Lieutenant Tragg’s voice said, “Well, well, caught in the act, eh?”

  “Were you,” Mason asked, “tailing me?”

  That question started its inevitable train of thought in the officer’s mind.

  “How long you been here?” he asked.

  “You ought to know.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A client,”

  “Anybody home?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Tragg said, “How did you come?”

  “Straight down San Felipe Boulevard. Say, what’s the idea—and what are you doing here?”

  Tragg said, “We had a phone call. You say you were to meet someone here?”

  “A client,” Mason said. “And if you’ll pardon me, Lieutenant, I still want to see that client rather badly.”

  Mason marched ahead of Tragg up the cement walk, up the wooden steps to the porch.

  Tragg and two plainclothes officers were right at Mason’s elbows.

  Mason pressed his thumb against the bell button.

  Once more the bell sounded a mournful, lonely summons in the dark interior of the otherwise silent house.

  Tragg abruptly pushed Mason to one side, pounded on the door with his knuckles, then kicked it with his foot and tried the knob, almost with one motion.

  He turned and said to one of the officers, “Cover the back of the house, will you, Bill?”

  “Right,” the officer said.

  They heard the slosh of his steps around the walk, a few moments later, a sound of knuckles banging on the back door, then the rattle of a door knob.

  “Apparently nobody home,” Mason said, and then added—”that’s strange.”

  “Whom did you expect to meet here?”

  Mason said, “The name’s on the mailbox.”

  “That isn’t answering my question.”

  “I think it is.”

  “Why are you being so damn secretive?” Tragg asked.

  “Why are you being so damn inquisitive?”

  “Oh nuts!” Tragg said impatiently, “the same runaround.”

  “Will you,” Mason asked, “kindly tell me what brings you out here? You’re attached to homicide. Do you have a tip that … ?”

  Tragg pounded once more on the door, tried the knob, then, with his five-cell flashlight, made an exploration of the front of the house.

  “Windows locked, shades drawn,” he said. “I … ”

  They heard running steps on the walk, then the officer who had been sent to the back of the house said, “This way, Lieutenant. It’s back here.”

  Tragg swung his flashlight down to the steps, walked swiftly at the head of the little procession which moved around to the back of the house.

  The powerful flashlight of the officer penetrated down into the soggy darkness to show the motionless figure sprawled face down in the mud at the bottom of a cuplike depression.

  Tragg barked sharply to Mason and Della Street. “You two stay here. And I mean stay here.”

  Tragg and the other officers walked down the slippery boardwalk, taking care to plant their feet firmly on the nailed cross pieces. Then at the point nearest the body, they huddled in low- voiced conference.

  Mason slipped his arm around Della Street, held her close to him. “Della, you’re trembling. Snap out of it.”

  “I can’t help it. Gosh, it’s cold, Chief!”

  Mason held her more closely. “Take it easy.”

  They stood waiting in the rain. Behind them a peculiar gurgling sound attracted Mason’s attention. He turned his head.

  “What is it?” Della Street asked, apprehensively.

  “Faucet on the cistern is open,” Mason said. “The rain water is running through the tank, and draining down as fast as it comes in. I … ”

  The beam of Tragg’s flashlight suddenly stabbed Mason’s eyes. Tragg’s voice said, “I think you two better go back to your car.”

  “Who is it?” Mason asked.

  His question went unanswered.

  Tragg said to one of the men, “Get a camera. Let’s have some photographs before we touch the body. There are tracks here in the mud.”

  The burly form of a raincoated officer came scrambling up the board walk, the beam of Tragg’s flashlight glinting in coruscating reflections from the wet rubber overcoat.

  Then Tragg’s voice again. “You stay here, Bill. I’ll go up and help get that camera out. Don’t go near the body until we get the pictures. Stand right there.”

  Tragg was scrambling up the sloping boardwalk. His voice harsh with command barked an order at Mason and Della Street. “You two come with me.”

