“What happened?” Mason asked.

  “Somebody clips Dixie. They put a hand over her mouth.”

  “What about your gun?”

  “My gun!” Alburg said, and laughed sarcastically. “My gun is on the bed. Two men have guns in their hands. A gun on the bed is no good against a gun in the hand.”

  “Why didn’t you give the detective who was listening in the other room some sort of a signal?”

  “Because they are too damn smart. They know that room is wired as well as I do. Every time I try to say something a man puts his finger to his lips and jabs the gun in my guts. Then I try to get smart and say something anyway, and a blackjack hits me on the side of the head. I am sick to my stomach with pain. My knees are hinges that don’t work. That’s the story.”

  “That isn’t the story,” Mason said. “Go on. Tell me what happened.”

  “What the hell? We go to a freight elevator. They take us down the freight elevator. There is a car in the alley. I am put in the back seat and then down on the floor. They hold their feet on me. That is the way the cop got killed. They put him in a car and hold their feet down and they blow his brains out.”

  “Go ahead,” Mason said.

  “We go to an apartment hotel. We go up a back elevator, but I am smart. I have to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom there is a towel. The name of the apartment hotel is on it.”

  “Do you remember it?”

  “Of course I remember it. It is the Bonsal. B-o-n-s-a-l. I am in apartment 609-B.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then, after a long while, I go down the back way again. They are taking me for a ride. We go up a side road out of the city. I am still down on the floor. A man takes out a gun and puts it at my head. I am ready to grab and just then the driver tells, ‘Look out!’ He throws on the brakes.”

  “What had happened?”

  “I don’t know what had happened. I know what did happen. I am on the floor. The man holding the gun on me is thrown forward against the back of the front seat. I grab the gun. The car comes to a stop. I have that door open so fast you think I am greased, like lightning. I hold the gun. I say, ‘Stick ’em up, you guys,’ and then I am in the brush like a deer.”

  “It was brushy?”

  “We stop on a steep hill in a park. There is thick brush and the car is right by the edge of the steep bank. I go like a deer, I tell you. How I run!”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I walk and walk and walk and walk. I get a bus. I wait for a while to make sure you are in your office. I want to call you on the phone, but I am not like Dixie. I don’t remember the number you gave me to call. So I sit in a little greasy spoon restaurant. I wait. Then I get a taxi. I go to the office and they grab me.”

  Mason thought the situation over. “Did you talk to the police?”

  “Sure I talked to the police. I take them to the very place where I jump from the car. I show them my tracks.”

  “Did they see the tracks?”

  “Sure they saw the tracks. They see where I am jumping down the hill like a deer, forty feet at a jump. They laugh. They tell me I can leave tracks anywhere.”

  “So then what?”

  “Then we go to the Bonsal Hotel Apartments.”

  “And what happens?”

  “I don’t know. The police go up to apartment 609-B. They don’t tell me. I think something is haywire. They act like they have me hooked.”

  “And you told this story to the police, just as you are telling it to me now?”

  “That’s right. That’s my story.”

  “Did the police take down what you said in shorthand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then,” Mason said, “it’s not only your story, but you’re stuck with it.”

  Chapter 15

  Mason was checking out of the jail when the man at the desk said, “There’s a telephone call for you, Mr. Mason. Do you want to take it?”

  “Probably not,” Mason said.

  “It’s from someone here in the jail.”

  Mason said, “You have a couple of thousand people here. I suppose about fifteen hundred of them want to see me, hoping that I’ll find some way of getting them out. Can’t you get a name for that call?”

  “It’s a woman,” the man said. “She’s over in the women’s ward. She says her name is Dayton.”

  Mason frowned for a moment, then said, “Give me that phone.”

  “Hello,” Mason said into the phone. “Who is it?”

  “Dixie Dayton.”

  “Which one?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve already talked with one young woman who said she was Dixie Dayton and who …”

  “Oh, Mr. Mason! That was a trap that had been laid for you, after they kidnaped me. I’ve seen you at Morris’s restaurant and you’ve seen me—not to notice me, perhaps, but you’ll remember me when you see me. You and Miss Street walked right past me when—when I tried to run away and got hit by …”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In the women’s detention ward.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Since about nine o’clock this morning.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk with you about—about what happened.”

  “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

  “They wouldn’t let me. They were taking me around different places and putting me in a police show box with other prisoners for someone to identify.”

  “I’ll be over,” Mason said.

  He hung up the telephone, said, “Thank you,” to the man on duty at the desk, took the elevator, walked across to the women’s detention ward, and said, “You know me. I’m an attorney. I want to see Dixie Dayton. Do I need a pass?”

  The matron smiled and said, “It’s all fixed up for you, Mr. Mason. I knew she wanted to see you, and when I heard you were in the building I had them send up a pass. It’s all here. You may go right in.”

