Mason said carelessly, “I believe Leeds made the bulk of his fortune from a gold strike up in the Yukon, did he not?”

  “I’ve heard him say something like that.”

  “Must be a great country,” Mason said.

  “That was years ago,” she pointed out.

  “Ever been up there?” the lawyer inquired.

  She met his eyes steadily, and said, “No.”

  “How about John?” Mason inquired. “I wonder if he was ever up in the Klondike or the Yukon?”

  Again she met his eyes, and again, in the same positive voice, said, “No.”

  Mason smiled to signify that the interview was over. “Thanks a lot,” he said.

  For the moment, she made no move to leave. “Could you. . . would you . . . tell me just how it was you happened to suspect John of being L. C. Conway?”

  Mason’s smile was both affable and evasive. “I thought,” he said, “the suggestion came from you. I read you Conway’s description, that was all.”

  She recognized the note of dismissal in his voice and came to her feet. “Does Phyllis know anything about this?” she asked.

  “No one knows, outside of my office staff and those who are working with me.”

  Ten minutes after Emily Milicant had left, Della Street announced that Ned Barkler was in the office.

  Mason told her to bring him in, and, a few seconds later, was shaking hands with the calmly competent, completely unperturbed prospector.

  “Hello,” Barkler said, his pipe clamped between his teeth. “Ain’t seen Phyllis, have you?”

  “No,” Mason said. “I think she’s out at the house.”

  “Nope. She ain’t there.”

  “Perhaps she went to the bank. Were you out at the house?”

  Barkler sat down, pushed the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with a horny forefinger, and said, “Some cops were out at the house messing around with fingerprints and stuff. They tried to shake me down, and I told them where they got off.”

  “Alden Leeds’ study was ransacked,” Mason said.

  “Uh huh,” Barkler agreed.

  Mason, eyeing the man curiously, said, “How did you happen to locate Alden Leeds?”

  “Where?”

  “At the sanitarium.”

  A network of little wrinkles appeared around Barkler’s amused eyes. He took the pipe from his mouth to chuckle softly. Mason, sizing up his man, made no effort to crowd him, but tilting back in his swivel chair, lit another cigarette and waited.

  After a few moments, Barkler went on, “That crowd sure must‘a thought Alden was getting simple. Christ A’mighty, Alden’s been through things those stay-at-home bastards never even dreamt of—and taken them all in his stride. Why, he was in a mutiny one time. . . well, no. . . I guess he wasn’t either.”

  “Leeds got in touch with you?” Mason prompted.

  “Uh huh, there was a couple of heavy rubber bands holding the curtains together in the bathroom. Alden slipped them off, tied them together, and then tied the ends to the iron bars on the window. He wrote a note asking whoever found it to ring me up and tell me where he was. Then he wrapped a little piece of soap in the paper to give it weight. . . .” Barkler broke off to chuckle. His chuckling started a fit of coughing. His pipe went out, and he scratched a match to light it again.

  “It worked?” Mason asked.

  “Worked!” Barkler said. “I’ll say it worked. . . . Heh, heh, heh. . . . A guy walked past out in the street, and Alden turned loose his slingshot, and darned if he didn’t hit the guy right in the leg. The guy was sore for a minute, but he looked up and seen Alden in the window of the sanitarium. Alden made signs to him, so he picked up the note and read it and waved his hand to show that he understood. Guess he thought Alden was a nut all right, but he figured it wouldn’t do no harm to let me know where he was.”

  Mason said, “Didn’t you know that Phyllis was bringing the matter up in court?”

  Barkler’s laugh was like the sound of a wind rustling dry leaves. “What the hell does Alden and me want with court?” he asked. “Courts be damned! I strapped on the old persuader, and went down to get him out—figured I might have to get rough. But shucks, they was dead simple. I could have stole them blind.”

  Mason grinned. “You knew Leeds up in the Klondike, didn’t you?”

  “Tanana,” Barkler corrected.

  “All the same, isn’t it?” Mason asked.

  “Nope,” Barkler said shortly.

  “Must have been a wild country,” Mason ventured.

