“I wanted to tell you after you’d seen him, Mother.”

  “You a sound sleeper?” Mason asked Mrs. Cushing.

  “Heavens, no. I jump out of my skin if a mouse runs across the floor. Last night I was so excited I hardly closed my eyes until almost daylight.”

  There was a period of uncomfortable silence.

  Tragg said, “I still want to know about those wet shoes and the wet blanket.”

  Ellen Cushing turned to Lacey. “Tell him, Art. We may as well. Guess we aren’t going to have any privacy.”

  Lacey opened his mouth, started to say something, then apparently couldn’t find just the right place to begin. Ellen Cushing laughed, said, “Art’s easily embarrassed. We went on a picnic yesterday. They’re Art’s shoes. He got them wet.”

  Tragg said, ‘We’ve gone this far. We may as well hear all the details.”

  “And we might take a look in the bedroom,” Mason said, “just by way of making sure.”

  Tragg nodded, got to his feet. “Any objections?” he asked Ellen Cushing.

  “Help yourself,” she told him. “I don’t mind you, but I’m not going to have that lawyer messing around the place. He’s caused enough trouble already,” and she glared at Mason.

  Tragg moved into the bedroom, opened the closet door, looked under the bed, went to the window, even opened it and leaned out. Then he came back, settled himself in his chair, said wearily, “All right, let’s hear about the picnic … Wait a minute. Do you know Scott Shelby, Lacey?”

  Ellen Cushing said, “He met him for the first time yesterday morning. It’s because of that he proposed. I’m trying to tell you, if you’ll let me.”

  Tragg said, “All right. Go ahead. Get it all straightened out while you’re at it. I’ll probably have to make a report on this, and,” he added bitterly, “so help me, this is the last time any damned amateur gets me stampeded. Go right ahead, Miss Cushing.”

  Ellen Cushing took a deep breath. “All right, if you insist on prying into my private affairs. I am going to marry Art Lacey. He proposed to me yesterday. I accepted him. We went on a picnic into the country. We both of us wanted to get away from business and have just one carefree picnic. We were in a hurry. We wanted to take along some sandwiches and beer and ripe olives and a few things like that and have a picnic.”

  “Why the sudden urge for a picnic?”

  She said, “I was walking on air. I have loved Art for a long time. I didn’t know that he … Well, that he felt that way about me. So, we went out in the country.”

  “And how did the seat of your automobile and this blanket get so wet?”

  “I’m coming to that. We went out on one of those helter-skelter affairs where I hurriedly put up some sandwiches and we stopped by a delicatessen store and picked up a few more things. And then we bought some beer and got started, and suddenly realized we didn’t have any way of keeping the beer cold. I guess we were both a little flustered and we’d completely forgotten about it. And then I remembered that I had a blanket in the back of the car and we just stopped and got some ice and wrapped it up in the blanket and went out and had our picnic.”

  There was a moment of silence while Lieutenant Tragg thought that over.

  “You went on a picnic up by the river?” Mason asked.

  “We did not,” she said turning on Mason angrily, “and I wish you’d mind your own business, Mr. Perry Mason!”

  “Are these wet shoes yours?” Mason asked Arthur Lacey.

  He nodded.

  “If you want to know,” Ellen Cushing said, “we went out by a lake. And Art found an old board on the bank and launched it and pretended he was going to be a pirate and got his feet wet.”

  “And then you separated last night and he came to call on you early this morning?”

  “That’s right. We were going to get all the red tape in connection with our marriage fixed up. You see, Mother was coming on the eight o’clock train last night. Art had an eight-thirty appointment, but he wanted to meet Mother. So Art and I drove to the depot and then the train was fifteen minutes late, so he had to rush back. And we agreed he’d come in and cook breakfast and get things straightened up while I went to the beauty shop, and then we’d go to the County Clerk’s office to get the license.”

  “Then you met your mother at about eight-fifteen?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And she’s been with you ever since?”

  “Yes.”

