The lawyer handed her his open notebook. Diana took it and carefully made the notations Mason asked, picked up the black bag, gave Stella her hand, said, “Thanks, sister. Be careful, and keep wearing that bra.”

  She turned to Perry Mason and said, “You’re all right. You’re good. … Let me carry my suitcase. I’ll wait. I have the key to seven-eighty-nine.” Impulsively she kissed him on the cheek, picked up the suitcase, the black bag and purse, crossed swiftly to the door, opened it, and was gone.

  Mason settled himself in a chair, motioned for Stella to be seated, said, “I’m playing this pretty much in the dark myself, Stella. The blackmailer will be expecting the payoff will be made by a man. You’ll have to act the part of the financial angel, probably related to the sucker. However, you’re skeptical, hard-boiled, and—”

  The lawyer broke off as knuckles tapped on the door.

  “This may be it,” he said. “Gosh, I hope Diana got down to seven-eighty-nine and out of sight.”

  The lawyer went to the door, opened it, and said, “Yes, what is it?”

  The man who stood on the threshold was a small man in his early thirties. He had black hair which was very sleek and glossy, parted in the middle and curled back from his forehead at the temples. He was wearing dark glasses and well-pressed brown slacks with a darker brown sport coat. His shirt was tan, and an expensive bolo tie furnished ornamentation.

  “How do you do?” he said. “I called in response to an ad in the paper. I …” He broke off as he caught sight of Stella Grimes.

  “That’s all right,” Mason said. “Come in.”

  The man hesitated, then extended a well-manicured hand, the nails highly polished, the skin soft and elaborately caref for.

  “Cassel,” he said, smiling, “C-A-S-S-E-L. I had hardly expected you would come down in person, Mr.—”

  Mason held up his left hand as he shook Cassel’s right hand.

  “No names, please.”

  “All right, no names,” Cassel said.

  He regarded Stella Grimes appraisingly, as a cattle buyer might size up a prime heifer. There was a puzzled frown on his forehead which speedily gave way to an oily smile.

  “We’ll dispense with introductions,” Mason said abruptly.

  Cassel said, “As you wish. However, we don’t put on our best performances in front of an audience, you know.” He made a deprecatory gesture. “I confess I get stage fright,” he said. “I may not be able to recall my lines at all.”

  Stella said, “Perhaps you two would like to have me go in the bathroom and close the door.”

  “No, no, no,” Cassel said. “Nowhere in the room, please. I am very self-conscious.”

  Mason laughed. “Mr. Cassel and I have some very private business to discuss, Stella. I’m sorry that you and I didn’t have more of an opportunity to talk, but it follows that we’ll get together sometime later. I dislike these interruptions as much as you do, but that’s the way things go. … Mr. Cassel and I are going to have a business talk, and following that I’ll be in and out for a while, but I’ll give you a ring whenever I’m at liberty. However, don’t wait for my call. Just follow your own inclinations.”

  Stella Grimes regarded Mason thoughtfully for a few seconds, then said, “I think I’ve got it,” to Mason, and, turning to Cassel said, “Good-by, Mr. Cassel.”

  She walked casually over to Perry Mason, put her lips up to be kissed as in a pleasant but often-repeated salutation of affection, then left the room.

  “Nice babe,” Cassel said, eying Mason.

  Mason shrugged. “I like her.”

  “Known her long?”

  Mason smiled. “Not long enough.”

  “You’re not handing me that line,” Cassel said.

  “I’m handing you nothing.”

  “You can say that again.”

  There was a brief period of silence.

  “Okay,” Cassel said, “let’s quit stalling around and get down to business. You brought it with you?”

  “Brought what?” Mason asked.

  “Now, let’s not be cagey about this,” Cassel said irritably. “I don’t think that you’d be guilty of a breach of faith by trying to blow the whistle but … to hell with this stuff, let’s take a look.”

  Cassel strode to the bathroom, jerked the door open, looked around inside, surveyed the walls of the room, moved a couple of pictures looking for a concealed microphone.

  “Don’t be simple,” Mason said when he had finished.

  Cassel’s eyes were suspicious. “I don’t like the way you’re going about this,” he said.

  “What’s wrong with the way I’m going about it?”

  “You want me to make statements,” Cassel said. “I’m not making statements. I’m here. You’re here. It’s your move.”

  Mason said, “I’m the one that should be suspicious. What made you so long showing up?”

  “I had other matters which took me out of town for a while,” Cassel said. “I called as soon as I came back and got free. … By the way, there was an ad in one of the evening papers. Do you know anything about that?”

  Mason said, “I know enough about it to know that I wasted a lot of time giving the occupants of a taxicab an opportunity to give me the double take.”

  “And you received no signal?”

  “No.”

  Cassel shook his head. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all. It means some third party is trying to chisel in on the deal.”

  “You don’t like it,” Mason said. “How do you suppose I feel about it? What the hell are you trying to do?”

  Cassel thought for a moment, glanced at Mason, looked away, looked back at Mason again, frowned, said, “There’s something familiar about your face. Have I ever met you before?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, every once in a while you— Wait a minute, wait a minute … I’ve seen your picture somewhere!”

