“Paul, you keep your offices open twenty-four hours a day?”

  Drake nodded.

  “You have the only office in the building that is open all night?”

  “Well?” Drake asked.

  “I’m coming down and live with you, Paul.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “We’re going to close up this office. Della is going to scout the corridors and make certain that there’s no one between here and your office. Then I’m going down to your office. Della will lock up this place and start home. Naturally newspapermen will intercept her. She’ll smile sweetly at them and tell them that Mr. Mason left the office about half an hour before, that he made arrangements to leave the office in such a way he could work on the case without interruption.”

  “You think they’ll take her word for that?” Drake asked.

  “Hell, no,” Mason said grinning. “They’ll come up here, though, and find the office dark.”

  “And be satisfied you’re still in it.”

  “Sure they will, but they’ll then get a brilliant idea, and get hold of the janitor and when the scrubwomen come in to clean up the office the newshawks will be snooping around—illegal, but they’ll do it just the same. They’ll want pictures and interviews.”

  Drake seemed dubious. “Then they’ll know that you’re in my office. They’ll simply watch it.”

  Mason said, “We’ll make them think I managed to get out through the basement.”

  “How?”

  “There again is where you come in,” Mason said, grinning. “You are going to ship a big packing case by truck. You’re going to be very particular about it, and the packing case which is supposed to contain evidence is to go to the garage in my apartment house. It will be plenty heavy when you ship it. There will be a few holes bored in the lid. You’ll have an operative you can trust go out to the garage, receive the package and promise to unpack it. By the time the newspaper reporters find it it will be empty.”

  “What makes you think they’ll find it?”

  “As soon as they get the idea that I may have left the office they’ll start asking questions of the janitor to find out whether I could possibly have gone out the back way. They’ll also start questioning you and your office girl to find out if I’m in your office. You’ll let the cat out of the bag by telling them about the packing case.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Drake said. “They’ve got a reporter, photographer and a plainclothes man covering the back way.”

  “That’s fine,” Mason said. “They’ll all remember seeing the big box go out.”

  “Suppose they get suspicious and look in the box?”

  “If they look in the box we’ll try something else. If they don’t, we’ll make them think I went out that way.”

  “But all this isn’t going to do you any good,” Drake said irritably. “You’re simply crucifying yourself. Figure what the papers will do when they—why, hang it, Perry, it will put your neck right in a noose. Evidence of flight is evidence of guilt.”

  “That’s right,” Mason said.

  “Well, it seems to me you’re playing right into Tragg’s hands. You can’t live in my office indefinitely, Perry.”

  “Of course I can’t,” Mason said. “That’s where we use psychology. No one watches the empty barn for the stolen horse.

  “Della, run out and scout the corridor. Let me know if it’s clear.”

  Della Street nodded, opened the door, walked out into the corridor, returned and said, “It’s all clear now, chief.”

  “Come on, Paul,” Mason laughed, “you have a guest.”

  Drake said, wearily, “Okay, here we go again!”

  Chapter 20

  Mason, comfortably seated in Paul Drake’s office, his feet on the edge of Drake’s desk, the back of his chair propped against the wall, held a cup of coffee in his right hand, a sandwich in his left.

  Paul Drake, sitting at the desk with three telephones in front of him, munched on a sandwich between incoming calls. One of the telephones rang. Drake swallowed hastily, answered the phone.

  When he had finished talking and dropped the receiver into place, he said, “Well, I guess that does it, Perry.”

  “What happened?” Mason asked.

  “That packing-case clue started the reporters off like a pack of hounds. They traced the packing case to your garage, where they found the empty case with holes bored in the lid. The newspapermen are sore and Tragg’s having kittens.”

  “What about Goshen?”

  Drake said, “At last reports Goshen was still waiting down there. He …”

  A telephone rang.

  Paul Drake picked up the receiver, placed it to his ear, said, “Okay, Drake talking … he did … Okay … tell you what you’d better do. You’d better be absolutely certain about that. It may be a trap. We have Goshen’s address. Beat it down there, cover the place. See if Goshen actually goes home … Okay, call me back.”

  Drake dropped the receiver into place. “Goshen’s gone.”

  “I guess that does it, Paul.”

  “It may be a trap,” Drake pointed out. “We’ll check and see if he shows up at his home. He’s been waiting for hours. He’ll be sore.”

  A telephone made noise. Drake picked up the receiver, said, “Hello, Drake talking … yes … what the hell! … You sure … ? That may be important. Hold the phone a minute—just stay on the line now. Don’t let anyone disconnect you. Stay right on there.”

  Drake cupped his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone and said to Mason, “They’ve found Hollister’s car. It had been driven over a grade and wrecked.”

  “Any trace of Hollister?”

  “No trace. Just the empty car.”

  “Where?” Mason asked.

  “Ten and two-tenths miles above Santa del Barra on The Canyon road. Apparently it had been deliberately driven off the grade.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “My man’s reporting. He’s been in touch with the highway patrol. They discovered the car an hour ago. The car was in low gear, the ignition switch was on.”

  “How did they happen to find it?”