  “My, but you folks are co-operative,” Mason said.

  “We try to be.”

  Mason started to say something, then changed his mind, and went on in to where a woman, who had been waiting impatiently, jumped up with eager anticipation.

  “Oh, Mr. Mason, I’m so glad to see you! So glad!”

  Mason sized her up. “It took you long enough to get in touch with me.”

  “I did it just as soon as they’d let me.”

  “I’m not talking about after you were picked up. What were you doing all last night?”

  “Oh, Mr. Mason, it was terrible. Morris and I were kidnaped at the point of a gun there in the Keymont Hotel.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I don’t know who they were, but George Fayette was back of it.”

  “And Fayette is dead,” Mason said, “so he can’t deny it.”

  “Don’t you believe me?” she asked, suddenly piqued at his manner.

  Mason said, “I never disbelieve a client, but whenever I’m listening to a client’s story, I’m constantly wondering how a jury is going to react to that same story…. I just finished talking with Morris Alburg. No one’s going to believe his story.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Everything.”

  She said, “Well, you won’t believe mine, either. Your own witness identified me.”

  “What witness?” Mason asked sharply.

  “The one who works for the Drake Detective Agency, the one you hired to shadow the woman who was in the room with you.”

  “She identified you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Now, get this,” Mason said, “because it’s important. Was she brought to your cell to make the identification, or did she pick you out of a line-up, or—?”

  “She picked me out of a line-up.”

  Mason frowned, said, “I’ve talked with Morris Alburg. He’s given me the overall picture. Tell me what happened after you and Morris were separated.”

  “I was taken to an apartment in …”

  “I know, the Bonsal Apartments.”

  “Well, that’s what I thought it was. That was the name on the towels, but I don’t think it was the Bonsal Apartments.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—well, when I was taken to the Bonsal Apartments by the police … it wasn’t the same.”

  “Then what?” Mason said.

  “They treated me rather well. They had some coffee and ham and eggs sent up, and they gave me freedom to move around the apartment, except that the drapes were all drawn across the windows and I was told not to touch them unless I wanted to get hurt.”

  “I know,” Mason said. “They left you alone. You went to the bathroom. You found towels. They had the name ‘Bonsal Hotel Apartments’ on them. You took one to use as evidence.”

  “No, I didn’t take one. I was afraid they’d count the towels and find one missing, but I did remember the name.”

  “Go on,” Mason said, “then what?”

  “Then along about daylight this morning they took me out the back entrance, down a freight elevator, and into an alley. They made me get down on the floorboards of a car, and …”

  “I know,” Mason said, “you had a chance to escape. They were going to take you for a ride and kill you, but they got careless—”

  She started shaking her head.

  “No?” Mason asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, suppose you tell me what did happen.”

  She said, “They drove me to the airport. They told me that they were sorry, that they’d made a terrible mistake in my case, that they had found out I was all right and on the up-and-up, that I had better leave town, however, because the police were looking for me.”

  “Who was doing all this?” Mason asked.

  “Two people whom I had never seen before.”

  “Men?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they try to molest you in any way?”

  “No, they were perfect gentlemen.”

  “You were held prisoner in the apartment?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then they took you out and told you there’d been a mistake made?”

  “Well, something of that sort. They said that I was all right, and they were going to let me go, and …”

  “And what’s the rest of it?” Mason asked.

  “They gave me a ticket to Mexico City, told me there was a plane leaving in fifteen minutes, and I’d better get aboard.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It sounded like a perfectly swell idea to me. I wanted to get just as far away as I could, and Mexico City seemed like a wonderful place to go.”

  “Did they say anything about Morris, or did you ask them anything about Morris?”

  “They told me they’d let Morris go, too, and he was going to join me in Mexico City. They told me to go to the Hotel Reforma and that Morris would either be there when I arrived, or would be on the next plane, or that he might possibly make this plane.”

  “Did you ask for any explanations?”

  “Mr. Mason,” she said, “I’d been held a prisoner. I didn’t think I was ever going to come out of it alive. The plane was leaving in fifteen minutes. I had a chance to get away from those people. I thought they might change their minds. Five minutes earlier I had been satisfied I wouldn’t be alive for more than a matter of hours…. What would you have done?”

  Mason said, “I’d have gone into the air terminal and climbed aboard the plane to Mexico City.”

  “That’s exactly what I tried to do.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “A plain-clothes man.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Waiting by the gate.”

  “And what did he do?”

  “Took me into custody. Took me down to the jail. They asked a lot of questions.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Not too much. I was trying to protect—well, you know who.” She hesitated.

  Mason started to say something.

  “No names, please,” she said.

  “Someone you’re fond of?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “What did you tell the police?”

  “I told them about what had happened.”

  “All about the Bonsal Hotel Apartments?”