  “You saw a Mrs. Turlock last night?”

  “After dinner, yes. You see, Mother has loads of friends here. She is only going to stay a few days and she wanted to see as many of them as possible. A Mrs. Starr had driven down to the depot to meet Mother. She had to be back to pick up her husband when he got off shift at nine o’clock; so when Mother got in, we three grabbed a quick dinner together right there at the depot. Mother simply won’t eat on the train. Then we went with Mrs. Starr to Mrs. Turlock’s place and had a visit with Mrs. Turlock. She lives in a flat right next door. You can ask her about it. We were there until midnight. Mother and Mrs. Turlock were gabbing like a house afire and I was afraid Mother wouldn’t sleep a wink … So now you know the whole story.”

  Mrs. Cushing said, “I swear I gulped my food as fast as ever I could. I didn’t want Edith to be late when it came to meeting her husband, but it was five minutes to nine when we got to Fanny’s—that’s Mrs. Turlock—and blessed if Fanny and Edith didn’t get to gabbing and …”

  Tragg turned to Lacey, interrupted Mrs. Cushing’s rapid-fire chatter, “And these are your shoes?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Any way of proving it?”

  Lacey kicked his shoes off, put on the wet ones, extended his legs toward Tragg. Tragg felt the shoes, said, “They fit.”

  “Sure, they’re mine.”

  “You knew Shelby?”

  “I’d just met him.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday morning.”

  Mason said, “You must have had a busy morning. You proposed to Miss Cushing yesterday morning, I believe …”

  Ellen Cushing said, “Don’t pay any attention to him, dear. He’s just a slick lawyer. He’s representing Shelby’s wife. She killed him, and this lawyer is trying to scare up some scandal that will take the heat off the wife.”

  “What’d she kill him for?” Lacey asked Ellen, apparently feeling more at ease.

  “Don’t be silly! What do you guess?”

  “She should have, I suppose,” Lacey said.

  “What do you know about it?” Tragg asked Lacey.

  He grinned. “I guess the guy was sort of a W. O. W.”

  “What’s that?” Tragg asked.

  Ellen answered the question, “A Worn Out Wolf.”

  Tragg grinned.

  Lacey said, “I got nothing against the guy. He made me sore, though, the way he treated Ellen.”

  “What was wrong with the way he treated Ellen?” Tragg wanted to know.

  “The general idea of the old buzzard.”

  Ellen laughed. “You’ll have to get over that, Art. Actually he was only seven years older than you are.”

  “I wasn’t sore,” Lacey said. “It was just the idea of the thing. Shucks, soon as I saw him, I knew he was just a rundown alarm clock trying to keep on ticking. I don’t care how few birthdays he’d had, he could never have held a girl like Ellen…”

  “Better tell me about that,” Tragg said.

  Ellen Cushing said, “I’ve loved Art Lacey for a long time. I met Mr. Shelby about six months ago. Mr. Shelby was married. I knew that he was something of a … Well, he was something of a wolf.”

  “Make passes?” Tragg asked, showing that he was interested.

  Ellen Cushing said hurriedly, “He didn’t get anywhere.”

  “Of course he didn’t get anywhere,” Lacey interposed, “but it was the idea of the thing. You know the way a nice girl would feel about a thing like that. They had some business deals and he was always trying to make her. I’ve been in love with her for a long time. I always felt a smart, clever woman like her was too far above the likes of me for me to be getting foolish ideas—but I never even touched her. I never dared. I had too much respect for her. You can imagine how I felt about this guy trying to take advantage of her.”

  “Then why did she keep seeing him?” Tragg asked, trying to draw Lacey out.

  It was Ellen Cushing who answered the question. “I was in the real estate business. Mr. Shelby was able to throw things my way once in a while and I wanted to keep on good terms with him. I wanted to be friendly. I had a living to make.”

  “That’s no sign he had to keep trying to paw you over,” Lacey said.

  She said angrily, “He didn’t do a lot of pawing.”

  “Well, he wanted to.”

