Drake made a little gesture and said, “Of course, that’s just off the top of my head, Perry. I’d have to word it a little more carefully than that. I’d have to be subtle, but even so the chances are that there’d be some false note in the reply which would alarm the quarry and let your client know that some outsider was checking.”

  “Well,” Mason said thoughtfully, “I don’t know as there’s any reason why a situation of that sort should be fatal. … It might send the client back to me and then I could …” His voice trailed away into silence.

  “What’s the matter?” Drake asked. “Can’t you phone your client at the Willatson Hotel and—”

  “I didn’t say I thought the person who put this ad in was my client,” Mason said. “The client may well be the one to whom the ad is addressed.”

  “In other words, you don’t know where to reach your client?”

  “Come, come,” Mason said, “you haven’t been reading your decisions of the Supreme Court lately. Before I can be questioned I have to be advised of my constitutional rights and given an opportunity to consult a lawyer. … I’ve given you a job to do. Get busy and do it.”

  Drake thought for a moment and said, “This situation has overtones which intrigue the hell out of me, Perry, but, after all, you said it, you’ve given me a job to do. It’s up to me to get busy.”

  Drake heaved himself up out of the chair. “When do you want reports?” he asked.

  “As soon as you have something definite to report. No matter how trivial it seems to you, give me a line on it.”

  “Day and night?” Drake asked.

  “It’s not exactly that urgent,” Mason said. “Let’s say day and evening.”

  “Okay,” Drake said, “day and evening it is. Any limit as to the number of people I can put on it?”

  “Don’t go over five hundred dollars until you have asked me,” Mason said.

  “With your discount,” Drake told him, “you can get quite a bit of investigative work done for five hundred bucks. … I’ll be in touch, Perry.”

  Mason and Della Street watched the detective out the door. Then Mason heaved a sigh, picked up the pile of papers on his desk, and said, “Well, Della, we’ve done all we can do. I guess now we’ll get to work.”

  “How are we going to enter this on the books?” Della asked. “You take in three hundred dollars, you pay out five hundred, and we don’t even have a name for the client in the case.”

  “Call her Miss Deficit then,” Mason said. “That will serve until we have a better name.”

  “Perhaps,” Della mused, “it could be Miss Deceit.”

  “She hasn’t deceived us,” Mason said. “At least we don’t know that she has. What we need is information. She has diagnosed her own case, prescribed her own remedy, and she may be wrong on both counts.”

  Della Street picked up her shorthand notebook and pencil. “Well,” she observed, “we’re only starting the day two hundred dollars worse off than when you sat down at the desk.”

  3

  THE NEXT DAY Perry Mason was in court all day defending a young Negro lad who had been accused of robbing a pawnshop.

  The identification by three eyewitnesses who had seen the robber running madly down the street, jumping into a parked car, and making off at high speed was absolutely positive.

  In vain Mason tried to shake the identification of the witnesses.

  At three o’clock the Deputy District Attorney concluded his opening argument and Mason had an opportunity to address the jury.

  “Contrary to popular belief, gentlemen, circumstantial evidence is about the strongest we have, and eyewitness evidence is about the weakest.

  “Here is a tall, young Negro lad with a mustache, carrying a paper bag.

  “The place in question was held up by a tall, young Negro lad, wearing a mustache, carrying a paper bag.

  “It is the theory of the prosecution that the defendant made his escape, hid the money somewhere, put half a dozen packages of cigarettes in the paper bag, and then, when he was arrested, explained that he had been running short of cigarettes; that he went to a coin-vending machine in the neighborhood, bought the six packages of cigarettes, put them in a paper bag he had taken with him, and was returning to his modest apartment when he was apprehended by the police.

  “I ask you, if he had disposed of the money so that he could conceal the evidence against him, why, in the name of reason, didn’t he also dispose of the paper bag?

