“What do you think, Chief?” Della asked.

  “I think Gertie saw the contents of that bag, all right, and I think it was packed full of currency. But whether it was filled with hundred-dollar bills or whether it was filled with one-dollar bills is anybody’s guess. I don’t think Gertie could have seen the hundred-dollar denomination at that distance while looking in the mirror.”

  “Gertie has a wonderful imagination,” Della said.

  Mason nodded thoughtfully. “But,” he said, “the important thing is how long that mirror was held at a forty-five degree angle; whether our mysterious client wanted Gertie to see what was in the black bag and report it to us, or whether she was taking something out and Gertie’s quick eye managed to get a glimpse of the contents. … You have to hand it to Gertie for that; she can see more in a tenth of a second than most people can see after staring for five minutes.”

  Della laughed. “And then her mind has a computer system all of its own by which she multiplies what she has seen by two.”

  “Squares it,” Mason said, laughing. “Well, let’s go back and see our client.”

  Mason and Della returned to the lawyer’s private office.

  “I’m sorry we kept you waiting,” Mason said. “Now, let’s see, where were we? You wanted to have a lawyer who would represent you in case you needed an attorney?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you didn’t want anyone to know your identity.”

  “I have my reasons, Mr. Mason.”

  “I presume you have,” Mason agreed, “but that makes it rather unsatisfactory as far as I’m concerned. Suppose you want to communicate with me so I can do something for you. How am I to know that I’m talking with the same person who retained me?”

  “We’ll agree on a code,” she said.

  “All right,” Mason said, “what do you suggest?”

  “My measurements.”

  “Yes?” Mason asked.

  “Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six,” she said.

  A smile flitted across the lawyer’s face, then he was serious once more. “That’s not much of a code,” he said.

  “But if I gave you the measurements in my own voice over the telephone—you’d recognize my voice, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m not certain,” Mason said. “I might. Sometimes voices are rather hard to place over the telephone. What would you want me to do? That is, what do you think you’d like to have me do if I should decide to represent you and you should call me over the phone?”

  “Defend me,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “Heavens, I don’t know,” she said, “but the people who are trying to find me are very, very ingenious. They wouldn’t go to the expense of hiring private detectives when they could accuse me of having committed some crime and put the police on my trail. That’s what I’m afraid of.

  “You see, Mr. Mason,” she went on hurriedly, “I’m not at liberty to tell you all of the facts, but there are certain people—that is, a certain person who wants to find me or who might want to find me. That person is devilishly ingenious. He would stop at nothing.”

  “It’s not easy to find a person who deliberately disappears,” Mason said.

  “I know,” she said, “and this other party knows that, too. He isn’t going to waste his time and money hiring private detectives at fifty dollars a day. He’ll accuse me of some crime and get the police to find me.”

  “And then?” Mason asked.

  “Then,” she said, “I’d have to defend myself.”

  “You mean he’d actually try to press these trumped-up charges?”

  “He might. He might try anything.”

  “He would be putting himself in a very vulnerable position,” Mason said. “That is, unless you have committed some crime.”

  “But I haven’t.”

  “What do you think he would accuse you of?”

  “Heavens, I don’t know. Murder perhaps. He’s absolutely ruthless.”

  Mason eyed her steadily. “Or perhaps embezzlement?” he asked.

  A sudden flush of color flooded her face.

  “Well?” Mason asked.

  “He might even do that,” she said, “but I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “That would seem to be a logical thing to do,” Mason commented, making his voice elaborately casual. “If he accused you of murder he would have to have a corpse. Whereas, if he accused you of embezzlement he would only have to swear that a large sum of money was missing.”

  “Yes,” she said, and then added slowly, “I see your point.”

  “And just what did you have in mind?” Mason asked.

  “I wanted to give you a retainer and have it so that you’d be willing to act as my attorney, to come to my rescue in case I should telephone. … No matter what it was I wanted.”

  “How much of a retainer did you have in mind?” Mason asked.

  “Would three hundred dollars do?”

  “I would say that that would be a reasonable retainer,” Mason said. “Of course, after you consulted me and in case the situation became complicated, I’d have to ask for more money.”

  She opened her hand purse, held it carefully so that Mason could not see the contents, and took out six fifty-dollar bills.

  “Do I give them to you or give them to your bookkeeper?” she asked.

  “My secretary will make a receipt,” Mason said. “… Those fifty-dollar bills look uniformly crisp.”

  Her laugh was nervous. “Well, I prepared myself. I don’t ordinarily carry large sums of money like this. I got these for you—at my bank.”

  “Here in the city?” Mason asked quite casually with a quick glance at Della Street.

  “No, no, not here in the city. Heavens, no.”

  “I see,” Mason said, picking up the fifty-dollar bills and fingering them casually.

  “Just what did you expect me to do for you?” he asked.

  “Probably nothing. Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Mason. You are just an anchor out to windward. If all goes well you’ll never hear from me again. I’ll walk out of this office and out of your life.”

  “And if all doesn’t go well?” Mason asked.

  “Then you’ll hear from me.”

