Tragg turned abruptly on his heel and pushed his way out of the hot room.

  Mason looked at Drake. “The police are supposed to sweat the information out of witnesses, but this is one time we sweat the hell out of the police.”

  “It gives us about three hours,” Drake said moodily, “and then we’re really going to have to let our hair down.”

  “You’d be surprised at what you’re going to do in three hours,” Mason told him.

  “Have a heart, Perry. You know damn well we can’t work up a sweat and then go out in this cold wind without …”

  “You can work up a sweat, take a cold shower, then sit down at a telephone and do a lot of telephoning,” Mason told him.

  Drake shook his head. “He’s caught us with the goods, Perry. You know and I know he’s right. He can force me to have those men there and he’ll ask questions and they’ll have to answer. You can protect your client, that’s a professional privilege a lawyer has, but I can’t protect anything. I’ve got to put my cards on the table.”

  “That’s right,” Mason told him, “the cards that you’re holding as of now.”

  “As of now?” Drake repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve got to have a fistful of trumps we can play immediately after we see Tragg this morning.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Oh, several things. This mysterious client called me at the Golden Goose, that’s the night club you recommended.”

  “Uh-huh,” Drake said dispiritedly. “Good food, pretty fair dance music and good floor shows. A small place but …”

  “I know,” Mason interrupted. “The point is that you recommended it to me. Della and I went there on the strength of that recommendation. We went on the spur of the moment. Someone knew we were there. Now how would anyone know we were there?”

  “You must have been shadowed.”

  “I don’t think so, Paul. We’d been all over hell’s half-acre hunting a witness and getting a statement. I think we’d have spotted a tail.”

  “Then someone must have been planted at the club to telephone when you came in there and …”

  Mason shook his head. “They couldn’t have done that because no one knew I was going to be there. I didn’t even know it myself.”

  “Then how did this client know you were there?”

  Mason said, “It had to be someone who was already at the club, Paul. Someone who was there when we walked in. Someone who had me pointed out, and then went out and called me.”

  “That sounds logical.”

  “And,” Mason said, “the person who pointed me out may have been the headwaiter.”

  “And you think he’d remember?”

  “I think he’ll remember, but he may not want to talk. This woman saw me there, Paul. She left the place, drove home, opened a handkerchief drawer where she kept a nest egg for use in an emergency, put the money in an envelope, and rushed it to me at the night club by messenger. Then she went to a telephone and called me.”

  “Why did she do all that? Why didn’t she just walk up to you and …”

  “Because,” Mason interrupted, “a woman wouldn’t be at the Golden Goose without an escort. This woman didn’t want her escort to know anything about her interest in me. She made some excuse to get out of there and go home. It has to be that way.”

  Drake nodded. “Well?”

  “That means she was there with her husband.”

  “I don’t get it She could have told her boy friend she had a headache….”

  “Not to get rid of him that fast And if it had been a boy friend, after she got rid of him, she’d have called the Golden Goose from her apartment, asked for an appointment, or tried to get me to go out there. I’m betting that she was with her husband, that something happened to frighten her, that I was pointed out to her, and that gave her an idea.”

  Drake ran a towel over his body. “It could be,” he admitted.

  “The woman,” Mason went on, “made some excuse: that she’d left the gas on, or had forgotten to lock a door. She got out of there and went home. Her husband, of course, was with her. After she got home, she ‘remembered’ something she wanted to get at the drugstore before it closed. My client is a married woman, Paul, and she’s living within a short walk of that drugstore. I want your men to have her located by eight-thirty, and not a minute before that time.”

  “That’s a tall order,” Drake said, rubbing a hand along his red torso. “I can’t stay in here much longer, Perry.”

  “We’ve got to stay in here,” Mason said, “until we’re certain that Lieutenant Tragg has left and gone about his business. Then you’re going to get on the telephone. By eight-thirty this morning I want to know who my client is.”

  “But Tragg’s going to be in your office at eight, Perry.”

  “That’s it,” Mason said, grinning. “I don’t want to have the information while Tragg is there, but I do want to get it just as soon as he leaves.”