  “One of the highway patrol just happened to notice very faint tracks. It was just luck he did, because the tracks were almost obliterated. They were at a wide place in the road where there’s a lot of rock, and then a cliff goes straight down for something over a hundred feet into a canyon.”

  Mason said, “Where’s your man now?”

  “He’s reporting from Santa del Barra.”

  Mason said, “Tell him to examine the car as much as the police will let him. I want to know exactly what’s in it, and exactly what isn’t in it.”

  Drake relayed instructions into the telephone, then said, “Okay, wait a minute, just hold on a second.”

  Once more he cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, said to Mason, “The police are going up there with a hoist. They’ve phoned Tragg, and Tragg has ordered the car to be hoisted to the road. It’s going to be quite a job. They’ll take out a wrecking car and they’ll literally have to lift the car as a dead weight up the side of the cliff.”

  “Okay. Tell your man to stay with the police, Paul.”

  Drake said into the telephone, “Stay with the police. Examine the car. Call back as soon as you have anything.”

  He dropped the receiver back into place, said, “Hollister didn’t get very far before ditching his car.”

  “He got ten miles, five of it up a mountain road. Isn’t that the road to Rushing Creek, Paul?”

  “Good heavens, so it is!” Drake said. “Would that mean anything, Perry?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mason started pacing the floor. “Damn it, Paul, I wish you’d get a bigger office.”

  “Can’t afford it,” Drake said. “I only need an office as headquarters. I don’t have to impress clients the way you do.”

  Mason said, “The trouble is you have no place to walk. About the time you get started pacing the floor in this cubbyhole you run up against a wall. How the heck do you ever do any thinking?”

  Drake said, “I sit in a chair when I think.”

  “You sure have to in this dump,” Mason told him.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Goshen.”

  “You should have let him put the finger on you and then yelled it was a frame-up,” Drake said. “He’ll get you sooner or later and then it’ll look like hell because you ran away.”

  Mason kept pacing the floor.

  “You can’t squirm out of that situation,” Drake said. “The guy’s going to identify you.”

  “He didn’t get a good look at the man’s face,” Mason said.

  “He’s had a good look at yours now. Tragg saw to that.”

  Mason said, “With the recovery of that car in Santa del Barra, Tragg will be tearing up there in order to see what he can find. Now Lieutenant Tragg is the brains on the homicide squad. The other boys aren’t particularly smart. On the other hand, Tragg is fair, and the other chaps are inclined to take every advantage…. And Sergeant Holcomb would welcome a chance to knife Tragg in the back…. I’ll tell you what let’s do, Paul. Do you have an operative who’s about my size and build? One whom you can trust?”

  Drake looked Mason over thoughtfully, said, “Will he get into trouble?”

  “Not if he does exactly as I say,” Mason said.

  “There’s Jerry Lando. He’s just about your build, and about your age.”

  “Can you trust him?”

  “You can trust Jerry anywhere. He’s been around. He’s a smart cookie.”

  Mason said, “I remember you told me once that lots of times a camera and a flash gun would get a detective in places when no other scheme would do the work, Paul.”

  “That’s right. Whenever anyone sees a chap carrying a press camera and a flash gun they take him for a newspaper photographer and very seldom even bother to ask questions.”

  “Therefore I take it you keep a camera on hand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I want it.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. Also I want you to round up some good photographers. Can you get them?”

  “How many?”

  “Five or six.”

  “There’s a night school in journalistic photography I could probably hire some of the advanced students.”

  “Okay. Get this Jerry Lando up here. Does he have a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” Mason said. “We’ll use his car. Tell him to bring a suitcase and I’ll want that tan topcoat Della left here. Tell him to rush. We’ve got to make it fast if we pull the stunt I have in mind.”

  “What stunt do you have in mind?” Drake asked, reaching for the telephone.

  Mason grinned, “Do you want to know?”

  “Hell, no,” Drake said hastily. He spun the dial with nervous fingers.

  Chapter 21

  Jerry Lando, tall, athletic, good-natured, but with a devil-may-care glint in his dark eyes, put his suitcase in the corner and said, “Okay, Mr. Drake, I have my car downstairs. It’s full of gas and I’m ready for anything.”

  “You know Mr. Mason?” Drake asked. “Perry Mason, the lawyer?”

  “How are you, Mr. Mason,” Lando said, shaking hands. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” and then grinning, he added, “and read a lot about you.”

  “You’re going to read more,” Mason told him. “We’re paving the way for a story in tomorrow morning’s papers.”

  “What do we do?” Lando asked.

  Mason said, “We go to an automobile court. We pick one where the arrangement of the cabins is just the way I want it. Then you put on this tan topcoat. Let’s see how it fits.”

  Mason held the topcoat. Lando put his arms in the sleeves, pulled it up over his shoulders.

  “Just like my own coat,” Lando said.

  Mason said, “Paul, get your photographers. Have them bring press cameras, flash guns and lots of bulbs. How soon can you have them here?”

  “Oh, give me an hour.”

  “I’ll give you thirty minutes,” Mason told him. “I’ll phone in instructions. Come on, Lando, let’s go.”

