“And thereby left a perfect trail?” Mason asked sarcastically.

  “Don’t be silly,” Holcomb said. “The way those checks were cashed you couldn’t tie them in with Binney Denham in a hundred years. We’d never even have known about it if it hadn’t been for the murder.”

  The plain-clothes officer studied several latent fingerprints which he had examined with a magnifying glass. Abruptly he looked up at Sergeant Holcomb and nodded.

  “What have you got?” Holcomb asked.

  “A perfect little fingerprint. It matches with the little fingerprint on the—”

  “Don’t tell him,” Sergeant Holcomb interrupted. “That’s good enough for me. Get your things, Bedford. You’re in custody.”

  “On what charge?” Mason asked.

  “Suspicion of murder,” Holcomb said.

  Mason said, “You can make any investigation you want to, or you can make an arrest and charge him with murder, but you’re not going to hold him on suspicion.”

  “Maybe I won’t hold him,” Holcomb said, “but I’ll sure as hell take him in. Want to make a bet?’

  “Either charge him, or I’ll get a habeas corpus and get him out.”

  Holcomb’s grin was triumphant. “Go ahead, Counselor, get your habeas corpus. By the time you get it, I’ll have him booked and have his fingerprints. If you think you can get a suit for malicious arrest on the strength of the evidence we have now, you’re a bigger boob than I think you are.

  “Come on, Bedford. Do you want to pay for a taxi, or shall we call the wagon?”

  Bedford looked at Mason.

  “Pay for the taxi,” Mason said, “and make absolutely no statements except in the presence of your attorney.”

  “Fair enough!” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I don’t need more than an hour to make my case bulletproof, and if you can get a habeas corpus in that time, you’re a wonder!”

  Stewart G. Bedford drew himself up to his full height. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I desire to make a statement.”

  “Hold it!” Mason said. “You’re not making any statements yet.”

  Bedford looked at him with cold, resolute eyes. “Mason,” he said, “I have retained you to advise me as to my legal rights. No one has to advise me as to my moral rights.”

  “I tell you to hold it!” Mason said irritably.

  Sergeant Holcomb said hopefully to Bedford, “This is your office. If you want him out, just say the word and we’ll put him out.”

  “I don’t want him out,” Bedford said. “I simply want to state to you gentlemen that I did go to The Stay-longer Motel yesterday.”

  “Now, that’s better!” Sergeant Holcomb said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Go right ahead.”

  “Bedford,” Mason said, “you may think you’re doing the right thing, but—”

  Sergeant Holcomb said, “Throw him out, boys, if he tries to interrupt. Go ahead, Bedford; you’ve got this on your chest and you’ll feel better when you get rid of it.”

  “I was being blackmailed by this character Binney Denham,” Bedford said. “There is something in my past that I hoped never would come out Somehow Denham found out about it.”

  “What was it?” Holcomb asked.

  Mason tried to say something, then checked himself.

  “A hit-and-run,” Bedford said simply. “It was six years ago. I had a few drinks. It was a dark, rainy night. It really wasn’t my fault and I was perfectly sober. This elderly woman in dark clothes was crossing the street. I didn’t see her until I was right on her. I hit her a solid smash. I knew the minute I had hit her there was nothing anyone could do for her. It threw her to the pavement with terrific force.”

  “Where was this?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

  “Out on Figueroa Street, six years ago. The woman’s name was Sara Biggs. You can find out all about her in the accident records.

  “As I say, I’d had a few drinks, I know very well what I can do and I can’t do when I’m drinking. I never drive a car if I’m sufficiently under the influence of liquor to have it affect my driving in the slightest. This accident wasn’t due in any way to the few cocktails I’d had, but I knew that I did have liquor on my breath. There was nothing that could be done for the woman. The street was, at the moment, free of traffic. I just kept on going.

  “I made it a point to check up on the accident in the papers. The woman had been killed instantly. I tell you, gentlemen, it was her own fault. She was crossing the street on a dark, rainy night in between intersections. Heaven knows what she was trying to do! She was out there in the street and that’s all. As I learned afterwards, she was an elderly woman. She was dressed entirely in black. I didn’t know all of these things at the time. All I knew was that I had been drinking and had hit someone and that it had been her fault. However, I’d had enough liquor so I knew I’d be the goat if I’d stopped.”

  “Okay,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “So you beat it. You made a hit-and-run. This guy Denham found out about it. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He waited for some time before he put the bite on me,” Bedford said. “Then he showed up with a demand that I—”

  “When?” Holcomb interrupted.

  “Three days ago,” Bedford said.

  “You hadn’t know him before that?”

  “That was the first time in my life I ever met the slimy little rascal. He had this apologetic manner. He told me that he hated to do it, but he needed money and … well, he told me to get twenty thousand dollars in traveler’s checks, and that was all there’d be to it.

  “Then he told me he had to keep me out of circulation while the checks were being cashed. That was when he showed up yesterday morning. He had a blonde woman with him who gave the name of Geraldine Corning. She had a car parked in front of the building. I don’t know how they’d secured that parking space, but the car was right in front of the door. Miss Corning drove me around until we were certain we weren’t being followed; then she told me to pick out a good-looking motel and drive in.”

