“No, I have one, too,” Mason said. “I thought we had worked out an almost infallible system, and I decided to go a little heavy on it. I hate to have you bet ten dollars on a loser and then only bet two dollars on a winner.”

  “Why, Chief, the odds are—”

  “On your ten-dollar ticket,” Mason said, “you will collect approximately—Well, let’s see what you do collect.”

  Mason presented the tickets at the window, received one hundred and sixty dollars on each ticket.

  “There you are, Della,” he said. “Not bad for an afternoon at the track.”

  Fremont’s voice sounded behind them. “Look here, now, Mr. Mason. We can be friends. I’d like to know how you pick horses.”

  “It’s an infallible system,” Mason said. “I promised the management of the track that I wouldn’t divulge it to anyone, except a close personal friend, and you hardly qualify as a close personal friend. Come on, Della.”

  Mason escorted Della to the parked car.

  “Don’t make a point of it, Della,” he said, “but turn to say something to me and look out of the corner of your eye, see if we’re being followed.”

  Della Street turned to look at him, smiled brightly, nodded her head, and said, “You want me to turn and get a good look? I think it’s that detective.”

  “No,” Mason said, “we’ll give the detective a merry chase.”

  They reached Mason’s car. Mason handed Della Street in, got behind the steering wheel, slammed the door, stepped on the starter, and moved along at a snail’s pace until he entered traffic. Then he began to speed up, watching from time to time in the rearview mirror.

  He shot through a traffic signal just as it was changing, ran a block, turned to the left, turned to the right, then to the left again, then made a U-turn, doubled back and at length parked in a residential side street.

  “Anything coming, Della?” he asked.

  “Not a thing,” she said. “It’s all calm and serene. Did you think they were going to stick you up?”

  “It’s possible,” Mason told her. “They’ll probably have an operative staked out at your apartment and one at my office. They’ll have trouble finding out where my apartment is so they can’t pick up my trail there.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “First,” Mason said, “we avoid doing the obvious. We don’t go to the office and we don’t go to your apartment.”

  “But you’re carrying all this cash,” Della Street said.

  “As well as a gun,” Mason said, regarding her gravely. “Now, when an attorney has taken his secretary out to the races on a Saturday afternoon and has given her a tip on a long shot that pays off a hundred and sixty dollars on a ten-dollar bet, it would certainly seem that the situation would call for at least a reasonable celebration; something, let us say, with steak—an extra-thick, medium-rare steak, French-fried onions, some champagne, and perhaps a little dancing.”

  “I think,” she said, “you have the situation sized up perfectly. But what about our client?”

  “Our client,” Mason said, “is undoubtedly making an attempt to get in touch with us. We will check with Paul Drake now, and during the course of the evening we will call him again. By the time we start celebrating we should have been relieved of what I may call our cash responsibilities.”

  “She’ll be wanting the money in the form of cash?” Della Street asked.

  “Exactly,” Mason said. “So we have to keep the money with us until we make a delivery.”

  “And you’ve now been notified the money was embezzled. Where does that leave you?”

  “I have only been notified a man named Rodney Banks is accused of embezzlement. I must, however, give him the benefit of presuming he is innocent until he has been proven guilty.

  “I don’t know any Rodney Banks. No one has said Audrey Bicknell has embezzled anything. So, Miss Street, let us forget dull care.”

  “And the brief case with all the money?” she asked.

  “In due time I will transfer the currency to a money belt and fill this brief case with newspapers. Does that answer your question?”

  “It answers my question, but how about our client? Why is she so anxious to get her money in cash and what will she do with it after she gets it?”

  “Those are matters on which our client didn’t choose to enlighten us, Della.”

  “Won’t it be dangerous for her to carry a large sum of cash around with her?”

  “She probably faces other dangers as well. We’ll call Paul Drake and report, then we’ll see what happens.”

