“Yes.”

  “What did he offer?”

  “Thirty thousand dollars for the fifteen per cent interest you own.”

  “What did he offer Stephanie?”

  “Thirty thousand dollars for the forty per cent interest.”

  “That can’t be right, Mason! He surely wouldn’t offer the same price for fifteen per cent as for forty per cent.”

  “Both represent a controlling interest.”

  “Why … that just isn’t right. He—Let’s go see Stephanie. I have something to tell her. What did you think of Casselman, Mason?”

  “He’s a cold-blooded crook, but I think he’d wilt in a face-to-face fight.”

  Garvin said, “From information I have now acquired, I have every reason to believe he’s the man who murdered Glenn Falkner, Stephanie’s father.”

  “Evidence you can take to the police?” Mason asked sharply.

  “I think so, Perry. A few hours before his death, Glenn Falkner told a friend of his he had a business matter to discuss with Casselman. I have finally managed to track down the car Casselman was driving at the time of Glenn Falkner’s death. Casselman sold it within three days after the murder. He traded it in on a new car.

  “Now you’ll remember Glenn Falkner was riding in a car with somebody at the time he was murdered. The car was seen to come down the street at pretty good speed. The door on the right-hand side was flung open, and a body was pushed out of the car. It hung half in and half out of the car for about half a block, then hit the pavement with a thud and rolled over and over. The car sped away.

  “Horrified pedestrians ran up to the man and found that he was dead as a mackerel. He had been shot once in the head, twice through the body. One of the bullets was still in the body.

  “The car Casselman was driving at that time, or at least the car that he owned at that time, had been pretty carefully cleaned up, but by looking with a magnifying glass I could still find several small spots down between the opening of the door and the side of the front seat. There is also a dent in the metal of the door frame which in all probability was made by a bullet.

  “I got a detective over there in Las Vegas to make some tests for me. He’s a pretty good detective and understands something about scientific investigation. There’s a test for blood they can make with luminol, that brings out blood spots and causes them to glow in the dark. He treated this car with luminol and got a very strong blood reaction from folds in the leather upholstery in the front seat, from a spot down underneath the seat cushion, and from the spots I had found between the side of the seat and the door.”

  “Of course,” Mason said, “that’s very interesting. It is a clue. It’s what we might call a suspicious circumstance. However, it’s not proof.”

  “I know. When I confront Casselman with that proof he’s going to start explaining. Then I may get proof.”

  “When you confront him with it?” Mason said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You’d better let the police do that.”

  Garvin flipped back the lapel of his coat. “I’m not afraid of the cheap crook. I’d shoot the guy like a dog if he so much as lifted a finger against us.”

  Mason said sharply, “Do you have a license to carry that?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Garvin said. “I have something better than a license. I’m a deputy sheriff. I’m supposed to carry arms. I have several revolvers and I’m not foolish enough ever to be without one. If anybody ever tries to hold me up, he’s going to have his hands full.”

  Mason regarded Garvin thoughtfully. “Where do you keep those other guns?”

  “Various places. Junior has one, there’s always one in my safe. I own a sporting-goods store among my other investments. I always carry a gun. I’m never without one, day or night.

  “It makes me sick to open the papers and read about thugs beating their victims to death, old women being robbed and clubbed.

  “Someday one of those guys will tackle me and then there will be fireworks. Kill a few of those people off and it will be a good thing all around.

  “The way it is now, the honest citizen is disarmed by law. The crook carries a gun as a matter of habit. Arm the law-abiding citizens, kill off some of these crooks and we’d have a lot better law enforcement.”

  Mason shook his head. “Police who have studied the situation don’t agree with you, Homer.”

  “Sure,” Garvin said, “but their way isn’t working out so well, either.”

  Della Street caught Perry Mason’s eye.

  Mason got her signal, turned to Homer Garvin.

  “By the way,” he said, “I see you’re to be congratulated on a new daughter-in-law.”

  Garvin sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I haven’t seen her yet. I talked with her on the telephone and gave the couple my blessing.”

  “She’s a nice-looking girl,” Della Street said.

  “Leave it to Junior! He picks them nice-looking.… The trouble with him is that he’s restless, no emotional stability. A year or so ago it was all Eva Elliott. He wanted to marry her. Then that blew up. I felt sorry for Eva and gave her a job in the office when Marie left. By that time, Junior was rushing Stephanie Falkner.

  “You may not know it but that’s how I became interested in this Falkner corporation. Six months ago I thought that Stephanie Falkner was going to be one of the family—and, hang it, I wish she had been. There’s a fine, level-headed girl! She could have been a balance wheel for Junior.

  “Well, I hope he settles down now. That was what he needed—to get married and settle down. He’s too darned impulsive.

  “Mason, what the devil are we going to do about this situation with Casselman?”

  “Let’s go have a talk with Stephanie Falkner,” Mason said.

  “Do you suppose it’s too late?” Garvin asked.

  “We can find out,” Mason told him. “Della, ring the Lodestar Apartments, and see if Stephanie can talk with me. You don’t need to tell her that Mr. Garvin is with me. Simply tell her that we’d like to come over.”

