“Meaning that he knew you?”

  “He knew women, yes.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Aussie,” she said, “approached me with a proposition. He had some gems which he wanted to sell through a commission man. Aussie was a gem collector. Aussie explained it was like selling second-hand automobiles through classified ads. People sometimes hesitate to buy through a dealer, but if they think they can buy through a private party, they’ll show more interest, so auto dealers would arrange with people to stay home Sundays and exhibit second-hand automobiles as private cars and …”

  “I know,” Mason interrupted, “and Aussie’s proposition was that you were to pose as the owner of certain gems?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you to get out of it?”

  “A salary and bonus,” she said, “and I was to be put up in style in an apartment. I was to be a sophisticated, dashing divorcee, a woman of the world who was young, attractive, and had outgrown the conventions.”

  “Why the outgrown conventions?” Mason asked.

  “So it would give me a reasonable excuse for flashing gems and wanting to dispose of them. Aussie said that people liked to think they were getting stones which had been lavishly bestowed on a careless sweetie who didn’t fully realize their value, who found herself temporarily cast off and in need of keeping up appearances.”

  “Then Cullens really wanted you to be a front through which he could dispose of stones. Is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “But these old-fashioned stones hardly seemed to fit into that picture,” Mason told her, interestedly.

  “I think,” she said, “that was part of the build-up.”

  “And what did they look like?”

  She faced him then and said, “I don’t know. I never saw them. He told me he was taking them up to George Trent to be recut and put in modern settings.”

  “And you were to sell them after that?”

  “Mr. Trent, I believe, was to sell those. But I was to be in the background. If anyone made inquiries, I was to be the owner.”

  “So Trent could get a better price for them?” Mason asked. She nodded. “But,” Mason said, “you rang up Trent on Monday morning, told him that you had a purchaser, that you’d decided not to …”

  She said, “Aussie told me to do that.”

  “When?”

  “About half an hour before I telephoned. He came over and coached me carefully in what I was to say. Then he stood by my side while I did the actual telephoning.”

  “You asked for Mr. Trent?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “That he was out.”

  “Then what?”

  “I asked with whom I was talking. The man said that he was the foreman in charge of the shop.”

  “And you told him what you wanted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cullens knew at the time that Trent wasn’t there?”

  “Yes,” she said, “because he told me that I was to ask for Mr. Trent, that Trent was out on a drunk, that the shop would make excuses to stall me off; that I wasn’t to be stalled. I was to insist on a return of the stones.”

  Mason regarded the smoke which spiraled upward from the tip of his cigarette. “Now, wait a minute,” he said, “let’s get this straight. You’d never seen these stones you were supposed to own?”

  “No.”

  “Therefore,” Mason said, “when you saw those stones in the handbag at police headquarters, you couldn’t tell whether they were the ones you were supposed to have owned or not.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you said positively that they were not yours.”

  “I had to say something,” she said. “I certainly couldn’t say I didn’t know my own stones and I figured … well, I figured it was a trap.”

  “You didn’t know Cullens was dead at the time?” Mason asked.

  Her eyes drifted away from his, then flashed back, as though the wince had been involuntary, and she had willed herself to face him as soon as she realized she had avoided his gaze. “No,” she said, and then added after a moment, “of course not. How could I have known?”

  Mason said, “You could have stalled along on the gems some way.”

  “Perhaps I could,” she said, “but you put it up to me, cold turkey. I had to think fast and take the course which seemed best.”

  Mason got to his feet and walked over to the window. He stared moodily down into the street. A convertible with wire wheels drove up slowly. A tall young man got out. Mason shook his head, turned back to face the woman and said, “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I don’t care,” she said defiantly, “whether it makes sense or not.”

  “And then,” Mason told her, “when I told you that Cullens was dead—that he’d been murdered—you streaked out of police headquarters and burned up the roads getting out here.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I knew then that there’d be an inquiry, and I didn’t want to get caught in it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of Pete,” she said. “Can’t you see? I didn’t want Pete actually to catch me in an affair. That would have been fatal. On the other hand, I didn’t want him to think he could start chasing around and get away with it. If I’d gone out and been a drab little personality, virtuously plodding my way through some routine job which would have barely paid my keep, Pete would have come out and got me. He’d have been contrite on the surface, but he’d have had the smug feeling that I was his woman, that no one else wanted me, that I knew it, that if I left him again, it would be to go to work. He’d let me work a while, until I got good and lonely, and then come and pick me up. But, by going away and sailing on a cruise, I kept him guessing. I wanted to keep him guessing, but I certainly didn’t want any of that guessing to become a cold certainty.”

  “You thought an inquiry would make that a cold certainty?”

  She said, “I was living as Ione Bedford in an apartment which was paid for with Aussie’s money. Frankly, it was a straight business deal. But any explanation I could have made to Pete wouldn’t have held water.”

  “And so,” Mason said, “with your desire to avoid getting trapped in the inquiry, you decided to come dashing back here. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Mason hooked his thumbs through the armholes of his vest and started pacing the floor. She watched him with wide, alert eyes, paying no attention whatever to Paul Drake, who slumped down on the davenport, his elbow propped against the upholstery, his palm holding the side of his head. For several seconds, Mason paced back and forth in thoughtful silence. Then he said, “No, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “You coming here.”

