“Are you speaking for the D.A.?” Mason asked.

  Tragg ground out his cigarette in the ash tray. “Now there, of course, you’ve come to the weak point in my argument.”

  “Your district attorney is not particularly fond of the ground I walk on,” Mason pointed out.

  “I know,” Tragg conceded.

  “I think, under the circumstances,” Mason said, “a smart lawyer would have to play them very close to his chest.”

  “Well, I thought I’d drop in,’ Tragg said. “Just sort of a routine checkup. I take it you don’t want to make any statement, Mason?”

  Mason shook his head.

  “Keep your own nose clean,” Tragg warned. “There are people on the force who don’t like you. I just thought I’d give you a friendly warning, that’s all.”

  “Sergeant Holcomb going to be working on the case?” Mason asked.

  “Sergeant Holcomb is working on the case.”

  “I see,” Mason said.

  Tragg got up, straightened his coat, reached for his hat, smiled at Della Street, and said, “At times you’re rather obvious, Miss Street.”

  “I am?” Della Street asked.

  Tragg nodded. “You keep looking at that private, unlisted telephone on the corner of Mason’s desk. Doubtless you’re planning to call Paul Drake as soon as I’m out of the door. I told you this was a friendly tip. For your information, I don’t intend to stop in at Drake’s office on the way out and I don’t intend to talk with him as yet.

  “I would like to be very certain that nothing happens to put your employer out of business as an attorney, because then he couldn’t sign your pay checks, and personally it’s a lot more fun for me to deal with brains than with the crooked type of criminal lawyer who has to get by by suborning perjury.

  “I just thought I’d drop in for a social visit, that’s all, and it might be a little easier for you to keep out of trouble if you knew that I’m going to have to report what I’ve found out down at the lunch counter about the consumption of sandwiches and coffee in the Mason office during the small hours of the morning.

  “I don’t suppose the persons who entered and signed the night register in the elevator would have been foolish enough to have signed their own names, but of course we’ll be checking that and getting descriptions. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the description of the man and the woman who went to your office last night didn’t check with the description of the man and the woman who registered in units fifteen and sixteen at The Staylonger Motel. And, of course, we’ll have a handwriting expert take a look at the man’s signature on the register the elevator man keeps for after-hours visitors.

  “Well, I’ll be ambling along. I have a conference with my zealous assistant, Sergeant Holcomb. I’m not going to mention anything to him about having been here.”

  Tragg left the office.

  “Hang it!” Mason said. “A man will think he’s being smart and then overlook the perfectly obvious.”

  “Lieutenant Tragg?” Della Street asked.

  “Tragg nothing!” Mason said. “I’m talking about myself. Having hamburgers sent up from that lunch counter is convenient for us and damned convenient for the police. We’ll remember to keep out of that trap in the future.”

  “Thanks to Lieutenant Tragg,” she said.

  “Thanks to a very worthy adversary who is very shortly going to be raising hell with our client,” Mason said.

  11

  Mason carefully closed the door leading to his private office, moved over close to Della Street, and lowered his voice. “You’re going to have to take a coffee break, Della,” he said.

  “And then what?”

  “Then while you’re taking the coffee break, make certain that no one is in a position to see the number you’re dialing. Call Stewart Bedford and tell him that under no circumstances is he to try to communicate with me, that I’ll call him from time to time from a pay station; tell him that the police realize I’m interested in the case and may be watching my office.”

  Della Street nodded.

  “Now,” Mason said, “we’re going to have to be very, very careful. Lieutenant Tragg knows that Paul Drake is working on the case. Tragg is a deadly combination of intelligence, ability, and persistence.

  “They’ve got hold of that automobile from the drive-yourself agency and they’ve developed fingerprints. They don’t have any way of picking up Stewart Bedford from those fingerprints because they don’t know whose fingerprints they are, but if they ever get a line on Bedford they can then take his fingerprints and prove that he was in the automobile.”

  “What about Mrs. Bedford?” Della Street asked. “Aren’t you obligated to tell Mr. Bedford about her?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re representing him.”

  “As his attorney,” Mason said, “I’m supposed to be looking out for his best interests.”

  “His wife is mixed in it Shouldn’t he know?”

  “How is she mixed in it?”

  “She was down there at the motel. She had all the motive in the world. Chief, you know as well as I do that she went down there because she thought Binney Denham was putting the bite on her husband and she didn’t intend to stand for it. There was only one way she could have stopped it.”

  “You mean she killed him?”

  “Why not?”

  Mason pursed his lips.

  “Well, why not?” Della Street insisted.

  Mason said, “In a case of this kind we don’t know what we’re up against until all of the facts are in, and by that time it’s frequently too late to protect our client. In this case I’m protecting my client.”

  “Just the one client?”

  “Just the one client, Stewart G. Bedford.”

  “Then aren’t you obligated to tell him about … about his wife?”

  Mason shook his head. “I’m a lawyer. I have to take the responsibility of reaching certain decisions. Bedford is in love with his wife. It’s quite probable that he’s more in love with her than she is with him. Marriage for her may have been something of a business proposition. For him it represented a complete romantic investment in a new type of life.”