  “You want me along?” Della Street asked.

  Mason nodded. “There might be a stock-pooling agreement to write up.”

  Della Street went out to put through the telephone call.

  “Gosh! What a pleasure it is to have a real, dependable secretary,” Garvin said. “I can’t begin to tell you how I miss Marie Arden.”

  “Marie Barlow now,” Mason said.

  Garvin frowned. “There should be a law against secretaries committing matrimony,” he said. “Hang it, Mason! Do you know she’s never been in to see me since she got married? I just can’t understand it.”

  “What makes you think she hasn’t been in to see you?” Mason asked.

  “She hasn’t, that’s all. I’ve never heard a word from her, not even a telephone call.”

  Mason said, “For your information, Homer, she was in twice to see you. She got such a cold shoulder from your new secretary that she made up her mind she wasn’t wanted.”

  “You mean Eva Elliott kept her from coming in to see me?” Garvin asked incredulously.

  “That’s right. She told her you were busy. She didn’t even offer to ring your telephone.”

  “Why … why—Well, that makes me feel a lot better.”

  “Better?” Mason asked.

  “Yes,” Garvin said. “I fired Eva Elliott tonight. I got back and asked her what the devil she meant by not telling you where I was. She told me that I’d told her not to tell anyone and that she was simply following instructions.

  “That girl is completely show crazy. She wants to dramatize everything she does in terms of what some actress has done on film somewhere. Believe me, Mason, she makes it a point to go to every movie she can find that features a secretary. She tunes in on every television program where there is a secretary playing a part. She studies the Hollywood concept of secretarial efficiency and then goes into the office and tries to act that part. It’s a case of a poor actress trying to take the part of a good actress who in turn is trying to follow the concept of a Hollywood director as to what a good secretary should be like. I got good and tired of it. I …”

  Della Street returned from the switchboard, said, “Miss Falkner says to come right over.”

  “Come on,” Mason said, “let’s go.”

  Chapter 6

  Stephanie Falkner opened the door, said, “Hello, Mr. Mason. Hello, Miss Street.… Homer!”

  Garvin said, “I tagged along, Stephanie.”

  She gave him both of her hands. “Congratulations! Have you seen her?”

  “Not yet,” Garvin said. “I’m just back from Las Vegas and I’ve been busy.”

  “You’ll love her, Homer. I was in Las Vegas when she was a hostess and prop bathing girl at one of the pools. She’s a darling.… Come on in! I’ll rustle up some chairs. I was just getting ready to call it a day.”

  She ushered them into the simple apartment, said, “Can I buy you folks a drink?”

  “No, thanks,” Garvin said. “We’re here on business.”

  “Oh.” Her face fell.

  Garvin said, “I’m going to give it to you straight from the shoulder, Stephanie. It’s about your father. I’m going to put it right on the line.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve been in Las Vegas, checking some angles I have up there. I have some sources of information.”

  “Go on.”

  He said, “I haven’t anything that I can go to the authorities with as yet, but George Casselman was the man who killed your father.”

  “I see,” she said, her face suddenly wooden, and she added, “I wish I’d known that a little earlier this evening.”

  “All right,” Garvin said, “let’s put it on a business basis. I picked up stock in that motel corporation to help you when I thought you were going to be one of the family.

  “It isn’t efficient for that little motel to continue to operate as it’s now operating. The property has become too valuable. Taxes are too high. Yet you can’t do anything with that property as it is. There’s no chance of getting the property on the north, and the property on the south is controlled by this syndicate that wants to get the motel property in order to put up a reasonably big building which can pay off. It’s time for you to sell out.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I think it’s time for me to sell out and pull up my roots here.”

  Garvin said, “I think Casselman is a chiseler. I doubt if he actually represents the syndicate. I think he’s an independent operator, but of course the syndicate would be glad to do business with him if he had the property.

  “It’s my plan to go direct to the syndicate and find out what their best offer is. In order to do that I want to be in a position to close out the deal. Now then tell me, what do you actually want for your stock?”

  “I was offered thirty thousand dollars by Casselman,” she said. “I’ll take it if I can’t do better, but I don’t think that’s enough.”

  “What would you take and be satisfied?”

  “Anything over thirty thousand.”

  “All right,” Garvin said, “give me a ten-day option to sell your stock at eighty thousand dollars, and if I can get anything above that, we’ll split the profits. You take half and I take half. I’ll put my stock in at the same time, at the same price ratio, and we’ll make a deal with the syndicate. We’ll split anything above that figure fifty-fifty.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Only you can’t get eighty thousand for my stock.”

  “You have a typewriter here, Stephanie?”

  She nodded.

  “Then, let’s draw up a document. Mason, you can dictate it and we’ll sign it right now.”

  “I can do it at my office in the morning,” Mason said.

  “I’d like to get the thing cleaned up tonight.”

  “All right,” Mason told him and motioned to Della Street.

  Stephanie Falkner found stationery and carbon paper. Della Street sat at the typewriter and typed as Mason dictated a short form of agreement.