  She laughed nervously and said, “But I came here. It has to make sense.”

  “No,” Mason said, “it doesn’t. With the motivation you’ve outlined, your natural move would have been to go to some hotel, register under an assumed name and then let Pete know where he could find you. The sole object you had in leaving Pete was to make him come to you. You’re too clever a woman, and too resourceful a woman, to have surrendered once you had victory practically within your grasp.”

  “Well,” she said shortly, “I’m here.”

  Mason turned and faced her. “The reason you’re here, Ione,” he said slowly and steadily, “is because, when I told you Austin Cullens had been murdered, the thought which first flashed through your mind was that Pete had found Austin Cullens was keeping you in an apartment; that with his hot-blooded Southern temper, his jealous disposition, and his ideas of protecting his home, he’d sought out Austin Cullens and …”

  “It’s a lie!” she screamed. “I tell you, it’s a lie!”

  The door from the corridor banged open. A tall young man, with black hair and cold, blue eyes, stood on the threshold and said, “What’s a lie?”

  “Pete!” she screamed.

  Drake got to his feet. She ran forward toward the man who was standing on the threshold. Drake’s arm reached out to circle her waist. She struggled with him like a wild cat. The man stepped forward two paces. Drake took one look at his eyes, and tried to free his arm from the girl’s waist to block the punch. He was too late. The blow hit him on the side of the chin and staggered him backwards. The arm of the davenport, catching on the back of his legs, sprawled him back at full length, his feet kicking in the air. The girl flung her arms around the man. He brushed her to one side and kicked the door shut. He marched past the davenport, ignoring the struggling form of the detective, and stood facing Mason. “All right,” he said with deadly calm, “now we’ll hear from you.”

  Mason, his thumbs still hooked in the armhole of his vest said calmly, “I think we’ll hear from you instead, Chennery.”

  The woman said, “That’s Perry Mason, the lawyer, Pete.”

  Chennery didn’t take his eyes from Mason’s. “What the hell’s he doing here?” he asked her over his shoulder.

  Drake, rolling from the davenport, got his feet under him and said to Chennery, “All right, let’s try that again.”

  Chennery didn’t even turn his head. He said to Mason, “Go ahead, start talking.”

  Mason looked past him to Drake and said, “You might frisk him, Paul, and see if, by any chance, he has a thirty-eight caliber revolver in his hip pocket.”

  “Pete! Don’t let them!” the woman said. “You don’t understand. They’re two jumps ahead of you. They’ve … they know things you don’t … they … they’re going to frame you to save …”

  Chennery said coolly, “Why the thirty-eight caliber revolver?”

  Mason said, “Austin Cullens was shot with a thirty-eight caliber revolver.”

  “Who the hell’s Austin Cullens?” Chennery asked.

  His wife turned to look at Perry Mason with pleading anguish in her eyes. Mason said, “He happens to have been a man who was killed with a thirty-eight caliber revolver.”

  “So you thought you could frame something on me?” Chennery asked.

  Mason chose his words carefully. “Detectives working on the case reported a car had been parked near Cullens’ residence at about the time of his death. The car was described as a red convertible with yellow wire wheels. The license number, as given by the witnesses, may be wrong, in one figure. If it is, it coincides with your license number, and the description of the man who was seen hanging around Cullens’ place coincides with your description.”

  “So you were here, trying to bully something out of my wife?” Chennery asked.

  “We asked her questions.”

  “And intimated I might have killed him?”

  “She seemed to think that was what we had in mind,” Mason said.

  Chennery grinned, a cold, mirthless grin. “All right,” he said, “go ahead, frisk me.” He elevated his arms so that they were horizontal, his hands outstretched, the thumbs held wide from the palms. Drake searched through the man’s pockets, patted him under the arms and said, “He’s clean, Perry.”

  Mason said, “Yes, he’d hardly have been so foolish as to carry the gun around with him. He probably left it at the scene of the murder.”

  Chennery said, “You boys can’t frame anything like that on me.”

  “You weren’t home last night,” Mason said, “all night.”

  Chennery turned to glower at his wife. Mason said, “Don’t blame it on her. She hasn’t spilled anything. We’ve had a detective watching the place ever since eleven o’clock last night.”

  “All right,” Chennery said, “I wasn’t home last night. So what does that add up to?”

  “I don’t know,” Mason told him. “I want to know where you were.”

  “You’re a lawyer?” Chennery asked. Mason nodded.

  “And this other man’s a detective,” his wife said.

  “Out of headquarters?” Chennery said, turning to Drake.

  Mason said, “No. A private detective in my employ.”

  Chennery walked over to the door, held it open and said, “Go ahead, roll your hoops, both of you.”

  His wife put a pleading hand on his arm. “Listen, Pete,” she said, “you can’t do that to these men. They’re …”

  He shook her off and said to Mason, “I said, go ahead and roll your hoops.”

  Mason, for a moment, might not have heard him. He turned, thumbs still hooked in the armholes of his vest, his eyes, narrowed in thought, staring moodily out of the window. Drake said belligerently, “You talk big.”