  “A tall, young Negro with a mustache and carrying a paper bag was like a magnet to the police within a matter of minutes after the holdup when the alarm had been broadcast on an all-points bulletin.

  “People get a fleeting glimpse of an individual. They remember the salient points. In this case, that he was a tall, young Negro with a paper bag and a mustache. That is all they really remember.

  “Later on when they try to cudgel their recollection into producing additional facts at the insistence of the police officers, they hypnotize themselves into believing there are other things which they remember clearly. Later on they are given photographs to look at, the so-called mug shots of the police. They are asked to study these photographs carefully. They study them until they see the defendant in a line-up and promptly pick him out as the man they saw running down the street, carrying a paper bag.

  “It is a case of self-hypnotism.

  “It is incumbent upon the prosecution to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt. I ask you to return a verdict of not guilty.”

  Mason returned to his seat.

  The Deputy District Attorney in his closing argument resorted to sarcasm.

  “The defendant robs the store. He puts the money in a paper bag. He is seen running down the street by three witnesses. He tried to fabricate the evidence after he has hidden the money by putting some packages of cigarettes in the paper bag so that it will look like an entirely innocent transaction.

  “Three reputable eyewitnesses identify this man positively. Perry Mason, who is one of the shrewdest cross-examiners in the country, has resorted to every arrow in his legal quiver to weaken the testimony of these men. They remain unshaken.

  “Don’t be hypnotized by eloquence. Don’t by swayed by spurious reasoning. Don’t be conned out of your just convictions. Go out and find this man guilty.”

  It was after five o’clock by the time the Judge had finished his instructions, and the jury retired immediately.

  It was expected there would be a quick verdict, but the jury was taken out to dinner at six-thirty, returned at eight, and resumed deliberations. By nine o’clock the buzzer sounded and the jury announced they had agreed upon a verdict.

  The courthouse grapevine promptly transmitted the news.

  The jury had found the defendant guilty.

  The Judge took his place on the bench, the defendant was brought into court. All was in readiness for the jury to be received when a plain-clothes officer hurriedly pushed his way through the swinging doors of the courtroom, dashed down the central aisle, approached the bench, and said something in a whisper to the Judge.

  The Judge frowned, leaned forward for a whispered colloquy. Then the Court said to the bailiff, “You will keep the jury waiting for a few minutes. I will ask counsel for both sides to join me in chambers.”

  When the Judge had retired to chambers, he kept on his judicial robes, seated himself in the creaking swivel chair back of his desk, and said, “Gentlemen, there has been a surprising development in this case.

  “The police have apprehended a man in the act of holding up a store. They found a cache of money containing one of the hundred-dollar bills taken from the store in the robbery which is being presently tried before this court.

  “You gentlemen will remember that the proprietor had taken the numbers of those hundred-dollar bills. The culprit has confessed to the holdup. It appears that the defendant in this case is innocent.”

  “What!” the Deputy District Attorney exclaimed.

  The Judge nodded.

  “But they’ve agreed on a verdict,” the prosecutor blurted. “It’s ‘guilty.’ ”

  “We can’t let that verdict be received in court,” the Judge said, “and there is a legal point. Having agreed upon the verdict, I don’t know offhand exactly what the legal status of the case is. I could, of course, call the jury into court, explain the circumstances to them, and instruct them to return a verdict of ‘not guilty’. But it is my present idea that the best thing to do is to tell the jury that circumstances have occurred which necessitate their discharge before any verdict is formally received in court.”

  “Explaining the circumstances to them, of course,” Mason said.

  “Certainly not!” the Deputy District Attorney objected.

  “Why not?” the Judge asked.

  “Because this would tend to weaken the whole fabric of identification evidence,” the Deputy protested.

  “Otherwise,” Mason said, “the twelve people on that jury are going out and criticize the Judge and the administration of justice. It’s a lot better to have the people lose a little faith in too confident, too cocksure eyewitness identification than it is to lose confidence in the administration of justice.”

