After a few minutes of studying the results of his scavenging, Mason tossed the chip away, got to his feet, said, “Well, Della, this Friday the thirteenth certainly has been my unlucky day.”

  Della Street slipped her hand into his. “I hate to add to it Chief … But the board’s over here, the one he used for a raft.”

  Mason saw a rough slab of board floating in the lake, a board which had originally been cut to generous proportions, eighteen inches wide, two inches thick, and perhaps some five feet long. Some round limbs from a dead oak had been crudely lashed to the bottom in order to form a raft which looked capable of supporting one’s weight.

  Mason turned abruptly away.

  Silently they walked around to the far edge of the lake, then paused to look at the after colors of sunset. Della Street glanced questioningly at Mason.

  The lawyer wearily settled down on the grassy slope, looked up at the clouds which had now turned crimson.

  They sat there in silence, close together, each preoccupied with his own thoughts. Mason turning over and over in his mind the murder case, Della Street from time to time glancing up at Mason’s granite-hard profile, his level-lidded concentration.

  At length Mason lay back, put his hands under his head, looked up at the heavens and said wearily, “Let’s wait for the first star, Della. Then we’ll go.”

  She moved around, raised his head, put it on her lap, smoothed back the thick wavy hair from his tired forehead.

  Mason closed his eyes. “That feels swell,” he muttered.

  She placed the tips of her fingers over his eyelids, softly drew them around the edges, then gave a gentle pressure against the sides of his head just back of the eyes.

  Mason drew in a deep breath, exhaled it in a sigh, relaxed until the furrows left his forehead, said almost dreamily, “Call me when you see the first star, Della.”

  Ten seconds later he was asleep.

  Della let him sleep until the stars were blazing brilliantly, until the evening air began to have a suggestion of chill, then she wakened him.

  “The first star, Chief,” she said.

  “Della … Good Lord, what time is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not too late.”

  “You should have wakened me.”

  “I was asleep myself,” she lied.

  “Honest?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Gosh, Della … Where are the flashlights?”

  “Over here.”

  “It’s going to be dark.”

  “That’s all right. We can find our way down the trail.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “let’s go back and call it a day, Della.”

  Della said, “You know, Chief, I’ve been thinking.”

  “What?”

  “The fact that this Cushing woman was telling the truth, the fact that they did come out here and did have their picnic doesn’t necessarily affect anything that Scott Shelby did or didn’t do. After all, he’d made a perfect setup to duck out and leave his wife framed with a murder.”

  “But why?” Mason asked.

  “That’s something we’ll have to find out. I can’t help but think your reasoning is correct. We just tied it up with the wrong party, that’s all. He must have had some other woman.”

  “Perhaps, yet, somehow I doubt if he did. I’m beginning to feel now that there’s something I’ve overlooked … And yet the case against Marion Shelby is just too bulletproof. I can’t help but think Shelby is alive.”

  Della Street said, “You could be wrong?”

  “Of course. Why do you ask in just that tone of voice?”

  “Because, somehow, I feel he was murdered. I have a hunch he … well, you know … The murder was committed on the yacht. It must have been.”

  Mason said, “If he’s really dead, I’m licked, Della—and licked good and plenty. Oh well, let’s go. We’ll see what turns up tomorrow.”

  Mason played his flashlight along the ground in front, said, “You walk ahead, Della, and I’ll hold the flashlight slightly to one side and … What’s that in your hand?”

  She said, “A hollow tube of lead. It’s a sinker. Someone evidently was fishing. I picked it up for luck.” She handed it to him. “Keep it and see if it doesn’t give us a break.”

  “Luck on Friday the thirteenth?”

  “Why not? After all, Chief, Scott Shelby was a man of parts. He didn’t confine his attentions to one woman. His whole record shows that. Ellen Cushing thought that she was the whole show, but the probabilities are that he was making passes at her just to keep his hand in. Let’s see if some other woman wasn’t the one who waited out there in a rowboat and picked him up.”

  Mason said, “You might have something there. The thing that makes the Cushing woman so plausible is that oil lease.”

  They walked silently down the pathway. Mason held the door open for Della, fumbled for his ignition keys.

  “Okay?” she asked.

  “I think I forgot something,” he said.

  “What?”

  He grasped her shoulders, pulled her towards him, kissed her, then held her close to him.

  She sighed when he released her. “It should have gone with the sunset,” she laughed, but her voice was wistful.

  “Better late than never,” he told her. “I’m going to quit taking my cases so seriously if they make me unable to concentrate on the things that are worthwhile in life.”

  “Don’t go to extremes,” she laughed. “Just dismiss it from your mind until tomorrow.”

  Chapter 17

  Perry Mason entered the elevator with a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. His shoulders were back, his head up. The worry of the day before had completely vanished and his step was light, his eyes twinkling.

  He stopped on his way to his own office to look in at Paul Drake’s office.

