about going home. So he instructed someone to so notify his wife.

“It was almost a certainty that that someone was Cole Troy. Troy knew Theilman had to be removed, so he didn’t put through the call.”

“And that shapely shadow Troy saw?” Drake asked.

“All a part of the scheme,” Mason said. “Troy spent the evening planning a campaign with Theilman. He lied when he said Theilman left for home, but by dressing up his lie with that story about the shapely shadow he was able to create a word picture of Theilman leaving his office and starting for home that fooled everyone.

“I began to suspect Troy when Janice told me Theilman was puzzled his wife hadn’t been notified of his change in plans. Troy had been instructed to phone her while Theilman was laying plans to go to Las Vegas to meet Carlotta.”

“Why didn’t Theilman phone his wife?” Drake asked.

It was Della Street who answered the question. “He didn’t want her to start questioning him about the nature of his business trip, silly. When you get married, Paul, you’ll learn these more elemental dodges of married men.”

Drake grinned. “How did you get all this knowledge?”

“Reading divorce complaints,” Della said.

Drake said, “All right. There’s one other thing I don’t understand. Where in the world did the taxi driver get that twenty-dollar bill?”

“He got it from Janice,” Mason said.

“What!” Janice Wainwright exclaimed.

“That’s right, he got it from you.”

“But he couldn’t have.”

“The thing was very simple,” Mason said, “and I admit that after I made an issue of it I was in a panic for fear the real solution would occur to Hamilton Burger. The only thing to do was to keep Burger so darn mad that the real solution never did occur to him.”

“Well, what was the solution?” Drake asked.

Mason grinned. “Janice, you got money out of the cash drawer in the safe. By that time Theilman had recovered the suitcase with the money in it. He had transferred some of the money to a brief case before locking the suitcase in the trunk of his car, and filled up the petty cash drawer in the safe so there would be plenty of money in case you had to take a trip for him in connection with the deal.

“Remember, we didn’t get the numbers of all the bills. Only some of them.”

“But I didn’t give any money to the cabdriver,” Janice said.

Mason said, “You went to the Double Take Casino. What did you do when you went in there?”

“I... I bought chips.”

“Exactly,” Mason said. “And you paid for them with what?”

“Why,” she said, “with twenty dollars out of my purse.”

“And,” Mason said, “Carlotta Theilman shortly afterwards hit a twenty-dollar jackpot. The cashier took the twenty-dollar bill which you had given him for chips and turned it over to Carlotta Theilman for the jackpot. It was one of those coincidences that happen in real life.

“In the Double Take they don’t give the actual coins when you hit a jackpot. A gold slug comes down and you exchange this slug with the cashier for the amount of the jackpot, whatever is listed on the outside of the machine.”

“Well, I’ll be darned!” Drake said. “And on the strength of that you got an acquittal.”

“I got an acquittal,” Mason said, “on the strength of my client’s innocence.”

“And what the newspaper characterizes as some of the fastest legal legerdemain that was ever pulled in a local courtroom,” Della Street said, proudly reading an excerpt from the newspaper account.

Content

Erle Stanley Gardner
The Case of the Shapely Shadow

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen