Mason said, “I’m sure a man’s in there and the description fits that of Scott Shelby.”

  Tragg said, “That isn’t what you told me over the telephone.”

  Mason said, “How much do you want for ten cents?”

  “Ordinarily, about two bits’ worth,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “and when I’m dealing with you, I want a dollar’s worth.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  Tragg glanced at the bedroom. “I hate to go busting in there if …”

  Mason said, “There’s only one way to handle a deal like this when it gets to this point,” and got to his feet, strode across the living room to the bedroom door.

  Mason put his hand on the doorknob, gently turned it, placed himself in the position to ease his weight against the door, then pushing open the door, said, as the door was opening, “On second thought, Miss Cushing, I don’t think that …”

  She had been standing just in front of the door. She suddenly whirled. “Just a moment, Mr. Mason!”

  The lawyer pushed against the bedroom door.

  Ellen Cushing shoved up against Mason, pushing papers at him. “Here are the papers,” she said. “Here they are, let’s go over to our chairs and look at them.”

  Mason tried to look past her into the bedroom but the door only opened just enough to let Ellen Cushing out. When Mason pushed a little harder against it, the door was pushed back from the other side.

  Mason returned to the others. Ellen Cushing held out a signed document.

  “Will one of you take this please?”

  Mason made a gesture toward Lieutenant Tragg. “You take it, Tragg.”

  Tragg took the papers and inspected them thoughtfully. “This is Mr. Shelby’s signature?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You saw him sign it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Around … Oh, I guess a week ago. Whatever the date is on there.”

  “This date is right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re certain these weren’t signed later? They were signed on this date?”

  “Yes, of course, why?”

  Tragg said, “Oh, it might make some difference—legally.”

  She said hurriedly, “Well, that’s all there is to it. I have an appointment with my beauty shop. If you have any offer to make, I’ll be glad to receive it, or if you want to take time to think it over, now that you’ve seen the papers, you can think things over. But I’ve got to get out of here right now.”

  Mason glanced significantly at Tragg.

  Tragg said, “Well, all right, we won’t detain you. I think these papers are in order, Mr. Mason. You want to look at them?”

  Mason glanced through the papers, saw that they were an assignment of the lease and a declaration of trust, rather amateurishly drawn, but still covering the ground.

  Mason nodded, said, “When will you be back home, Miss Cushing?”

  “Oh, I should be home along the first part of the afternoon.”

  “I’ll give you a ring.”

  “All right.”

  They got up, moved over to the door. She held the door open for them and gave them her most magnetic smile.

  Mason followed Tragg and Drake down the corridor. In the elevator Mason said indignantly, “Why didn’t you back my play, Lieutenant? What are you waiting for?”

  “So far,” Tragg said, “there hasn’t been any evidence except your statements and deduction, Mason.”

  Mason said, “There was someone in that bedroom. Someone who was on the other side of the door, keeping it from being opened.”

  “Ellen Cushing had her hand on the doorknob pulling it shut,” Tragg said.

  “Exactly, but she didn’t have enough strength in her arm to account for the pressure on that door. There was someone on the other side of it, I tell you.”

  “Well, suppose there was … Hang it, Mason, I’m beginning to get cold feet on this thing … I have an idea that I’ll take a look at her car but that’s just about as far as I’m going unless some more evidence turns up.”

  “Have it your own way,” Mason said angrily.

  “I intend to,” Tragg assured him dryly.

  “Well,” Drake said, “when she goes to the garage to get her car out, you can walk over and ask her some other question.”

  “Or stop her on the street when she drives out,” Tragg said.

  “It would be better to get her in the garage,” Mason observed. “There might be something in the garage, some evidence.”

  “Yes, I suppose so but I’m not going to do any searching without a search warrant.”

  “You’re a helluva lot more considerate of some people than you are of my clients.”

  Tragg grinned and said, “I usually have more against your clients than I do against this baby.”

