There was a moment’s silence at the other end of the line, then Boles said, “This is rather a delicate matter, Mr. Mason.”

  “All right, we’ll talk it over.”

  “Not in your office. I’m afraid,”

  “Why not?” Mason asked.

  “I don’t go to any man’s office with the sort of stuff we’re going to talk about.”

  “Why not?”

  “How do I know it isn’t bugged?”

  “By me?” Mason asked.

  “By anybody.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “Where do you want to talk?”

  “On neutral grounds,” Boles said laughingly, the good nature of his voice robbing the words of any offense. “Tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Mason. I’ll come up to your office. As soon as I come in, you leave with me. We’ll go downstairs. We’ll walk as long as you suggest. Then we’ll stop and take the first taxicab that comes by. We’ll talk in the taxi.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “Have it your own way.”

  He hung up the telephone, said to Della Street, “One of those things.”

  “He’s coming in?”

  “Coming in,” Mason said. “And wants to go out where we can talk in privacy.”

  “Chief, I’m afraid there’s a chance they’ll try to frame you if you don’t do what they want in this thing. These people, are big and they play for keeps.”

  “I’ve had the same thought.” Mason said, pacing the floor.

  “You learned something from that Ingle woman, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Let me think it over a while,” Mason said, and continued pacing the floor. Abruptly he stopped, said to Della Street, “I want to know everything there is to know about Jackson Eagan.”

  “But he’s dead.”

  “I know he’s dead. But I want to know everything about him. All we have is the information from his driver’s license and that telegram from Paul’s contact. I want to know what he looked like, where he lived, who his friends were, how it happened he died, where the body’s buried, who attended the funeral. I want to know everything.”

  “He died in Yucatan, Mexico,” Della said.

  Mason said, “I want Drake to find out who identified the body. I want to find out everything about the guy, and I want a copy of that driving license of Eagan’s. I want to check his thumbprint on the driver’s license with that of the dead man.”

  Della Street nodded, went over to the typewriter, typed out a list of the things Mason wanted. The lawyer continued to pace the floor.

  Della said, “I’ll take this down the corridor to Paul Drake personally.”

  “Have one of the girls take it down,” Mason said. “I want you waiting here. When Boles comes in I want you to go out and size him up before I have a talk with him.”

  “Okay, I’ll send one of the girls down right away,” Della Street went out to the outer office and was back in a moment, saying, “I sent Gertie down to Drake’s office. Your man, Boles, came in while I was out there in the outer office. I told him I’d tell you he was here.”

  “What does he look like?” Mason asked.

  “He’s rather tall, .. oh, perhaps an inch and a half or two inches under six feet. He’s very good-looking, one of those profile guys who holds his chin up high. He has black, wavy hair and very intense blue eyes. He’s well dressed and has an air of assurance. You can see he’s quite a diplomat.”

  “Yes,” Mason said, “a trouble shooter for the Balfour enterprises would have to be a smart cookie.

  “Let’s have a look at him, Della. Is he carrying a brief case?”

  She shook her head.

  “All right, tell him to come in.”

  Della Street went out and escorted Boles to the office. Boles came forward with a cordial smile, gripped Mason’s hand in a hearty handshake, said, “I’m sorry to make a damned nuisance out of myself, Counselor, but you know how it is. Having the sort of job I do makes things rather difficult at times. Shall we take a walk?”

  “Yes,” Mason said, “we’ll go out if you want, but I can assure you it’s all right to talk here.”

  “No, no, let’s take a walk.”

  “I see you’re not carrying a brief case.”

  Boles threw back his head and laughed. “You’re a smart guy, Mason. I wouldn’t pull anything as crude as that on you. I’ll admit I have used a concealed tape recorder in a brief case, but I wouldn’t try it with a man of your caliber. More over, when I play with men like you, I play fair. I wouldn’t want you to try to record my conversation and I’ll be damned if I’ll try to record yours.”

  “Fair enough,” Mason said. He turned to Della Street. “Della, I’ll be back about… hang that watch! What time is it, Boles?”

  Boles instantly shot out his hand, looked at his wrist watch, said, “Ten minutes to three.”

  “You’re way off,” Mason told him.

  “No, I’m not. It’s exactly ten minutes to three.”

  “Your watch says twelve-thirty,” Mason told him.

  Boles laughed. “You’re wrong.”

  “Let’s take a look,” Mason observed.

  “I tell you you’re wrong,” Boles said, suddenly losing his smile.

  Mason said, “I either take a look at your wrist watch, or we don’t talk.”

  “Oh, all right,” Boles said, unstrapping the wrist watch, pulling loose two wires and dropping it in his pocket. “I should have known better than to try it.”

  “Any other microphones?” Mason asked. “How about behind your necktie?”

  “Take a look,” Boles invited.

  Mason felt behind the necktie, patted the inside pocket of the coat, reached inside, pulled out the small, compact wire recorder, and said, “Let’s take the battery out of this and then I’ll feel better.”

  “We’ll do better than that,” Boles said. “You carry the thing in your pocket. I’ll keep the microphone that’s made to look like a wrist watch.”

  “All right,” Mason told him. “Let’s go.”