  Chapter Four

  From a phone booth Mason called Paul Drake’s office and when he had the detective on the line, said, “Perry, Paul. How about messages for me? Do you have any?”

  “Do I have any?” Drake said. “What is this fatal fascination that you have for women?”

  “How come?”

  “A seductive feminine voice, answering to the name of Audrey Bicknell, has called four times within the last hour and a half, asking if I have been in touch with you and giving a message I am to relay to you, which is of the utmost importance.”

  “What’s the message?” Mason asked.

  “Call the Foley Motel and ask for Miss Nancy Banks.”

  “Right away?” Mason asked.

  “I’ll say, right away. She’s been biting pieces out of the mouthpiece on the telephone. She says it’s important that she get in touch with you at the very earliest possible moment.”

  “Okay,” Mason said, “I’ll phone her.”

  “Right now?” Drake asked.

  “I’m in a phone booth,” Mason said. “It’s a little noisy, but—”

  “I have an idea it’s pretty damned important, Perry. She certainly thinks so.”

  “Okay, I’ll call,” Mason said. “I’ll check with you later. Be good.”

  The lawyer hung up the phone, called the Foley Motel and said, “I’d like to talk with Miss Nancy Banks, please.”

  “Just a moment. She’s in Unit 14. Just hold on, please, I’ll ring.”

  After a moment Mason heard a quick, eager voice on the telephone.

  “Hello. Hello. Mr. Mason?”

  “Speaking,” Mason said.

  “I thought you’d never call. You went to the track?”

  “Yes.”

  “You collected the money?”

  “What money?” Mason asked.

  “You know what money, Mr. Mason. The money for the tickets I gave you—Oh, I forgot, I gave you a different name when I was calling on you. I said my name was Audrey Bicknell.”

  “Was that an alias?” Mason asked.

  “Not an alias,” she said. “Don’t use that word. It was a pen name.”

  “All right, you’re Nancy Banks,” Mason said. “Now, what do you want?”

  “Mr. Mason, I want you to take the money—Did you get the money all right?”

  “Before I answer your question,” Mason said, “you’d better finish your sentence. You started to tell me that you wanted me to take the money and—”

  “That’s right. I want you to go and put up bail for my brother, Rodney Banks. He’s in jail charged with embezzlement, and bail has been fixed at five thousand dollars. Out of the money that you have collected from winnings on the horse, you can put up five thousand dollars and then bring the balance to me.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Mason said. “Things are coming pretty fast here, and you’re getting your sequence all mixed up. So far you are just a voice over a telephone. Voices over a telephone are a dime a dozen.

  “Now, if you’re in a hurry, I’ll arrange to meet with you at the most convenient place. You’ll then identify yourself as the person who gave me the tickets. I’ll then turn the money over to you and you’ll give me a receipt for it. Then, if you want me to put up bail for Rodney Banks, you give me the instructions in writing, give me the money to put up for the bail and I’ll put it up.”

  “That’s going to consume a lot of time, Mr. Mason. Aren’t you being unduly cautious?”

  “I’m a lawyer,” Mason said. “I’m dealing with a stranger. Under those circumstances, there isn’t any such thing as being unduly cautious. Let’s simply put it that I’m cautious, period.”

  “Very well,” she said. “If that’s the way you want to do it I guess you’ll have to come out here to the motel. I’m . . . I’m hardly in a position to go out at the present time. I’ve been—I’m just out of the shower. I can be decent by the time you get here, however, and that’s about the only way I can handle things. I can’t save much time otherwise.”

  “I’ll be right out,” Mason said. “It will take me probably half an hour to get there.”

  “I’ll be waiting. Tell me, did you have any trouble?”

  “Nothing to speak of,” Mason said. “I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

  “Did anyone try to stop you?”

  “From doing what?”

  “Getting the money.”

  “Ye?.”

  “Did you get it?”

  “I’ll explain the situation when I see you,” Mason said. “But if you’re the person who called at my office, you have nothing to worry about—as yet.”

