Stephen L. Fargo yesterday was a happy young lad. He had been commended by the faculty for his scholastic standing, and had been elected president of his class. Today he finds that his father has been murdered, that his mother is being held by police under suspicion of murder, and that a certain amount of unwelcome publicity has attached itself to him and to the school where he is studying.

  Members of the faculty have arranged to keep the young lad in virtual isolation where he is not available to the press. They make no secret of their annoyance at the fact that so much notoriety has attached itself to the pupil and to the school. However, other students, friends of Stephen Fargo, who were available for newspaper contact, stated that Fargo’s personal popularity was undiminished and his friends, among both the faculty and the students, were standing by.

  Mason pushed the newspaper clippings back to one side on his desk, got to his feet and started pacing the floor, slowly, thoughtfully. He hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest and walked with steady, monotonous regularity back and forth across the office.

  Della Street, seated in her secretarial office, kept pounding away at her typewriter, glancing up at her employer from time to time but making no comment.

  The telephone on Della Street’s desk jingled softly. She picked it up, said, “Hello,” and heard the voice of the girl at the office switchboard conveying a message.

  After a moment she said, “All right, Gertie. I have it. Thanks.”

  She hung up the telephone, arose from her desk and stood quietly in the doorway of her office, waiting.

  Mason continued pacing for almost a minute before he suddenly noticed her standing there, then he brought himself up with a jerk, raised his eyes to regard her with a frowning concentration which was the aftermath of the thought he had been devoting to the case.

  “What is it, Della?”

  “Mrs. Fargo has now been booked at the local bastille.”

  “That,” Mason said, “means that they’ve wrung her dry, extracted a lot of written statements and are tossing the husk back into circulation so an attorney can advise her in regard to her ‘constitutional rights.’ ”

  Della Street, knowing Mason and understanding his moods, remained discreetly silent.

  “That, of course,” he said bitterly, “follows the usual pattern. They have a warrant for the arrest of some person whom they apprehend in Sacramento. If the person doesn’t talk it takes them ten days to get the prisoner back here to be booked in the county jail.

  “If, however, the prisoner falls for the police line that they don’t want to prosecute an innocent person and are only too anxious to be convinced of the prisoner’s innocence, they charter a plane and book their prisoner almost before the ink is dry on the written statements.”

  “Here’s an early edition of the afternoon paper,” Della Street said. “It came in a few minutes ago but I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  Mason took the newspaper from her, stood with his feet spread far apart, his shoulders set. He snapped the paper open, looked at the picture of Myrtle Fargo which was spread over the front page, together with photographs of the house where Fargo had been murdered, a diagram showing the premises, and a photograph of the interior of the office with the safe door swung wide open and the litter of papers on the floor.

  Mason skimmed through the article, then paused and turned to Della Street.

  “Listen to this,” he said.

  Police are looking for a male accomplice. Some person who was sufficiently friendly with Mrs. Fargo to risk his life on a charge of being an accomplice in a murder.

  The aviator who flew a woman, whom he insists was Mrs. Fargo, to the Bakersfield airport, states that he was employed by a “middle-aged man.” His passenger sat in an automobile until all arrangements had been made. Then the man paid the aviator in cash and beckoned to the woman.

  It wasn’t until the plane was out on the runway, the motor all warmed up and ready to start, that the woman, who was heavily veiled, appeared and took her place in the rear seat of the plane. She didn’t speak during the entire flight to Bakersfield.

  A taxi driver who picked up this woman at the Bakersfield airport and rushed her to the Greyhound bus depot also states there was no conversation during the entire trip, and that the woman kept her veil down over her face. He assumed that there had been a sudden death and the woman was masking her grief, and he therefore respected her silence.

  It is interesting to note that between the taxicab and the Sacramento bus this veil, together with the hat, seems to have been discarded.

  Attendants at the Bakersfield bus station report having found a hat with a heavy, dark veil in one of the refuse receptacles. Since the hat seemed to be in excellent condition it was turned in to the Lost and Found Department, and it wasn’t until police made a detailed inquiry that the significance of the hat and veil was discovered.

  This bit of evidence was located and preserved, due to excellent police work on the part of the Bakersfield police, in co-operation with Lieutenant Tragg of the Metropolitan Homicide Detail.

  Police have a description of the male accomplice who seems to have engaged the plane. He is a man in the sixties, apparently remarkably well-preserved, with a well-modulated voice and gray eyes. He is short, chunky and rather well dressed. Police believe this man ‘master-minded’ the fake alibi.

  Oddly enough this alibi might have worked if it had not been for the zeal of a prominent attorney whose attempt to gather evidence not only defeated its own purpose, but placed in the hands of the police a list containing the names and addresses of several persons who were passengers aboard the northbound bus.

  Mrs. Newton Maynard, thirty-one, residing at 906 South Gredley Avenue, is particularly positive that Mrs. Fargo boarded the bus at Bakersfield.