  “I think so, too,” the Judge said, pushing back his swivel chair and getting to his feet.

  “Gentlemen, we will return to court. I will call the jury in, and before I ask them if they have agreed upon a verdict, I will make a brief statement to them advising them of recent developments and discharge the jury. At that time you, Mr. Deputy District Attorney, can ask for a motion dismissing the case. It will be granted.”

  The Deputy District Attorney accepted the Judge’s decision wih poor grace. They returned to the courtroom, and the Judge made a brief statement to the jurors as to what had happened.

  Mason enjoyed watching their astounded expressions as they realized the significance of what the Judge was saying.

  Then the lawyer shook hands with the jurors. The jurors, after some hesitancy, shook hands with the defendant, and Mason said to his client, “Go home and shave that mustache off and never wear one again. Also never carry a paper bag.”

  The defendant laughed. “Tall Negro boy with a mustache. Tall Negro boy with a paper bag, yes, sir. I am going back home and shave off that mustache just as soon as I can get my hands on a razor, and I’m never going to carry anything in a paper bag again!”

  Mason, tired after the long trial, nevertheless stopped in at his office on the way home.

  Della Street had left a note for him:

  8:45 P.M. COULDN’T WAIT ANY LONGER, BUT WANTED YOU TO SEE THE AD IN THE EVENING PAPER. IT’S ON YOUR DESK.

  Mason picked up the folded paper, looked at the ad which had been circled.

  The ad read:

  36-24-36. WANT TO AVOID ANY TRAPS. WILL BE AT HOTEL ENTRANCE IN TAXICAB AT EXACTLY NINE O’CLOCK TONIGHT. CONTACT ME THERE. NO WITNESSES, PLEASE. U NO HOO.

  Mason regarded the ad thoughtfully, then dialed the number of the Drake Detective Agency.

  “Perry Mason talking,” he said. “Is Paul Drake in?”

  “No, he isn’t. Mr. Drake’s out working on a case. He said he didn’t know when he’d be back.”

  “Anyone there know what job he’s working on?” Mason asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” the secretary said. “Mr. Drake said it was extremely confidential.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said. “I guess that’s all we can do tonight.”

  The lawyer hung up the phone, closed the office, went to his apartment, and sank into deep sleep.

  4

  PAUL DRAKE was already at his office at nine o’clock the next morning when Perry Mason, leaving the elevator, detoured into the office of the Drake Detective Agency.

  The girl at the switchboard smiled, nodded, pointed down the corridor toward Drake’s private office, and returned to the telephone conversation she was holding at the switchboard.

  Mason walked down a veritable rabbit warren of cubbyhole offices where Drake’s operatives prepared reports on their various cases, and then entered Drake’s personal office at the end of the passageway.

  This also was a tiny office with a desk and a battery of telephones.

  Drake looked up at Mason, grinned, yawned, said, “You and your mysterious client!”

  “How come?” Mason asked.

  Drake passed him over the newspaper containing the ad which Della Street had left on his desk the night before.

  “Some of your work?” the lawyer asked.

  “My work,” Drake admitted.

  “Do any good with it?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, I had to take certain chances—that’s one of the things you have to figure on in this game. I’m playing it blind. The other side has all the numbers.

  “Now, either this party had already contacted the person she wanted, or she hadn’t. I couldn’t tell which.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mason said. “You’re using a female pronoun. Why?”

  “Because she is a female.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, as I said, either she had contacted the person or she hadn’t. Then I had another horn of the dilemma. Either she knew the person by sight or she didn’t. The fact that she put that ad in the paper indicated the probabilities were that she didn’t know the party by sight.

  “Of course, I had one other chance to take. Either the party was a man or a woman. I was in a position to hedge a little bit on that by taking one of my women operatives with me.

  “I put that ad in the paper, stating that I would be parked in front of the hotel entrance in a taxicab at exactly nine o’clock.”

