Bartsler turned toward the door, streaked out of the office.

  Mason looked at Della Street and grinned.

  “Where’s he going in such a hurry?” she asked.

  “Probably out to a chicken ranch in the San Fernando Valley,” Mason said.

  Chapter 4

  At four forty-five p.m. a frantically worried Diana Regis telephoned begging to be connected with Perry Mason upon a matter of great importance. Mason took the call and heard Diana’s excited voice. “Mr. Mason! Something terrible has happened. Someone has stolen my purse, and—well, everything was in it. You know, everything!”

  “What,” Mason asked, “ do you mean by everything?”

  “The money.”

  “The money you received as settlement from Jason Bartsler?”

  “Yes.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “ Suppose,” Mason said, “you tell me exactly what happened. Where did this take place?”

  “In my apartment. I was dog tired and it didn’t seem as though I could get enough sleep. I got up this morning and had breakfast, went out and bought a few groceries, came back and listened to the radio, felt sleepy, took off my dress, got on the bed and simply went dead to the world. I woke up about half an hour ago and my purse was gone.”

  “Where had you left it?”

  “You were rather careless with a purse containing fifteen hundred dollars in cash.”

  “I realize that now. But it happened in a peculiar way. I was carrying in some groceries, and wanted to put them in the little pantry we have here, so I dropped the purse on the table and put away the groceries and did a few chores, and started dozing and became so utterly sleepy I didn’t think about the money or anything else.”

  “Is there any indication that anyone has forced the lock on your door?”

  “No, Mr. Mason. I would have thought that it was my roommate, Mildred Danville—you know, the girl who shares the apartment with me, only … only there’s the stub of a cigar in an ash tray here on the table by the purse.”

  “Where’s your roommate now?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Mason. It’s rather strange. There’s no word from her. She’s a radio actress, too, although she isn’t on the air in anything right now, but she usually keeps in touch with the studio, and she hasn’t been there for two or three days. I’ve been trying to locate her … .”

  “How about your automobile?” Mason asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Where do you keep it?”

  “In a private garage.”

  “Anyone else have a key to that garage?”

  “Well, yes … Mildred does.”

  Mason said, “Go down. Take a look in the garage. See if your car is there. Don’t touch anything on the table, in case you decide to call the police.”

  “Call the police? Oh, Mr. Mason, I couldn’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, there are—ah, complicating factors. I wouldn’t want the police at all.”

  “Then why did you call me?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Mason, only you seem so resourceful and … ”

  Mason said, “Go take a look in the garage where you keep your car. See if it’s gone, then come on up here. I’m leaving the office, but Miss Street will be here and she’ll take you down the hall to the Drake Detective Agency. I’ll ask Paul Drake, the head of the agency, to assign some good operative to go over to your place and make an investigation.”

  “Oh, that’s fine, Mr. Mason. I … Oh!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “All of my keys are in my purse. I haven’t a key to the garage—and I’ll have to leave the apartment unlocked so I can get back in. There isn’t any duplicate key … . Wait a minute! Yes, there is too. I remember now, there’s a third key. That will be in the bureau drawer.”

  “Can you tell whether the car is in the garage if the door’s locked?” Mason asked. “Is there any way you can peek through a window, or … ”

  “Yes, there’s a window in back. I never thought of that. How stupid of me! All right, Mr. Mason, I’ll be right up just as soon as I get some clothes on.”

  “Della Street will be here until five-thirty,” Mason said. “She’ll wait.”

  Mason hung up the telephone, said, “Della, you’ll have to wait here until five-thirty. Go down to Paul Drake’s office and tell him a client of mine has a purse missing. Tell him I’d appreciate it if he’d put a good man on the job. See if he can find anything in the line of a clue. If he can, he’d better check on this Mildred Danville. If Diana is flat broke, stake her to some pocket money.

  “How much?”

  “Depending upon what she needs, fifty or a hundred. Okay, Della, I’m on my way.”

