Mason looked at Della Street. “A couple,” he said. “Have you seen any couple, Miss . . .”

  “Miss Garland.”

  “Do sit down, Miss Garland. I take it you’re covering the entire block. Perhaps you’ve seen . . .”

  “Not a couple,” she said. “But I did see a rather suspicious-looking woman. I thought she was just coming down off the porch. I was ringing the bell at the adjoining house, where there seems to be no one home, and I noticed her come up on this porch, pause for a moment, then turn around and go back down. There was a little old man walking past at the time, and I saw him looking at her as though he’d known her.”

  “Up on this porch?” Mason asked.

  “That’s right, but I don’t think she rang the bell. She walked up on the porch, stood there for a moment, then turned around and went back down the stairs and walked rapidly down toward the corner.”

  “Which direction?” the officer asked.

  “Down toward the cable car tracks,” Della Street said.

  “Did you get a good look at her?”

  “She was rather—well, she looked rather—well cheap,” Della Street said. “Something in the way she walked.”

  The radio officer frowned, said, “Guess I’ll check up with my partner. How do you get through to the back of the house?”

  “This way,” Mason said, walking toward the dining room. “Sit down if you will please, Miss Garland. I’ll be glad to talk with you.”

  The officer said, “I can find my way okay.”

  “I’ll switch on the lights for you,” Mason said, and added apologetically, “I’m batching here. Engaged in some research work. Afraid I’m not much of a housekeeper when it comes to dusting.”

  The light Mason had switched on disclosed what his flashlight had failed to make plain—that the table and chairs were well covered with dust.

  The officer, frowning at them, said, “You sure aren’t much on housekeeping. Don’t you eat here?”

  Mason laughed. “I’m afraid I’m a typical scholar, the absentminded sort. As a matter of fact, I do most of my eating in the kitchen. And my eating is rather sketchy at that.”

  The officer followed Mason on into the kitchen. As Mason switched on the lights, he could see the vague outlines of a burly figure standing on the back porch just outside the back door.

  Mason said quite casually, apparently without noticing the man on the porch, “My diet is mostly milk, eggs, and things I can pick up at the delicatessen store. Incidentally, if you’d like a glass of milk, Officer, you’ll find a cold bottle in the icebox.” Mason laughed nervously and said, “I don’t know what the etiquette of the situation calls for, but in view of the fact that you’ve come to protect my property, I . . .”

  The officer who had been looking around the kitchen, walked over to the door of the icebox, jerked it open, looked inside, took a quick mental inventory of the contents, closed the door, and said, “My partner’s out here,” and went to the back door. He opened it, said, “See anything, Jack?”

  “No.”

  “There was a jane up on the porch,” the first officer said, “soliciting subscriptions. She saw a girl come off this porch and walk around the corner down by the cable car tracks. Guess that was the one the fellow saw.”

  “Get a description?”

  “No. I’m going back to talk with her. Come on. This is my partner, Mr.—what’s your name?”

  “Tragg,” Mason said. “George C. Tragg,” and then added somewhat hopefully, “I have a brother who’s on the police force in Los Angeles.”

  “That so?” the officer asked, his manner undergoing a subtle change.

  Mason nodded. “Lieutenant Tragg on Homicide,” he said. “You may have heard of him. He . . .”

  “Sure I’ve heard of him,” the radio officer said. “So you’re Tragg’s brother. Well, well! Say, you know I ran onto Tragg at the convention here a couple of months ago. He gave us a talk on examining witnesses who were at the scene of a crime. Bright chap.”

  Mason nodded eagerly. “Yes. He was up here a couple of months ago.” He added, somewhat ruefully, “But I didn’t see much of him. I had my work, and he was frightfully busy. I guess those police conventions are rather—well, I guess an officer has his time pretty well taken up.”

  The radio men exchanged grins. “We do for a fact.”

  Mason switched out the lights behind them. Della Street, making herself comfortable in a chair in the front room, unostentatiously glanced at her wristwatch as the trio entered the living room.