  Lando picked up his suitcase.

  Mason slipped the strap of the big camera case over his shoulder.

  “Have a heart, Perry,” Drake pleaded. “I can’t get these men on the job …”

  “Thirty minutes is the deadline,” Mason said. “Come on, Lando.”

  They started through the door.

  Drake said hastily, “Remember you’re working out of this office, Jerry. Don’t let this guy get you in any trouble.”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Lando said, “when I’m with Mr. Mason, I’m acting under my attorney’s advice.”

  At the elevator, the night janitor looked at Mason in open-mouthed surprise. “Why I thought you … Why you were supposed to have sneaked out …”

  “Nonsense,” Mason said. “I was working late.”

  “But you … you weren’t in your office.”

  “Of course not,” Mason said. “I was in conference with Paul Drake.”

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” the janitor said. “You should have seen all the trouble they made about that packing case I shipped out. Why, I’m just going to tell those boys …”

  “Don’t tell them anything for a while,” Mason said. “Let them find out their own mistakes. After all, you’re not responsible for what they put in the papers.”

  And Mason opened his wallet, selected a crisp ten-dollar bill, folded it, and slipped it into the hand of the grinning janitor.

  “Your car’s outside?” he asked Lando.

  “Right in front of the place,” Lando said.

  “Okay,” Mason told him. “We make a sprint for it in case anyone should be watching, but I don’t think they will be.”

  “The place was clear as a bell when I came in,” Lando said. “Everyone had cleared out.”

  “That’s fine.”

  They crossed the lobby without incident, entered Lando’s automobile.

  “Where do we go?”

  “Drive up the main highway north,” Mason said. “Keep an eye out for auto courts. I want to get one that’s arranged just the way I want it.”

  After a few miles, Mason said, “Here’s a place that looks about right and I see it has a sign saying ‘vacancy’ so I guess we’re okay.”

  “What accommodations do we want?”

  “We want a two-room bungalow if we can get one,” Mason said. “Otherwise we’ll take a one-room. But it has to be at the extreme rear of the lot. Simply register as Lando and party. Give them the license number of the automobile. That’s all they’ll want. Do you get me?”

  “I get you,” Lando said.

  Lando brought the car to a stop in front of the bungalow marked “Office,” left the motor running and went in.

  Within a couple of minutes he reappeared, accompanied by a stout woman carrying a key.

  Lando beckoned, and Mason, sliding over into the driver’s seat, put the car into low gear and drove slowly along until the landlady fitted a key to the door of one of the cabins in the rear.

  The woman went in, followed by Lando, lights were switched on, and after a moment, Lando appeared in the doorway and nodded.

  After the landlady started back to the office, Mason got out and inspected the cabin.

  “Okay?” Lando asked.

  “Okay,” Mason said. “Now let’s go telephone Paul Drake.”

  “There’s a phone in the office.”

  “We don’t want that,” Mason said. “There’s a service station down the street that has a phone. We’ll use that.”

  “Okay,” Lando said. “You want me to drive?”

  “That’s right. Get started and I’ll tell you what you’re to do while we’re traveling.”

  Lando left the lights on, locked the door, climbed in behind the steering wheel.

  Mason said, “Now, when you get Paul Drake give him the address and tell him to rush his men with the cameras out here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then,” Mason said, “wait ten minutes. Then call up police headquarters. You’ll ask for Sergeant Holcomb at Homicide. You’ll tell Holcomb that you’re a representative of the Blade. Tell him that you’ll give him a tip that will enable him to scoop the whole force if he’ll absolutely protect you and see that the other papers don’t get it.”

  “Suppose he says he won’t?”

  Mason grinned and said, “Sergeant Holcomb will promise anybody anything in order to steal a march on the other guys on the force.”

  “Okay, what do I tell him?”

  “Tell him that your reporters have located Perry Mason out here in this auto court. Give him the number of the cabin, give him the address of the auto court, and tell him that Mason is not registered personally, but that he’s with a representative of the Drake Detective Agency by the name of Lando, driving an automobile of a certain make and license number, and give him all the data. Tell him to rush Goshen out here to make an identification. Tell him your paper wants a scoop on the identification, inasmuch as you’re giving him the exclusive tip.”

  “Okay,” Lando said. “What else?”

  “Then,” Mason said, “we ring up the city editor at the Blade. Tell him you’re giving him an exclusive tip. That if it pans out you’ll call on him later for a five-spot. Tell him that Homicide is sending Goshen out here to make a surprise identification.”

  Lando studied Mason’s guileless countenance with shrewd eyes. “This guy Holcomb knows you, doesn’t he?”

  “Sure he knows me,” Mason said.

  “Isn’t that going to wreck things?”

  Mason said, “Holcomb is a fiend for publicity. He’s always trying to make it appear he’s done something Tragg has been unable to do.”

  Lando said, “I still don’t get it.”

  Mason said, “Holcomb believes in results and doesn’t care how he gets them. He’ll force Goshen to make an identification. Tragg wouldn’t go that far.”

  “What I’m getting at is what Holcomb will say when he sees you.”