“Okay,” Mason said, “man and wife go to restaurant. Wait here while I turn out the lights in the dining room.”

  “Wait here nothing!” she protested. “What do you think I am? I stick to you like a foxtail to a dog’s ear until we get out of this place.”

  Mason slipped his arm around her waist. “I know how you feel, Della,” he said sympathetically.

  “D-d-darn it,” she said, his sympathy moving her almost to the point of tears. “Why couldn’t we let Paul D-d-drake keep on f-ff-finding our bodies for us?”

  “We just led with our chins, that’s all,” Mason said. “Walked right into it, and, having walked right into it, we’re going to keep our chins up and walk right out of it.”

  Della Street swung around to stand close to him. Her body pressed against his, her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t get the idea my chin’s down. I just got an awful jolt, that’s all.”

  Mason finished switching out the lights. His small flashlight illuminated the way to the door. “All ready?” he asked.

  “All ready,” she told him.

  “A stiff upper lip,” he said, “and chin held high. We’re on our way.”

  Mason flung the door open.

  The fog-filled air stroked their faces with cool fingers. The street seemed deserted. Mason gave Della Street his arm. “The next few seconds are the bad ones,” he said. Together they walked down the stairs to the sidewalk. Halfway to the carline, Della Street said, “Lord, how I want to run. My feet seem to fly up at me. Do we take a car?”

  “Yes. Remember, that radio patrol car is cruising around here, looking for two people who answer our description.”

  “But if they stop us, they’ll recognize us.”

  “That’s just the trouble. Seeing us together will make them realize how closely we check with the description given by the frightened party in the rubber-soled shoes.”

  “Oh-oh,” Della Street said. “And even on the cable car we’ll be conspicuous. If there were only a phone handy so we could call a cab!”

  Mason laughed. “In any event, you have to admit our lives don’t consist of a mere drab procession of uninteresting events.”

  “No,” she admitted, chattering nervously to keep herself under control. “Life doesn’t bother us at all that way. Do we wait here for the car?”

  Mason said, “We walk a couple of blocks, find some place—No, here comes a car now. We take it.”

  The cable car which swung around the corner to the accompaniment of a jangling bell slowed at Mason’s signal.

  “Got mad money?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “All right, get on by yourself. Sit in back. I’ll sit out in front. We’re just two people who happened to have taken the car at the same corner.”

  The motorman pulled back on the big brake. Mason caught the hand grip and swung aboard a couple of seconds before the car came to a stop, permitting Della Street to board the enclosed section. The motorman released levers, pulled on a grip, and the car rattled forward.

  After what seemed an interminable interval of twisting and turning, clanging across intersections, and being braked down steep hills, the cable car slowed in response to Mason’s signal. The lawyer slid from his seat, swung Ms long legs out to the ground, and walked rapidly away. Della Street followed demurely a half block behind. Abruptly Mason turned, started back, caught Della Street’s eye, and raised his hat “Well, well, well,” he exclaimed. “Fancy seeing you here!”

  Her face lit in a glad smile. “Perry!” she exclaimed.

  Two Marines who had been quite obviously interested in Della Street turned disappointedly away. Mason said, “This is indeed a pleasure. How about something to eat?”

  “Do you know, that’s a peculiar coincidence. I was just thinking of going to a restaurant.”

  “There’s a very nice café in the next block,” he told her. “Locarno’s—noted for its broiled steaks.”

  “The way I feel right now, two cocktails and a steak would make a new woman of me.”

  “Going to trade in the old model?” Mason asked.

  “I’m thinking of it. What am I offered?”

  “Two cocktails and a steak.”

  “Sold.”

  Laughing, she took his arm, and they started up the street together. She said, “My knees are wobbly. I’ve got the jitters. I need a drink, but I’m still hungry.”

  “You’ll get accustomed to corpses after a while,” he told her.

  “Yes. Working for a man who isn’t content to sit back and let a case develop, but has to go out and develop it, has its decided drawbacks.”