  “All right, play it your own way,” Mason told him. “As far as I’m concerned, go ahead with your murder story if you want to. You make the afternoon editions, and I’ll make a monkey out of you on the front page of the morning papers.”

  The elevator came to a stop. Tragg slid back the door, said, “And that also is something I’m afraid of, Mason.”

  In silence they walked out to the front of the apartment house. Then Tragg abruptly turned, walked up the driveway and stationed himself out of sight just around the corner of the apartment house. Mason and Drake followed, stood by his side.

  They had been there some two minutes when they heard the rapid click, click of a woman’s heels and Ellen Cushing walked past them to the garage, moving so fast she was almost running. And, so intent was she on what she was doing, she didn’t even notice them. Mason waited until she had opened the garage doors. Then he nudged Tragg and said, “Come on, Lieutenant.”

  Mason moved up. “Miss Cushing, would you consider four thousand dollars? Not as an offer but just asking you the question. Would you consider it?”

  She paused and looked at them. Now her manner seemed much less embarrassed. “Why yes,” she said, “I think I would. I’d prefer to have it made as an offer.”

  Mason, smiling said, “Well, you’re in a hurry. Suppose you let Mr. Tragg ride with you as far as your beauty shop and you can talk in the car.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  She walked around and opened the door on the driver’s side. Tragg walked around the other side.

  Mason opened the rear door, said, “In here, Tragg, I’ll get in with you.”

  Tragg pushed in the back of the car. Mason picked up Tragg’s hand, placed it on the damp spot in the seat.

  Tragg pushed down on the damp cushions and as he felt that bit of moisture, suddenly changed in his manner. He pushed open the door on the other side of the car, got out and said, “Nice little garage you have here, Miss Cushing.”

  She started the motor. “I find it very comfortable.”

  “You don’t have many tools around.”

  “No.”

  “What’s that over in the corner?” Mason asked.

  She followed the direction of his eyes, said, “I don’t know … Oh, it’s a blanket.”

  Mason said, “So it is,” and got out of the car.

  Abruptly Ellen Cushing opened her own door, demanded, “Say, what is this?”

  Without a word, Tragg walked over to the corner and picked up the wet blanket. Then he peered down in a corner, then once more felt the blanket. He put the blanket down, stooped and retrieved the wet shoes.

  “Okay,” he said, reaching a sudden decision. “Come on back up to the apartment with me. I want to ask you some questions.”

  “You and who else?” Ellen Cushing demanded angrily.

  Tragg pulled back his coat to show her the star. “Me and the whole metropolitan police force, if you want to put it that way,” he said.

  Chapter 15

  Ellen Cushing opened the door of her apartment and stood holding the door as Lieutenant Tragg, Mason and Paul Drake entered the room. Then she closed the door and said, “Sit down.”

  “Mind if we look around first?” Lieutenant Tragg asked.

  “Are you making a search of my apartment?”

  “I’d just like to look around. That is, if you have no objection.”

  “I certainly have objections.”

  “Of course,” Tragg said, “if you want to get tough about it, I can get a warrant.”

  “Go ahead and get a warrant then.”

  “That isn’t going to buy you anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” Tragg said, patiently, “you have certain things to explain, Miss Cushing. It’s going to be a lot better for you if you make an explanation.”

  “What things do I have to explain?”

  Tragg said, “Let’s look at it this way. You were friendly with Scott Shelby. Last night Scott Shelby is yachting and goes overboard. The presumption is that he’s drowned. There is some probability that he was murdered but the body hasn’t been recovered. The water in the river wasn’t too deep and the searchers last night and also this morning haven’t been able to find any trace of the body.”

  “Isn’t there a current in the river?”

  “We’re making allowances for that.”

  “So what?” she asked.

  “So,” Tragg went on rather patiently, “we find that you are in a position to step into the negotiations which Shelby was carrying on for making a settlement of an oil lease. We find that in your garage there’s a blanket that’s soaking wet. There are a pair of soaking wet men’s shoes, and it’s quite apparent that some wet object has been on the seat of your automobile.”

