“Whose fingerprint was it?” Mason asked.

  Drake said, “The fingerprint of Mrs Warren.”

  “Lorna Warren, eh?” Mason said thoughtfully. “I might have known.”

  “How could you possibly have known that?” Della asked.

  “Remember Warren’s peculiar attitude and his somewhat peculiar instructions? He said I was to protect his wife from the person who made that fingerprint no matter who the person was and no matter how much it cost. Then he took elaborate precautions to see that we weren’t in a position to advise him what we had discovered concerning the fingerprint.”

  “You mean,” Della Street said, “that he’s paying a price in order to have you protect his wife from herself?”

  Mason nodded, turned to Paul Drake. “Paul, did you get enough fingerprints so you can get a classification?”

  “On nearly everyone there,” Drake said. “Some of them were smudged but for the most part we managed to get ten reasonably clear fingerprints of everyone there.”

  “Including Mrs Warren?”

  “I know we got hers.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “Have some police friend get in touch with the FBI. See if she’s got a criminal record.”

  “A criminal record!” Drake said. “Are you nuts?”

  “I don’t think so, Paul. You don’t blackmail a person unless you have a club.”

  “But she’s big-time stuff,” Drake objected.

  “The bigger the quarry, the bigger the club,” Mason told him.

  “How much time have I got?” Drake asked.

  “If you get along with five hours’ sleep tonight,” Mason said, “you’ll have until nine o’clock tomorrow morning our time. That will be noon Washington time.”

  “That’s going to take some awfully fast action on the part of the police and FBI,” Drake pointed out, “and I’m going to have to go without a lot of shut-eye tonight in order to get those ten fingerprints collected and classified.”

  Mason indicated the coffee percolator. “Della Street will see that you have enough coffee to keep you awake, Paul – before I escort her home.”

  Drake passed over his coffee cup, sighed, and said, “With plenty of cream and sugar, Della, please.”

  Chapter Five

  Paul Drake was in Perry Mason’s office at eleven-thirty the following morning.

  “Hi, Paul,” Mason said. “Any sleep?”

  “A surprising amount,” Drake said. “I had the fingerprints collected and classified by one-thirty in the morning, a friendly police chief wired the FBI and we have a reply.”

  “Criminal?” Mason asked.

  “Yes and no,” Drake said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Mrs Warren’s maiden name was Margaret Lorna Neely. She worked as a secretary for a man named Collister Damon Gideon.”

  “Where was all this?” Mason asked.

  “New York.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Gideon was a promoter; a quick-thinking, fast-talking spellbinder. He had been in trouble with the postal authorities on two previous occasions but they couldn’t make any charge stick. The third time they nailed him.”

  “What charge?” Mason asked.

  “Using the mails to defraud. Now, here’s the strange thing. They indicted both Gideon and his secretary, Margaret Lorna Neely, and they went to trial in Federal Court.

  “I haven’t had time to find out too much about that trial but I know the highlights. Gideon was convicted on several counts. The jury acquitted Margaret Neely.”

  “You know why?” Mason asked.

  “Why they convicted Gideon or why they acquitted Margaret Neely?”

  “Either.”

  “They convicted Gideon because he didn’t make a good impression. He was too suave and fast-talking, and he’d made the mistake of getting mixed up in a deal where his suckers were farmers. The prosecuting witnesses were the good old horny-handed sons of soil, and the jurors contrasted those honest people with Gideon’s smooth line of gab.

  “As far as the acquittal is concerned, it’s the old story. A fresh face, an innocent manner, a young girl and nylon. Margaret Neely was just twenty-six at the time.”

  “It seems strange the prosecutor would try them both together,” Mason said.

  “He did it because he wanted to convict Margaret Neely the worst way.”

  “Why? Did he think she was criminally responsible?”

  “I don’t think the evidence that they could introduce was too clear against her. The main thing that they wanted was forty-seven thousand bucks.”

  Mason raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “When the postal inspectors came down like a thousand bricks and the authorities moved in, they found Gideon with virtually empty pockets, an empty safe and an empty bank account. He had, however, in some mysterious manner arranged to pay attorney’s fees in advance and there had been a checking account with a balance of some forty-seven thousand dollars which mysteriously vanished.”

  “Doesn’t the bank have records?” Mason asked.

  “Oh, sure. Gideon drew the money out. He said he put it in the office safe because he knew some disgruntled customers were going to call on him the next day and he had intended to make restitution in hard cash because he didn’t want to have any paper records of the transaction.”

  “And the safe, I take it, was conveniently burglarized during the night.”

  “The safe was conveniently burglarized during the night.”

  “And I also take it the authorities never found the forty-seven thousand dollars.”

  “That’s right. And there was just a whisper of suspicion that Margaret Neely knew where the money was and may have been saving it for Collister Gideon, as salvage from the wrecking operation the government did on the business.

  “Incidentally, the police would like very, very much indeed – and the FBI would like very, very much indeed – to know where Margaret Neely is now and where I picked up her fingerprints. A great deal of pressure is being brought to bear on me.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “You can’t say anything.”