  Mason said, “One of the first rules of secretarial efficiency is never to find fault with the boss when he’s about to buy a meal.”

  “Isn’t a secretary entitled to her necessary traveling expenses?”

  “Yes, but when she steps outside of her secretarial position and becomes an accessory, she loses her amateur status.”

  “What’s an accessory?” she asked.

  Mason said out of the corner of his mouth, “A moll who cases de joint.”

  “Stop it,” she commanded. “I certainly led with my chin on that one. My face gets red every time I even think of it.”

  Mason piloted her through the doors of the grill. “I’ve got some telephoning to do,” he said. “I’ll seat you, order some cocktails, and run.”

  A headwaiter came smiling toward them. “Something near the . . .”

  “A corner, somewhere far back,” Mason said.

  The headwaiter’s smile became almost a smirk. “Yes, sir. I understand. This way, please.”

  When they were seated and had ordered cocktails, Mason went to the telephone booth. He first called the airport, found that two seats were available on the midnight plane, and engaged them. Then he called Paul Drake’s office on long distance. Drake was not in, but Mason left instructions. “As nearly as possible,” he said, “I want to find out where Rodney Wenston was during every minute of the day. Tell Paul to get a line on Delman Steele, a roomer at the Gentrie house on East Dorchester. Got that?”

  “Yes. Paul will be in in an hour or so.”

  “Tell Paul to wait up for me,” Mason said. “I’ll be in his office about two-forty-five.” He hung up, returned to the table where two full cocktail glasses were waiting.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Getting formal and waiting for me?” he asked.

  “I am not. This is my second. He just brought it. Here’s to crime.”

  “Here’s to crime,” Mason said. They clicked glasses.

  Chapter 17

  Paul Drake, seated at his office desk, a cup of black coffee in front of him, an electric percolator plugged into a socket and bubbling away, said, “How do you two do it? I’ve got my eyes propped open with toothpicks.”

  Mason said, “Excessive sleep is a habit, Paul. You must learn to control it. It will grow on you until you’ll find you’ll need two and three hours’ sleep a night if you aren’t careful.”

  “Well,” Paul said, “I haven’t got to that point yet. An hour or an hour and a half would seem like a swell break. Two hours would leave me doped. I suppose you two have been skylarking around in night clubs and just couldn’t get here sooner because the orchestra didn’t quit.”

  “That’s right,” Della Street said, holding out her arms straight from the shoulders and moving around the office in a waltz as she hummed a tune. “It was perfectly divine, Paul!”

  Drake grinned and said, “Nuts to you. You’re not kidding me any. You’ve been out committing a murder somewhere. Whose body have you turned up now?”

  Della Street ceased waltzing, said scornfully, “That’s the trouble with you, you have no romance. You’ve let life get you into a business rut, and just when I was beginning to tingle you start bringing up murders! Now the boss will talk shop—and we were having such a good time!”

  Drake said, “I’ve been having a great time stalling Mrs. Gentrie for you folks. Tragg arrested her boy tonight. She’s frantic. She called me around midnight I told her you’d be in here around half past two or three o’clock. She said she’d wait up for you. I said I didn’t think you’d see her tonight, but she said she’d wait up anyway.”

  Mason said, “I might see her, at that.”

  “She doesn’t know anything new, Perry. She’s just a frantic mother, trying to save her boy.”

  Mason slid over on the edge of Drake’s desk. “Got any more coffee cups, Paul?”

  Drake opened a drawer, pulled out some agateware mugs and said, “I can give you a couple of these. It’s all I ever use.”

  Della Street said, “Don’t talk so much. Just pour.”

  Drake turned the spigot on the percolator, drew out two big cups of golden brown coffee. “If you want cream or sugar,” he said, “you get neither. This is a business office.” He grinned.

  Mason said, “What about Rodney Wenston, Paul?”

