“Is there any way of counteracting that?” she asked. “Is there anything we can do? Any way we can find Uncle Horace?”

  “I really don’t know,” Mason said, “but we have two alternatives to consider.”

  “What are those?”

  “One,” Mason said, “is that your Uncle Horace left here with Borden Finchley. But somehow I don’t subscribe to that theory.”

  “What’s the other alternative?”

  “That he left here under his own power and of his own volition.”

  “But why would he leave here?” she asked.

  Mason looked her straight in the eyes. “Because he had killed Ralph Exeter.”

  “Why, Uncle Horace wouldn’t …” Her voice trailed off into silence.

  “Exactly,” Mason said. “You don’t know all the details about how your Uncle Horace has been treated. You don’t know his mental condition. You gave him sleeping pills. Suppose Exeter had the adjoining room then, after you had left the motel, Exeter walked into Horace Shelby’s room and started making demands on him.

  “Remember that Exeter wasn’t really Borden Finchley’s friend. He was only interested in getting money, and the money had to come from Horace Shelby.

  “So suppose Exeter demanded a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars from Horace Shelby as the price of his cooperation. Suppose Exeter said he hadn’t had anything to eat and started to help himself to the rest of the food in the containers.

  “Horace wanted to get rid of the man. He simply dumped the sleeping medicine into the Chinese food. He could have mashed the pills up into a powder while Exeter was talking.

  “Perhaps his original intention was to drug Exeter into insensibility and then escape. But after he saw Exeter lying there helpless, he may have decided to make a permanent job of it.”

  She shook her head. “Not Uncle Horace. He wouldn’t do anything like that. He wouldn’t kill a fly.”

  “Then,” Mason said, “unless we can involve Borden Finchley, there’s only one other suspect.”

  “Who?”

  “You,” Mason said.

  “Me?”

  Mason nodded.

  She shook her head and said, “This is what Uncle Borden would have done, but not what I would have done and not what Uncle Horace would have done.”

  “We’ll also investigate your Uncle Borden,” Mason said.

  “When?” she asked.

  “Now,” Mason said and, putting his car into gear, drove out of the motel parking lot.

  “What am I to do?” Daphne asked.

  “You,” Mason said, “are going to go back to your hotel and stay there. If you cut any more capers or have any more unauthorized absences, you’re going to find yourself charged with murder.”

  “Ralph Exeter?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why in the world should I have murdered him?”

  “I can think of half a dozen reasons,” Mason said. “One of them is that he is the moving force against your Uncle Horace. He was the one who was putting on the pressure. And if I can think of one good motive, the police can think of a dozen.

  “You aren’t out of the woods yet, young lady. You’re suspect right now. There are those who think that underneath that shell of cherubic innocence you’re a shrewd, scheming individual trying to look out for your own future at all costs.”

  She said, “I’ve been perfectly frank with you, Mr. Mason.”

  “Yes, I know,” the lawyer said. “You’ve told me all the things you wanted me to know. You’ve put all the cards on the table that you wanted me to see. But I’d feel a lot better about you, Daphne, if you hadn’t sneaked out of that hotel, shown such ingenuity in going to that sanitarium and getting a job, then spiriting your uncle out of there.

  “I don’t know whether you’re doing it for you or doing it for him, but you certainly aren’t being very considerate of me.

  “I stuck my neck out getting some money for you, and I’m entitled to your cooperation.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “And don’t think I don’t appreciate all you’ve done.”

  “If you gave that money back to your uncle,” Mason said, “it’s one of the good things to be put on the credit side of the ledger as far as you’re concerned. But don’t kid yourself, before the night is over the police are going to be hot on your trail.

  “If they call on you, I want you to insist that you telephone me. I’ll give you a night number where I can be reached. Don’t answer any questions, under any circumstances, until I get there.

  “And, in the meantime, don’t question anything that I do.”

  “Why should I question anything that you do?” she asked.

  “Because,” Mason told her, “if I have the chance, I’m going to use your Uncle Horace as a red herring.”

  “What do you mean “a red herring”?”

  Mason said, “I’m going to let the police get the idea that your Uncle Horace murdered Ralph Exeter, and that he was medically if not legally insane at the time he did it. ”

  Chapter 13

  It was well after ten o’clock that evening when Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door of Mason’s office. Della Street opened the door.

  A bedraggled Paul Drake, his face oily with weariness, came in, slumped into a chair, said, “I tried to make it sooner. I knew you people wanted to go home, but it’s been one hell of a job.”

  “What did you find out?” Mason asked.

  “Something that the police have been suppressing,” Drake said. “I found out how they really knew about the barbiturates.”

  “How come?”

  Drake said, “In the bathroom in the apartment where they found the man lying dead—Unit 21 of the motel—they found a tumbler, one of those heavy glass tumblers that go with motel rooms, you know the kind they wrap up in a wax paper package with an antiseptic label.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Inside the tumbler was the glass tube of a toothbrush case and a little white powder,” Drake said “Lieutenant Tragg treated the glass for fingerprints.”

  “Did he get any?”

  “He got some prints. Probably those of Horace Shelby, but they don’t know for sure.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason said.

