“Well,” Drake said, “his real name is James Whitly, and he’s gone under the name of James Clerke. He’s a small fellow, weighing not over a hundred and thirty-five pounds, with thin features and small bones, and he’s deadly as a rattlesnake. He’s been mixed up in two or three rackets, has served time in San Quentin, and Folsom. Then he wormed his way out of that open-and-shut murder charge. The judge bawled hell out of the jury when they brought in the not-guilty verdict, but that didn’t keep the verdict from standing. He has dark eyes, set rather close together, a thin mouth, high cheekbones and—”

  Mason said, “I believe that’s the chap, Paul, the one she was nursing. Of course, I couldn’t see his face plainly. He had to hold his head in one position because of that neck brace, so his eyes were shaded against the sunlight by heavy goggles, and the harness came up around his chin. But I remember he was a small-boned chap with high cheekbones and a thin mouth. His forehead was covered with a strip of gauze—it’s the man all right.”

  “He must have been hurt over there.”

  “And she brought him back to the Mainland for medical treatment.”

  “He may have pulled something over in Honolulu and is hiding out,” Drake said. “Do you want to go any farther with it?”

  “You bet we do,” Mason told him. “Get this, Paul: Unless we can get some sort of a break, Mrs. Moar is going to be convicted of first-degree murder. She lied about going on deck with her husband. She had her husband’s money. There was a large policy of insurance. Two shots were fired. A gun which undoubtedly belonged to Moar was found on the boat deck with her fingerprints on the barrel, and an eyewitness will swear to enough to make the jury feel it isn’t a case of circumstantial evidence. It’s very possible that she’s innocent. I think she is or I wouldn’t be representing her, but try and sell that idea to a jury. Now then, if you add to that the fact that when she telephoned the operator to notify the bridge she told them a man had been pushed overboard, her chances are absolutely nil. They may even return a verdict without recommendation, which will automatically carry the death penalty.”

  “How strong will this eyewitness go?” Drake asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mason told him. “We’re having a preliminary examination tomorrow. I think I can use a technicality which will force the district attorney to put on all of his evidence at the preliminary. That’ll give me a chance to rip his witnesses wide open and shoot the case full of holes. By the time that Fell girl gets into the Superior Court she’ll have rehearsed her testimony so much in her own mind that it’ll be impossible to shake her. By catching her now, I may be able to find a weak point. In fact, I think I have one—if your men can get that photograph.”

  “What’s that photograph got to do with it?” Drake asked.

  “That’s a secret,” Mason said.

  “Well, we can tell when we get to the office,” Drake told him. “I have men working on it.”

  The taxi deposited them at Drake’s office. Mason sat in a cubby-hole office while Drake received reports from his subordinates.

  Drake skimmed through a typewritten report and said, “Okay, Perry, Aileen Fell is going to be at a party tonight in a formal. Operatives so far haven’t been able to locate Evelyn Whiting. The ambulance companies all say they didn’t have an ambulance at the dock yesterday.”

  “Well, an ambulance was there,” Mason said. “I saw it.”

  “I saw it too,” Drake said, “but I didn’t pay particular attention to it. I saw the word AMBULANCE written on the side under the driver’s window. I have an idea it was a private ambulance.”

  “Well, we can chase down that angle, can’t we?”

  “Yes, it’s being chased down.”

  “How about her baggage? Where was that taken?”

  “Taken to storage,” Drake told him. “She gave checks to a storage company, and the address she gave the storage company was the Wavecrest Apartment address.”

  Mason said irritably, “I never knew a girl to leave such a broad back trail and then have it vanish so completely.”

  The telephone rang. Drake picked up the receiver, listened and said, “Okay, Perry, we’ve traced that car. It’s registered to a Morgan Eves who lives at 3618 Stockton Boulevard. Do we go there?”

  Mason said, “We go there, but first I want to ring up Della and tell her what we’re doing and see if the district attorney’s released Belle Newberry.”