  They walked silently down the corridor to the elevator, rode down the elevator to the street.

  “Which way do you want to go?” Boles asked.

  “Suit yourself,” Mason told him.

  “No, you pick the direction.”

  “All right. We’ll go up this street here.”

  They walked up the street for a couple of blocks. Abruptly Mason stopped. “All right,” he said, “let’s catch the first cab that comes along.”

  They waited for two or three minutes, then found a cruising cab, climbed inside, and settled back against the cushions.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  “Straight down the street,” Mason told him, “then turn out of traffic some place. We’re closing this window to your compartment because we want to talk.”

  “Any particular destination?” the cabdriver asked.

  “No. Just drive around until we tell you to turn back.”

  “I’m going to keep out of the traffic jams then, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay by us,” Mason told him.

  The cabdriver pushed the sliding window into place, which shut off the back of the car.

  Mason turned to Boles. “All right,” he said, “let’s have it.”

  Boles said, “I’m the grease in the works of Balfour enterprises. That means I get in lots of tight spots.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Guthrie Balfour telephoned. He wanted me to fly down and join him in Chihuahua.”

  Again Mason nodded.

  “Now what I’m going to tell you,” Boles said, “has to be absolutely confidential. You can’t tell anyone anything about it.”

  “In talking to me,” Mason said, “you are talking to a lawyer who is representing a client. I’ll make no promises, bind myself to nothing.”

  “Remember this,” Boles said ominously. “You’re being paid by the Balfour enterprises.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference who pays me,” Mason said. “I’m representing a client.”

  Boles regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.

  “Does that change the situation?” Mason asked.

  “I’m going to tell you certain things,” Boles said. “If you’re smart, you’ll play the game my way. If you try to play it any other way, you may get hurt.”

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

  Boles said, “You’re not to let Mrs. Guthrie Balfour know anything about this conversation.”

  “She isn’t my client,” Mason said, “but I make no promises.”

  “All right,” Boles said, “here we go. You want to get some dope on Jackson Eagan, don’t you?”

  “I’m trying to, yes.”

  “Here you are,” Boles said, reaching in his pocket. “Here’s Jackson Eagan’s driving license. Here’s the carbon copy of the contract that he had with the drive-yourself car agency that rented him the automobile. Here’s the receipt for the unit at the Sleepy Hollow Motel. Here’s a wallet with some identification cards, some club cards and around two hundred and seventy-five dollars in currency. Here’s a key ring containing a bunch of keys. Here’s a very valuable wrist watch with a broken crystal. The watch isn’t running. It is stopped at one thirty-two.”

  Boles took the collection from his pocket, handed it across to Mason.

  “What about these?” Mason asked.

  “Put them in your pocket,” Boles said.

  Mason hesitated a moment, then dropped the assortment into his pocket. “Where did they come from?” he asked.

  “Where do you think?” Boles asked.

  Mason flashed a quick glance at the cabdriver, saw the driver was paying no attention to anything except the traffic ahead, then turned to Boles. “I’m listening.”

  “Balfour Allied Associates is a big corporation,” Boles said. “The stock, however, is held entirely by members of the family. On the other hand, the members of the family have virtually no property except that stock. It’s the policy of the Balfour empire to throw everything into the corporation. The members of the family draw substantial salaries. In addition to that, all of their traveling expenses, a good part of their living expenses, and many incidentals are furnished by the company under one excuse or the other, such as entertainment of customers, office rental for homework on Saturdays and Sundays and that sort of stuff.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason said.

  “You’re a lawyer,” Boles went on. “You can see what a set up of that kind means. If anything happened and an outsider got a judgment of any sort against one of the Balfours, an execution would be levied on the stock of the individual Balfour. In that way, unless the company made a settlement, there would be a stockholder who was an outsider. No one wants that.”

  “To whom are you referring?” Mason asked.

  “Dorla Balfour,” Boles said shortly.

  “What about her?”

  “Addison Balfour is the business brains of the company,” Boles said. “Guthrie doesn’t do very much in connection with the property management. Theodore, who was Ted Balfour’s father, was pretty much of a right-hand man for Addison, but Guthrie is a total loss as far as the business is concerned.

  “Naturally, when Guthrie remarried and picked up a girl like Dorla, Addison regarded the entire transaction with considerable consternation. He attended the wedding, offered his congratulations, kissed the bride, then very quietly started building up a slush fund in the form of cash which he could use to make a property settlement with Dorla when the time came.”

  “Go on,” Mason said.

  “However,” Boles said, “Dorla couldn’t even wait to play the game cleverly. She started playing around. I won’t go into details. Naturally, Addison, while he had hardly dared hope for this, was prepared for it. He told me to keep an eye on her.

  “I was ready to get the goods on her which would have taken Guthrie off the hook, when Guthrie somehow or other became suspicious and like a damn tool tried to pick up his own evidence.

  “If he’d only come to me, I could have shown him photostats of motel registers where she and this Jackson Eagan had registered together dozens of times.

  “However, Guthrie wanted to get the evidence his own way. He was going to be smart—the damn fool!

