Della Street nodded.

  When Kit had moved away, Della Street moved closer to Mason, said, “Notice anything significant, Chief?”

  “Such as what?” Mason asked.

  “Shoes,” Della Street said.

  “What about the shoes?”

  “She’s wearing alligator-skin shoes,” Della Street said. “You remember last night she was wearing black leather shoes and she asked me if I had thought to bring along the alligator-skin shoes. She said those shoes were her working shoes.

  “I hadn’t brought them. Then you remember she said it was all right, she’d work with her black shoes, but they weren’t as comfortable. She must have stopped by the house and got her alligator shoes.”

  Mason frowned, “That would be a development,” he said. “In that case she must have gone back and seen her aunt, and that might have considerable bearing on the case.”

  “Want to ask?” Della Street said.

  Mason frowned. “Let’s wait and let her tell us” he said.

  Kit hurried past their table carrying a tray. Mason’s eyes were on the alligator shoes as Kit Ellis hurried by.

  Della, reading his mind, said, “Madison evidently supplies them with smocks that are embroidered with the name of the restaurant. They put those smocks over their street clothes. Then he has a machine which embroiders a patch with their names. This is sewn to the smock.”

  Mason nodded.

  “Of course, that’s as far as the uniforms go,” Della Street said. “They may wear their street clothes under the smock, or they may take off the outer garments, but the shoes and stockings are evidently the ones they come to work in.”

  “I presume,” Mason said, “they have lockers. Those smocks may be too heavy to be worn over their regular clothes.”

  Della Street looked past Mason, said, “Oh-oh, here comes Paul. I’ll bet he’s looking for our file ‘Thirty-two, twenty-four, thirty-two.’ ”

  Mason grinned.

  “No, he’s looking for us,” Della Street said. “He’s got us spotted. Here he comes.”

  Paul Drake walked over to their table.

  “Hi, Paul,” Mason said. “Have a seat. Had lunch?”

  “Not yet,” Drake said. “I had an idea I might find you here.”

  “Something new?” Mason asked.

  Drake said, “There’s a report from my operative who is now at the Gillco Company. He says that the blind pencil seller is on the job. I had left instructions that he was to notice her feet particularly. He says this is Mrs. Bunion. She has a pronounced bunion at the base of the big toe on the right foot.”

  Della said, “Then it’s another woman. I had occasion to look at Sophia Atwood yesterday. She had very neat feet and ankles.”

  “Paul, how do you keep in touch with your men on a job of this kind?” Mason asked.

  “As I said before, some of the cars have field telephones in them. The men can report directly lo the office. But, for the most part, the cars we use for shadowing are just plain, ordinary, knock-around cars— just as average as we can get them. We get one of the popular makes that’s about three or four years old, with no distinguishing marks, keep it a couple of years, and trade it in on another one. We use Tracy’s Car Mart for replacements.”

  “I’ve got my friend, Tracy, picking out a used car for my client in this case,” Mason said. “I don’t want her running around the city at night, taking buses.”

  Drake sized Mason up, said, “You do all right for your clients. What will the income tax people say?”

  Mason grinned. “We’ll let Della Street handle that end of it, Paul. She has a string of figures that she uses in describing the account.”

  Drake raised his eyebrows.

  “Thirty-two, twenty-four, thirty-two,” Della Street said.

  Drake threw back his head and laughed.

  Kit brought the scallops. Then Mason said, “I want some good ketchup, Kit, not this synthetic sauce that they ordinarily serve with scallops—and this is Paul Drake of the Drake Detective Agency. He’s joining us for lunch.”

  Drake acknowledged the introduction, regarded Katherine Ellis with quite evident approval.

  “What’s ready that’s good?” he asked.

  “I’d recommend the scallops or the hot corned beef sandwich. They’re both good. The sandwich will be quicker.”

  “Bring me a hot corned beef sandwich, please,” Drake said.