  “Yes.”

  “They took you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know the number of the apartment you were in?”

  “Not the number, but I could pick out the location. I knew that we got off at the fourteenth floor, and we were in the first apartment on the right.”

  “Go on, what happened?”

  “The elevator didn’t seem to be exactly the same, and—well, the first apartment on the right was occupied by an elderly couple who had been there for ten years. They seemed to be people who are entirely trustworthy and they swore they hadn’t been out all evening, that they had watched the television, then gone to bed about ten o’clock.”

  “The officers ask you about that gun?”

  “What one?”

  “The one in Seattle.”

  She hastily put her fingers to her lips, her eyes filled with panic. She said, “A gun in Seattle? Really, Mr. Mason, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “What are you charged with?” Mason asked.

  She said, “I think it’s—well, I’m not exactly charged yet, but I think I’m being held on suspicion of murder of George Fayette, being an accessory or something. They think that Morris and I did the job together.”

  “Did they tell you anything about what evidence they had against you, try to break down your story, tell you that you had been seen here, there or some other different place?”

  She shook her head. “Not a bit of that, no.”

  “And they haven’t asked you about that …”

  Her finger once more came to her lips. She looked apprehensively around the walls of the room and said, “Mr. Mason, please!”

  “All right,” Mason said.

  “Mr. Mason, are you going to represent me?”

  “Probably.”

  “And you think everything will be all right?”

  “That,” Mason told her, “will depend on whether or not the jury believes your story.”

  “Well,” she said, “won’t the jury believe me?”

  “Hell, no,” Mason said. “Not that story.”

  Chapter 16

  Mason, pacing the floor of his office, said, “It’s a lawyer’s nightmare.”

  Della Street nodded sympathetically.

  “Put them on the stand and let them tell their stories,” Mason said, “and my clients will go to the death cell and I’ll be the laughingstock of the town.”

  “Well,” Della Street said defiantly, “how do you know the story isn’t the truth?”

  “I don’t. It may be true. The trouble is it doesn’t sound like the truth. It sounds exactly like a story a lawyer would have cooked up. It’s one of those stories that accounts for everything, yet everything about it is improbable.”

  Paul Drake said, “Suppose you don’t let them tell that story, Perry …”

  “Hell,” Mason said disgustedly, “they’ve told it. The newspapers are full of it.”

  “I know, but I mean on the witness stand.”

  Mason said, “The public knows generally what the story is. If I keep my clients off the witness stand and state that it’s up to the prosecution to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt, you know what people will think. They’ll think that their story was so terrible their own lawyer was afraid to let them stand cross-examination.”

  “So what do you do?” Drake asked.

  “I’m damned if I know,” Mason said. “You know the story could be the truth. Some super-slick murderer could have carefully planned it so that these people would both be picked up by the police, so that they’d tell a story that would be just good enough to sound like the fabrication of a half-smart lawyer, but just bad enough to get them stuck in front of a jury with a first-degree murder rap.”

  “Couldn’t you convince a jury that that actually was what happened?” Della Street asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mason said. “I doubt if I’m that good.”

  He turned to Paul Drake. “Paul, we stand one chance, one mighty slim chance, and that is to find that girl who was in the room with me, the girl who claimed she was Dixie Dayton.”

  “Well,” Drake said, “where do I start looking?”

  “You start combing the past life of George Fayette. You find out everything about him. You look up every woman who was ever connected with him—and then you won’t find anything.”

  “Why not?” Della Street asked. “It sounds logical.”

  “If the story that we’re getting is true,” Mason said, “the people who are back of it would be too smart to use any girl who could ever have been tied up with George Fayette. She’ll be an absolute stranger. Someone whom no one would have thought of. Probably someone from another city.”

  “And what do we do if we find her?” Drake asked. “You go on the stand and swear you had a conversation with her, she swears that you didn’t, and then Minerva Hamlin says you’re mistaken.”

  “I don’t want to get on the stand, Paul.”

  “Why not?”

  “It puts me in the position of being both a lawyer and a witness, which is unethical.”

  “Why is it unethical?”

  “The American Bar Association frowns on it.”

  “Let ’em frown,” Drake said. “Frowns don’t hurt. Do they slap?”

  “They don’t like it.”

  “Is it illegal?”

  “No.”

  “I think we’re doing Minerva Hamlin an injustice,” Drake said. “She’ll probably come around all right. It was just an ordinary mistake she made, and …”

  “She spoke up too fast,” Mason said. “You can see what happened. They showed her the photograph and she made one of those snap judgments saying that she thought it was the girl. Then they told her to study the photograph, and she kept looking at it and looking at it. By the time she saw Dixie Dayton in the line-up, she had become so familiar with her face from looking at the photograph that she just knew the girl was familiar and so went ahead and identified her.”