  “What if it has?”

  “It makes no difference at all,” Tragg said, “if it weren’t for the fact that that wet object just might have been Scott Shelby.”

  “That’s absurd!”

  “And,” Tragg went on, “apparently you have a man in your bedroom.”

  “How dare you say such a thing!”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you willing to let me look in the bedroom?”

  “I … I see no reason why you should.”

  They had arrived at a conversational impasse. Tragg glanced to Mason for reinforcements.

  “Perhaps,” Mason said suavely, “Miss Cushing would like to explain how that blanket got wet and what it was she was carrying in her automobile that was wet.”

  She looked at him angrily and spat words at him. “Miss Cushing has nothing to say. Apparently, Mr. Mason, I owe this predicament entirely to you!”

  “All right,” Mason said, “if you want to be that way about it. Let’s be more specific.”

  “I wish you would.”

  Mason said, “Well to begin with, you have a man in your bedroom. He’s around five feet eight, about a hundred and fifty-five and has dark hair and dark eyes. That’s Scott Shelby’s description.”

  She looked at Mason strangely. “In my bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly she threw back her head and emitted peals of laughter, a nervous, almost hysterical laughter.

  When she had ceased laughing, Mason said patiently, “There’s a man in your bedroom, Miss Cushing?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “Mind if I look?”

  “Certainly I mind.”

  “May Lieutenant Tragg take a look?”

  She was thoughtful now, her knees crossed, her free foot kicking nervously. She hesitated for several seconds, then said, “No, I don’t want him to look.”

  Lieutenant Tragg said smoothly, “Well now, as I understand it, Miss Cushing, you’re absolutely certain that there isn’t any man in your bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well now, that complicates the situation,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “because witnesses have seen a man standing at the window of your bedroom and if you’re certain there’s no one in there, then the man must be a prowler, and as an officer of the law it is my duty to arrest any burglar who has made an unlawful entry of the premises.”

  “Who saw him in my bedroom? Who has been spying on me?”

  “You have been under surveillance for some time,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “Now, I want to know whether there is some man in your bedroom. Whether you have some guest in there. Someone who is authorized to be there. If you have, then of course I won’t search the bedroom without a warrant, but if you tell me that there is no one in there, no person who is authorized to be there and that therefore anyone who is in there would be unlawfully present, it becomes my duty to put that man under arrest.”

  She looked from Mason to Lieutenant Tragg, carefully following every move they made, every expression on their faces.

  “Suppose I should tell you that … that I had a guest?”

  “Under those circumstances, of course, we wouldn’t enter the bedroom without a warrant.”

  “Well, I … What would you do?”

  “Under those circumstances,” Tragg said smoothly, “we’d put a guard right here in the corridor to see that the man didn’t leave this apartment and then we’d get a search warrant and search the entire place. We would also take you into custody for questioning.”

  She lowered her eyes, studied the carpet for some five seconds and suddenly raised her eyes and said, “All right, I’ll tell the truth.”

  “I think it would be better.”

  “There’s a man in my apartment.”

  “Scott Shelby?” Tragg asked.

  She hesitated for a thoughtful second, then said, “No, and he isn’t in the bedroom. He’s in the kitchen.”

  Tragg exclaimed, “The deuce he is!”

  Mason smiled. “He may be in the kitchen now. He was in the bedroom when we were here before.”

  She flared angrily, “Mr. Mason, I wish you’d mind your own business. That’s a lie! He was in the kitchen all the time. He was cooking breakfast, and now he’s washing the dishes … Come out, Art.”

  The swinging door of the kitchen opened. A sheepish looking man, five feet eight inches tall, dark hair and eyes, his weight around a hundred and fifty-five pounds, grinned at them in embarrassed greeting.