  “Lots of men want to,” Ellen Cushing said, and giggled.

  “I can believe that,” Tragg said smiling, “but go on. Tell me about Shelby.”

  “Well, that’s about all there was to it. Mr. Shelby kept trying to throw business my way because … Well, I think he wanted to establish the contact, and I’m quite certain that if he thought he could have got anywhere, he’d have really gone overboard in a big way.”

  “You mean he’d have left his wife?”

  “I think he’d have tried to, yes.”

  “So, as far as Shelby is concerned, he might have gone to any lengths in order to get rid of his wife and be free to marry you?”

  “He might have, yes … I guess he wanted to, all right.”

  “And Mr. Lacey resented that?”

  “I did,” Lacey said simply.

  “Did you ever tell Shelby so?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday. That’s what I keep trying to tell you.”

  “You started out on this picnic yesterday morning?”

  “Late morning. That was afterwards.”

  “It was like this,” Ellen Cushing said, “he went up and …”

  “Let me tell it,” Lacey said, his voice slow and dogged, in the manner of an inarticulate man who wants to be certain that he is not misunderstood.

  “All right, you tell it,” Ellen Cushing said, smiling.

  Lacey said, “There was some stuff over this oil lease and Shelby started to put pressure on Ellen. Told her that he was responsible for putting quite a bit of money in her hands and that he’d had a reason for doing it and that sort of stuff. Ellen left his office, and I was waiting to see her in her office. Well, she told me about it and … Well, I got mad. So I went into Shelby’s office and told him that as far as he was concerned, he could leave Ellen alone.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Well, I guess he was sore anyway. He’d just had a run-in with some guy who was leaving the office as I walked in—a crippled chap who thought Shelby had been cheating him out of a grocery store or something. Shelby got rid of him and turned to me, and asked me what I wanted—still half mad. And I was mad, and so I spoke my piece.”

  “And what did he say?” Tragg asked.

  “Well, he said that it was none of my business and that Ellen was able to handle herself and take care of herself and pick her own friends and I didn’t have any right to stick my nose into something that was none of my business. And so I told him I was going to put myself in a position where I did have the right. At least, I was going to try and put myself in that position and then if I did get in that position, I was coming back and punch his nose.”

  “So then what did you do?” Tragg asked.

  “Then,” he said, “I went right down to Ellen’s office. She’s got an office in the same building. And asked her to marry me.”

  Ellen Cushing laughed suddenly, a peal of spontaneous merriment. She said, “You can imagine how I felt. I’d been in love with Art for a long time but he had never said anything …”

  “I thought she was so darn far above me that she’d laugh at me if I’d ask her to marry me,” Lacey blurted.

  Ellen Cushing said, “After all, a man doesn’t understand how a woman feels about those things. I didn’t object to the fact that Scott Shelby found me attractive, just so he kept his hands off me and kept his … Well, you know, didn’t proposition me too badly … And I’d mentioned to Arthur the fact that Shelby was getting a little insistent because … Well, because …”

  “Because you thought it might bring things to a head with Lacey?” Tragg asked, his eyes twinkling.

  “Because I thought that it would be a good way to find out whether Art really cared for me or not.”

  “And you found out?” Tragg asked.

  She smiled and said, “I’ll say I did! The door of my office burst open and Art entered the room, slammed the door shut behind him, walked over to my desk and I could see that he was still angry. He looked down at me and almost yelled, ‘Ellen, will you marry me?’ ”

  “And then what?”

  “And I looked up at him and shouted, ‘Yes.’ Just like that. It certainly was the devil of a way for a man to propose and for a woman to accept. I’d always had romantic dreams about how it would be to have Art propose to me. I’d lie awake at night sort of half asleep and half waking and drift off into dreams that were part wishful thinking and part really dreams … And it would always be that we were out on a picnic somewhere and Art would be sitting over close to me and I’d lean over against him and put my head on his shoulder. And then he’d smooth my hair and ask me to marry him … And then the man came bursting into my office, walked up to my desk and bellowed at me, ‘Ellen, will you marry me?’ and I shouted right back at him, ‘Yes.’ And then the absurdity of the whole thing dawned on us and we both began to laugh.”