  Drake passed the telephone over to Mason. Mason dialed the number of the hotel and said, “This is Mr. Mason talking. Connect me with my suite, please.”

  After a moment, the operator’s voice said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Mason. They don’t answer. I don’t think there’s anyone in there.”

  “There must be,” Mason insisted. “Miss Street, my secretary, is there waiting for instructions—”

  “Miss Street went out just a few minutes after you left, Mr. Mason,” the operator said. “I saw her go past my desk.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Quite certain.”

  “How was she dressed?”

  “She had on a raincoat and hat.”

  “Carrying a brief case with her?” Mason asked.

  “No. There was nothing in her hands except her purse.”

  “And she hasn’t returned?”

  “No.”

  Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, “When she does return, please tell her that I’ll be back in about an hour.”

  He dropped the receiver into place, said, “Okay, Paul. Let’s go.”

  The Stockton Boulevard address was a two-and-a-half-story flat. In the basement floor were two shops. One bore the legend, “F. KRANOVICH, Tailoring, Cleaning and Pressing”; the other, “MABEL FOSS, Picture Studio—Developing, Printing, Framing.” The window carried a display of photographic prints and an assortment of picture frames. The second-story flat seemed vacant, while the third apparently was tenanted.

  One of Drake’s men had driven them out and Mason instructed him to park the car half a block down the street. The lawyer and the detective climbed the half dozen stairs which led from the street and looked at the name on the mail box.

  “Here it is,” Drake said, “Morgan Eves. This chap may be a tough customer, Perry. He won’t fall for any of the usual lines.”

  “All right, then,” Mason said, “we won’t give him a usual line,” and jabbed his finger against the bell button. They could hear the faint jangle of a bell two floors above.

  “Being in trouble doesn’t mean anything to this chap,” Drake went on. “He’s taken lots of raps. If you leave him an opening, he’ll take it, and take it damn fast. This is no time for any theatrical stuff.”

  Mason nodded, pressed his finger against the button once more. “Nobody home,” he said, after several seconds had elapsed.

  “Now listen, Perry,” the detective cautioned, “let’s not go snooping around this place.”

  Mason walked to the edge of the porch, stood staring out at the reflecting surface of the wet street. The rain had ceased, but low clouds, splotched with the black markings of potential showers, drifted overhead.

  “I have an idea the birds have flown the nest,” Mason said.

  “If Evelyn Whiting had recognized Carl Moar and had worked some kind of a blackmail racket on him, she wouldn’t have stuck around where she could be located—particularly after the murder case broke.”

  “The more I think of it, the more I want to find her, Paul,” Mason said. “Let’s find out where they are.”

  “How?” Drake asked. “This chap had an automobile. He could simply pull out and—”

  “He also has a broken neck,” Mason said. “Don’t forget that.”

  “Well, the girl could drive.”

  Mason nodded. “Look here, Paul, there’s no garage in connection with this building. The chances are they didn’t take their car over to Honolulu and back. So they must have left it here. Let’s look around and see if we can’t find where it was stored somewhere in the neighborhood.”

  “Not much chance,” Drake told him. “They’d have put it in one of the big storage garages up town. They’d have driven down to the wharf with it when they left, and stored it where it would be handy when they got back.”

  “If they’d done that,” Mason said, “they probably wouldn’t have had the ambulance waiting. Let’s look around.”

  They walked back to the car, circled three blocks, and Mason said, “Let’s try this place. Looks like the only storage garage in the neighborhood.”

  “Is Morgan Eves’ car here?” Mason asked the garage attendant.

  “No.”

  “He keeps it here, doesn’t he?”

  The attendant studied Mason. “Yes,” he said, “he keeps it here.”

  “When’s he going to be back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look here,” Mason told him. “I want to find out something about that car. What condition is it in, do you know?”

  “Why do you want to find out?”