  “I distinctly remember seeing her drive up in a taxicab,” Mrs. Maynard stated to the police. “I was particularly impressed because she wore a black hat with a heavy black veil, and she handed the cab driver a bill and didn’t wait for change but hurried into the rest room in the bus depot.

  “I felt she must be someone who had sustained a loss, and was overcome by grief. I made up my mind that I would try and comfort her if I had an opportunity while she was on the bus.

  “Imagine my surprise when this woman emerged from the rest room to join the line of passengers waiting to board the bus. She seemed somewhat excited, but she was not depressed. The hat and veil had vanished, and she was wearing a small, black velvet beret which could very well have been folded and concealed in her purse. I noticed that she made it a point to start talking with various passengers before we had arrived in Fresno.

  “That woman was Mrs. Fargo. I am just as positive as I am of the fact that I am standing here. I have a very good memory for faces and I was naturally curious because I had seen her drive up in a taxicab when she was heavily veiled. I studied her very carefully, wondering just what was back of the abrupt transition from a heavily veiled, quiet woman who seemed intent upon avoiding people, to the vivacious, sociable young matron who was so anxious to cultivate the acquaintance of other persons aboard the bus.

  “Moreover, I am one of the few passengers who boarded that bus in Los Angeles. Quite a few of them got off at Bakersfield, some got off at Fresno, some got off at Stockton. Mrs. Fargo was not on the bus when it left Los Angeles. I like to talk with people when I travel, and I looked over the passengers who were waiting in line to board the bus at the Los Angeles Terminal; I looked them over after I got aboard the bus and I am absolutely, thoroughly positive that Mrs. Fargo was not on that bus when it left Los Angeles, but that she boarded it in Bakersfield.”

  Mason folded the paper, tossed it over on his desk, said, “Well, there you are, Della.”

  “There she is, Chief.”

  Mason said, “Della, have you noticed that the description of the man who helped charter the plane ties in with that of someone we know?”

  She thought that over. “You don’t mean Pierre, the headwaiter at the Golden Goose?”

  “I don’t exactly mean him,” Mason said. “But the description sure fits.”

  “It surely does,” she admitted. “Chief, do you suppose that …”

  Once more Della Street’s telephone rang. She picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and then said, “Just hold on, Mr. Sellers. I think he wants to talk with you.”

  She said to Mason, “Clark Sellers, with a report on that handwriting.”

  Mason moved over, picked up the telephone, said, “Yes, Clark. What is it?”

  The handwriting expert said, “I have made a careful examination of the writing on the envelope you gave me, and the exemplars written by Myrtle Fargo. They were both written by the same person.”

  Mason hesitated a moment, then said, “Meaning Myrtle Fargo wrote ‘PERRY MASON, ESQ.’ on that envelope?”

  “If she wrote the exemplars, she did. They were all written by the same person. Of course, I can’t vouch for the identity of individuals, only for identity of writing. Where does that leave you, Perry?”

  “Behind the eight ball, I’m afraid,” Mason said, and hung up.

  “Bad?” Della Street asked.

  “Bad,” he said. “We’re in the Fargo case up to our necks. She sent that money.”

  “You don’t have to accept it.”

  Mason shook his head. “It was that terrified voice that got me. She was in trouble and now she’s in worse trouble. It’s my business to represent people who are in trouble and do the best I can for them.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t afford to represent her in court. She’s absolutely guilty, she …”

  “How do you know she’s guilty?”

  “Well, take a look at the evidence,” Della Street said.

  “That’s just it,” Mason said. “Let’s take a look at the evidence and forget her story. Suppose she was locked in the bedroom in that house when I was there. She had intended to take the eight-forty-five bus. Her husband quarreled with her. She let him know she knew about his mistress. He tried to choke her. She ran to the bedroom and locked the door.

  “After I left, she tried to escape. He tried to grab and choke her once more. She stabbed him.

  “That’s what the real evidence indicates. But she thought she could get out from under. So she ran to the car, drove it to the depot, parked it, called on some friend and got him to charter a plane for her.”

  “A boy friend?” Della asked dubiously.

  “I doubt it, probably the same messenger whom she used to take the money to the Golden Goose…. Her story makes her seem guilty of murder. The evidence indicates a woman who was terrified of her husband, who acted in self-defense, and then made a mistake in trying to avoid publicity.

  “We’ll start Paul Drake working to try and find that messenger. Now that Clark Sellers says that the address on that envelope containing the money is in the same handwriting as the note she left for me with her mother, I have no choice in the matter. She’s my client I started to represent her, and I’m going to keep on.”

  He was silent for a moment, then said, “The interesting part of it is that Myrtle Fargo’s alibi just might have worked if I hadn’t been so damned efficient. Passengers would have remembered her as getting on the bus, the police never would have been able to find out all of the passengers who were on the bus and …”

  “Wouldn’t they have come forward when the case received notoriety?” Della Street asked.