  Mason said, “I presume you had made other efforts to find her identity?”

  “Of course. I went to the office of the newspaper which had run her ad. A five-dollar bill got me the information that she was a young woman, good figure, blond, blue eyes, a little bit diffident.

  “I went to the Willatson Hotel and wasted five dollars. I couldn’t get any lead there.

  “So I decided to take a chance and put this ad in the paper. Then, with my female operative, I went to the hotel and sat in front in a taxicab.”

  “Why the taxicab?” Mason asked.

  “So she couldn’t trace the license number.”

  Mason nodded approvingly. “What happened?”

  “Promptly at nine o’clock she walked past the car, but so did a lot of other people. However, I had it fixed so she couldn’t get a real good look at either my female operative or myself. I was wearing a cap pulled down over my forehead and dark glasses. The operative was wearing a coat with a high collar and dark glasses…. It was all real cloak-and-dagger.

  “With all those people walking past we couldn’t spot her the first time, but when she turned at the end of the block and walked back we had her spotted. She did that three times, never giving us the faintest tumble; no signal, no recognition, no attempt to come up and engage us in conversation. She just walked past four times. And she was clever enough so she didn’t indicate any particular curiosity. She kept her eyes straight ahead each time she passed the cab.”

  “And so?” Mason asked.

  “So,” Drake said, “we didn’t press our luck. We had the cab drive away.”

  “You didn’t try to shadow her?”

  “Of course, we shadowed her. I had one operative in an automobile parked behind me, and when the girl walked past the cab the second time he spotted her the same way we did. When we moved on I gave him the signal to follow her.

  “After our cab drove off she went back to the Willatson Hotel. She’s registered as Miss Diana Deering of San Francisco. She’s in room seven-sixty-seven.”

  “Good work, Paul,” Mason said.

  “Wait a minute,” Drake told him, “I’m not finished. We put some more five-dollar bills to work with the bellboys and the phone operator. Her luggage is stamped D.D.

  “Now, when a person assumes an alias they quite frequently use their own first name, and, of course, with initials on the baggage they want to get a name that tallies with the initials. So Diana Deering could well be Diana——, of San Francisco.”

  Mason raised his eyebrows.

  “So,” Drake went on, “we did a little leg work. We found that our subject telephoned a San Francisco hospital from time to time to inquire about a patient, one Edgar Douglas.

  “Edgar is employed by the Escobar Import and Export Company of San Francisco. He was in an automobile accident a few days ago, has a fractured skull, and is still unconscious.

  “So we took the initials of Diana D. and tried Douglas as the last name. We phoned the Escobar Company and asked about Edgar Douglas, were told about the automobile accident, and asked about Diana Douglas.

  “We were told she was his sister, that she was also an employee of the company, was upset about the accident, and had been given a leave of absence for a few days so she could be near him.

  “We got a description. It checks. We also found out there are no other members of the family.”

  “Arouse any suspicion?” Mason asked.

  “Not a bit. We said we were a finance company checking on Edgar’s employment and credit standing, made the questions as routine as possible and asked them in a somewhat bored tone of voice.”

  “Then what?” Mason asked.

  “So then we did leg work in San Francisco,” Drake went on. “The Escobar Company doesn’t seem at all alarmed, but they’re having a ‘routine’ audit of their books. We found that out more or less incidentally.”

  “What’s the prognosis on the brother?” Mason asked.

  “Probably going to be all right, but may be unconscious for as much as two weeks,” Drake said. “The guy was all set to take a business trip somewhere—that is, suitcase all packed; drove to a service station to get the car filled up; was clobbered by a car which drove through a red light and knocked him unconscious.”

  “Any question that it was his fault?” Mason asked.

  “None whatever. Not only did the car that struck him come through a red light with several witnesses willing to testify to that effect, but the driver was pretty well potted. The police took him to jail to sober up and he’s facing a citation for drunk driving.”