  “It was. A man that couldn’t take care of himself had no business being up in that country.”

  “Were you around Dawson?” Mason inquired.

  “Yep, all through that country.”

  “They had some wild dance halls in Dawson, didn’t they?”

  “Depends on what you call wild. A man could get lots of action. I’ve seen wilder places.”

  “Know any of the dance hall girls?” Mason inquired.

  “Some.”

  “Ever know Emily Milicant before she showed up here?” Mason asked.

  Barkler didn’t answer the question for several seconds. He puffed at his pipe, his keen, frosty eyes regarding Mason through the white smoke. “I’m checking out,” he said.

  “Why?” Mason asked. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter. I’m just checking out. I don’t like cops—a bunch of damn busybodies, if you ask me, messing around and wanting to take a guy’s fingerprints.”

  “Did they want yours?”

  “Yep.”

  “Get them?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where,” Mason asked, “is Alden Leeds now?”

  “Out attending to some business.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “He’ll show up when he gets ready.”

  Mason said, “I’m very anxious to see him. It’s important.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “If you see him or if you can get a message to him, will you let me know?”

  “Nope.”

  “You won’t?”

  “Nope. Alden can get in touch with you if he wants to. He wanted me to come in and give you a message.”

  “What,” Mason asked, “was the message?”

  “He wanted me to tell you that he was all right, and not to worry about him, but to keep right on working just the way you’re doing now.”

  Mason said, “He seems to keep pretty well posted.”

  Again Barkler chuckled. “He does,” he said. “Alden’s nobody’s fool. Well, let’s see now. . . . Oh, yes, he said to tell you to stall around and get as much time as you could, and to tell Phyllis not to worry.”

  “He isn’t going back to his house?” Mason asked.

  “Not right away, I don’t think,” Barkler said.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask Alden about that.”

  “If I don’t know where he is, I can’t ask him,” Mason said, with a smile.

  “That’s right,” Barkler agreed seriously. “You can’t.”

  He got to his feet, crossed over to the cuspidor, tapped ashes out of his pipe, and said, “Well, I’ll be getting on. Tell Miss Phyllis I’m checking out for a while.”

  “You mean you won’t be back for several days?”

  Barkler said, “Uh huh,” and walked across to the exit door.

  Mason said, “Just a minute, Barkler, before you leave. If I’m not going to see Alden Leeds, there are some papers which he’ll have to sign. They’re in the outer office. Wait here a minute, and I’ll get them for you.”

  Mason strode quickly to the door leading to the outer office. Barkler said, “Don’t be long,” walked back to the leather chair, and sat down.

  Gertrude Lade looked up from the telephone desk as Mason approached. “Where’s Della?” he asked.

  “Went out with some papers to a handwriting expert.”

  Mason said, “Beat it down to Paul Drake’s office. Tell him Ned Barkler is in my office, that he’s leaving right away; to put a tail on him. Hurry.”

  Gertrude Lade paused only to ask one question. “Does Mr. Drake know him, or do I describe him?”

  “Drake knows him,” Mason said.

  She jerked off the headset and started for the door on the run. Mason paused only long enough to take the Leeds file from the filing case, then walked back to his private office. As he opened the door, he said, “I want you to tell me if. . .” and broke off into surprised silence as he realized the office was empty. He jerked open the exit door and sprinted down the corridor to the elevator. The corridor was deserted.

  Chapter 7

  It was after midnight when Perry Mason and Della Street, flushed and laughing, entered Paul Drake’s office. The man who was on duty at the switchboard knew Perry Mason.

  “The boss in?” Mason asked.

  “Yes. Just go in. I’ll tell him you’re coming.”

  They walked along the reception hallway, pushed open a swinging door at the end, entered a filing room, and beyond that, pushed open the door to an eight-by-ten office where Drake had contrived to place a small desk, a swivel chair, three telephones, a filing case, and a steel safe.

  Mason said, “I know now why you like to sprawl all over our office, Paul. There isn’t room for you to unlax here. You have to sit straight as a ramrod to keep your feet from slipping out of the office during the middle of a conference.”