  “Well, it’s quite a bit of pressure,” Drake protested. “They’re even intimating that I might be aiding and abetting a criminal.”

  “Criminal nothing,” Mason said. “Margaret Neely was acquitted of any crime in connection with the fraud.”

  “Well, she did a good job of vanishing,” Drake said. “Police thought they were going to be able to keep in touch with her through social security numbers or something of that sort, but Margaret Neely just simply vanished. From what we know, we can put two and two together. She must have met Horace Warren soon after that. She was then going under the name of Lorna Neely and evidently had gone to Mexico City.

  “In those days Warren was a struggling young businessman with lots of ambition and a reasonable amount of property. He hadn’t hit the jackpot as yet. That came two years later when he struck oil on some of his property and from then on he made shrewd investments.”

  Mason grinned. “You’ve been gossiping, Paul.”

  “I’ve been listening.”

  “No one has any idea where you got these fingerprints?”

  “I won’t say that,” Drake said. “No one knows anything from me, but it’s possible I may have left a back trail.”

  “How come?”

  “Getting that fingerprint catering service last night.”

  Mason was thoughtful. “I see, Paul … Even so, I should think the authorities would be willing to live and let live. They put Margaret Neely on trial and she was acquitted. What more do they want?”

  “They’re after Collister Gideon.”

  “They got him.”

  “They got the empty shell,” Drake said. “They intimated that if Gideon wanted to cough up the forty-seven thousand bucks he could get parole and a chance to be released.”

  “Gideon refused?”

  “Gideon insisted he has absolutely no knowledge of the money. He insisted the safe was burglarized during the night.”

  “He claimed it was an inside job?”

  “No, he claimed very vehemently it was an outside job. The combination to the safe was pasted on the bottom side of the drawer in his desk. The authorities found that the drawer had been pulled out of the desk, the contents dumped on the floor, and burglars had evidently secured the combination to the safe, opened it and taken out the money.”

  “Any other evidence that the office had been burglarized?”

  “Quite a bit, as I understand it. The lock on the door had been tampered with. About twenty dollars that Margaret Neely kept in her desk was missing, and the money from the petty cash drawer, amounting to about ninety-seven dollars, was gone and even the money from the stamp drawer, all of the dimes and pennies that had been put in by persons taking out stamps for personal correspondence.”

  “So Gideon wouldn’t make a deal and take parole?”

  “He said he couldn’t. He said he didn’t know anything about the money.”

  “How long’s he in for?” Mason asked.

  “He was released last Friday,” Drake said.

  Mason was thoughtful. “And I suppose the authorities have had shadows sticking to him like glue.”

  “That I wouldn’t know about,” Drake said, “but I can tell you this. It’s one hell of a job to keep a man under surveillance when he knows what the score is and doesn’t want to be shadowed. He can break away sooner or later.

  “The best technique is to let him make a first try and encourage him to believe that he’s thrown off the shadows and then see what he does. For that reason authorities quite frequently have a rough shadow who keeps the guy under surveillance in such a way that the shadow stands out like a sore thumb. Then the subject ditches the shadow by going into a crowded building which has several exits, or getting a car, driving through a traffic light or two just as it’s changing, and all the familiar dodges. The rough shadow gets left behind and the smooth shadows take over.

  “Usually the subject will go and hole up somewhere in a little hotel under an assumed name and keep completely quiet for a couple of days. Then if he sees nothing suspicious, he thinks he has it made and goes out and walks right into the trap.”

  “Did this happen with Gideon?”

  “I don’t know anything about Gideon,” Drake said. “The authorities aren’t taking me into their confidence except to tell me that I’d better co-operate or else.”

  Drake drew an extended forefinger across his throat.

  “You sit tight,” Mason said. “If it comes to an absolute showdown where they threaten you with your licence, you can tell them that I gave you the fingerprints and that you reported to me. Let them talk with me and I’ll tell them.”

  “Well,” Drake said, “they’d still like the forty-seven thousand bucks.”

  “So they could make restitution?” Mason asked.

  “Well, they would like to nail Gideon again because of giving false information to officers.”

  “That’s all been outlawed by the statute of limitations a long time ago,” Mason said.

  “No, it hasn’t,” Drake said. “They played it smarter than that. They pulled out Gideon’s statements about the office safe having been burglarized and so forth and told him they were investigating that crime. Gideon told them it had all been outlawed by the statute of limitations but they told him they were investigating it anyway and asked him again to tell them about the burglary of the office and the loss of the forty-seven thousand dollars.

  “They have some sort of statute about giving false information to officers who are investigating a crime and–”

  Mason made an exclamation of annoyance. “Gideon has served his time. He’s paid his debt to society.”

  “But they don’t like to have a crook get away with forty-seven thousand dollars and only serve a few years.”

  “I see,” Mason said thoughtfully. “Well, the police know that you know something about Margaret Neely. You’re going to have to handle the connection so all they have is a blind alley.”

  “I’m terminating the connection,” Drake said. “I don’t want any part of it. I’m washing my hands of the whole business.”

  Mason shook his head. “No you aren’t.”

  “What do you mean by that, Perry? I have my licence at stake. I can’t hold out information the police want in the investigation of a crime.”