  “I’m interested in buying it,” Mason said. “Eves made a proposition to the agency for a new car. They figured he wanted too much for his old car, but they said if they could sell it at that price they’d make the deal. I have a car I can trade in for a good allowance if I handle this bus. I want to find out if it’s in good shape.”

  “Well, it’s in good shape,” the attendant said. “He keeps it running like a watch.”

  “How soon will it be where I can look at it?”

  “I don’t know. Eves had a whole bunch of baggage piled in it when he took it out. He didn’t say how long he was going to be gone.”

  “His wife with him?” Mason asked, casually.

  “A woman was with him. I didn’t know he was married.”

  Mason said, “I gather it’s his wife. The automobile salesman thought it was. You don’t know where I could reach him?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You don’t think he went to Los Angeles?”

  “I don’t know where he went. He didn’t say how long he was going to be gone. He comes and goes, and we don’t ask any questions.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Yesterday afternoon about three o’clock.”

  Mason said, “Oh, well, the deal will wait for a couple of days. If he doesn’t show up then I’ll have to do something else. Thanks a lot.”

  Back in the car, Drake said, “You won’t get anywhere trying to ride that bird’s back trail, Perry. He’s been through the mill.”

  Mason said, “I have another idea, Paul. The nurse had a camera. She was taking snapshots of a couple of steamers we met.”

  “Well?” Drake asked.

  “Well,” Mason said, “she got in early yesterday morning. They didn’t pull out until early yesterday afternoon. She had some films with her. There’s a chance she left those films to be developed and printed down at the photographer’s place.”

  “Not if she’d been going away, she wouldn’t,” Drake pointed out.

  “No,” Mason told him, “but suppose she didn’t know she was leaving? Suppose she thought she was going to stay there in the flat? She’d have taken the films down the first thing. Then, if she’d been called away, she’d have left some word as to when she’d be back for the films or left a forwarding address, or there may be something in the pictures she took which will give us a line on what we want.”

  Drake said, “You’re playing with dynamite on this thing, Perry.”

  “I know I am.”

  “And,” Drake persisted, “it’s something you can’t afford to be mixed up in, Perry. We’ll send the operative in to pick up the films, and if there’s a squawk about it he can take the rap and—”

  “Nothing doing,” Mason interrupted. “I won’t ask a man to take any chances I won’t take myself. Drive over there and park. I’m going in and see what I can find out.”

  It had started to drizzle again by the time Mason walked down half a dozen steps from the street into a little cement areaway. He pushed open the door of the picture shop. A bell tinkled in a back room, and a woman in the late forties, wearing a blue smock, came through a curtained doorway to regard the lawyer with lackluster black eyes.

  “I called to pick up the pictures for Mrs. Morgan Eves,” Mason said. “They may be under the name of Evelyn Whiting.”

  “But she wanted them mailed to her,” the woman said.

  “I know,” Mason said casually, “but that was before she knew I was coming in. She asked me to pick them up.”

  The woman opened the drawer and selected two flat yellow envelopes. “There’s six dollars and seventy-five cents due,” she said.

  Mason produced a ten-dollar bill, glanced at the back of the envelopes. The name, “Mrs. Eves,” had been scrawled on the envelopes in pencil. There was no address.

  “Wait a minute,” Mason said. “She told me they wouldn’t be over five dollars.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, “my prices are cheaper than she could get them done downtown. Six dollars and seventy-five cents is the lowest I can make it.”

  Mason said, “I can’t understand it. … How were you to receive your money if you’d mailed them out?”

  “I was going to send them collect. I was just getting ready to mail them.”

  “Tell you what you do,” Mason said. “I don’t want to take the responsibility of paying six dollars and seventy-five cents, but you get them ready and mail them right away because Mrs. Eves is in a hurry for them. You can mail them collect and I’ll tell her they’re on the way.”

  The woman nodded, pulled out films and prints, packed them in a box which had been used for photographic paper, wrapped up the box, went to the back of the store and addressed a gummed paper sticker. Mason said abruptly, “Oh, well, I’ll take a chance. After all, there’s only a difference of a dollar and seventy-five cents, and I’m quite certain it’ll be all right. They’d be delayed quite a bit in the mail.”