  Drake, violently chewing gum, consulted the three memo pads, one in front of each telephone, and said, “Give Della the chair over there, Perry. You can sit on the corner of the desk. What sort of a run-around were you giving me with this Barkler guy?”

  Mason laughed. “Guess I was a little crude there, Paul. I tipped my hand.”

  One of the telephones rang. Drake, chewing his gum violently, scooped the receiver to his ear, said, “Hello. Yes—okay, give it to me,” and started making notes. In the midst of the notetaking, the other telephone rang. Drake picked it up, said into the transmitter, “Hold the line for just a minute,” finished making notes, said, “Okay, Frank. Hang on for a minute. Something’s coming in over the other telephone.” He said, “All right,” into the second transmitter and translated the metallic sounds which came through the receiver into notes on the pad in front of him, said, “Report again in an hour,” and hung up. He said into the first telephone, “Okay, keep the place sewed up. Don’t let him get away. Make a report as soon as he does anything.”

  “I take it,” Mason said, “you’ve struck pay dirt.”

  Drake spat his chew of gum into a wastebasket, opened a drawer, took out two fresh sticks, fed them rapidly into his mouth.

  “He gets this way when things get hot,” Mason explained to Della Street.

  Della, watching the detective’s jaw with fascination said, “If there were only some way of harnessing that motion to a dynamo, we could run the elevator in the building.”

  Drake grinned at her, and said, “Go ahead, folks, have your fun. I can see you’ve been painting the town red while I’ve been holding my nose to a grindstone.”

  “My God!” Mason exclaimed. “Don’t tell me there’s a grindstone in here, too!”

  Drake pulled the nearest memo pad over toward him. “Want the report?” he asked.

  “I suppose we’ve got to have it,” Mason said.

  Drake said, “I have an idea we let the biggest game slip through our fingers, Perry. It couldn’t have been helped, but I’m kicking myself just the same.”

  “How so?” Mason asked.

  Drake said, “Emily Milicant left your office, but didn’t go to her apartment. She kept calling a number from public phones and getting no answer. The fourth time she tried, one of my men got close enough to watch the number she was dialing. It was Westhaven one-two-eight-nine. I looked it up, and found that it was an unlisted number, in the name of L. C. Conway at apartment 625 in an apartment house at 513 Haldemore Avenue.

  “I immediately sent a man down to cover that apartment, and we continued camping on Emily Milicant’s trail.”

  “Good work, Paul,” the lawyer said.

  Drake paused long enough to shift his gum from one side to the other and work it into place with half a dozen nervously rapid chews.

  “Okay,” he said, “here’s what happens. Around six o‘clock Emily Milicant goes down to that apartment house. She went up in the elevator around six o’clock and was out about six-five. She’d led us to Conway, so we dropped her, and I put operatives in the lobby to check everyone who took the elevators to the sixth floor. There’s a floor register over the elevator.

  “At six-twenty-nine, John Milicant comes in. He’s accompanied by a tall, thin chap around forty that my operative identifies as Guy T. Serle. You remember he’s the one who took over the Conway Appliance Company. They’re smoking cigars. Serle seems sore as hell about something. After we got the dope later on, we found out how he could be sore.”

  “What was the dope?” Mason asked.

  “Police raided the Conway Appliance Company about five o’clock this afternoon. They confiscated a lot of equipment, picked up a couple of underlings, and there’s a felony warrant out for Serle.”

  “Think he knew it when he was with Milicant?” Mason asked.

  “He acted like it.”

  “Okay,” Mason said, “go on.”

  “Well, Serle went in at six-twenty-nine and out at six-thirty-eight. At six-fifty-seven, a blonde baby, who impressed the operative on duty as being a million dollars’ worth of pulchritude, went in, and five minutes later came out. From the description, I figure she’s Marcia Whittaker, although the operative didn’t know Marcia Whittaker.