  Mason took the elevator, noticed as he emerged on the street that the heavy clouds seemed more ominous than ever. He dropped in at his club for a cocktail, went to his apartment, bathed, changed his clothes and was just starting out for dinner when the phone rang.

  Mason picked up the receiver and heard Della Street’s voice saying, “Hello, Chief. I’m sorry to bother you. I don’t think it’s anything you’ll want. I told Diana I couldn’t do it, but afterward I got to thinking it over and thought I’d better give you a call.”

  “What is it?” Mason asked. “Something about the purse?”

  “No, she’s got that located.”

  “Who had it?”

  “Mildred Danville. That seems to have been a tempest in a teapot.”

  “And what’s this other about?”

  “Mildred wants Diana to meet her at the home of Mrs. Robert Bartsler. It’s at sixty-seven fifty San Felipe Boulevard. That’s out in the San Fernando Valley, and she wants Diana to try to get you to come along. It seems there’s going to be some legal fireworks.”

  “Over what?”

  “Over the matter that Mr. Bartsler outlined to you.”

  “What does Mildred Danville have to do with that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mason said, “I don’t want to mix in it.”

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  “Tell me about the purse.”

  “Oh, Diana came up. I took her into Paul Drake’s place, and Drake had an operative there. He went down to Diana’s apartment with her, and I guess the phone was ringing about as soon as they stepped in the door. The telephone call was from Mildred Danville, and I guess Drake’s operative had quite a time. He sat and waited while they talked some ten or fifteen minutes on the telephone. Diana poured out a list of her troubles, and there was a lot of laughter about the purse, and Diana told all about her job at Bartsler’s, and getting a black eye. Drake’s operative finally got weary of waiting and broke in on the conversation to tell Diana that since she’d located her purse he was on his way. She told Mildred to call back in ten or fifteen minutes and hung up on her to thank the detective effusively, and promised to pay him as soon as she got her money back.

  “Well, apparently when Mildred called Diana back, something had happened. Anyway, Diana showed up here all excited. It seems Diana’s black eye has something to do with it, but if you can tell what, it’s more than I can. Anyway, Mildred wants Diana to persuade you, if she possibly can, to come and meet her out at Helen Bartsler’s place in San Fernando.”

  “What time?” Mason asked.

  “Ten o’clock tonight.”

  “Where’s Diana now?”

  “She just left here. She’s going to be back here at nine-thirty to see if you’ll go. I suppose you noticed it’s starting to rain. I can hear the drops on the roof.”

  Mason said, “I was just going out to dinner. Want to go get a bite?”

  “Thanks, Chief, I’ve eaten.”

  “Okay. I’m glad Diana found her purse.”

  Della Street said, “I gave her twenty-five dollars for get-by money. She told me she’d be in tomorrow and pay it back. Sorry I bothered you, Chief, but I began to worry about it, thinking perhaps you’d like to know.”

  “Good girl,” Mason said. “Sure you won’t come along and have a little coffee, or a brandy?”

  “No thanks. I’m going to see Diana again at nine-thirty, and … ”

  “Oh, come along,” Mason urged. “I’ll have you back at your place at nine-thirty.”

  Della Street hesitated.

  “Come on. Don’t bother to change your clothes. Just come as you are, and we’ll go to that little place where they make the Hungarian goulash, have some wine and … ”

  “It’s a date,” Della said laughing. “But I’m still in my office clothes, and the way it’s starting to rain, I’m certainly not going to doll up.”

  “Okay—be there in ten minutes,” Mason said and hung up.

  As he dropped the receiver into place he heard the heavy patter of rain drops on the roof of the balcony turn into a sullen deep- throated roar.

  Chapter 5

  RAIN was still whipping against the windshield of the car as Mason and Della Street slid up to the curb opposite Della Street’s apartment house. It had been raining hard all the time the couple had been eating and talking in the restaurant.