  “Just as you say,” the woman said, as Mason again offered her the ten-dollar bill. “When will Mrs. Eves be back?”

  “It’ll be a week or so.”

  “How’s her patient getting along?”

  “The man with the broken neck?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

  “It certainly is a shame,” she said. “Think of having to wear something like that strapped around your head and shoulders. She said he’d been wearing it for weeks. She brought him over on the ship from Honolulu. I’ve been wondering how he was getting along.”

  “Brought him out in an ambulance, didn’t they?” Mason asked.

  “Yes. They carried him up on a stretcher. I’ve been wondering who’s taking care of him. There doesn’t seem to be anyone coming or going from upstairs.”

  “I think they moved him,” Mason said.

  “I haven’t seen nor heard any ambulance.”

  “You’ve known her husband long?” Mason asked.

  “Oh, ever since he’s been here.”

  “Did you see him before … before …?”

  “You mean before he got married? Oh, yes, he was in here getting some things and I chatted with him. By the way, how was that picture frame I sent up? Was that what Mrs. Eves wanted? She ordered it over the telephone and I rushed upstairs with it.”

  “I think I heard her say it was a little small,” Mason said.

  “Well, it was just the size she ordered. She told me to get her an oval frame for a picture which had been trimmed down from an eight by ten print into an oval size.”

  Mason said, “I don’t know much about it. After all, I’m just a neighbor.”

  She gave him his change and handed Mason the package. Mason thanked her, tucked the package under his arm and stepped out into the drizzle.

  “Draw something?” Drake asked, as Mason opened the door of the car.

  “I’ll say I did. She not only left her films there but left a mailing address. The chap with the broken neck isn’t Eves.”

  Mason entered the car, placed the package on his lap and he and Drake studied the address.

  “Know where the place is?” Mason asked.

  “Yes. It’s up in the Santa Cruz Mountains.”

  “How long will it take us to drive it?”

  “An hour and a half probably, maybe a little longer if it rains.”

  Mason said, “Okay, let’s go. We’ll mail the photos.”

  “We may be taking a detour which ends in a blind road,” Drake told him. “After all, Perry, how do we know she had any connection with Moar?”

  “We don’t,” Mason said, “but outside of Moar’s party, she’s the only living person on that ship who knew Carl Moar by sight, and whom Moar knew by sight.”

  “How about the Dail girl?”

  “The Dail girl evidently found out who he was by tracing Belle. She didn’t know him and therefore Moar didn’t have any idea she was wise to his alias.”

  “Think Celinda traced Belle through the stolen picture?” Drake asked.

  “Probably. She probably switched pictures, sent Belle’s picture on to Rooney by air mail and had him trace her.”

  “That doesn’t coincide with what Rooney said,” Drake remarked.

  “I’m thinking of that, too,” Mason said. “Let’s get to a telephone where I can call Della. I have an idea we can get something from this nurse. If she left the note which sent Moar up on deck, I’ll be certain we’re on the right track. Evidently she’s been playing around with a bunch of crooks. She went over to the Islands with her husband. He must have been called back and took a clipper plane. She was coming over to join him, and took a nursing job to pay expenses. On the ship she ran into Carl Moar. She recognized him, but found he was traveling under the name of Newberry. Now, that’s a perfect set-up for blackmail, and, as a blackmail victim, Carl Moar was a natural. Remember, he was carrying at least eighteen thousand dollars in cash in a money belt. That was hot money.”

  “What makes you think it was hot money?”

  “From the way he acted.”

  “He might have won it in a lottery.”

  “He might have,” Mason admitted, “but eighteen thousand bucks represented what he had left after a couple of months of playing tourist. He probably started with around twenty-five thousand dollars. Now, a man can’t win twenty-five thousand dollars on a lottery without leaving some sort of a back trail somewhere.”