  “Someone had used the glass tube of the toothbrush case to grind up some sleeping pills, using the tumbler as an impromptu mortar, and the toothbrush case as an improvised pestle.”

  “How do they know about the toothbrush case having been used as a pestle?”

  “Some of the powder had been ground into the rounded end of the glass case hard enough so it stuck there.”

  “Tragg’s a thorough cuss,” Mason said.

  Drake nodded.

  “What was the powder?” Mason asked.

  “It’s a barbiturate preparation called Somniferone. It’s a combination preparation that is very quick in its action and is combined with another barbiturate derivative which is more lasting. The result is a combination which takes effect quickly and lasts a long time.”

  “How’“d they get it identified?” Mason asked.

  “One of these X-ray analytical machines. Tragg got fingerprints from the glass and then rushed the whole thing up to the police laboratory.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “I can see you’re leading up to something. Hand it to me.”

  “Somniferone,” Drake said, “is the barbiturate that was prescribed for Horace Shelby by the doctor who was called in by Borden Finchley after they moved in. He is the same doctor who prescribed the sedative for Daphne to take with her on her long ocean voyage and just before she left they filled the prescription for her. She had a whole three months” supply of Somniferone.”

  “Go on,” Mason said.

  “The police don’t know it yet, but they’re investigating,” Drake said. “They’re getting on the right track.”

  “What’s the right track?”

  “Your client,” Drake said. “That girl certainly can put on an act. She poses as little Miss Sweetness, little Miss Innocence, but she’s a deep one.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She went to a Chinese restaurant. She got some Chinese food. She went to Unit 21. She took her sleeping pills and ground them up in the glass tumbler with the toothbrush case. She invited Ralph Exeter in for a conference. She drugged his food, dumped all the food that was uneaten down the toilet and washed out the pasteboard containers. After he slipped into a drugged sleep, she disconnected the gas pipe so the gas was on, and left. She knew that, one way or another, she wasn’t going to be bothered any more with Ralph Exeter.”

  Mason shook his head. “I won’t buy it, Paul.”

  “You don’t have to buy it,” Drake said. “The police are going to buy it.”

  “She bought the Chinese food for Horace Shelby,” Mason said.

  “No she didn’t,” Drake said. “Shelby was long gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve found a cabdriver who received a call to pick up a passenger at the street corner where the Northern Lights Motel is located.

  “He went there. An elderly man, who seemed somewhat confused, was waiting. He got in the cab and seemed a little uncertain about where he wanted to go. He started for the Union Station then changed his mind and said he’d go to the airport. The cab took him to the airport. The man seemed to be loaded with cash. He took a roll of bills from his pocket. A hundred-dollar bill was the smallest he had. The cabdriver had to go with him into the airport to get the bill changed.”

  “That man was Horace Shelby. The description fits.”

  “The time element?” Mason asked.

  “The time element was a good hour before Daphne went to the Chinese restaurant, got the food in pasteboard containers then went to the Northern Lights Motel.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “that’s circumstantial evidence, but we haven’t got all the evidence yet, Paul. Daphne didn’t have any motive for killing Ralph Exeter.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Drake said. “She was more resentful of Ralph than of anyone in the crowd. She regarded Borden Finchley as her uncle and Borden”s wife as her aunt. Exeter was the one who was making the trouble, putting on all the pressure, and she knew it.”

  “What about Borden Finchley?” Mason asked. “Where was he while all this was going on?”

  “Borden Finchley has an alibi. So does his wife, Elinor.”

  “You’ve checked?”

  “I’ve checked. Of course, it’s a husband and wife affair in part, but there’s some independent corroboration. The Finchleys were moving all of Daphne’s things out of her room, taking an inventory of every garment, every jar of toilet preparations, every paper. They were at it for three hours.

  “The housekeeper was downstairs most of the time, crying over what was happening. Mrs. Finchley came downstairs for something and gave the housekeeper a tongue-lashing and sent her home.”

  Mason said, “There were men from Las Vegas who were interested, Paul. When I made my first visit to the Goodwill Sanitarium, a man came up to the car and asked me if I was the doctor the Court had .appointed to examine Horace Shelby. I told him I wasn’t. The man hurriedly walked away, got into a car which was parked some distance ahead and drove off.

  “I couldn’t make out the license number but I could see it was a Nevada license plate. I could tell by the colors. I didn’t want to be too obvious about trying to follow him, because I felt they might be watching in the rear-view mirror, so I made a play of starting to go to the sanitarium then changing my mind. I took out after them to try and get the license number. I never did find them. I must have lost them at an intersection.”

  “Could be, all right,” Drake said, “but at the time your client was in Unit 21 at the Northern Lights Motel apparently taking food to Horace Shelby, Horace Shelby had been long gone.”

  “No question about the time element?”

  Drake shook his head. “No question.”

  Mason said, “All right, Paul, we’re going to have a showdown with Daphne. She’s held out on me too often and too much.”

  Mason nodded to Della Street. “Get her on the phone,” he said.

  Della Street checked the number on the card she had, sent her fingers spinning over the dial, gave the number of Daphne’s room and said, “I’d like to speak with Miss Shelby, please.”