  Tragg led the way around the house to Mason’s car, jerked open the car door nearest the curb. “Where are your ignition keys?” he asked.

  “In the lock.”

  Tragg’s flashlight probed the interior of the car. He found the ignition keys, turned them, looked at the temperature gauge.

  “Humph!” he said when he saw that it was still at driving temperature.

  “Whom did you want to see?” he asked after a moment.

  “The name’s on the mailbox—Mrs. Robert Bartsler.”

  “Client of yours?”

  “No.”

  “What did you want to see her about?”

  “I think she’s a witness.”

  “Rather an unusual time to look for witnesses, isn’t it?”

  “I understood she’d be home.”

  “Expecting you?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t try to telephone?”

  “No.”

  “Ever met her?”

  “No.”

  “Talked with her on the telephone at all?”

  “No.”

  “How did you know she was a witness?”

  “A little bird told me.”

  “What’s she a witness for? What does she know?”

  “I’ll have to ask her. That’s why I came out here.” Tragg indicated the interior of the car. “You and Miss Street get in there, sit down, stay there. Don’t try to … Wait a minute!”

  Tragg’s wet raincoat pushed against Mason as he reached his arm across the lawyer’s body. His fingers clasped the ignition key, turned the lock and withdrew the key. “Just by way of assurance,” he said.

  Mason and Della Street huddled together in the front seat of the automobile. Tragg slammed the door shut.

  Mason said, “Della, I think there’s a bottle of whisky in that glove compartment.”

  “If there is,” Della said, “I think it’s going to save my life.” Again she explored the glove compartment, brought out a small flask of whisky. “Help yourself,” Mason invited.

  She tilted the flask to her lips, then passed it to Mason. “Feel better?” Mason asked as he lowered the flask. “That,” she announced, “is going to help. And as they say in Hollywood, I mean definitely.”

  “Isn’t there a heater on this car?” she asked.

  Mason said, “Sure, but it won’t run without the ignition being on. Wait a minute.” He took out his wallet, extracted a spare ignition key. put it in the lock, turned it and switched on the heater. A few moments later welcome warmth wrapped their ankles in a drying current of air.

  Warmed by the whisky and the heater, Della Street relaxed against Mason’s shoulder. “Poor Diana,” she said, and then, after a moment, asked, “How did she get here?”

  “That,” Mason said, “is the problem that will be occupying Lieutenant Tragg’s mind within just a few moments.”

  “The one who committed the murder must have driven her out.”

  “That, of course, is a possibility. But how about Mrs. Bartsler?”

  Della said, “Of course, if she … Good Heavens, Chief! What was that?”

  Mason patted her shoulder. “Take it easy, Della. That was just the glare from a flash bulb. Lieutenant Tragg is taking flashlight pictures.”

  They were silent for several seconds while more flash bulbs made weird artificial lighting.

  Abruptly Della Street straightened in the cushions. “Look, Chief.”

  “What?”

  “Over there on the sidewalk. Wait until Tragg shoots off another flash bulb. Over there on the sidewalk, just beyond the house. Just … There! … . See it?”

  “Something dark,” Mason said.

  “Looks like a woman’s purse,” Della announced, reaching for the door handle.

  Mason grabbed her arm. “Don’t do it.”

  “Why?”

  Mason said, “If it isn’t evidence we don’t want it. If it is evidence, we don’t dare touch it. Lieutenant Tragg has the embarrassing habit of popping up at the most unexpected moments and … ”

  As though to illustrate Mason’s point, at that moment Tragg’s flashlight coming around the corner of the house sent a vivid beam of light knifing through the darkness, caught the front part of Mason’s automobile, held it in a white blaze of brilliance while Tragg walked toward the car. Then the flashlight was lowered and the door opened.

  “Humph,” Tragg said. “Warm in here.”

  “Heater going,” Mason said.