  “Well?” she asked.

  “If I tell him about his wife’s having been down there, about the fact that she may be suspect, Bedford will become heroic. He’ll want to take all the blame in case he thinks there’s any possibility she’s guilty.

  “I’m somewhat in the position of a physician who has to treat a patient. He doesn’t tell the patient everything he knows. He prescribes treatment for the patient and does his best to see that the patient gets the right treatment.”

  Della Street thought that over for a moment, then said, “Will the police be able to locate Bedford today?”

  “Probably,” Mason said. “It’s just a matter of time. Remember, Bedford is vulnerable on two or three fronts. For one thing, he bought a lot of traveler’s checks, countersigned them and turned them over to the blackmailers. They cashed them. Somewhere along the line they’ve left a back trail that Tragg will pick up. Also remember that Bedford scribbled a note which he gave to the waiter at the cocktail lounge, asking him to call Elsa Griffin and give her the name of the motel. He didn’t sign his name to the message, but after the newspapers begin to talk about the murder at The Staylonger Motel, the waiter will probably remember that that was the name of the motel he was to give Elsa Griffin over the telephone.”

  “Do you suppose the waiter saved the message?”

  “He could have,” Mason said. “There was twenty dollars in it for him, and that was bound to have registered in his mind. He could very well have saved the note.

  “About all we can do is try to stall things along while Paul Drake gets information about Denham’s background and see if we can locate that blonde.”

  “All right,” Della Street said, “I’ll take my coffee break and telephone Mr. Bedford.”

  “How are you feeling, Della?”

  “As long as I can pour the coffee in, I can keep the eyes open.”

  “You’d better go home early this afternoon and try getting some sleep.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’ll be all right I may break away this afternoon myself. Things are now where we have to wait for developments. I’m hoping Drake can come up with something before Tragg gets a line on our client. Get yourself some coffee and then go on home and turn in, Della. I’ll phone you if anything comes up.”

  “I’ll stick it out a while longer. I wish you’d get some rest and let me stay on the job and call you.”

  Mason looked at his watch. “Wait until noon, Della. If Drake hasn’t turned up something by that time, we’ll both check out. I’ll leave word with Drake’s office where they can call me.”

  “Okay,” Della Street said. “I’ll call Bedford right away.”

  12

  Mason stopped in at Paul Drake’s office.

  “You don’t look bad,” Mason said to the detective.

  “Why should I?”

  “Up all night.”

  “We get used to it. You look like hell.”

  “I’m not accustomed to it. What are you finding out?”

  “Not too much. The police are on the job and that makes things tough.”

  “This man Denham,” Perry Mason said. “He had this blonde girl friend.”

  “So what?”

  “I want her.”

  “Who doesn’t? The police want her. The newspaper people want her.”

  “What’s the description?” Mason asked.

  “The description the police have is a girl about twenty-five to twenty-seven, five feet three, maybe a little on the hefty side, slim-waisted, plenty of hips, and lots of chest.”

  “What do they have from the rented car, Paul?”

  “No one knows. The police keep that pretty much of a secret. They have some fingerprints.”

  “And from the units at the motel?”

  “They have fingerprints there, too.”

  Mason said, “I’ll give you a tip, Paul. The police are wise that you’re working on the case.”

  “It would be a miracle if they weren’t. You can’t try to get information in a case of this sort without leaving a trail that the police can follow. I suppose that means they’ve connected me with you?”

  Mason nodded.

  “And you with your client?” Drake asked, watching Mason sharply.

  “Not yet.”

  “Be careful. They will.”

  “It’s just a matter of time,” Mason conceded. “I want to find that blonde before they do.”

  “Then you’ll have to give me some information that they haven’t got,” Drake said. “Otherwise, things being equal, there isn’t a whisper of a chance, Perry. The police have the organization. They have the authority. They have all the police records. I have nothing.”

  “I can give you one tip,” Mason said.

  “What’s that?”

  “In this business names don’t mean anything,” Mason told him. “But initials do. My client tells me this girl gave the name of Geraldine Corning. She had a new overnight bag and suitcase with her initials stamped in gilt—G.C.”

  “You don’t think she gave her right name to this client of yours?”

  “I doubt it,” Mason said. “But I have a hunch her initials are probably the same. The last name won’t mean much, but there aren’t too many first names that begin with G. You might try Gloria or Grace, for a start.”

  “Blondes with first names of Gloria or Grace are a dime a dozen,” Drake said. “The city’s full of them.”

  “I know, but this was a girl who was hanging around with particular people.”

  “And you know what happens when you ask questions about girls who are hanging around with people like that?” Drake asked. “You run up against a wall of silence that is based on stark fear. You can open up any source of information and have things going good, and then you can casually mention, ‘Do you know a girl by the name of Grace or Gloria Somebody-or-other who was playing around with this blackmailer Binney Denham?’ Well, you know what happens. They clam up as though you’d pulled a zipper.”