  “At seven-forty-one, Serle comes in again. At eight-ten, a restaurant a couple of doors down the street sent up two dinners. The operative checked back and found that the order had been telephoned in to the restaurant right around five minutes to eight. Evidently, Serle and Conway had a little more stuff to talk over, and grabbed a quick dinner while they were doing it.”

  “Why quick?” Mason asked.

  “Because Serle was out again at eight-twenty-three. A waiter called for the dishes at ten-forty. Well, now, here’s where we pulled our boner. At ten-five a man went in who was a stranger to all the operatives. He was an oldish man, thin, white haired, and straight as a ramrod. He was dressed in blue serge, didn’t wear an overcoat, had black patent leather shoes, and was smoking a cigar.”

  “How long did he stay?” Mason asked.

  “Eleven minutes. He was out at ten-sixteen.”

  “How did you pull a boner, Paul?”

  Drake said, “Because I figure this guy was Alden Leeds.”

  “You didn’t tell Phyllis Leeds that, did you?” Mason asked apprehensively.

  “Hell, no,” Drake said. “It’s bad enough to pull a boner, without telling a client about it.”

  Mason nodded thoughtfully. Della Street said, “I don’t see how you could have done things any differently, Paul.”

  “I couldn’t,” Drake admitted, “unless I’d been up on my toes and played a hunch. You see reports were relayed to me. By the time I got this guy’s description, he’d left. But good detective work consists of a lot of luck and a lot of hunch playing. I might have anticipated Leeds would drop in, and been ready for him. I muffed that play.

  “Well, that’s practically all. At ten-twenty-one, the blonde girl came back again. This time she was carrying an overnight bag. It looked as though she’d dropped in, fixed things up with Milicant, and was back for a longer visit after Milicant had got rid of all the business.”

  “How long did she stay?” Mason asked.

  “That’s just it,” Drake said. “She went in, and then came right back out at ten-thirty-two.”

  “Did she leave the bag?”

  “No, she evidently hadn’t even taken her hat off, just popped in and popped out again. I have a hunch something had happened, and Milicant wasn’t as glad to see her as she thought he was going to be.”

  “Meaning what?” Mason asked.

  “Meaning the sister,” Drake said. “The girl was in first at six-fifty-seven and was out by two minutes past seven. She came out looking happy. The next time the blonde shows up, the situation is radically different, and she comes out with her shoulders squared, her chin up in the air, and walks to the corner where she grabs a taxi.”

  “Anything happen after that?” Mason asked.

  “Not a thing,” Drake said.

  Mason said, “Hell, Paul, I don’t see how you do any business in this office. You can’t pace the floor.”

  Drake started to say something when one of the telephones rang. He answered it, received evidently a routine report because he looked at his watch, made a note, said, “Okay, stay on the job and keep reporting,” and hung up. Before he could turn to say anything to the lawyer, another phone rang, and Drake picked up the receiver, said, “Okay, this is Drake talking. Put them on.” He turned to Mason, and said, “Seattle calling.” A few moments later he said, “Yes, this is Paul Drake. Go ahead and tell me what you’ve found.” Then for five minutes, beyond an occasional “Yes . . . Okay . . . Go on from there,” he said nothing, but scribbled notes on a sheet of paper. He said, “Make a complete report by way of confirmation and send it on by airmail,” hung up, and turned to Mason again. “That was my Seattle correspondent,” he said. “They dug up old passenger lists of the steamship lines. Records show that Alden Leeds sailed for Dawson City via Skagway in 1906. In the latter part of 1906, he was reported in partnership with a man named Bill Hogarty in the Tanana country. Next winter it was reported Leeds was killed in a snowslide.”

  “Killed!” Mason exclaimed.

  “That’s the way the report runs. Shortly after that, Bill Hogarty came out. He’d struck it rich. Hogarty got as far as Seattle and vanished. Our correspondent wants to know if he’s to try and pick up the Hogarty trail.”

  “Go to it, Paul,” Mason said. “Start from there.”

  “Where do I stop?” Drake asked.

  “Don’t stop,” Mason said. “Keep going,” then, turning to Della Street, “Come on, Della. Let’s go to an office where we can pace the floor.”