  “What’d you say your name was?” the first officer asked.

  “Miss Garland,” she said, with somewhat aloof dignity.

  “Getting subscriptions for the Chronicle,” the first officer explained. “Now, Miss Garland, let’s find out about this woman who went around the comer.”

  Della Street raised her eyes, looking at a far comer of the ceiling. She placed her gloved finger against her chin, and said meditatively, “Well, let me see. I couldn’t tell how she was dressed, but there was something about her. Oh, yes, her walk. Rather an exaggerated swing to the . . . er . . . hips . . . I remember she had on a narrow-brimmed hat and . . . no, I don’t think she wore any coat other than a jacket. Her skirts were rather short, and she was—well, leggy.”

  The radio officer laughed in high good humor. “Leggy,” he said. “That’s a good one. Damned if it doesn’t describe that breed of cat.”

  “I don’t think you could miss her if you happened to see her walking along the street,” Della Street said.

  The officers glanced at each other. “You didn’t see any man with her?”

  “No. She was alone.”

  “How close were you?”

  “I was rather close,” she admitted, “just up on the porch of that other house. But you know how it is when you’re working. You have so many calls to make and such a limited time within which to make them. You don’t dare to start too early or you break in on a family right after dinner, usually with the woman of the house doing dishes in the kitchen. Then after it gets just so late, you feel rather conspicuous, even when you know people are still up. Lots of times the ringing of a doorbell will waken a child, and that makes for a bad reception. So there’s only a relatively short period of time in which you have to work.”

  The officer looked at his watch. “Pretty late now, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, bit her lip, lowered her eyes, and said in a halting voice, “But I had some emergencies—my kid sister—well, I just needed the extra money. I get paid so much a subscription, you see.”

  The officer said, “Okay, Miss Garland. Come on, Jack, let’s take a run down the car track and see if we can’t pick up this moll. Not that we’ve got anything against her. You’re sure she wasn’t prowling around up here on the porch?”

  Della Street grew thoughtful. “She just came up here for a few moments. I somehow had the impression that she might be just trying to avoid meeting the man who was walking along the street. That’s why I noticed him more than I did her. You know how it is. Unescorted girls who have work which keeps them out in the evening quite frequently have—oh, well, you know.”

  “Guys make passes at you?” the officer asked, grinning.

  “Uh huh,” Della said casually. “I don’t mind a nice clean pass at times, but it’s this street-mashing, smirking pick-up stuff that gets you. And then you never know when someone may get really violent. You get fed up on it after a while.”

  The officers exchanged glances. “Well, we’ll be on our way. We’ll pick her up, and give her a shakedown. One thing’s certain, she can’t fool us if we once nab her. She talks tough. . . . So you’re Lieutenant Tragg’s brother. Well, well. I didn’t know he had a brother here in San Francisco. He didn’t say anything about it.”

  Mason beamed. “I’m very proud of him. I think he’s making a splendid record from all I can hear. Occasionally he sends me some newspaper clippings.”

  “He’s a good man,” the officer agreed. “Well, so long. If you have any trouble, or see anybody prowling around, just give headquarters a ring. Probably nothing to it, but this guy said there was a couple talking about casing a lay in the neighborhood. He said he was trying to get past them on the sidewalk, and heard ’em distinctly. Well, good night, Tragg. Good night, Miss Garland.”

  “Good night,” Della Street said graciously.

  Perry Mason closed the front door, turned and bowed to Della Street. “It would be a pleasure to subscribe to a paper through such an attractive and poised young woman,” he announced. “I can appreciate how badly you need the money on account of your sister, but really, you know, if I were to subscribe just through sympathy . . .”

  “Don’t mention it,” Della Street interrupted. “I know the approach already. We run into it so often. But I hardly expected that the brother of a police lieutenant would stoop to such a thing.”

  They both laughed. Mason switched out the big indirect light, leaving the room illuminated only by the floor lamps. “That was a close squeak,” he announced.