  “Guthrie started out on this trip to Mexico. He told Dorla he wanted her to ride on the train as far as the Pasadena-Alhambra station. That was so she’d know that he was on the train and would get careless.”

  “It worked?” Mason asked, his voice carefully masked.

  “Admirably. She got off one side of the train; Guthrie opened a vestibule door on the other side of the train, dropped off on the blind side, waited until the train had pulled out, walked over to the car that he had rented, and followed Dorla.

  “Dorla was in a hurry. She couldn’t wait to get to the Sleepy Hollow Motel, where this steady boy friend, Jackson Eagan, was registered. She went in with him, there was an ardent reunion, and then after a while Dorla came out. She went home to get some things.

  “Guthrie had come prepared for all eventualities. But as it happened, fate played into his hands. The motel unit next to the one occupied by Jackson was empty. Guthrie had a tape recorder with a very sensitive microphone that fastens up against the wall. He put the mike up against the wall and settled back to listen.

  “That microphone picked up sounds which were inaudible to the ear, but he could plug a pair of earphones in and listen as the tape went over a secondary head, which enabled him to listen to everything that was on the tape.”

  Mason nodded again.

  “He listened to plenty,” Boles said. “Then Dorla left in Jackson Eagan’s car to get her suitcase.

  “Well, that’s when Guthrie Balfour did the most foolish thing of all.

  “He had all the evidence he needed on the tape recorder. But, like a bungling amateur, he thought he could confront Jackson Eagan, take the part of the outraged husband, and get Eagan to sign some sort of a confession.

  “So Guthrie opened the door and went into the dimly lit motel. Eagan aimed a flashlight at his face, recognized him and they started fighting. Guthrie had the. 22 automatic he had taken from the glove compartment of Ted’s car. There was a struggle. The gun went off and Eagan fell to the floor with a bullet in his head.

  “Guthrie got in a panic. He dashed out of the place and ran to the telephone booth that was in front of the office. He called the trouble number. That’s where I came in.

  “That telephone has right of way over anything. I answered the phone. Guthrie told me he was at the Sleepy Hollow Motel, that he’d had trouble and that it was very serious.

  “I told him to wait and I’d get out there right away. Guthrie was scared stiff. He could hardly talk on the phone. He seemed to be in pretty much of a daze.

  “I got out there in nothing flat. Guthrie was seated in his rented car and was shaking like a leaf. I finally got out of him what had happened.”

  “So what did you do?” Mason asked.

  “I did the only thing there was to do,” Boles said. “Guthrie was supposed to be on a train to El Paso, en route to Chihuahua. Nobody knew he’d gotten off that train. I told him to take the company plane, fly to Phoenix, and get aboard the train. I told him that I’d arrange to come down later on and pick up the plane. I told him I’d take care of everything and not to bother.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “Started off to get the plane, just as I told him.”

  “He could fly it himself?”

  “Sure, he could fly it himself. He had a key to the hangar. He takes off from a private landing field at the suburban factory. There was absolutely nothing to stand in his way. It was a cinch.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What do you think I did?” Boles said. “I took the body out. I tied it on my car and dragged the face off it. I banged it around so the head was smashed up like an eggshell, took it out and dumped it on the highway, so it would look like a hit and run. Fortunately, the gun was a small-caliber gun, there hadn’t been any hemorrhage, and what bleeding had taken place had been on the rug in the motel unit. I took that rug, put it in the car, and subsequently burned it up. I took the rug out of the unit Balfour had been occupying and put it in the unit Eagan had occupied.

  “Before I’d got very far with what I was doing, Dorla came back.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I did what any good trouble shooter should have done under the circumstances,” Boles said. “I told her that I’d been the one who was shadowing her, that I knew all about what she was doing, that I had the dope on her, that I had a tape recording that showed her guilty of infidelity. I told her that I had a written statement from Jackson Eagan, but that after I got the written statement out of him he jumped me and I had to shoot him in self-defense.

  “I told Dorla to help me plant the body and make it look like a hit and run and then that she was to take the first plane to Tucson, and get aboard the train Guthrie was on. She was to tell Guthrie she was in a jam, that she’d been driving while intoxicated and had hit a man with the family car, that it was up to him to protect her, that he was to swear he’d talked her into staying on the train with him, and that she’d been on the train all the time. He was to take her down to Mexico with him and he was to give her an alibi.

  “In that way, I had Dorla mixed into the thing up to her pretty little eyebrows. I had her really believing that Guthrie had been on the train all the time and that I was the only one who knew anything about what had been going on.”

  “Then she helped you get the car Ted had been driving?” Mason asked.

  “Sure. We planted the guy in the right place and then I had Dorla wait until after Ted came home with the car. Fortunately he was pretty pie-eyed. Marilyn Keith took him upstairs and, I guess, put him to bed. Then she came down, and I’ll sure hand it to that kid! She was plucky. She didn’t even leave a back trail by calling for a taxicab. She walked out to State Highway and took a chance on hitchhiking a ride home. For an attractive girl like that, that was quite some chance. That’s a lot of devotion to her job. I’m going to see that that girl gets a real raise in pay as soon as this thing is over.”