  “I was trying to get you to tell you that he went to San Francisco right after Lieutenant Tragg’s visit. This time they must have known my man was watching, because Karr’s feet never touched the ground. They lifted him out of a car and into the plane as though he’d been a baby.”

  “What was Wenston doing before that?”

  “He’s been around off and on all day.”

  “Could he possibly have gone to San Francisco and back before he made that trip in the evening?” Mason asked.

  Drake consulted his memo and said, “Not unless he went real early in the morning. Of course, we weren’t keeping him shadowed. We’ve made a general check-up. He started for town about noon. That is, the caretaker at his place said that’s when he left, and the man at the service station at the fork of the road, where he usually buys his gas, said he went past about one o’clock; but didn’t stop to buy any gas.”

  “Driving his car?”

  “Uh huh. Then he was in your office around three o’clock, I guess, wasn’t it?”

  Mason nodded. “Somewhere around there.”

  “Two-fifty-five he came in,” Della Street said.

  Drake looked at her. “You keep a memo of the time everyone comes in?”

  “And when they leave. How do you suppose I can see that Perry charges for his time?”

  Drake said, “It’s a good idea. I guess I’ll have my switchboard operator start doing the same thing. I should get double wages for overtime, shouldn’t I, Perry?”

  “You should,” Mason said, “but I don’t think you can make it stick. What about Delman Steele?”

  “I don’t get that bird,” Drake said. “He’s supposed to have a job in an architect’s office, but when I checked up on him, it didn’t pan out.”

  Mason gave Della a swift glance. “How do you mean?” he asked Paul.

  “Well, he hangs around the office all right, but the architect says that Steele doesn’t actually have any connection with the business. He rents desk room and comes and goes as he pleases.”

  “When was he in the office yesterday?” Mason asked.

  “Came in about nine in the morning as usual, left about ten, and came back about two. He was in until around three o’clock, and then left for the evening. Funny thing, Perry. He has that room at Gentrie’s house. It has an outside entrance so he can come and go as he pleases, but he’s made himself one of the family and spends quite a bit of time there. Mrs. Gentrie thinks he’s lonely and . . .”

  “I know all that,” Mason said. “What time did he get in last night?”

  “I don’t know,” Drake said. “I got your call too late to ring him up on some excuse. In fact, she rather pointedly mentioned to one of my men that he didn’t have the privilege of using their telephone. I found out about the arrangement in the architect’s office more or less by chance. We didn’t want to seem to be investigating him because you said to handle it in such a way no one would get the least bit suspicious. So we’d always taken it for granted that he was an architect. His name’s on the door of the architect’s office down in the lower righthand corner, and he certainly gave the Gentries to understand he was an architect. But around cocktail time this afternoon one of my men got acquainted with the architect and started asking casual questions. That’s when he found out about Steele. Mrs. Gentrie may know something, in case you do go out there.”

  Mason said, “Well, I guess there’s nothing to do tonight except sleep on it.”

  “Tonight!” Drake said, looking at his watch. “It’s dam near daylight.”

  “It’s always night until it’s daylight,” Mason said. “Go ahead. Finish your coffee, Della. Let’s go.”

  Della Street tilted up her coffee cup. “Going to see Mrs. Gentrie?” she asked.

  Mason nodded.

  “How you folks do work,” Drake said. “Personally, I’m going to get some shuteye.”

  Mason started for the door, then abruptly turned, stood with his hands pushed down in his pocket looking at Paul Drake with troubled eyes. “Paul,” he said, “you’ve got to do something.”

  “Not until I get some sleep,” Drake protested.

  Mason simply kept looking at him.

  “What is it?” Drake asked, at length.

  “You’ve got to get a confession from Karr.”

  “A confession!” Drake exclaimed.

  Mason nodded.

  “I don’t get you.”

  Mason said, “I’ll give you the high spots. Hocksley wasn’t killed. He was only wounded. I want to find out who shot him and why.”

  “How do you know he was only wounded?”

  “Because I’ve seen him.”