  “About ten per cent of them,” Mason said. “Suppose you had been on that bus. The average citizen doesn’t fancy becoming involved in a murder case and letting himself in for a lot of cross-examination by attorneys on a question of identification. Suppose you were riding on a bus. You’d probably remember the person who was sitting next to you if you engaged in conversation, but could you positively identify some fellow passenger whom you hadn’t noticed particularly? And if you felt that you could, would you feel that your identification would be sufficiently positive so that it could stand up against the browbeating cross-examination of some attorney who was trying to discredit you?

  “For instance, suppose he should say, ‘Very well, Miss Street, since you’ve been able to identify the defendant as one of the passengers on the bus, suppose you now describe all of the passengers who were on the bus. Start in with the two who were in the front seat on the left-hand side and go on back. Let’s have a complete description, please.’ What would you do?”

  “I’d probably faint,” Della Street said, grinning.

  “You’d have a hell of a time with your descriptions before you got very far,” Mason said.

  “Then the lawyer would turn to the jury and say, ‘There you are. She’s hypnotized herself into believing that she remembers all about this defendant because she saw her pictures in the paper, because she was called on to identify her in the jail and because of the testimony of other witnesses, but as a matter of fact she can’t remember clearly what anyone else on that bus looked like. Take for instance the man who occupied the seat directly behind her. She only remembers him as an oldish sort of man, with a gray suit She can’t remember whether he had a stubby mustache or didn’t, whether he wore glasses or didn’t, whether his hair was gray or dark, whether he smoked or didn’t smoke, what color shirt he wore, what color tie he had on.

  “ ‘The woman in the seat in front of her, she says, had hennaed hair and that’s all she knows about her. Yet she comes into court and identifies this defendant who could at most have been only one other passenger on the bus whom she must have noticed equally casually …’ ”

  “Save it,” Della Street said, as Mason almost automatically started making gestures. “You have me convinced.”

  Mason grinned. “I thought for a minute I was arguing to a jury. But that’s the answer, Della. Many of those passengers would have gone on about their business and wouldn’t have cared to face the ordeal of cross-examination. Many of them could only have identified the defendant as a fellow passenger, but been unable to swear as to where she boarded the bus.”

  “Weren’t the police planning to question the other passengers when they got off the bus in Sacramento?” Della Street asked.

  “Apparently not. Their idea at the time was simply to arrest Myrtle Fargo. They had some sort of a telegraphic warrant which Lieutenant Tragg had rushed up to them and they were supposed to grab her as she got off the bus. The idea of her building an alibi hadn’t occurred to them.”

  “Specifically, and in view of this report from Clark Sellers, just what are you going to do now, Chief?”

  He reached for his hat.

  “I’m going up to call on my client, and see what can be saved from the wreckage…. And that probably will be damned little.”

  Chapter 16

  Perry Mason faced the newspaper reporters with a grin.

  “Hold it,” one of the photographers said.

  The flashlight blazed into swift brilliance.

  “Aren’t you rather leading with your chin, Counselor?” one of the reporters asked.

  “What difference does it make?” Mason said. “My chin is already in the ring, so I may as well lead with it.”

  “Not your most vulnerable spot, anyway,” the reporter told him.

  One of the other reporters said, “Definitely, Mr. Mason, we want an answer. Are you or are you not representing Myrtle Fargo?”

  “No comment.”

  “You’re calling to see her?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And under the regulations of the jail you have to be a person’s attorney in order to see them?”

  “Wrong.”

  “Well, you have to be an attorney.”

  “I am an attorney.”

  “All right, have it your way. You went to Stockton to represent Myrtle Fargo, didn’t you?”

  “No comment.”

  “You did hire detectives to get witnesses who were on that bus?”

  “Right.”

  “You thought at that time she had asked you to represent her, didn’t you?”

  “No comment.”

  “You went to considerable expense in order to get up to Stockton?”

  “Right.”

  “You paid these detectives out of your own pocket?”

  “Right.”

  “Have you at any time received any money from Myrtle Fargo by way of a retainer?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Has someone else paid you to represent her?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You’re not accustomed to interesting yourself in a case unless you have been retained, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then can you explain your unusual interest in the Fargo case?”

  “No.”

  “You mean you don’t know what it is or you can’t explain?”

  “No comment.”

  “You’re not being very helpful.”

  “There’s not much help I can give.”

  “If she wants you to represent her, will you do so?”

  “She hasn’t asked me yet.”

  “You’re going to see her now to find out if she wants you to represent her?”

  “I’m not soliciting business, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You know that’s not what we mean.”

  “What do you mean then?”

  “I’ve already asked the question.”

  “Then I’ve already answered it.”

  “Do you know anything about Mrs. Fargo’s male accomplice?”

  “She couldn’t have had an accomplice unless she’s guilty, could she?”

  “Assuming that she is guilty, do you know anything about her accomplice?”

  “No.”

  “Assuming that she is guilty, would you represent her?”

  “A lawyer can never assume a client is guilty. It’s like asking a newspaper reporter to assume that if he had a scoop he wasn’t going to publish, would he do this, that or the other.”

  “You never assume that a client is guilty?”

  “Why should I?”

  “You can form an opinion, can’t you?”