  When Kit returned with the ketchup, Mason said, “I’m arranging for a car for you for at least a few days, Kit. I have a friend in the used-car business, and I’m getting you something you can use. It won’t be anything fancy, but it’ll be good transportation. And while you’re staying there at the motel, I want you to use it. You’re a little far from a bus line to suit me. Particularly on your late shifts.”

  “Oh, Mr. Mason, how can I ever—I don’t think I could afford to drive my own car. I…”

  “This isn’t your own car,” Mason said. “The tank’s full of gasoline. This car is a loan to you from me. You drive, I take it?”

  “Oh, sure. I had my own car until… well, I had to sell it,” she said, turning away quickly. She hurried to the kitchen counter, returned with Drake’s sandwich, and glided away.

  Mason said, “Your men who don’t have a phone in the car, Paul—how do they report to the office?”

  “Well, a man can only sit in a car so long,” Drake said. “Then he has to hunt up a rest room and, when he does, he telephones in. Of course, there’s a chance he’ll lose the subject while he’s doing it but it’s the only way you can handle a deal of that sort, human nature being what it is. If you want a real shadow that is foolproof, you need two men in two cars, and that’s expensive.

  “You’d be surprised, however, at how infrequently a person loses a subject. This is really good food!”

  Mason nodded. “Madison does a good job. He tells me that he very seldom has to change his cooks. He keeps them happy and satisfied. Is this operative of yours the same man who shadowed Sophia Atwood yesterday?”

  “Same one,” Drake said.

  “Any suspicion in his mind that it’s not the same person?”

  “I asked him particularly. He thinks it’s the same person, but I told him to look carefully at the feet. He has a pair of binoculars with him. He says she has a bunion on the right foot.”

  “Then it’s not Sophia Atwood,” Della Street said positively.

  “All right,” Mason said to Paul Drake, “send another man down, Paul. We can’t afford to lose this woman. Let’s have two men on the job so we can be sure to find out who she is and where she goes.”

  Drake somewhat hurriedly finished his sandwich, said, “I’ll leave you with the check, Perry. I’ll hurry up to the office and get another operative on the job.”

  “We’ll tell Kit good-by for you,” Della Street said, smiling.

  Drake took a half dollar from his pocket, put it under his plate. “I’ll tell her this way,” he said, “and put it on the expense account.”

  Della Street and Mason finished their lunch, had a sherbet dessert, and returned to the office.

  Drake’s code knock sounded on the door within a matter of minutes after they had returned.

  Della let the detective in, and Drake, his face grave, said, “There have been developments, Perry.”

  “What?”

  “I just heard of them. Sophia Atwood is in the hospital in a critical condition.”

  “How come?”

  “Somebody got in the house last night sometime, perhaps around midnight, knocked her out with a flashlight—one of those big five-cell outfits—and left her unconscious. The police discovered the crime about half an hour ago when Stuart Baxley went to the house.

  “When no one answered his ring at the front door, he went around to the back door. He says he found the back door standing wide open. This aroused his suspicions and he went in and found Mrs. Atwood on the floor of the bedroom unconscious. The flashlight, which evidently had been used as a weapon, was lying beside her with the glass cracked. The surgeons say she has a subdural hematoma.”

  “She’s still alive?” Mason asked.

  “Apparently she’s still alive, but in a deep coma.”

  “How did you hear about it?” Mason asked.

  Drake said, “I have a confession to make, Perry. As soon as I reached the office, and knowing that the woman at the Gillco Manufacturing Company was not Mrs. Atwood, I sent an operative out to check on Sophia Atwood. I told him to go to the door, to pretend to be a door-to-door canvasser to say that a neighbor had given him the name of Mrs. Atwood, and to try to sell her an encyclopedia or something of that sort. Our men all have a set of books and a line of descriptive patter that they can use on occasions of that sort. You’d be surprised, Perry. Sometimes we even get an order.”

  “And what happened?”

  “My man got out there just after the ambulance had left. Police were still prowling around, and he managed to get the story of what had happened. He got to a phone and called me.”