  “Oh, Mr. Mason, I’m so glad— so thankful. I was so afraid, I—You’ll be right out?”

  “I’ll be right out.”

  “Alone?”

  “No,” Mason said, “I’ll have my secretary with me. She’ll be a witness. I’m going to play this pretty close to my chest.”

  “All right,” she said, laughing lightly. “Go ahead and be as cautious as you want to. I don’t suppose I can blame you.”

  “Thirty minutes,” Mason said, and hung up.

  It was exactly twenty-nine minutes later that the lawyer turned in at the motel. He drove to Unit 14, stopped and helped Della Street out of the car.

  The door of Unit 14 opened.

  The girl who had given him the name of Audrey Bicknell stood in the doorway. She wore a silk at-home costume of vibrant pink tight-fitting pants with a print jacket of pink and green, embroidered in crystal, which weighted the fine silk so that it clung to every curve above the hips.

  “Come in, come in,” she said, and smiling at Della Street, said, “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Street. Do come in.”

  Mason picked up his brief case from the car, entered the building.

  “Did you get it?” she asked.

  “I got it,” Mason said. “Fourteen thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.”

  The lawyer opened the brief case, started counting money out on the table.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, as she saw the stacks of currency. “I had no idea it—It is a pile, isn’t it, Mr. Mason?”

  Mason nodded, kept on counting, stacking the money into piles of a thousand dollars each.

  “All right,” he said, “there you are. Sign this receipt that you’ve received the money from me, that it was all the money that was due you or was to become due you in return for some horse-race tickets that you gave me, and covers in full a collection that I was retained to make for you.”

  “You’ll want your fee out of it, Mr. Mason,” she said.

  “That’s right,” Mason told her. “First we’ll get all the money turned over to you. Then you’ll pay me my fee.”

  “Can you tell me how much it is?”

  “I can,” Mason said, “but a little is going to depend on what you want me to do in connection with Rodney Banks. That is going to take a retainer, and I’m not in a position to tell you that I’ll represent him on the embezzlement charge. I’m willing to put up the bail, acting as your attorney, but I’m not going to put myself in a position where I become obligated to act as his attorney—not until I know more about the case.”

  “Well, I can’t blame you for that. I guess Rod was—Well, I guess he was pretty indiscreet. Even so, I simply can’t reconcile the things he’s supposed to have done. I think there’s something in the background.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “let’s dispose of one thing at a time. Sign this receipt.”

  She signed the receipt Della Street handed her.

  “Now,” Mason said, “you want me to put up bail for Rodney Banks?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “When?”

  “Just as soon as you can possibly do it.”

  “Bail has been fixed?”

  “Yes, he was taken before a magistrate. Bail was fixed at an amount of five thousand dollars cash.”

  Mason said, “You could have gone to a bail bond company and—”

  “I know, I know, but they charge you for the risk involved and I didn’t have the money.”

  Mason eyed her shrewdly. “But you did have five hundred dollars to bet on an almost hopeless long shot.”

  “He wasn’t hopeless. He won.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “we won’t argue the point. Nothing succeeds like success. I’m going to charge you three hundred dollars for collecting the money. Then you’ll give me five thousand for Rodney’s bail. I’m going to charge you a hundred and fifty dollars for putting up the bail for him and I’ll put it up in your name. I’ll get a receipt for the five thousand bail made out to you. After that I’ll have no further obligations in connection with the case.”

  “That’s quite all right, Mr. Mason, quite all right. Here, take the money, and—It’s very important that we get him out this afternoon, Mr. Mason.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it’s . . . it’s important, that’s all.”

  Mason said, “All right, we’re dealing at arm’s length. I’ll give you a receipt for the five thousand, and for my fee.”