  “The boss wants to see you just as soon as he possibly can,” the girl at the switchboard told him. “He’s in there, waiting.”

  Mason grinned. “In other words, I suppose the papers have been served on him. Okay, I’ll go on in.”

  Paul Drake looked up as Mason entered, “Hello, Perry. Seen the papers?”

  “What about ’em?”

  “We’re being sued for two hundred and fifty thousand smackers.”

  Mason stretched, yawned, “Lawsuits are cheap.”

  Drake said bitterly, “I’m going to throw away those skeleton keys and never carry them again as long as I live.”

  “You’ve said that before, Paul,” Mason replied, “but you know you can’t throw them away. It’s too complete a collection.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. I’m going to go down to the longest wharf on the waterfront and throw ’em as far as I can hurl. Tell me, Perry. What is this case? How serious is it?”

  Mason said, “Probably publicity on the part of the police.”

  “See the pictures of the picnic, Perry?”

  “No. Where?”

  “The Times has an exclusive on ’em. The gal had a camera along.”

  “The deuce she did!”

  “Uh huh. The gal must be a good photographer. She got some swell pictures. One of ’em even shows the ice on the blanket. A nice jolt for us, eh? The pictures were taken with a delayed action release, shows them both. A jury will like ’em—nice pictures.”

  Mason said, “Cheer up, Paul. It’s all a part of yesterday’s tough luck. Yesterday was Friday the thirteenth. It’s gone now. We’ve got a new day, Saturday the fourteenth. Get your fingerprint outfit, will you? I want you to come into the office and do a job.”

  “On what?”

  “On the telephone I took from my stateroom on Parker Benton’s yacht.”

  “Did you use the telephone?”

  “Yes. But I think somebody else used it after I did.”

  “Who?”

  “Shelby. Apparently mine was the only vacant stateroom.”

  Drake said, “For the love of Mike, Perry, wake up. Forget that telephone business. That woman never did get any telephone call. She knew that her husband was on deck. My guess is that he was on deck with that Marjorie Stanhope. The wife was doing a little eavesdropping and probably heard plenty. I guess Shelby was quite a rounder. He may have been using the oil lease as a little leverage to help him make a noise like a wolf. Marion Shelby simply parked around there until after the party broke up and then bumped her husband off.”

  “Come on,” Mason said, “we’ll conduct our postmortems after we know more. Let’s see if we can develop some latents on the telephone.”

  “How the heck are we going to get Shelby’s fingerprints for comparison when they haven’t got the body?”

  “The police will have developed a set of fingerprints from his apartment.”

  “Maybe. But they won’t turn them over to anybody. After the body is discovered, we can get the fingerprints from the coroner’s office.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “come on, let’s go down and take a look at that telephone instrument anyway.”

  Drake picked up a small satchel, said, “I suppose you’ll want a fingerprint camera too. Anyhow I’ll take one.” He picked up a long, oblong black covered box.

  Mason held the door open for him and they went down the corridor. Mason unlocked the door of his private office, smiled at Della and said, “How are you feeling this morning, Della?”

  “Like a million dollars. Seen the picnic pictures, Chief?”

  “Not yet. Where’s that bag with the telephone, Della?”

  Della Street opened the safe, took out the bag. Mason opened the bag and took out the telephone, being careful not to leave his fingerprints on the instrument.

  Drake dusted the instrument with a white powder while Mason looked at the.picnic pictures in the newspaper.

  At length Drake said, “Well, we’ve got some nice latents here—whoever made ’em. They’re sharp as a tack, and …”

  He broke off as the telephone rang and Della answered it.

  “For you, Paul,” Della Street said, pushing the telephone at Paul Drake.

  Drake picked up the receiver, said, “Hello … Huh? … The hell they did … When?”

  He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece of the transmitter, looked up at Perry Mason. His face held stupefied surprise. “They’ve recovered Scott Shelby’s body, Perry! Dragged it out of the river.”

  “The devil they did!” Mason said incredulously.

  “A thirty-eight bullet in the base of his skull,” Drake went on.

  “What time?” Mason asked.

  “What time?” Drake asked into the telephone.

  He turned to Perry Mason. “Eleven-fifty-nine last night, Perry.”

  Mason said whimsically, “Friday the thirteenth had to take one last wallop. This looks like the pay-off, Paul.”

  Chapter 18

  The district attorney, thinking back on the unexpected pitfalls which Perry Mason had injected into previous cases, embarked on the trial of The People vs. Marion Shelby with the leisurely thoroughness of a connoisseur who is not going to be hurried through a most pleasant experience.

  Paul Drake had delivered a final report as the court recessed after a jury had been selected. “They’ve got a mathematical case, Perry, one of those dreams of the district attorney, a case where there isn’t any single possible solution other than that of guilt.”

  “Did you get a report on those fingerprints?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were any of those prints of Scott Shelby?”

  “Yes, they were,” Drake said.