  “Are you telling me!” Della Street asked.

  Mason got up from the chair, said, “Well, we’ll take a look around.”

  “Think it’s safe?”

  “Oh, sure. Those officers will go on down the car tracks for three or four blocks, find no trace of the woman they’re looking for, report to headquarters, and by that time have a call to investigate something else. But let’s not stick around here any longer than we have to.”

  “Just what are you looking for?”

  “I want to find out something about Karr’s San Francisco personality.”

  “You think he’s had this place as Carr Luceman?”

  “I think so. Notice the fact that Luceman’s first name is pronounced exactly the same as Karr’s last name, although it’s spelled differently. Notice that this place apparently hasn’t been lived in except for short periods of time. Evidently, Karr is a marked man, probably in connection with some of his Chinese arms-smuggling ventures, or it may be because of that old partnership feud which dates back to 1921. When he came to San Francisco, he didn’t want to stay at a hotel. Naturally, a person of his description is rather easy to spot.”

  “And that trouble with his legs?” Della Street asked. “The wheelchair?”

  Mason said, “Figure it out for yourself. He had a bullet hole through one leg. Naturally, he didn’t dare go to any doctor in Los Angeles, because a gunshot wound has to be satisfactorily explained. If Karr had given them his Los Angeles address and then the disappearance of Hocksley and his housekeeper had been duly noted . . .”

  “I see,” Della Street interrupted. “He had this identity already established in San Francisco. No one was missing from this place, so he could come here and invent that story of the accident. But who shot him?”

  Mason grinned. “He shot himself. His cat knocked the gun off the table when he was . . .”

  Della Street made a little grimace. “Save it for your brother the Lieutenant,” she said.

  Mason said, “We’ll look this place over before we start speculating. There are better places to talk.”

  He started a slow circling survey of the living room, making comments out loud: “Pictures on the wall, regular stock stuff. Furniture the sort that would go with the house. Nothing very much to indicate a man’s individuality. Books in the bookcase. Oh-oh, we’ve got something here. The Struggle for the Pacific, Asia in Transition, The Economic Situation in Japan, The Strategic Effect on Singapore. Here are fifteen or twenty books dealing with the situation in the Orient sandwiched in with books of the type that unquestionably went with the house, old favorites in frayed bindings. Well, that gives us something. Let’s keep looking.”

  Della Street, with a woman’s eye to the housekeeping end of things, said, “It looks as though someone comes in about once a week to do cleaning. Notice the ash tray over here.”

  “What about it?” Mason asked.

  “It has a trap,” she pointed out, “which opens into the bottom. Here’s the stuff that’s in the bottom, cigar bands, cigar butts, cigarette ends, matches, and. . .”

  “Any lipstick on the cigarette ends?” Mason asked.

  “Yes.”

  Mason said, “I’m going to take a quick look upstairs. I can probably tell more from the bedrooms and the stuff that’s in the bedroom closets than I can down here.”

  “Just what are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’m trying to get the sketch. Karr’s engaged in some peculiar activity. He’s tied in with the Chinese in some way. He has a lot of money. Probably he’s not a philanthropist. Hocksley was his partner, probably knows a good deal about his methods. Twenty years ago Hocksley betrayed him, and one of his partners met his death. Now Hocksley suddenly crops up again.”

  “You suppose he’s trying to avenge the death of his partner and his old betrayal?” Della asked.

  “That’s just the point,” Mason said, taking her elbow as he assisted her up the stairs, switching on a light in the hallway. “Twenty years is a long time to make an unsuccessful search for a man. The probabilities are that, following the episode in 1921, Karr didn’t think very much about Hocksley until the present situation in the Orient started a renewal of his activities. Well, we’ll take a look around and see what we can find. Take this bedroom on the left, Della. Switch on the lights, look through the bureau drawers. Find out everything you can about the person or persons who live here. I’ll take this bedroom on the right.”

  Mason opened the door, switched on the lights, then suddenly stood stock still.