  “What’s the time, Della?”

  “Nine twenty-six on the dot.”

  “Four minutes to spare,” Mason said. “Tell the kid I’m not in a position to go tagging around the country on blind legal dates. Furthermore, I’m hardly in a position to represent anyone who has an interest adverse to that of Jason Bartsler. I presume, from Bartsler’s note, he must have fixed everything up with his daughter-in-law. This certainly is some rain! Listen to it pound against the roof of the car … . Reminds me of something. What the heck is it?”

  Della Street, her hand on the handle of the car door, asked with some anxiety, “Something in connection with business?”

  “No. Something agreeable, something that—oh, I know what it is. It’s the effect of rain coming down in torrents on the roof of the cafe that’s fixed up as a tropical eating house. Every ten minutes or so, they have this terrific shower. Let’s go around there and do a little dancing, Della.”

  “Okay, but what’ll we do about Diana?”

  Mason said, “Well, let’s wait right here in the car. She’ll have to show up within the next four or five minutes.”

  Mason took out his cigarette case, offered Della a cigarette, took one himself and held a match to both cigarettes. They settled back against the cushions, smoking in silence, listening to the beat of the rain on the steel top of the car, relaxing in the silence of perfect understanding.

  Mason’s arm circled Della Street’s shoulders. She slid over to rest her head on his shoulder.

  “Strange case,” Mason said. “Usually a woman feels that a child is a tie that binds her to her husband’s parents. It makes her one of the family—one of the most important members of the family. Here we have a situation that’s the exact opposite.”

  “Helen Bartsler must hate Jason bitterly,” Della said.

  Mason’s cigarette glowed as he inhaled deeply. “No other explanation. I wonder what he did after he left me. I wonder why he sent that check.”

  “He must have seen her and used that theory you’d given him to make her tell him where the child was.”

  “Probably.”

  Once more there was silence.

  Abruptly Della Street looked at her wrist watch. “Good Heavens, Chief! It’s quarter to ten.”

  Mason reached for the ignition switch. “We won’t wait any longer, Della.”

  “Poor kid,” Della Street said, “I hope we didn’t miss her. Hope she didn’t leave before we got here.”

  Mason said thoughtfully, “I wonder what was so important at Helen Bartsler’s house. Tell you what let’s do, Della. Let’s beat it out there. We can get there a few minutes after ten, see what it’s all about, and then go dance.”

  “I wish you would,” Della Street said. “There’s something about Diana that I can’t get out of my mind. Somehow I feel that the world has given her a few hard knocks, and she’s just , getting back up on her feet.”

  Mason eased the car into gear. “Okay, Della, here we go.”

  They drove rapidly out through the driving rain which began to lighten somewhat as they swung into the San Fernando Valley.

  “A little of this, and we’ll be having water all over the road. The ground can’t soak it up this fast. I think San Felipe Boulevard turns off right along in here … . Yes, here it is. What was that number again?”

  “Sixty-seven fifty.”

  “Should be within about half a mile,” Mason said. “It’s a three- acre tract. Seems strange to have house numbers along a boulevard devoted to one- and five-acre tracts, but that’s Southern California for you, and——”

  “There it is!” Della Street exclaimed. “Over there on the right.”

  Mason stopped the car.

  “Not a light in it,” Della said.

  “Diana told you that Mildred was going to be here at ten o’clock?”

  “Yes.”

  Mason said somewhat dubiously, “Of course they could have called the thing off. That would account for Diana not showing up. Helen Bartsler evidently has quite a little place here.”

  “What’s that big tank off to the side of the house?” Della asked.

  “For rain water,” Mason said. “Used to see a lot of them, but as the city water improved, they’ve gone out of style. This probably came with the place.”

  “Well,” Della said laughing, “you can’t beat rain water for washing your hair—only nowadays farm women out here go to beauty parlors.”