  “How’d you get the heater on without the key?” Tragg’s flashlight shifted to the ignition lock, showed the key in position. “Shucks!” he said, and dropped the key he had taken into Mason’s hand.

  “Come on in,” Mason invited.

  “Move over, Della, and I will.”

  Della moved over closer to Perry Mason. Tragg got in and pulled the door shut.

  “What do you know about the corpse, Perry?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Recognize her?”

  “I didn’t see her face.”

  “But you think you know who she is?”

  “I’m not making any identifications until I’ve seen the body.”

  “I’m not asking you to make an identification. I’m asking you who you thought it was.”

  “I try not to think until I have some basis for my conclusions,” Mason said.

  Another flash bulb made a lightning flash of illumination.

  “What’s that?” Tragg asked, pointing.

  “What?” Mason asked.

  Tragg raised his flashlight, tried to send the beam through the windshield, but the beads of moisture reflected the light back with dazzling brilliance and robbed the beam of its efficiency.

  Tragg said, “Something on the sidewalk. I saw it when they took that last picture.”

  He opened the door, swung out of the car. The beam of his flashlight darted down the sidewalk and came to rest on the woman’s purse.

  “Humph!” Tragg said, and went sloshing off down the pavement.

  “You see?” Mason pointed out. “We’d just about have got the purse and started back to the car when Tragg would have shown up and caught us in the act.”

  They watched Tragg walk over to the purse, bend down to a crouching position, saw the flashlight moving back and forth. Then Tragg started back toward the car but detoured instead toward the porch. Under the shelter of the porch roof, he made an appraisal of the contents of the purse, then came slogging back to the automobile. Once more he opened the door. Once more Della Street moved over, and Tragg slid in beside her. He started to say something then sniffed the air.

  Della Street laughed. “Are you,” she asked, “smelling a whisky?”

  “How about it?” Mason asked.

  “I’m on duty,” Tragg said reluctantly, “and I can’t trust one of those boys not to shoot off his face unless we had enough for all of them.”

  “We haven’t,” Mason said.

  “Tough luck. Who’s Diana Regis?”

  “A client of mine.”

  “Describe her.”

  “Around twenty-two or twenty-three, blonde, five feet three or four, weight one hundred and twelve … .”

  “Okay, that’s your corpse. Was she a client of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just settle something for her not too long ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “A case.”

  “Case against Mrs. Robert Bartsler?”

  “No.”

  Tragg said patiently, “Now just to show you how you’ve stuck your neck in a noose, I’ll pull your own receipt on you.”

  He opened the purse, pulled out a receipt signed, “Perry Mason per Della Street,” acknowledging the receipt of a cash fee covering all services in connection with the settlement of the Bartsler claim.

  “That your signature?” Tragg asked Della Street.

  “Yes.”

  “So,” Tragg said, “she had a claim against Mrs. Bartsler, did she?”

  “No.”

  Tragg said impatiently, “It’s here in black and white … Oh, oh! Against the husband, eh?”

  “No, the husband’s dead.”

  “Someone else in the family?”

  “It could have been.”

  “You’re helpful as hell, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t like the way you went about this.”

  “How much was the amount of the settlement?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Fifteen hundred in the purse,” Tragg said.

  Mason made no comment.

  “She’s dead now,” Tragg said gruffly. “You want to find out who murdered her, don’t you?”

  “It was murder?”

  “Sure, it was murder. Bullet hole right in the back of her neat little blonde head.”

  “Of course we want to do everything we can,” Mason said.

  Tragg sighed, said with exasperated impatience, “You two! Okay, beat it. I may call on you later. In the meantime, don’t stick around here. Get started!”

  Chapter 6

  MASON swung the car in a wide turn, started back down San Felipe Boulevard. He was silent and thoughtful, and Della, respecting his mood, refrained from question or comment. The rain was now falling more rapidly, and the all-but-deserted boulevard showed as a glistening wet ribbon of cement in the path’ of the headlights.