  “You picked out the motel or she did?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

  “I did.”

  “All right. What happened?”

  “We saw the sign of The Staylonger Motel. I suggested that we go in there. It was all right with her. I was already paying blackmail on one charge and I didn’t propose to have them catch me on some kind of frame-up with a woman. I told the manager, Mr. Brems—the gentleman standing over there who has just identified me—that I expected another couple to join us and therefore wanted a double unit. He said I could do better by waiting until the other couple showed up and letting them pay for the second unit. I told him I’d pay the entire price and take both units.”

  “Then what?”

  “I put Miss Corning in one unit. I stayed in the other. The door was open between the units. I tried to keep rigidly to myself, but it became too boring. We played cards. We had a drink. We went out for a drive. We stopped in a tavern. We had a very fine afternoon meal. We returned and had another drink. That drink was drugged. I went to sleep. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “Okay,” Sergeant Holcomb said, “you’re doing so good. Why not tell us about the gun?”

  “I will tell you about the gun,” Bedford said. “I had never been blackmailed in my life. It made me furious to think of doing business on that kind of a basis. I … I had a gun in my study. I took that gun and put it in my brief case.”

  “Go on,” Holcomb said.

  “I tell you the last drink I had was drugged.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Sometime in the afternoon.”

  “Three o’clock? Four o’clock?”

  “Probably four. I can’t give you the exact hour. It was still daylight.”

  “How do you know it was drugged?”

  “I could tell. I have never been able to sleep during the day. However, after I took this drink I couldn’t focus my eyes. I saw double. I tried to get up and couldn’t. I fell back on the bed and went to sleep.”

  “This blonde babe drugged the drink?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

  “I rather think that someone else had entered the motel during our absence and drugged the bottle from which the liquor was poured,” Bedford said. “Miss Corning seemed to feel the effects before I did. She was sitting in a chair and she went to sleep while I was still awake. In fact, as I remember it, she went to sleep right in the middle of a conversation.”

  “They sometimes put on an act like that,” Holcomb said. “It keeps the sucker from becoming suspicious. She dopes the drink, then pretends she’s sleepy first. It’s an old gag.”

  “Could be,” Bedford said. “I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “Okay,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “How did it happen you used this gun? I take it the guy showed up and—”

  “I didn’t use the gun,” Bedford said positively. “I had the gun in my brief case. When I awakened, which was sometime at night, the gun was gone.”

  “So what did you do?” Holcomb asked skeptically.

  “I became panic-stricken when I found the body of Binney Denham in that other unit in the motel. I took my brief case and my hat and went out through the back. I crawled through the barbed wire fence—”

  “You tore your clothes?” Holcomb asked.

  “I tore the knee of my pants, yes.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “I walked across the lot to the road.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then I managed to get a ride,” Bedford said. “I think, gentlemen, that covers the situation.”

  “He was killed with your gun?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.

  “How do I know?” Bedford said. “I have told you my story, gentlemen. I am not accustomed to having my word questioned. I am not going to submit myself to a lot of browbeating cross-questioning. I have told you the absolute truth.”

  “What did you do with the gun?” Sergeant Holcomb said. “Come on, Bedford, you’ve told us so much you might as well make a clean breast of it. After all, the guy was a blackmailer. He was putting the bite on you. There’s a lot to be said on your side. You knew that if you started paying you were going to have to keep on paying. You took the only way out, so you may as well tell us what you did with the gun.”

  “I have told you the truth,” Bedford said.

  “Nuts!” Sergeant Holcomb observed. “Don’t expect us to believe a cock-and-bull story like that. Why did you take the gun in the first place if you didn’t intend to use it?”

  “I tell you I don’t know. I presume I thought I might intimidate the man by telling him I had paid once, but that I wouldn’t pay again. I probably had a rather nebulous idea that if I showed him the gun and told him I’d kill him if he ever tried to shake me down again, it might help get me off the hook as far as future payments were concerned. Frankly, gentlemen, I don’t know. I never did make any really definite plan. I acted on impulse, some feeling of—”

  “Yeah, I know,” Sergeant Holcomb said. “I know all about it Come on through with the truth now. What did you do with the gun after the shooting? Tell us that and then you’ll have got it all off your chest.”

  Bedford shook his head. “I have told you all I know. Someone took my gun out of my brief case while I was sleeping.”

  Holcomb looked at the plain-clothes officer, said to Bedford, “Okay. We’ll go talk with the D.A. You pay for the cab.”

  Holcomb turned to Mason. “You and your habeas corpus,” he said. “This is one case that backfired on you. How do you like your client now, wise guy?”

  Mason said, “Don’t be silly. If Bedford had been going to shoot Denham, why didn’t he do it before he paid the twenty thousand and save himself that much money?”

  Sergeant Holcomb frowned for a moment, then said, “Because he didn’t have the opportunity before he paid. Anyhow, he’s smart. It would be worth twenty grand to him to give you that talking point in front of a jury.

  “It’s your question, Mason, and the D.A. will let you try to answer it yourself in front of the jury. I’ll be there listening.