  “That’s not at all impossible,” Mason conceded.

  “Hell’s bells,” Cassel said, “I’ve got it. Why dammit, you’re a lawyer. Your name is Mason.”

  Mason didn’t let his face change expression by so much as the flicker of an eyelash.

  “That’s right,” he said, “Perry Mason.”

  “What are you trying to pull?” Cassel asked. “That wasn’t part of the deal. I don’t want to have any business dealings with any damn lawyer.”

  Mason smiled affably. “I’m not any damn lawyer,” he said. “I’m a particularly special, high-priced lawyer.”

  “I’ll say you are,” Cassel said, edging toward the door. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Mason? Are you crazy? You act as though you’ve got the room bugged. You know as well as I do that if you’re trying to blow any whistles you’re cutting your client’s throat. You’re acting just as if this was some kind of a shakedown.”

  Mason said nothing.

  “You know the proposition.” Cassel said. “It’s a business proposition. Your client doesn’t have any choice in the matter but, under the circumstances, he can’t have any protection. Any agreement that’s made isn’t worth the powder and shot to blow it up.”

  Mason said, “That doesn’t prevent me from representing my client.”

  Cassel sneered. “It means that we’ve had our sights too low,” he said. “If your client has got money enough to pay a high-priced lawyer a fat fee in a deal of this kind we’ve been too naïve. I don’t blame you, I blame us. We aren’t asking enough.”

  “Keep talking,” Mason said. “I’m listening.”

  Cassel, annoyed now, said, “This isn’t a payoff. This is something your client owes. … I’m not going to argue with you, Mason, have you got it or haven’t you?”

  “If you’re referring to the money,” Mason said, “I don’t have it, and if I did have it I wouldn’t pay it over on the strength of any proposition you’ve made so far.”

  “What’s wrong with my proposition?” Cassel asked.

  “You said it yourself. Any agreement is worthless. You could come back tomorrow and begin all over again.”

  “I wouldn’t be foolish enough to do that,” Cassel said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be … ethical.”

  Mason laughed.

  Cassel’s face darkened. “Look, Mason, you’re supposed to be high-powered. You’re supposed to be the last word. But all you’re doing so far is making it tough for your client. He had a chance to get off the hook at a bargain price. Now, things are going up.”

  “Don’t say that,” Mason said, “or prices may go down.”

  “You think you can pull a rabbit out of a hat?” Cassel asked sneeringly.

  Mason said, “That’s what I’m noted for, pulling rabbits out of hats and coming up with another ace when it’s least expected.”

  Cassel started angrily for the door, turned, said, “Look, Mason, let’s be businesslike. Your client pays five grand and that’s all there is to it.”

  “And what does he get in return for the five grand?”

  “Immunity.”

  “What about the proofs?”

  Cassel’s face showed surprise. “What are you talking about, the proofs?”

  Mason recovered easily. “The proofs of your integrity, of the fact that my client has immunity.”

  “Draw up an agreement,” Cassel said.

  “You said yourself it wouldn’t be worth anything.”

  “Not in court,” Cassel said, “and not if the right party brings the action. But it closes a lot of doors—all the doors your client needs to worry about.”

  “I’ll think it over,” Mason conceded.

  “Think it over, hell! You haven’t got a lot of time to think things over. This is a hot deal. If you’re going to go for it, you’ve got to move and move fast.”

  “Where can I reach you?” Mason asked.

  Cassel surveyed him thoughtfully. “You’re asking a lot of questions.”

  “All right,” Mason said, “where can I leave the money—if I decide to leave the money?”

  Cassel said, “Look, your phone number is listed. You have an office. I don’t know what you’re doing here in the hotel. I’ll give you a call from a pay station at your office.”

  “When?”

  “When I get damned good and ready,” Cassel said. He opened the door and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  Mason went to the telephone, put a call through the switchboard to Paul Drake’s office.

  “Perry Mason talking, Paul. Did Stella Grimes phone in for an operative to do a tailing job?”

  “Haven’t heard from her,” Drake said. “The last I knew she was in the Willatson Hotel. Weren’t you with her?”

  “I was,” Mason said. “I had a man I wanted followed. I tried to give her a signal.”

  “If you gave her a signal, she got it all right,” Drake said. “She’s a bright babe. Was there any reason why she couldn’t do the tailing job herself?”

  “The only trouble is, the subject knows her,” Mason said. “A stranger would have been better.”

  “Well, she probably didn’t have time to phone in. What was it, a rush job?”

  “It was one hell of a rush job.”

  “You’ll be hearing from her,” Drake predicted.

  Mason hung up the phone, walked casually around the room, again picked up the telephone, said to the hotel operator, “Ring Room Seven-eighty-nine, please.”

  It was some time before Diana Douglas answered the phone.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  Mason said, “It took you a while to answer, Diana.”

  “I didn’t know whether I should answer or not. How’s everything down your way? I thought you were coming to—”

  “We were interrupted,” Mason said. “The other party to the transaction showed up.”

  “You mean … you mean the blackmailer?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “We stalled around for a while,” Mason said, “and, unfortunately, he made me.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “He knew who I was. He recognized me from the photographs he had seen in the papers from time to time.”