  Ellen Cushing said, “This is Art Lacey. He’s the man to whom I’m going to be married. We’re getting married just as soon as we can get the necessary red tape unwound. This morning, after I’d got back from the beauty parlor we were going to go to the clerk’s office and get whatever it is we have to have to be married. He came in and cooked breakfast and washed the dishes so I wouldn’t have to bother with doing that. In that way we saved time, or would have if you hadn’t shown up.”

  The man nodded a greeting, said, “How are yuh, folks?” and sat down.

  Mason said, “Suppose you try again, Miss Cushing.”

  Tragg nodded. “I think you’d better, Miss Cushing. This man was seen at your bedroom window.”

  “He wasn’t. He couldn’t have been. He was at the kitchen window after I let him in.”

  Mason merely smiled.

  Drake asked abruptly, “What window did you go to and close when you first got up, Miss Cushing?”

  “The kitchen window. Arthur knocked at the door and I let him in. He was going to cook breakfast and I went right to the kitchen with him, and closed the window and told him to make himself at home. Then I went back to dress. I had a robe on when I closed the window.”

  Drake gave Mason a lugubrious glance.

  Mason said, “That won’t go, Miss Cushing. This man was in your bedroom when we were here a few minutes ago.”

  “How do you know he was?”

  “Because he was pushing the door closed when I went to the bedroom door, where you were reluctantly getting those papers.”

  Ellen Cushing once more raised her voice. “I guess you’ve got to come out, Mother.”

  The bedroom door promptly pushed open. A dour-faced woman with stringy white hair hanging haphazardly over her ears, a voluminous bathrobe wrapped about her, came out and said, “Land sakes, I’d say it was about time! What’s the matter with you people, anyway? I never heard such goings on in my life.”

  “Gentlemen, my mother,” Ellen Cushing said, simply.

  Tragg’s jaw dropped. “You been in there all the time?”

  “All the time. I spent the night there. Ellen and I slept together. I don’t know what’s the idea of all this, but I think you people owe my daughter an apology. She’s a good girl.”

  Ellen Cushing said, “My mother came to visit me last evening. I met her at the eight o’clock train. She’s been with me ever since. She likes to sleep late, and she hasn’t been a bit well. That’s why Art agreed to come in and cook the breakfast. He got things ready, brought Mother her breakfast in bed, and Art and I ate in the kitchen.”

  Mason asked the older woman, “Could you hear what we said in the bedroom, Mrs. Cushing?”

  “Almost every word,” she said, then added, “I was at the door listening when this man pushed against the door, he almost pushed me over … Land sakes! I forgot my teeth!”

  She jumped up from the chair, scurried into the bedroom and emerged a few moments later with her false teeth in place. Her face now looked more full, more square jawed in its belligerency.

  “How about you?” Tragg asked Arthur Lacey. “Could you hear what we said while you were in the kitchen?”

  Lacey, apparently somewhat inarticulate in his embarrassment, nodded, “Some things. I quit work … didn’t want to be caught washing dishes.”

  Mason said, angrily, “Well, this runaround was handled fast and cleverly, but it won’t work.”

  “Why won’t it work?” Ellen Cushing spat at him.

  “Because your apartment house has been watched since before daylight this morning. This gentleman didn’t come to the door. No one rang your bell.”

  “Oh, is that so? Well it happens that Art Lacey lives right here in the same apartment house … Oh, you never thought of that, did you? Elementary, my dear Watson. If you’d try minding your own business for a while …”

  “That will do,” Tragg interrupted. “I’m investigating a crime, Miss Cushing. I want to know how those wet shoes and the wet blanket happened to be in your garage.”

  Ellen Cushing’s mother said, “Well, I can tell you one thing, Ellen didn’t go no place last night except with me. And you don’t need to take my word for that, either, young man. We went visiting right after we’d had dinner, maybe about nine o’clock. Went over to see my old neighbor, Mrs. Turlock, who lives right next door, and we were there until midnight. Then we came home and went to bed … Only thing I can’t understand, Ellen, is why you didn’t tell me you and this young man were getting married. You never said a word to me.”