  “And what will I hear?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll be calling on you for help.”

  “What sort of help?”

  “I don’t know, perhaps advice in a tight situation.”

  “I can’t establish a relationship with a client on that kind of a basis,” Mason said.

  “You mean financially?”

  “In part.”

  “At the time I call on you for help we’ll discuss additional fees. I know that you’ll be fair with me and I certainly won’t ask you to do anything which is unfair, inequitable or unjust.”

  “Or illegal?” Mason asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

  She started to say “or illegal” but suddenly caught herself, hesitated a moment, then said, “You wouldn’t do anything that was illegal, so why waste time talking about it?”

  “Then you’ll get in touch with me if you need me?”

  “Very definitely.”

  Mason said, “You can reach me at this office during office hours. During the evening you can reach me through the Drake Detective Agency, which has an office on the same floor here in this building.”

  “I saw the sign on the door as I walked down from the elevator,” she said.

  “They have a twenty-four-hour switchboard,” Mason said, “and in the event of any emergency—that is, if it’s a real emergency—they can usually get in touch with me.”

  Della Street handed her a card. “Here are the numbers,” she said, “day and night.”

  “Thank you, Miss Street.”

  Mason said to Della, “Make out a receipt, Della, for a three-hundred-dollar retainer in the form of cash. Now, do you want this made simply to the Code Number thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want any receipt.” She slipped the loop of her purse over her wrist, picked up the black cosmetics bag, smiled at Della Street, said, “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Mason,” and walked out.

  Mason sat watching the automatic doorstop as it closed the door.

  When the latch had clicked, Mason said to Della, “You know she put on a good act.”

  “In what way?”

  “That we’d never see her again.”

  “You think it was an act?”

  “I’ll give you ten to one,” Mason said, “that within a matter of five days that girl calls us up and is in serious difficulties—difficulties which she had already anticipated.”

  “No takers,” Della said. “It’s bad luck to take the other side of a bet with you. I’ll tell you one thing, however, those weren’t her measurements. She’s nearer thirty-two, twenty-four, thirty six.”

  Mason thought that over. “Padding?” he asked.

  “Not that much,” Della said. “She’s using quite a bit, but not that much.”

  “Now that you mention it, Della,” Mason said, “I see what you mean. So we have a client who is lying to us right at the start.”

  “Sailing under false colors,” Della Street said, smiling.

  Mason said meditatively, “ ‘The Case of the Falsified Tape.’ ”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be ‘The Case of the Costly Client,’ ” Della said. I’m suspicious of padded stories, padded expense accounts, and padded clients.”

  “She sneaked up on my blind side,” Mason said. “I should have given her more of a third degree and broken down her story. However, it’s too late now. We’ll ride along with her false measurements.”

  2

  AT TEN MINUTES after nine Mason entered his private office through the hall door, smiled a greeting at Della Street, said, “Anybody in the outer office, Della?”

  She shook her head and then said, “Gertie.”

  “Well, Gertie is supposed to be there.”

  “Gertie’s there, hitting on all six,” Della said. “Gertie is so excited she is running around in circles.”

  “What’s excited Gertie?”

  “Your mysterious client of yesterday.”

  Mason’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “We’ve heard from her again?”

  “Gertie has.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Della motioned to Mason’s desk. On top of the mail was a folded newspaper, opened at the section of CLASSIFIED ADS and folded so that the so-called “Personals” were on top.

  Mason walked over to the desk, seated himself in the cushioned swivel chair, picked up the paper, let his eyes glance down the section of personal columns, and noticed the ad which had been marked in the margin: AM HERE READY TO CONCLUDE NEGOTIATIONS ON STRAIGHT CASH BASIS. NO CHECKS. SPOT CASH. CONTACT ME AT WILLATSON HOTEL. 36-24-36.

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” Mason said. “Do you suppose that’s our gal?”

  “Sounds like it,” Della said.

  “Hang it,” Mason said, “that’s what comes of taking a case sight-unseen. Now, that gal is mixed up in some adventure which is going to get her into trouble just as sure as shooting. And when she gets into trouble she’s going to look to us to get her out.”

  Mason hesitated a moment, then jerked his thumb toward the telephone. “Paul Drake, Della.”

  Della dialed Paul Drake’s unlisted number and, in a moment, said, “Just a minute, Paul, Perry wants to talk with you.”

  She handed the phone over to Mason.

  “Hi, Paul,” Mason said, “are you too busy to come down to the office for a minute?”

  “Never too busy but what the scent of new business causes me to come running!”

  “Come running, then,” Mason said, and hung up.

  Della Street said, “Is it ethical for you to tell Paul… ?”

  “It isn’t ethical for me to tell him anything,” Mason said, “not at this stage of the game—at least the way I interpret ethics. But I’m going to find out something about who this gal is seeing and what it’s all about.”

  “Any idea?” Della asked.

  Mason said, “I think she came down from San Francisco.”

  “Why?”