  “You’ve seen him!” Drake echoed, startled.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “In the Parker Memorial Hospital in San Francisco.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He had evidently been given a hypo. He’s going to live, but the doctor’s trying to keep him out of circulation.”

  “How did he get to San Francisco?”

  “Wenston flew him up.”

  “Wenston! Then he’s double-crossing Karr . . .”

  Mason interrupted Drake to say, “No, he isn’t. Karr and Hocksley are one and the same person.”

  Drake pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Perhaps I’ve had too much coffee, Perry, or perhaps you have. One of us certainly is cockeyed. Hocksley is a red-headed man with a limp who . . .”

  Mason said, “I’ll put it this way. The one who rented the apartment was Johns Blaine dressed up with a red wig and purposely walking with a limp. In renting the apartment, however, under the name of Hocksley, he was acting as Karr’s agent. Don’t think for a minute that a man of Karr’s shrewdness would establish a hide-out in a two-flat building without controlling the lower as well as the upper flat.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” Drake admitted, “but what makes you think Karr’s flat is a hide-out?”

  “Karr’s engaged in getting munitions over to China through a leak in the blockade. Naturally, he doesn’t want publicity.”

  “Then the safe in the lower flat belongs to Karr?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t he keep that safe in the upper flat?”

  “Probably because Johns Blaine keeps an eye on the safe, and sleeps in the lower flat.”

  “Then this housekeeper, Sarah Perlin, must have known.”

  “Of course.”

  “And Opal Sunley.”

  “Not necessarily,” Mason said. “She may or may not have known. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference. The housekeeper lived there. Opal Sunley came by the day.”

  “But you say Hocksley was wounded. Then if Hocksley is Karr, Karr must have a bullet hole. . .”

  “In his leg,” Mason interpolated. “That’s why he’s keeping his legs covered, so the bandage won’t show.”

  “He doesn’t have arthritis?”

  “Probably, but not as bad as he wants us to believe now.”

  “Wait a minute, Perry,” Drake said. “A doctor wouldn’t treat a bullet wound unless he reported it to the police.”

  “That’s right,” Mason agreed, smiling.

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Karr,” Mason said, “is a man of varied activities. He’s very resourceful. Evidently, he carries on most of his activities under other roofs and under other names. Here in Hollywood, he’s Robindale E. Hocksley when it comes to transacting business. Up in San Francisco, he’s Carr Luceman, residing at thirteen-o-nine Delington Avenue.”

  “I don’t give a damn how many names he’s got, Perry. He still can’t get a gunshot wound treated without . . .”

  “Without making some explanation which would satisfy the doctor and the police,” Mason said. “As Elston Karr who had the flat above a flat where a murder had been committed, he naturally couldn’t have made any explanation in Los Angeles; but as Carr Luceman, living in San Francisco in a neighborhood where there hadn’t been any murders, he had no difficulty in thinking up a story which would hold water with the police.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Make him admit the whole business. I’m hardly in a position to put the screws on him. You are.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In a hospital.”

  “Didn’t the doctor send him to a hospital the first time he saw him?”

  “Apparently not. It was a wound that wasn’t particularly serious unless complications set in. The doctor probably advised him to keep quiet and call him in the event any unusual symptoms developed.”

  “Just what do you want me to get?” Drake asked.

  “Dig up any information you can, find out his version of what happened the night of the shooting.”

  Drake said, “Won’t I get into trouble, keeping this information from the police?”

  “You haven’t any information, have you?”

  “You’ve told me a lot of stuff.”

  Mason grinned. “You don’t think that it’s incumbent on you to run to the police every time some lawyer gives you a goofy theory of a case, do you?”

  Drake hesitated for a moment, then said, “Well . . . well, no.”

  Mason winked at him and said, “In all probability, it’s just a crazy theory I have, but here’s a newspaper clipping giving an account of how Carr Luceman happened to shoot himself in San Francisco. I’d like to have you make an investigation of the circumstances.”