  “I’m talking big,” Chennery told him, “because I happen to have paid rent on this apartment. This is my home. You haven’t any search warrants. Get out!”

  “We might have a warrant of arrest,” Drake said.

  Chennery laughed. “A private detective,” he mocked, “with a warrant of arrest. Phooey!”

  Abruptly, Mason turned from the window. There was a twinkle about the corners of his eyes. “Come on, Paul,” he said, “Chennery has all the aces.”

  “You mean we’re leaving?” Drake asked. Mason nodded.

  Chennery stood holding open the door. Wordlessly, Mason and the detective filed past him into the corridor. The door slammed shut behind them. Drake said protestingly, “Hell, Perry, that guy can’t push us around. When it comes to a showdown, we’re closer to solving the murder of Austin Cullens right now than we’ll ever be again. …”

  Mason linked his arm through the detective’s and pulled him toward the elevator. “You forget, Paul,” he said, “that we don’t want to solve the murder.”

  “What the devil do you mean?” Drake asked.

  “If we solve the murder,” Mason went on smoothly, “Detective Sergeant Holcomb, of the homicide squad, wouldn’t get the credit of solving the murder. Therefore, Sergeant Holcomb would be inclined to reject our solution as being a frame-up to get Sarah Breel acquitted. If, on the other hand, Sergeant Holcomb should decide that Pete Chennery should be investigated, he’d naturally …”

  “My mistake,” Drake interrupted. “I’m sorry, Perry. The punch on my jaw probably kept me from thinking as fast as I otherwise would have.”

  “Does it hurt?” Mason asked.

  Drake half turned back toward the apartment. Mason could feel the detective’s muscle tense under his suit sleeve. “You’re damned right it hurts,” he growled.

  Mason continued to pull him toward the elevator. “You can get an aspirin at the drug store,” he told him. “And here’s something to bear in mind. We’ve let Chennery know he’s being shadowed. He won’t have much difficulty in spotting your detective out in front. His next move will be to take it on the lam and try ditching that detective. We tip that man off so the ditching won’t be too difficult. But, in the meantime, we have three under-cover detectives rushed out to begin where this chap leaves off. Do you get me?”

  “I get you,” Drake said. “It’ll be a pleasure to slip one over on that baby.”

  “Okay,” Mason told him. “You can telephone from the drug store and then get an aspirin.”

  “Then what?” Drake asked.

  “And then,” Mason said with a grin, “you get busy checking all important gem robberies during the last five years. If Ione Bedford can’t identify those diamonds, there’s a good chance someone else can. Of course, Paul, I wouldn’t want to tell you how to run your business, but you might find some reward money if you checked up on the activities of one Austin Cullens, deceased.”

  Drake slowly stroked his sore jaw. “For a detective,” he said at length, “I am dumb.”

  Chapter 10

  Virginia Trent sat up in bed and regarded Mason with heavy eyes. “Good morning, Mr. Mason,” she said thickly.

  “How do you feel?” Mason asked.

  She made tasting noises with her mouth and said, “I don’t know. The nurse just woke me up.”

  A nurse, standing by the side of the bed, said, “You were pretty much unstrung. The doctor gave you a sedative.”

  “I’ll say he did,” Virginia Trent said, rubbing her eyes. “I’ll bet I look a fright. Give me a mirror and a drink of water.”

  The nurse brought the water but not the mirror. Virginia Trent drank it petulantly, regarded the heavy flannel nightgown which came high up around her neck and said to the nurse, “That’s a nightgown I hardly ever wear? Where did you find it?”

  “It was in the bottom drawer on the right-hand side. I …”

  “Well, why didn’t you get the ones in the upper drawer on top?”

  “You’d had quite a shock,” the nurse said. “I was afraid you might get chilled. Your resistance was lowered. The sedative started taking effect in the taxicab.”

  Virginia Trent said, “I remember now—those officers. They’re a bunch of sadists. They love to torture the helpless.”

  “What did they do?” Mason asked.

  “Thundered questions at me and almost drove me crazy,” she said. “I guess I had hysterics again.”

  “You did,” the nurse told her.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Finally a doctor gave you a sedative, and I was detailed to take you home and see that you slept.”

  “You mean, to see that I didn’t try to escape,” Virginia Trent said. The nurse was tactfully silent. “Where’s my aunt?”

  “In the hospital. She had only a very light concussion, and slept most of the night. The doctor didn’t let the officers know she was conscious until this morning.”

  “How is she?”

  Mason said, “Don’t worry. She’s quite able to take care of herself.”

  “What was all this they told me about finding her bag with the gun which killed Austin Cullens?”

  Mason said, “They haven’t been able to establish that it’s her bag yet.”

  She yawned prodigiously. “You’re going to have to wait, Mr. Mason, while I wash my face in cold water and clean my teeth.”

  “All right,” Mason told her, “I’m sorry I had to disturb you, but we have work to do.”

  “About—about—Uncle George—what did they find out?”

  “Nothing, so far as I know,” Mason said. “If they found out anything, they’re keeping it secret.”