  Mason nodded to Della Street, who opened her notebook, wrote out a receipt, handed it to Mason for his inspection, and received a nod of approval; Mason scrawled his name on the bottom of the receipt, tore it out of Della Street’s shorthand book, and handed it to the woman.

  “Do I report to you here after I get him out?” Mason asked.

  “No,” she said. “It’s better that you don’t have any further contact with me. Tell me, did anyone try to follow you?”

  “Yes,” Mason said.

  “But they didn’t follow you here.” Her voice was apprehensive.

  “We took precautions to see that we weren’t followed, up to the time I telephoned,” Mason said. “You were in a hurry, so I didn’t waste any time after I telephoned. I came here directly, but there’s no indication anyone was following.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “If anyone knew where I was, it would be . . . most inconvenient.”

  “And,” Mason said, “you have a sizable chunk of currency there. You’d better see that it’s put in a safe place.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. But you’ll hurry, won’t you, Mr. Mason? You’ll get Rodney out.”

  “I’ll put up the bail,” Mason said, “and you don’t want me to report?”

  “No. We’re . . . we’re finished, Mr. Mason, and thank you very, very much indeed.”

  With an impulsive gesture she put her arms around him, hugged him briefly, then stepped back self-consciously.

  “Okay,” Mason said. “The next time you get a tip on any horses with nice honest-sounding names, who seem to be the type that can be depended upon to make an honest effort, just let me know.”

  The lawyer nodded to Della Street.

  The woman who had given the name of Audrey Bicknell when she had called at Mason’s office stood in the doorway watching them as they entered the car. Her expression was thoughtful and unsmiling.

  “Well,” Mason asked, as he eased the car out of the parking compartment, “what do you make of her, Della?”

  “I don’t know,” Della Street said. “I guess she’s Nancy Banks, all right; probably the sister of Rodney Banks, but she’s certainly playing some game. She’s just as taut as a fiddlestring and if you ask me she’s frightened about something.”

  Chapter Five

  Perry Mason, approaching the bail clerk at the jail, said, “You have a Rodney Banks charged with embezzlement, bail has been fixed at five thousand dollars cash, or a ten-thousand-dollar bond. I am Perry Mason, an attorney. I am putting up five thousand dollars cash on behalf of my client, Nancy Banks. Will you make a receipt to Nancy Banks for bail in an amount of five thousand dollars cash, please, and arrange for the release of Rodney Banks.”

  The clerk carefully counted the five thousand dollars which Mason paid over, took out a receipt form with carbon-paper copies, said, “What’s the address of Nancy Banks?”

  “Care of Perry Mason,” the lawyer said.

  “We should have a street address.”

  “You can have the address of my office.”

  The clerk hesitated, then made out the receipt. “In case of cash bail I guess it’s all right.”

  “Now,” Mason said, “I want to wait for Banks to be released.”

  “Present your receipt covering bail and he’ll be released,” the clerk said.

  “I want immediate action,” Mason said.

  “You’ll get it. You’ve put up the money. We don’t want to keep him and feed him any longer than necessary. The money will guarantee his appearance at the time of trial—at least it should.”

  “It should,” Mason agreed.

  It was, however, some twenty minutes later when the jailer escorted Rodney Banks into the room where Mason was waiting.

  “Hello, Banks,” Mason said. “I’m Perry Mason. I was retained to get you out on bail. I’ve put up the bail. I’m not acting as your attorney.”

  “Well, somebody’s got to act as my attorney,” Banks said. “They’ve pulled a fast one on me. I mean, here at the jail.”

  “What did they do?”

  “They stole the ticket that I had on the winning race horse.”

  “Now, wait a minute, wait a minute,” the officer said. “Nobody stole anything. You’ve got an order of attachment there.”

  “How come?” Mason asked.

  “This guy had a ticket on Dough Boy, number four in the third race yesterday, for fifty bucks.”

  “That’s a winning horse. At track odds that ticket is worth fourteen hundred and twenty-five dollars,” Banks said.