  Mason thought that over. “I see your point, Paul. But a lot depends on this. We’ve simply got to get this girl located. She must have had a charge account some place that was paid by her sugar daddy or—”

  “You know what would happen if we tried to get a line on all the blondes who have accounts that are paid by sugar daddies? We’d—”

  “No, no, now wait a minute!” Mason said. “I’m just trying to narrow the thing down for you, Paul. She must have had an account at a beauty parlor. She must have had contacts, perhaps not with Binney Denham but perhaps with this Harry Elston who had the lock box with Binney. What can you find out about him?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Drake said. “Elston visited the joint-tenancy lock box and faded from the picture. He’s crawled into a hole and pulled the hole in after him.”

  “The police want him?”

  “Very much.”

  Mason said, “Blackmailers and gamblers. Gamblers go to race tracks. Try covering the race tracks. See if you can get a line on this blonde. She had relatively new baggage. It may have been bought for this occasion.

  “I’m going out to my apartment and get some shuteye. I’d like to have you stay on with this personally for another couple of hours if you can, Paul. Then you can turn it over to your operatives and get some sleep.”

  “Shucks! I’m good for another day and another night,” Drake said.

  Mason heaved himself out of his chair. “I’m not Call me whenever you get a lead. I want to find that blonde and interview her before the police do, and I have an idea things are going to get pretty rugged this afternoon. I want to be able to think clearly when the going gets rough.”

  “Okay,” Drake said. “I’ll call you. But don’t get to optimistic about that blonde. She’s going to be hard to find, and in blackmailing circles the word will have gone out for everybody to clam up.”

  13

  Mason took a hot shower, crawled into bed, and sank instantly into restful oblivion only to be aroused, seconds later, it seemed to him, by the insistent ringing of the telephone.

  He managed to get the receiver to his ear and muttered thickly into the telephone, “Hello!”

  Paul Drake’s voice, crisp and businesslike, said, “The fat’s in the fire, Perry. Get going.”

  “What?” Mason asked.

  “Police checking back on Denham’s associates got on the trail of some traveler’s checks. It seems a whole flock of traveler’s checks were cashed. They bore the signatures of Stewart G. Bedford. Because of his prominence, the police were reluctant to start getting rough until they’d made a complete check.

  “They got photographs of Bedford and took them out to Morrison Brems, the manager of The Staylonger Motel. Brems can’t be certain, but he thinks from the photographs the police had that Bedford was the man who registered with the blonde.

  “The police have—”

  “Have they made an arrest?” Mason interposed.

  “No.”

  “Brought him in for inquiry?”

  “Not yet. They’re going to his office to—”

  Mason said, “I’m on my way.”

  Mason tumbled into his clothes, ran a comb through his hair, dashed out of the apartment, took the elevator down, jumped into his car and made time out to Bedford’s office.

  He was too late.

  Sergeant Holcomb, a uniformed officer, and a plainclothes detective were in Bedford’s office when Mason arrived. A rather paunchy man with a gold-toothed smile stood patiently in the background.

  “Hello,” Mason said. “What’s all the trouble?”

  Sergeant Holcomb grinned at him. “You’re too late,” he said.

  “What’s the matter, Bedford?” Mason asked.

  “These people seem to think I’ve been out at some motel with a blonde. They’re asking me questions about blackmail and murder and—”

  “And we asked you nicely to let us take your fingerprints,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “and you refused to even give us the time of day. Now then, Mason, are you going to advise your client to give us his fingerprints or not?”

  “He doesn’t have to give you a damn thing,” Mason said. “If you want to get his fingerprints, arrest him and book him.”

  “We can do that too, you know.”

  “And run up against a suit for false arrest,” Mason said. “I don’t know anyone I’d rather recover damages from than you.”

  Sergeant Holcomb turned to the paunchy man. “Is this the guy?”

  “I could tell better if I saw him with his hat on.”

  Sergeant Holcomb walked over to the hat closet, returned with a hat, slapped it down on Bedford’s head. “Now take a look.”

  The man studied Bedford. “It looks like him.”

  Sergeant Holcomb said to the man in plain clothes, “Look the place over.”

  The man took a leather packet from his pocket, took out some various colored powders, a camel’s-hair brush and started brushing an ash tray which he had picked up.

  “You can’t do that,” Mason said.

  “Try and stop him,” Holcomb invited. “Just try and stop him. I don’t know anyone I’d rather hang one on than you. We’re collecting evidence. Try and stop us.”

  Holcomb turned to Bedford. “Now then, you got twenty thousand dollars in traveler’s checks. Why did you want them?”

  “Don’t answer,” Mason said, “until they can treat you with the dignity and respect due a man in your position. Don’t even give them the time of day.”

  “All those checks were cashed within a period of less than twelve hours,” Sergeant Holcomb went on. “What was the idea?”

  Bedford sat tight-lipped.

  “Perhaps,” Holcomb said, “you were paying blackmail to a ring that was pretty smart. They didn’t want you to be able to make a payoff with marked or numbered bills, so they worked out that method so they could cash the checks themselves.”