  Mason grinned. “I think, Paul, that’s all the break I want. If I can find something that will substantiate Marion Shelby’s story …”

  “But you can’t, Perry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are other fingerprints on there, those of Parker Benton, the fingerprints of a woman that haven’t as yet been identified. Benton says he has no idea who she could have been. There’s some possibility it was a woman who had occupied the stateroom some time previously and Benton doesn’t want to have her name brought into the case.”

  “I don’t care about the other fingerprints, Paul. If Scott Shelby’s fingerprints are on that telephone …”

  “Wait a minute,” Drake said. “I’m coming to something else. Parker Benton says that originally Scott Shelby was put into that stateroom. Then, Benton decided to put Shelby and his wife in the other end of the yacht. He thought they would be more comfortable in a larger stateroom. So he moved them and put you in there. Shelby could have used the phone in the five minutes or so he was in there. At any rate, the D.A. will claim he did and that will knock your theory galley west.”

  Mason made a wry face. “How about the bullet, Paul?”

  “They’re keeping mum on that, Perry. The D.A. feels there’s been a leak on some of his other cases, so he’s sewed this up so tight I can’t find out a darn thing.”

  “Well there’s one thing,” Mason said with an air of conviction, “the bullet couldn’t have been fired from that gun. That’s one break I can count on.”

  “Don’t be too sure, Perry.”

  “Phooey! If she saw him alive and on the deck, and she had the gun all the while. No, Paul, they’ll claim the bullet was too battered to identify or that she had two guns. That’s one break they’ll have to give me.”

  The bailiff called for the jury. Paul Drake thrust out his hand, gripped Mason’s. “Well, here’s luck. You’re going to need it regardless of the marks on the bullet.”

  Mason sat down beside his client for a brief whispered conversation, and then arose as Judge Maxwell entered the courtroom and the bailiff called court to order.

  District Attorney Hamilton Burger leisurely started laying the ground work for proving the corpus delicti, and skillfully paving the way to blast the defendant’s story in the event she took the witness stand.

  A draftsman introduced plans of the yacht, showing the location of each stateroom, the side elevation, overhang of bow and stern, the amount of freeboard, and, finally a complete deck plan of the yacht.

  These plans were one after another introduced in evidence.

  Then Hamilton Burger said, casually, all too casually in fact, “Now, Mr. Adams, I notice on this plan which is introduced in evidence as People’s Exhibit C a red line and also a green line.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Those lines seem to run pretty much through the diagram and to branch out into several ends. Can you tell me what they mean—that is, what they stand for? Just explain to the jury, please.”

  The draftsman said, “These represent two lines of wires, two telephone systems.”

  “Will you please turn to the jury and trace them so the jurors can see them?”

  “Yes, sir. Now this red line indicates a telephone system which has several stations on the yacht, one in the bow, one in a crow’s-nest on the masthead, one in the engine room, one in the pilothouse, one in the owner’s stateroom, one in the crew’s quarters, one in the captain’s stateroom, one in the galley.”

  “Making a total of eight in all?” Burger asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the green line? I noticed that that also has eight endings or outlets.”

  “Yes, sir. That green line represents another independent telephone system installed in the staterooms.”

  “That has eight outlets?”

  “Yes, sir. There is an outlet in each of the staterooms and one in the steward’s office.”

  “Those systems are not connected in any way?”

  “No, sir, they are not.”

  “I’m anxious to get that clearly established in the minds of the jurors,” Hamilton Burger said, “because it will explain the use of two different colors in tracing these telephone lines on the map. Do I understand that it would be impossible to call any of the stations on the green network from any station on the red network?”

  “That is right. Yes, sir.”

  “But any station on the red network can be called from any other station on the red network?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And similarly, any station on the green network can be called only from any station on the green network?”

  “That is right. Yes, sir.”

  “And there is no common point on the boat at which those calls could be transferred?”

  “No, sir. Each system is separate and independent.”

  “I think that is all. Do you wish to cross-examine, Mr. Mason?”

  “Yes,” Mason said. “I’m interested in this telephone system.”

  “I thought you would be,” the district attorney said ironically.

  Mason said to the witness, “As I understand it, you have testified that it is an absolute impossibility for any station on the green network to be called from any station on the red network.”

  “That is right. Yes, sir.”

  “I notice, however, that the two stations meet in this stateroom which you have marked Number One.”

  “That is the only stateroom which has outlets from both lines, the one occupied by Mr. Parker Benton as a rule, and I understand he has to call … Well, I guess I hadn’t better go into that.”

  “No,” the district attorney said with a smile. “Just confine yourself to what is shown on these diagrams, if you please, Mr. Adams. The jurors will understand without your help that the owner of a yacht naturally has to call its various departments.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mason said, “These two telephone systems do meet, however, in this stateroom Number One?”

  “They don’t meet. No, sir. But stateroom Number One is served with both telephones, that is, a telephone from each system.”

  “And I notice that the end of the green line and the end of the red line in this diagram showing stateroom Number One are very close together.”