  When he had finished, she ratcheted the paper out of the typewriter, handed one copy to Mason, one to Stephanie Falkner, one to Garvin.

  “Okay?” Garvin asked Stephanie after he had read it.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Let’s sign.”

  They signed the agreement.

  “Well,” Mason said, “I guess that covers everything we can do tonight. You’ll be in touch with me in the morning, Homer?”

  “Probably,” Garvin said.

  “And how about you, Miss Falkner? I can reach you here?”

  “If anything turns up, yes.”

  Garvin hesitated.

  Della Street flashed Mason a glance, said, “Well, I’m a working girl. I should be getting home.”

  “I’ll drive you home,” Mason said.

  Garvin hesitated a moment, then said to Stephanie Falkner, “Now I’ll take that drink, Stephanie.”

  Stephanie Falkner saw them to the door, stood watching them down the corridor; then, as they entered the elevator, closed the door gently.

  “Now,” Mason said, “why should she keep insisting Casselman only offered her thirty thousand dollars for forty per cent of the stock when he offered me that same amount for fifteen per cent of the stock, and offered to buy it all at the same rate?”

  “Any ideas?” Della Street asked.

  “No,” Mason said, “but I’m certain that if it hadn’t been for that phone call, he was going to make me a firm offer of eighty thousand for her stock and thirty thousand for Garvin’s stock.”

  “Then the phone call caused him to change his mind?”

  “Something did,” Mason said.

  “Someone who saw him?”

  “No one entered the apartment house except—Oh, well, let’s let things wait until tomorrow. We may know a lot more when we see Garvin again.”

  Chapter 7

  Mason swung his car into the parking lot the next morning, nodded to the attendant, pulled into his regular parking stall, walked over to the sidewalk, and was just turning into the foyer of the building where he had his office, when he became conscious of Della Street at his side.

  “Hi, Chief,” she said in a low voice. “Thought I’d catch you before you’d get to the office. Want to keep walking?”

  Mason glanced at her in surprise. “What’s wrong, Della?”

  “Perhaps a lot.”

  “Shall we go back to the car?”

  “No, let’s just walk.”

  They fell into step, moving along in a stream of early morning pedestrian traffic which was pounding its way along the sidewalk.

  “What gives?” Mason asked.

  Della Street said, “Lieutenant Tragg was in the office looking for you. I wouldn’t doubt but what he’s waiting in the foyer of the building to collar you as soon as you show up. I tried to ring you at your apartment, but you’d left.”

  “What does Tragg want?” Mason asked.

  She said, “George Casselman has become a corpse. A maid opened the door of his apartment and found him dead on the floor, a big bullet hole in the front of his chest.”

  “When?” Mason asked.

  “Apparently about eight o’clock this morning. The news just came over the radio as I was …”

  “No, no,” Mason said, “when was the time of death?”

  “No information on that as yet.”

  “Why does Tragg want to see me?”

  “I’m just putting two and two together and making eight.”

  “Good girl!” Mason said. “I have one very important thing to do. Let’s catch a cab and see if we can find out something important before we have to answer a lot of questions.”

  Mason swung over to the curb, waited impatiently as the long line of morning traffic went streaming past.

  Finally he caught a vacant cab and said, “Lodestar Apartments.”

  Della Street glanced at him. “We don’t telephone first?”

  Mason shook his head.

  “Surely, Chief, you don’t think … ?”

  “Exactly,” Mason said. “I’m not doing any thinking yet. I want information, then I’ll start thinking.

  “For your confidential, private, and exclusive information, Homer Garvin called on George Casselman around eight-fifteen yesterday evening. He didn’t see fit to tell me about that visit, so I said nothing to anyone.

  “Also, for your confidential information and as food for thought, if when Stephanie Falkner called on Casselman at eight-thirty last night she found she was interviewing a corpse, and had subsequently been asked what she had been offered for her stock, she’d have had to make up a fictitious figure.

  “That might account for the discrepancy between what Casselman offered me for Garvin’s stock and what she said she had been offered for hers.”

  “Oh-oh!” Della Street exclaimed. “I never thought of it in that light, Chief. I guess I’m a little dumb this morning.”

  “Nothing dumb about the way you stood down there on the sidewalk waiting to catch me as I left the parking lot. You did a smooth job. I didn’t pick you out. That’s an art, blending with a crowd.”

  She laughed. “Actually I was in the shoeshine stand. I had the shine boy shine my shoes, and then had him give me another shine. I was on my third shine when you showed up. I felt that I’d be conspicuous if I stood around on the sidewalk, and I didn’t know whether Tragg had any men on the job or not.”

  “Good girl!” Mason said.

  They were silent until the driver drew up in front of the Lodestar Apartments.

  “Better wait,” Mason told him. “We’ll be back within a few minutes and then we’re going other places.”

  “Okay, I’ll hold it,” the driver said.

  Mason and Della Street entered the apartment house. Mason nodded to the man at the desk and walked across to the elevators so casually that no one asked him where he was going.