  “And then you went back to punch Shelby’s nose?” Tragg asked Arthur Lacey.

  “I didn’t,” he grinned. “I had other things to do. The minute she said, ‘Yes,’ I got over being mad … I wasn’t mad at anyone. I felt at peace with the whole cockeyed world. If I’d had time, I’d have gone back and bought the guy a drink. I guess after all he wasn’t such a bad egg. You can’t blame him for wanting Ellen.”

  Ellen laughed and said, “I’d tried to use Shelby to find out how Art felt, and I guess I’d given Art a rather distorted picture of the man.”

  Lacey nodded. “I’d sort of pictured him as a sleek, irresistible millionaire—and then I saw this droop with the brooding sunken eyes. I guess he’s okay. Only,” he added, angry again, “I didn’t like his way of getting in solid—or trying to.”

  Ellen picked up the conversation. “So then, after a half hour or so, I told Arthur how I’d always dreamed about the way he would propose to me and that was when we decided to …”

  “I was going to propose all over again the way she wanted it,” Lacey said. “And so we went about it like a couple of kids. We left her office and dashed up to the apartment here and she put up some sandwiches and I went down to the delicatessen store and picked up some cold roast chicken …”

  “And was it tough!” Ellen exclaimed.

  “And so we piled in the car and went out on this picnic,” Arthur Lacey went on.

  “And you proposed to her all over again?”

  “I’ll say I did!”

  “Most satisfactorily,” Ellen told him. Her eyes were starry and sparkling now. She had thrown aside all of her reserve and had forgotten her anger. And Lacey, having recovered from his embarrassment and the strangeness of the situation was acting more naturally, giving to Lieutenant Tragg the confidence of a man who is slow and inarticulate but once he has lost his self-consciousness, manages to express himself clearly.

  “Well,” Mrs. Cushing started rattling, “it’s a great howdy-do when a girl’s own mother has to learn all this because a lawyer and a policeman …”

  “One more question,” Mason interposed. “Why didn’t you put the ice in the trunk instead of wrapping it in the blanket and putting it on the rear seat of the car?”

  She turned to him and instantly her eyes became angry. “That,” she flared, “is none of your business.”

  “Just to close the thing up,” Tragg said, “I’d like to know the answer to that too.”

  She said, “I don’t like to have him prying into my affairs. I think he’s responsible for this whole business.”

  “But I’d like to know the answer to that one,” Tragg said.

  She said, “It’s just like I told you. We were halfway there when we realized that we had forgotten the ice. This place was a little private country estate that had been listed with me for sale and there’s a lake on it with some woods running down to the lake. We were spinning along when I suddenly realized I’d forgotten to bring any ice, and the other stuff, the boxes of sandwiches and the delicatessen stuff and everything were in the trunk and … Well, I told Art we’d forgotten the ice and we didn’t know what to do. We thought we’d get some ice and put it in the trunk but we’d have had to move all the other stuff out and … Well, we were in a hurry.”

  “I was in a hurry,” Lacey said and grinned, that slow good-natured grin that changed the entire expression of his face.

  She laughed and said, “I guess we were a little bit rattled. Anyhow, I didn’t realize that I was going to have to explain everything I did. Art simply took the blanket and went into the icehouse and got the ice wrapped up, came out and opened the car door and threw it on the seat.”

  “Why not on the floor?” Mason asked.

  Lacey said, “It’s too narrow down on the floor. There wasn’t enough room down between the back of the front seat and the front of the back seat, but on the back seat there’s lots of room, and it’s got just the right slant to it so the ice wouldn’t spill around out of the blanket, and so I just dumped it in and we were on our way.”

  “Don’t talk to him, Art dear,” Ellen said. “He doesn’t have any right to ask questions.”