  Mason said, “The police aren’t going to prosecute anyone for anything. They’d like to impound forty-seven thousand dollars. That’s all. I’d let you off the hook and get another detective agency if I could, but I don’t dare contact anyone else.

  “Think what a mess would be stirred up if it became known Lorna Warren had been arrested! We can’t let that happen. We can’t let that information get out.”

  “No one’s letting it out,” Drake said.

  Mason was openly doubtful. “When the police get mad, Paul, their methods are sometimes pretty rough.”

  Drake said nothing.

  Mason said, “I want shadows, Paul. I want Mrs Warren kept under discreet surveillance. Don’t let her get on to the fact she’s being shadowed. Tell your men to let her get away rather than arouse her suspicions.

  “I also want Judson Olney tagged for a few days at least, and I want you to get a mug shot of Collister Gideon and see that all your operatives study the picture. If either of the people I’ve mentioned sees him, or if he gets in touch with them, I want to know about it.”

  Drake groaned. “I was afraid you’d have some idea like this. It’s dangerous, Perry.”

  “Taking a bath is dangerous, Paul. Get started.”

  When Drake had left the office Della Street said, “Good heavens! You’d think she’d have had more sense.”

  Mason said, “Look at it this way. An impressionable young woman, she was completely hypnotized by an older man’s glib talk. She thought there was nothing wrong in what they were doing. She was fascinated by him, probably in love. It would have been relatively easy for Gideon to have got her to take custody of the forty-seven thousand bucks.”

  “I know,” Della Street said. “That part is all right, but she certainly shouldn’t let a misguided sense of loyalty to a clever crook trap her into the present situation.”

  “Just what is the present situation?” Mason asked.

  “Well,” she said, “for one thing, her husband knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “About the forty-seven thousand dollars.”

  Mason said, “The chain of circumstantial evidence has some very significant missing links, Della. In the first place, the authorities don’t know that Mrs Horace Warren is Margaret Lorna Neely. In the second place, the husband doesn’t know anything about her past, and in the third place, even if the authorities should question her husband, he couldn’t be interrogated as a witness because a husband can’t testify against a wife, and she can’t be forced to testify against herself.”

  “All right,” she said, “how about you? An attorney has to hold the communications of his client privileged, but that doesn’t mean he can be inveigled into becoming an accessory to a crime.”

  “A crime?” Mason asked.

  “A crime,” she said. “Gideon was convicted. You can’t conceal knowledge of a crime.”

  “And what do I really know?” Mason asked. “What knowledge do I have?”

  “You know about … about …”

  Mason grinned. “Exactly, Della. I perhaps have some hearsay evidence but all I ever actually saw was a suitcase filled with old newspapers. It’s no crime to collect newspapers in a suitcase.”

  “And just where do we go from here?” she asked.

  Mason said, “We have been retained to protect Mrs Horace Warren against the person whose fingerprint was given to us. That print was made by Margaret Lorna Neely. We are, therefore, retained to protect Mrs Warren from herself.”

  “You’re going to take the assignment literally?”

  “There isn’t any other way to take it,” Mason said. “We’re going to protect Mrs Horace Warren from herself.”

  “Her past?”

  “Her past, her present, everything.”

  “How can you do that?” she asked. “Mrs Warren has already turned over the money.”

  “That doesn’t mean that Gideon has received the money,” Mason said. “Let us assume that it is in transit.

  “Horace Warren says the money was still in the suitcase up to a short time before he tried to show it to me. When we opened the suitcase newspapers had been substituted for the currency.

  “Police would have been following Collister Gideon. He would have anticipated that. Therefore he would hardly have been so foolish as to go directly to the Warren residence and pick up the money. Therefore he must have sent some intermediary.”

  “Some person who was present at the party?” Della Street asked.

  “We can’t tell,” Mason said. “It may have been one of the servants. Gideon is smart. He knew in advance the date of his release. It is well within the limits of probability that he could have planted an accomplice as a servant.”

  “Then Mrs Warren paid over the money?”

  “Or the servant stole it,” Mason said. “Or the husband stole it so his wife wouldn’t be paying blackmail, and then retained me to protect her from the blackmailer.”

  “What a mess!” Della Street exclaimed.

  “But,” Mason pointed out, “we have one advantage. We have the fingerprints of everyone who was at that party. By the time the people in that fingerprint van get done classifying them, we can find if anyone there has a criminal record. We’ll check on the servant’s first.”

  “And suppose we find the thief?” Della Street asked. “Then what? Who makes the complaint?”

  Mason grinned. “No one.”

  “You mean you let the thief get away with forty-seven thousand dollars?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Mason said. “We do a little cloak-and-dagger stuff of our own. Once we’ve found the thief, we steal the money back again.”

  “Couldn’t you make a complaint and–”

  Mason interrupted with a firm shake of his head. “You can’t make a complaint in a situation of that sort – not with the income tax being what it is. Everyone would jump to the conclusion that the forty-seven thousand dollars represented money the Warrens were trying to conceal from their bank account, and therefore were keeping it stored in a suitcase in Mrs Warren’s closet.