  “All right,” Mason said. “This thing is deeper than I had imagined. I should have known when there was the discrepancy in the amount of cash on hand that … ”

  The lawyer abruptly stopped talking.

  “Something I don’t know?” Drake asked.

  “Something you don’t know,” Mason told him, “and I don’t want you to know. I’m getting a feeling about this case that makes me think we’re headed for trouble and lots of trouble.

  “Come on, Paul, let’s get down to the Gillco Manufacturing Company and interview the woman who’s selling pencils down there. You haven’t had any reports that she’s left?”

  Drake shook his head.

  Mason turned to Della Street. “You keep the store, Della. Give Tracy a ring. Tell him I want him to have that car ready for delivery at seven-thirty this evening. Say nothing about shoes to anyone, and I’ll get back as soon as I can make it.”

  “Shoes?” Drake asked. “What about shoes?”

  “Horseshoes,” Mason told him, “for luck. Come on, Paul, let’s go.”

  Chapter 8

  The Gillco Manufacturing Company was out in a district where several factories had enough room to put in fenced parking lots for employees. The building was a three-storied structure designed for utility. Drake found a parking space at the curb, and he and Perry Mason entered the lobby where a good-looking woman in her thirties sat at the reception desk. Back of her was a switchboard where an operator was busily engaged in a hectic spurt of activity, plugging in lines, working keys.

  Drake said, “Hello, I’m back again, and this time I’ve brought a friend with me.”

  She laughed. “Still interested in the blind woman who sells pencils? What are you—an officer trying to arrest her for begging or something?”

  “No,” Mason said, “we’re just curious.”

  “Yes, I can understand,” she said. “Just idle curiosity which brings two high-priced executives out here to … Say, aren’t you Perry Mason, the lawyer?”

  Mason nodded.

  “Well, that’s something!” she said. “Don’t tell me this woman is mixed up in a murder case!”

  “She may be a witness,” Mason said. “Where is she?”

  “Isn’t she out there on the property line?”

  Drake shook his head. “She’s not in her accustomed place.”

  “She must have left then. I know she was there about half an hour ago.”

  “The properly line?” Mason asked.

  “It’s just off the sidewalk and she’s on the property of the manufacturing company. It’s really outside the jurisdiction of the city and is private property. Mr. Gillman said to leave her there—for luck.”

  “How can she make a living selling pencils there?” Mason asked.

  “They’re good pencils, that’s why. She also has some ballpoint pens—some really good stuff and—well, quite a few of the employees stop to buy from her. You’d really be surprised. Sometimes I think she does a pretty good business, but certainly not enough lo warrant her using taxicabs.”

  “How else would she get out here?” Mason asked. “She could hardly come on a bus. If she’s blind, she couldn’t walk and it’s cheaper to get a taxi than to try and hire a car and driver.”

  “I know,” the woman said. “I asked her once why she came by cab and got just about the same answer. She also said that the cab companies make a special rate to blind people who have to go out to different stations like that—or the drivers do, or something. Anyway, she said she got a special rate.”

  “How long has she been coming?”

  “A little over two weeks.”

  “You noticed her feet, Mr. Drake tells me,” Mason said.

  “That’s right. There are actually two women. One of them has very neat feet. The other one has a pretty good left foot, but the right foot has a bunion.”

  “How did you happen to notice that?”

  “Oh, I just notice things. Tell me—I’m giving you lots of information I don’t know whether Mr. Gillman would like it or not—would you like to talk with him and ask him if it’s all right? I don’t like to … Well, I know Mr. Gillman wouldn’t want me to say anything that would attract any undue amount of attention to the company.”

  “Sure thing,” Mason said. “May we go up to his office?”

  “Just a moment,” she said, and picked up a phone.

  She waited a full thirty seconds before getting a line, then said, “Mr. Gillman’s office, please … Hello, could Mr. Gillman see Mr. Perry Mason, the lawyer?”