  Mason said, “I’m going to pound on the door and see if anyone’s home. Hand me that flashlight out of the glove compartment, will you, Della?”

  Della Street handed him the flashlight, said, “I’m going with you.”

  They walked up a narrow strip of cement, climbed wooden stairs to a porch and the beam of the flashlight located a bell button.

  Mason pressed the button. From the interior of the house could be heard the faint sound of a buzzer.

  After that first short ring, Mason paused to contemplate the utter silence of the house, then pressed his thumb against the button again, this time sounding a long, steady summons, punctuated at the end by three short rings.

  The silence of the interior of the house was sepulchral.

  Mason tentatively tried the front door.

  “Careful,” Della warned.

  The door was locked.

  “Somehow I feel like we’re about to set off a booby trap,” Della said abruptly.

  Mason said, “Same here. Just the same, I’m going to take a quick look around, Della.”

  They followed a strip of walk which ran around the house toward the back door, climbed the back stairs, knocked on the door and then tried the knob. The door was locked.

  Back of the house the ground sloped into a small swale. The beam of Mason’s flashlight showed chicken houses perched on the higher ground around this swale. Then his flashlight dropped down to the low depression in a swift exploration, darted back, paused, then swung once more to the low ground, moved back and forth.

  A dark form lay hunched in motionless silence. Cold rain drizzled down on a blonde head.

  Mason heard the swift intake of Della Street’s breath.

  “Easy, Della. This is it.”

  “Chief, don’t go down there.”

  “Just a little ways, Della. I have to see if she’s alive.”

  “Be careful,” Della warned. “Oh do be careful, Chief! It’s … ”

  “Take it easy,” Mason said again, and taking her arm, led the way down an inclined wooden walk where cross pieces nailed at intervals furnished a foothold.

  Della Street’s gloved fingers dug into Mason’s arm.

  Mason’s flashlight moved about in steady appraisal of the surroundings, and Mason’s voice, low and tense, commented on the things the flashlight turned up.

  “Shot in the back of the head,” Mason said. “Probably as she was running … . It was after the rain had started. See that left hand, Della, it’s clawing at the mud. And you can see the long furrows where the fingers slid along the side of the bank—must be a good two feet. Should be some footprints back here in the mud. Let’s take a look and see … . Yes, apparently only her footprints and one other set of prints—a woman’s. There’s where she fell … . She skidded along here for some two feet and … What’s that!”

  Mason snapped out the flashlight. “Listen!”

  From the distance, muffled by the increasing wind and drifting rain until it sounded only as a faint wail, came the sound of a siren.

  Della Street’s exclamation was sharp with apprehension.

  Mason’s hand clasped Della Street’s elbow. “Let’s go.”

  They scrambled up the sloping board walk. The wet wood, slippery and treacherous, was an effective bar to rapid progress.

  They gained the level cement walk. Mason’s flashlight lighted the way.

  “Okay, Della, you first. Step on it!”

  The siren sounded again. This time so close that after the high pitched scream had died away, they could distinctly hear the low, deep-throated purring sound with which the siren tapered off into silence.

  Della Street reached the curb, was stretching out her hand for the car door when headlights danced on the road from a cross street. A car swung around from an intersection with a sharp skidding turn.

  Mason grabbed Della Street’s wrist, jerked her away from the door, said in a low voice, “Too late. Pretend we’re just coming.”

  A blood red spotlight blazed into brilliance, impaling Mason and Della Street in its sinister, ruddy glow.

  The police car swerved in sharply to the curb, came to a stop directly behind Mason’s car.

  Two men jumped out, their figures as seen through the eye- stabbing brilliance of the spotlight merely an indistinct blur.

  “What is the excitement?” Mason called out.

  A man’s voice said, “Hell, it’s Mason, the lawyer.”

  The spotlight was switched out although the headlights of the automobile still furnished an illumination that was directed to the side and therefore less dazzling in its brilliance.