  “Come on, Bedford. You’re going places where even Perry Mason can’t get you out. That statement of yours gives us all we need.

  “Call the cab. We leave Mason here.”

  14

  Mason, bone tired, entered the offices of the Drake Detective Agency.

  “Drake gone home?” he asked the girl at the switchboard.

  She shook her head and pointed to the gate leading to a long, narrow corridor. “He’s still in. I think he’s resting. He’s in room seven. There’s a couch in there.”

  “I’ll take a peek inside,” Mason said. “If he’s asleep I won’t disturb him. What’s cooking? Anything?”

  “He has a lot of operatives out and some reports are coming in, but nothing important. He’s trying to locate this blonde young woman you were so anxious to find. He’s left word to be called if we get anything on her.”

  “Thanks,” Mason said. “I’ll tiptoe down. If he’s sleeping I won’t disturb him.”

  Mason walked on down the corridor past a veritable rabbit warren of small-sized offices, gently opened the door of number seven.

  This was a small office with a table, two straight-backed chairs, and a couch. Paul Drake lay on his back on the couch, snoring gently.

  Mason stood for a moment in the doorway, regarding the sleeping figure, then eased out and closed the door.

  Just as the door latched shut, the phone on the table shrilled noisily. Mason hesitated a moment, then gently opened the door.

  Paul Drake came up to a sitting position on the couch. His eyes were still heavy with sleep as he groped for the telephone, got the receiver to his ear, said, “Hello … yes … What is it? …” He sleep-sodden eyes looked up, saw Mason, and the detective nodded drowsily.

  Mason saw Drake’s expression suddenly change. The man galvanized into wakefulness as though he had been hit in the face with a stream of cold water. “Wait a minute,” he said. “What’s that address? … Okay, what’s the name?… Okay … I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”

  Drake scribbled rapidly on a pad of paper, then said into the telephone, “Hold everything! Keep watch on the place. If she goes out, shadow her. I’ll be out there right away—fifteen or twenty minutes …. Okay, good-by.”

  Drake banged the telephone, said, “We’ve got her, Perry.”

  “Who?”

  “This Geraldine Corning babe.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Her name’s Grace Compton. I have the address here. You had a correct hunch on the initials on the baggage.”

  “How’d you locate her, Paul?”

  “I’ll tell you after we get started,” Drake said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Drake ran his fingers through his hair, grabbed a hat, started down the narrow corridor with Mason pounding along at his heels.

  “Your car or mine?” Mason asked in the elevator.

  “Makes no difference,” Drake told him.

  “We’ll take mine,” Mason said. “You do the talking while I’m driving.”

  Mason and the detective hurried across the parking lot, jumped into Mason’s car. Drake was talking by the time the car was in motion.

  “The location of the car rental agency gave us something to work on,” Drake said. “We started combing the classified ad directory for stores in the neighborhood handling baggage. I’ve had five operatives on the job covering every place they could think of. One of them struck pay dirt. A fellow remembered having sold baggage to a blonde who answered the description and putting the initials G.C. on it. The blonde paid with a check signed ‘Grace Compton,’ and the man remembered the bank. After that it was easy. She’s living in an apartment house, and apparently she’s in at the moment.”

  “That’s for us,” Mason said. “Good work, Paul.”

  “Of course, it could be a false lead. After all, we’re just working on a description and slender clues. There are lots of blonde babes who buy baggage.”

  “I know,” Mason said, “but I have a hunch this is it.”

  Drake said, “Turn to the left at the next corner, Perry.”

  Mason swung the car around the corner, then, at Drake’s direction, turned back to the right after three blocks.

  “Find a parking place in here some place,” Drake said.

  Mason eased the car into a vacant place at the curb. He and Drake got out and walked up to the front of a rather ostentatious apartment house.

  A man sitting in a parked car near the entrance to the apartment house struck a match, lit a cigarette. Drake said, “That’s my man. Want to talk with him?”

  “Do we need to?”

  “No. Striking the match and lighting the cigarette means that she’s still in there. That’s his signal to us.”

  Mason walked up to the directory, studied the names, and saw that Grace Compton had apartment two-thirty-one.

  “How about this door, Paul?” Mason asked, indicating the locked outer door. “Do we sound the buzzer in her apartment, or can you—?”

  “That’s easy,” Drake said, looking at the lock on the outer door. He took a key from his pocket, inserted it in the lock. The door swung open.

  “Let’s walk,” Mason said.

  The climbed the stairs to the second floor, walked back down the corridor and paused before the door bearing the number two-thirty-one.

  “It’s your show from here on,” Drake said. “Of course, your hunch may be right and it may be wrong. All we have is a description.”

  “We’ll take a chance,” Mason said.

  He pressed the bell button. A long, two shorts and a long.

  They heard the quick thud of steps on the inside, then the door swung open. A blonde in lounging pajamas said, “My God! You—” She stopped abruptly at the sight of the two men.

  “Miss Compton?” Mason asked.

  Her eyes instantly became cautious. “What is it?” she asked.

  “We just wanted to talk with you,” Mason said.

  “Who are you?”

  “This is Paul Drake, a detective.”