  A moment later she smiled at Mason. “I’m sorry. Mr. Gillman’s tied up, with people waiting to see him and a whole string of phone calls he has to make within the next two hours.

  “It’s a very busy time of year for him.”

  She dropped the phone into place.

  She looked questionably at Paul Drake. “Are you also a lawyer, Mr. Drake?”

  “A private detective,” Mason said, “who is checking on a matter for me.”

  “Involving the blind beggar?”

  “We don’t know,” Mason told her. “We’ve had some leads in that direction. That’s all we know and we’d like to find out more about her. But please don’t let her know we’re investigating.”

  “My,” she said, “it’s mysterious!”

  Abruptly she looked behind them to a young man who had come hurrying in carrying a briefcase.

  “Mr. Gil —“ he began, but the receptionist interrupted him.

  “Go right up, Mr. Deering. He’s waiting for you.” She turned back to Mason as the young man hurried to the elevators.

  “Is it something important?”

  Mason smiled and bowed. “It’s just a routine matter. Thank you very much. You’ve been most helpful.”

  “You’re leaving me out on the end of a limb,” she protested.

  Mason laughed good-naturedly. “Don’t worry. We’ll subpoena you as a witness.”

  She made an exaggerated grimace of distaste. “You do and I’ll shoot you,” she said.

  Mason and Drake walked out of the reception room and exchanged brief significant glances. “Now what?” Drake asked.

  “Evidently she’s left and your two operatives are tailing her. Let’s get to a telephone booth, Paul, and see if they’ve made a report.”

  “Well, things certainly do take on a peculiar aspect here,” Drake said. “Look here, Perry, you know something that I don’t know about this case. You know something about a sum of money.”

  “Possibly,” Mason said.

  “Going to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s best that you know only what I tell you about this case,” Mason said, weighing his words carefully. “I’ll tell you this much—the receptionist addressed that young man who came in as Deering. If it should happen his first name is Hubert, that might be very significant.

  “So you and I are going to jot down the numbers on the license plates of the automobiles parked out in front then later on you’re going to check the ownership of those cars.

  “As soon as we’ve got those license numbers, let’s get to a phone, call your office and see what’s new.”

  There were a dozen cars parked at the curb. Mason took one end of the line, Drake the other. They quickly wrote down the license numbers of the parked cars, then drove to a service station which had a phone booth, and Drake called his office.

  When Drake came back to the car, he was thoughtful. “We’ve run Mrs. Bunion down to earth,” he said. “A flat, an old district down Santa Monica way. She’s a blind recluse who has lived there for more than two years. Her name, incidentally, is Gillman.”

  “Gillman?” Mason said. “Any relation to Gillman at the Gillco Company?”

  “I’m giving you what information I have,” Drake said. “Her name is Gillman. She’s been living in this flat. She’s eccentric. Sometimes people don’t see her for two or three days. Then she’ll come along the sidewalk waving her cane in front of her, going to the corner market.

  “They know her well at the corner market. She pays cash. Quite frequently they carry the provisions for her. A blind woman, living all alone, doing her own cooking — that represents a problem.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “we’ll start asking questions. What would you do, Paul, if you were blind and had a limited income? You wouldn’t dine out. You couldn’t hire a cook.”

  “You have a point there,” Drake said. “So what do we do?”

  Mason said, “We keep your men on the job. When the blind woman comes out I want to know where she goes. I want to find out everything I can about her.”

  Drake said, “My operative thinks she knew she was being tailed right at the last.”

  “What makes him think so?” Mason asked. “After all, shadowing a blind woman shouldn’t … ”

  Drake said, “It wasn’t the woman who spotted the tail, it was the taxi driver. Some of those drivers get mighty skillful, and this driver was evidently good. My men had him bracketed, that is, one of them had moved on ahead of the cab and was watching in the rear-view mirror, and the other one was tailing the cab. They’d swapped positions once or twice on the trip. That’s good shadowing technique. One car passes, the other car drops behind. In that way the driver of the subject car doesn’t realize there’s a car on his tail.”