  “The way she’s dressed for one thing,” Mason said, “plus the time of day she came in. She took a plane down, checked her baggage somewhere, probably at the Willatson Hotel, took a cab, came up here. … And she had probably arranged to put that ad in the paper before she ever came down here. As I remember it, it takes a day or two to get an ad of that sort published. … If that’s correct, she telephoned the Willatson Hotel for a reservation.”

  “And so?” Della asked.

  “And so,” Mason said, “we’re going to find out a little bit about our mysterious client, a little bit more than the three measurements.”

  Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the corridor door of the private office. Della opened the door. “Hi, Paul,” she said. “How’s the digestive system?”

  “Better, thanks, Beautiful. You folks haven’t had me sitting up all night on cases where I’ve had to eat soggy hamburgers at an office desk. I’ve dined out on good freshly cooked meat now for six days in succession.”

  “Business that bad?” Mason asked.

  “Lousy,” Drake said.

  “Maybe we can help,” Mason told him. “But this isn’t a big case, it’s just a routine job.”

  “Who’s the client?” Drake asked.

  “I am,” Mason said.

  “Oh, oh.”

  “He wants to find out about a client,” Della said.

  Drake settled himself in the overstuffed leather chair, threw his legs over the rounded arm, took out a notebook and a fountain pen, and said, “Shoot.”

  Mason said, “I think I let a client down, Paul.”

  “How come?”

  Mason hesitated, spoke cautiously. “I can’t tell you the details without violating the code of ethics, Paul. An attorney is supposed to protect the confidences of his client. Any statements that are made are completely confidential.

  “Now then, with that in mind I want you to know that I am afraid I gave a client advice which fell short of the advice I should have given.”

  “Male or female?” Drake asked.

  “That also is confidential,” Mason said.

  “Well, how did you fail this client?”

  “I didn’t tell the client the things the client should have known for the client’s own good,” Mason said. “I let the client diagnose the case and accepted that diagnosis.”

  “How come?”

  Mason said, “Every once in a while a client wants to diagnose the case, just as a patient will come to a doctor and say, ‘Doctor, I have indigestion. I want you to give me something for indigestion.’

  “If the doctor simply gives the patient something for indigestion he is untrue to his profession.

  “What the doctor should do is ask about symptoms connected with the indigestion. He finds out that the patient has been having pains in the chest and occasionally down the left arm, so he suspects something entirely different from indigestion. He has a cardiograph made and finds out that the patient is suffering from a high cholesterol count. He doesn’t give the patient medicine for indigestion, but puts the patient on a diet consisting of no fats, no dairy foods, but high in proteins.

  “The patient gets better.

  “If, on the other hand, the doctor had accepted the patient’s self-diagnosis, the patient would probably have been dead inside of twelve months.”

  “That,” Drake said, “is rather elementary, isn’t it, Perry?”

  “I’m making it elementary,” Mason explained, “because I want to show you the situation.

  “This client came here and diagnosed the case and prescribed the remedy. Unfortunately, I accepted the statements at face value. I shouldn’t have done that. Now then, in order to appease my own conscience, I want information.”

  “About the client?” Drake asked.

  “About various and sundry things,” Mason said. “They do not necessarily have any direct bearing on the situation. They may not even directly concern the client. But they are sufficiently significant so they concern me.”

  “All right,” Drake said, “you’ve now reached your thumb by going all the way around your elbow. You want me to do a job. It’s a job in which you are the client. You’ll get the best service I can give and you’ll get a discount on the bill. What do I do?”

  Mason took the folded newspaper and handed it to Drake.

  “That ad,” he said.

  Drake read the ad aloud:

  “AM HERE READY TO CONCLUDE NEGOTIATIONS ON STRAIGHT CASH BASIS. NO CHECKS. SPOT CASH. CONTACT ME AT WILLATSON HOTEL. 36-24-36.”

  Drake looked up from the newspaper. “That’s the ad that interests you?”

  Mason nodded.

  “Your party evidently has three rooms,” Drake said. … “No, wait a minute, thirty-six is mentioned twice. It may be two rooms, thirty-six and twenty-four, and then the person putting in the ad signs it thirty-six to show that that’s the room where contact is to be made.”

  “Could be,” Mason said.

  Drake regarded him shrewdly. “And it could be some sort of a code,” he said.

  Mason was silent.

  “Exactly what is it you want me to do?” the detective inquired.

  “Find out everything you can about who put that ad in the paper and the person for whom the message was intended.”

  Drake said, “That may be a big job, or it may be rather simple. The Willatson Hotel is a commerical-type hotel. When there are conventions in town it’s probably about ninety-five percent occupied. At other times the percentage of occupancy may be sixty to seventy percent. In any event there will be too many people just to go at it blind. I can find out who’s in room thirty-six and who’s in room twenty-four. That may not mean anything.

  “The best bet is to try to get a line on whoever put the ad in the paper by making a dummy reply in the press, saying something like:

  “MESSAGE NOT CLEAR. YOU CAN REACH ME TELEPHONE NUMBER 676-2211 TO CLARIFY. AM NOT WALKING INTO ANY TRAP REGARDLESS OF TYPE OF BAIT USED.”