  Della Street, looking back over her shoulder from the other bedroom, sensed the rigidity of his attitude. “What is it, Chief?” she asked.

  Mason motioned her back. “Don’t come in.”

  But she came to peer over his shoulder, then recoiled with a quick gasping intake of her breath.

  A man’s body lay sprawled half on and half off the bed, his head dangling limply downward, his face the greenish livid hue of death. From a bullet hole in his chest, blood had welled out to soak the bedspread and form in a pool on the floor. It was the body of the Gentrie’s roomer, Delman Steele.

  Chapter 16

  Della Street gripped Mason’s arm. In her nervousness, she poured all of her strength into her fingers. “Don’t—don’t—”

  Mason pried loose her cold fingers. “Stand there, Della. Don’t come in the room. Don’t touch anything.”

  “Chief, keep out of this! Don’t. Please, don’t! I . . .”

  “I have to,” he said. “We’re in it now—all the way. Keep your chin up.”

  Mason moved cautiously into the room. He felt the blood on the bedspread, touched his finger to Steele’s wrist, lifted the arm slightly, turned and left the room. With his handkerchief, he scrubbed off the metal plate and button on the light switch, then pushed out the lights with a forefinger padded with his handkerchief.

  “Don’t take chances on this,” she said. “Call the police. You’ve got to do it now.”

  Mason’s laugh was sardonic. “Yes. We’re in a sweet position to call the police! I’ve told the radio squad that I live here, that my brother was Lieutenant Tragg of Homicide. You’ve taken the part of a young woman soliciting subscriptions for the San Francisco Chronicle. We can tell the police that we hadn’t been in the house long enough to have discovered the body, that we didn’t know the secret of this bedroom, that we stumbled onto the house as the result of some amateur detective work, that, as soon as we found the body, we decided we’d better cooperate and be good children. Then we’d have to tell it to a grand jury, and, perhaps even to a trial jury.”

  “But it’s the only thing to do. We have to.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “They’d have us exactly where they wanted us. We’d be on the defensive not only for the rest of this case, but for the rest of our lives.”

  “It seems to me we will, anyway,” she muttered. “As soon as the body is discovered, police will start an investigation. They’ll ask Lieutenant Tragg about his brother. They’ll give him a complete description of the pair they found in the house, and—well, you know the answer to that.”

  “Of course I know the answer to that,” Mason said. “That’s what I’m getting at.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “There’s only one way to avoid being kept on the defensive. That’s to attack.”

  “But how can we attack? We have no more hope of attacking than a rabbit that’s being chased by a pack of greyhounds.”

  “That’s just the point,” Mason said. “Don’t you get it? They aren’t on our trail yet. They won’t get on it until they find this body. They won’t find it until some person comes to the house.”

  “Who?”

  “Perhaps,” Mason said, “it’ll be Rodney Wenston—although I hardly think so. Even if he does come here, he’s hardly in a better position to call the police than we are.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the purpose for which this house was used, and the deception Karr practiced on the officers. Karr evidently fears the police as much as we do. And Rodney Wenston, unless he has an iron-clad alibi, is more apt to have pulled the trigger than anyone else—remember, Wenston’s been flying Karr back and forth to San Francisco, helping keep the secret of that wounded leg.”

  Della nodded, then, indicating the bedroom with a slight inclination of her head, asked, “How did he get there, and why was he killed?”

  Mason said, “Let’s get out of here. We’ll talk in Locarno’s Grill. Right now the big thing is a getaway.”

  They switched out lights in the corridor, went down the stairs to the living room. Mason went around turning out lights. “No need to bother with fingerprints down here,” he said. “Once they suspect us, the two police officers can make an absolute identification.”

  “Out the front door or the back?” she asked.

  “The front door by all means. We stroll out arm in arm. Man-and-wife-going-to-the-movies stuff.”

  “It’s late for a movie, and,” she added, “my stomach says man-and-wife-should-go-to-restaurant.”