  She waited a moment, then said, “The poor kid’s probably asleep. She’s certainly had a day.”

  “Poor kid, my eye,” Drake said. “That girl is probably up to some skulduggery right now.”

  The three of them sat waiting in tense expectancy.

  After a while, Della Street said, “Are you certain, you’re ringing the right room, Operator? Would you mind trying it again just to make sure?”

  Again there was a period of silence and Della Street said, “Thank you, we’ll call later. No message.”

  She hung up the telephone and said, “No answer. She’s either not in her room or …

  Her voice trailed away into silence.

  Perry Mason got up from his chair, nodded to Drake. “Okay, folks,” he said, “let’s go.”

  “One car?” Drake asked, as they descended in the elevator.

  “Taxicab,” Mason said tersely. “I don’t want a parking problem when we get there, and we can get plenty of cabs in front of the hotel when we want to come back.”

  They emerged from Mason’s office building, found a cab parked at the cabstand a few steps from the entrance and the three of them piled in.

  Mason gave the driver the name of Daphne’s hotel, and the driver made a quick run, getting there within a matter of seven or eight minutes.

  The lawyer gave him a liberal tip, entered the hotel and with complete assurance walked to the elevator, said, “Seventh floor,” to the elevator operator, and when they left the elevator the lawyer turned to the left, strode down the corridor.

  The elevator doors closed.

  Mason waited until the operator had moved the cage from the seventh floor before looking at the numbers on the rooms, then turned abruptly. “Wrong direction,” he said. “I didn’t want the elevator boy to know we weren’t oriented.”

  “What’s the number?” Drake asked.

  “Seven eighteen,” Mason said.

  They retraced their steps, found 718. There was a sign on the door, DO NOT DISTURB.

  Della Street said, “Let’s take one thing into consideration. The poor kid was up all last night, working in that sanitarium. She’s gone for thirty-six hours without sleep. It’s only natural she should put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and go to bed.”

  “Also it’s only natural that she should wake up to answer the telephone,” Mason said.

  “Perhaps not if she’s sleeping the sleep of exhaustion,” Della Street said.

  Mason’s knuckles banged on the door.

  The lawyer waited for a moment then knocked loudly for a second time. There was no answer.

  Mason said, “Della, I hate to ask you to do this, but I want to see the inside of that room.

  “Go down on the elevator, leave the hotel then re-enter, walking boldly up to the clerk’s desk and ask him for the key to 718.

  “If you have just the right amount of assurance, just the right poise, he’ll hand the key to you. If he asks you your name, tell him Daphne Shelby. If he goes any further and asks for identification, tell him who you are, tell him I’m waiting up here that Daphne is my client that I’m afraid she’s been drugged or perhaps murdered and is not answering the door because she can’t answer the door.

  “If it comes to that, ask the house detective to accompany you up here.”

  “Chief, do you really think she’s—”

  “How do I know?” Mason said. “We’ve had one murder. We could have two. What I’m telling you now is the attitude you’re to adopt with the house detective if necessary. Tell him I’m waiting up here with a private detective. That will take you off the spot for trying to get the key to another person’s room.”

  Della Street nodded.

  “Think you can do it?” Mason asked.

  “I can make one of the best attempts that you ever saw,” she said, smiling.

  “Try to leave the lobby unostentatiously so the clerk won’t notice you going out. When you come in, just ask for the key.”

  “But suppose Daphne has the key with her?”

  “These hotels nearly always have two keys to a room in the pigeonhole, and a third key in a drawer that they can open in case the other keys are lost.”

  Della Street said, “You’ll be here?”

  “We’ll be here,” Mason said.

  Della Street walked to the elevator, rang the button, and a moment later was taken down.

  Mason, simply as a matter of precaution, tapped on the door again. When he had no answer, he turned, leaned against the wall with his shoulders and hips, elevated his right foot so that it was flat against the wall and said to the detective, “We have more damned complications.”

  “Depending, of course, on what has happened,” Drake said.

  “No matter what’s happened,” Mason said, “we’ve got complications. If she’s in and doesn’t answer the door or the telephone, we’ve probably got a corpse—or perhaps someone who has been drugged with a barbiturate. In that case our only hope is that we can rush her to the hospital and save her life.

  “If she isn’t in her room, we’ve got real problems.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Suppose Lieutenant Tragg wants to question her. He told her not to leave town, to keep herself available for questions. If she’s not in her room, Tragg will regard that as flight, and in this state, flight is evidence of guilt.”

  “Oh, oh!” Drake said.

  They waited for some four or five minutes, and then the elevator stopped again at the seventh floor. The doors slid back, and Della Street nodded her thanks to the operator and started walking rapidly toward them.

  “Do any good?” Mason asked.

  By way of answer, Della Street exhibited the key with the metallic oval tag fastened to it by a ring.

  She fitted the key in the door.

  “Better let me do this,” Mason said, stepping forward. “If the door is bolted from the inside, it means we’ve got a major problem. If it isn’t bolted, I’m her attorney and I’d better be the one that opens the door.”