  Not until Mason turned into Della Street’s block did he speak. Then he said, “Poor kid! Perhaps if we’d gone with her … . A lawyer can’t afford to get too big, Della. He always has to remember he’s a part of the machinery by which justice is dispensed. When it comes to a matter of justice or injustice there isn’t such a thing as big or little. Injustice is a social malignancy. Gosh, how I wish I’d told the kid I’d go out there with her!”

  “Then you might have been where she is, Chief—face down in the rain.”

  “Okay. That’s a chance you have to take. When you get to where you try to play things so safe you’re afraid to take a chance you’re afraid to live.”

  “Night, Chief.”

  “Night. I … ”

  From across the street came the frantic blowing of a horn, then a car door swung open and a figure jumped to the street and raced headlong across through the driving rain.

  “Better get on your way, Chief,” Della Street warned. “This is probably some client who has looked me up and … ”

  “Good idea,” Mason said. “So long.”

  “So long, Chief.”

  Mason slammed the door shut, started the car away from the curb.

  The woman who was running across the street stopped, waved her hands frantically, turned, and the headlights caught her countenance disclosing a discolored right eye.

  Mason spun the steering wheel, sent the car back to the curb, switched off headlights and motor and had just opened the car door when Diana Regis came sprinting up.

  “Oh, I’m so relieved! I’m so glad to see you. And Mr. Mason, I was so afraid you wouldn’t come. I’ve been waiting for ages and ages and ages. But they told me Miss Street had gone out, and I knew she’d promised to meet me here, and … Well, you know … Although, of course, I suppose it is late. I don’t know how late. I got water in my wrist watch and it stopped.”

  Mason flashed Della a warning glance, said, “Just what was it you wanted me to do, Diana?”

  “I’d like to have you come along with me if you will.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out to sixty-seven fifty San Felipe Boulevard.”

  “Going alone?”

  “I’m to meet Mildred Danville out there.”

  “What time?”

  She laughed and said, “Well, the appointment was made for ten-thirty, but Mildred is usually late, and … ”

  “Didn’t you tell me ten?” Della Street interrupted.

  Diana looked steadily, searchingly at Della Street. “Oh my gosh! Perhaps it was ten!”

  “Weren’t you to be here around nine-thirty?” Mason asked.

  ;’I tried to be but the rain interfered. I went to get my own car, and the streetcars were running by fits and starts. I didn’t get here until … well, I guess it was quarter of ten.”

  “Then you’ve been waiting here ever since quarter to ten?”

  “Yes. At any rate, that’s my best guess on the time.”

  Mason said, “Let’s go up to Della’s apartment and get out of the rain.”

  Della Street took her key from her purse and unlocked the outer door of the apartment. The three of them took the elevator, then went to Della’s apartment. Della Street switched on lights, and divesting herself of her wet raincoat, went at once to the kitchenette where she put on the teakettle.

  “I’m about to make some hot toddies,” she announced.

  “Good,” Mason announced. “Get the things all ready, and then come in here while you’re waiting for the water to heat, will you, Della?”

  Diana Regis settled down in a chair, crossed her knees, saw Mason inspecting her sopping wet shoes and stockings, laughed and said, “I’m afraid I wasn’t prepared for quite such a deluge.”

  “How’d you happen to get in touch with Mildred Danville?” Mason asked abruptly.

  “She telephoned me when I went back with the detective.”

  “What did she say over the telephone?”

  “She told me she’d been in some trouble, that she’d borrowed my car and had been picked up by an officer for some traffic irregularity. The officer wanted to see her driving license. Mildred doesn’t have any. She got in trouble a while ago and isn’t supposed to drive a car, but she’s my age, build, and complexion, in fact she looks a lot like me and she uses my driving license. She took the cop up to the apartment on the stall she’d forgotten her purse. She opened the door, thinking she’d never get out of the scrape—and there was my purse on the table! She grabbed it. That’s how the cigar butt came in the ash tray. The cop was smoking.”