  “Is that bad?” she asked.

  “It may be good,” Mason said. “I think he was just a little frightened. … I just wanted to tell you to sit tight until you hear from me. It’s very important that you keep under cover.”

  “I should be—well, shouldn’t I be getting my ticket back to San Francisco? And the banks will be closed here.”

  “We can’t hurry this now,” Mason said. “There may be developments. Wait a few minutes—or up to an hour—until I have a chance to join you. Don’t try to leave that room until I give you a signal that everything’s in the clear.”

  7

  MASON STRETCHED out in Room 767 at the Willatson Hotel. Despite himself he couldn’t refrain from glancing at his wristwatch every few minutes. Twice he got up and paced the floor.

  The phone rang.

  Mason snatched up the instrument. “Yes?” he said.

  Diana Douglas’ voice said, “Mr. Mason, I’m frightened. Can I come down there and wait where I can be with you?”

  “Definitely not,” Mason said. “Sit where you are. I’ll have instructions for you soon.”

  “What do you mean by soon?”

  “I hope within a few minutes.”

  “I’m getting the heebie jeebies sitting here all by myself, Mr. Mason, just looking at the walls and … well, I feel that we aren’t accomplishing anything this way.”

  “We’re accomplishing a lot more than you realize,” Mason said, “and it’s imperative that you follow instructions. Just sit tight.”

  The lawyer hung up the telephone, walked over to the window, looked down at the street, came back to his chair, settled himself; then abruptly got up and started pacing the floor.

  The doorknob suddenly turned. The door opened and Stella Grimes walked into the room.

  “Any luck?” Mason asked.

  “Lots of it,” she said, tossing a cardboard box on the bed.

  Mason raised his eyebrows.

  “Clothes,” she said. “I picked up a few necessities at the department store because I felt I might have to ride herd on this room. I just snatched up some things and had them wrapped up because I didn’t want to keep you waiting.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well,” she said, “I got your signal all right. You wanted him followed.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, of course, he knew me by sight. That complicated the job. I felt that the chances that he was living here in the hotel were rather slim. So I went down to the curb, hired a taxicab, and told the driver to just sit there until I told him I wanted to take off.

  “Well, it was absurdly simple, so simple in fact that I feel that perhaps it may have been a frame.”

  “What happened?”

  “Our man had his own car, a Cadillac. He had given the doorman a substantial tip to park it for a few minutes in the loading zone. It must have been a pretty good-sized tip because when he came out the doorman was all attention. He ran over and held the car door open for Cassel and bowed his thanks as Cassel drove off.”

  “You followed?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Get the license number?”

  She took a notebook from her pocket and read off the license number, “WVM five-seven-four.”

  “Could you tail him?” Mason asked.

  “It was easy. He went to the Tallmeyer Apartments. Drove right into the garage in the basement of the apartment house and didn’t come out.”

  “So what did you do?” Mason asked.

  “I had my taxi driver drive three blocks to where a car was pulling out from the curb. I said, ‘Follow that car but don’t let him know he’s being followed.’ ”

  “Good work,” Mason said.

  “Well, of course, this driver got mixed up in traffic. We lost out on a traffic signal and I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘Well, that’s the best we can do.’ Paid off the cab and took another one and came back here to the hotel. I didn’t want the cab driver giving me a double cross and tipping Cassel off, and, as it is, he thinks I’m some sort of a nut. At least, I hope he does.”

  Mason picked up the phone, said to the operator, “Give me an outside line,” then gave the number of the Drake Detective Agency.

  “Paul in?” he asked the switchboard operator.

  “He just came in, Mr. Mason,” she said, recognizing his voice.

  “Put him on, will you please?”

  Drake’s voice came on the line, “Hello.”

  “Perry Mason, Paul.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the Willatson Hotel with Stella Grimes. She’s back now.”

  “Doing any good?”

  “I think we’ve struck pay dirt. I want to find out the owner of a Cadillac automobile, license number WVM five-seven-four, and if the owner lives at the Tallmeyer Apartments I’d like to try to find out a little bit about him without doing anything that would arouse suspicion.”

  Drake said, “Della was asking if it’s all right to call you.”

  “She’d best not,” Mason said. “I’ll call the office from time to time and see if there’s anything important. Was there something in particular on her mind?”

  “I don’t think so, except that you had a few appointments she had to get you out of with a story about you being called out of town on important business.”

  “I think that’s just what’s going to happen,” Mason said.

  “On the square?”

  “On the square. … How long will it take you to find out about that car registration?”

  “I can have that right quick.”

  “I’ll call back,” Mason said. “Get on it as fast as you can.”

  “How’s Stella doing?” Drake asked.

  “Fine,” Mason said.

  “Okay, if you want anything, just put in a call. It’ll cost you money, but you’ll get the service.”

  “Will do,” Mason said, and hung up.

  “Gosh, that guy was mad,” Stella said. “You really must have pinned his ears back!”

  Mason grinned. “How did you know he was mad, Stella?”

  “The way he walked, the way he looked, and the way he left himself wide open.”