  Drake adjusted the wet towel on his forehead. “You do give me the damnedest time schedules,” he said irritably.

  Chapter 7

  Promptly at eight o’clock Tragg entered Mason’s private office to find Perry Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake huddled in conference.

  Mason seemed quite cheerful. Drake was definitely worried and Della Street, seated at her secretarial desk, a pencil poised over an open shorthand notebook, glanced up at Lieutenant Tragg with a smile of greeting which somehow seemed forced.

  “Hello, Della,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “Considering the elaborate preparations for this interview it must be even more important than I thought.”

  “Am I an elaborate preparation?” Della Street asked.

  “Darned if you aren’t,” Tragg said, seating himself and abruptly losing his manner of easy banter as he turned to Mason and Drake. “A murder’s been committed. I find you two guys were at the scene of the crime shortly after three o’clock in the morning. How come?”

  Mason’s voice was casual, but his words were carefully selected, as one who is giving a written statement that may be of the greatest importance.

  “So far as Paul Drake is concerned, Lieutenant, I take entire responsibility for his being there. He was there at my request and under my orders.”

  “And your interest in the matter?”

  “My interest in Carlin was due entirely to a client.”

  “What client?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “We keep going around this ring-a-rosy,” Tragg said irritably, “and I don’t like it. I know you’re supposed to protect …”

  “Please understand me,” Mason interrupted. “I said that I couldn’t tell you, Lieutenant, not that I wouldn’t.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Because I don’t know.”

  “The hell you don’t.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did this client contact you?”

  “Over the telephone.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “Confidentially, it was a woman, but I don’t want that given to the press. I don’t want to read about it in the papers.”

  “And what did she say that put you in such a dither to get Paul Drake on the job?”

  “Now that’s something I won’t tell you,” Mason said.

  Tragg thought that over for a moment, then turned to Paul Drake. “I don’t like these lawyers with their professional privileges and all that stuff. Suppose you and I have a little heart-to-heart talk, Drake. You had men on the job. What time did those men go on the job?”

  Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket. “The first one got on the job at seven minutes past one.”

  “There were others?”

  “Yes, one at one-fifty.”

  “Did you have any more than these two?”

  “I had three.”

  “What about the third?”

  “He arrived at three minutes past two.”

  “Why three men on the job?”

  “I wanted to have a shadow for anyone that left the house.”

  “Why all those elaborate precautions?”

  “Those were my instructions.”

  “Anybody leave the house after your men got there?”

  “After seven minutes past one, no one left by the front door.”

  “How about the back door?”

  “After one-fifty, no one left by the back door.”

  “The fire started shortly after three?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where were your men when the fire started?”

  “Right there on the job.”

  “Why didn’t they turn in an alarm?”

  “They did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t ask me.”

  “All right,” Tragg said, “I’m asking you now. I’m asking you for every single thing of any importance. One of your men made a report?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I have it here.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Drake took the folded report from his pocket, handed it over to Lieutenant Tragg.

  Tragg turned the typewritten pages, said in an aside to Perry Mason, “These guys always make it sound as though they were a whole secret service. These reports certainly are impressive. I wish I could get by with turning in stuff like this. Listen to this choice bit: ‘Knowing that two other operatives were on the job, sewing the place up, I desired to get a physical description of the subject and case the neighborhood, so I located the service station where subject buys gas and oil on a credit card, and, by judicious inquiries, solicited the information that …’ ”

  Tragg looked up and grinned. “You know what that really means, that when he got within a few blocks of the place he happened to see a service station that was open. So he stopped in and asked if the guy knew Carlin. The chap said he did, that Carlin got his stuff there, and this detective took five or six minutes to tell him that he’d gone to college with a man by the name of Carlin and knew he lived out in the neighborhood some place but didn’t know exactly where; that he’d looked through the telephone book, found this man’s name and address, and that he didn’t want to disturb him unless it was his old college chum.

  “So then the service station attendant tells him that that can’t very well be because this Carlin is probably thirty years older than the guy who is making the inquiries. So the bird asks a few more questions and …”

  “Have a heart,” Drake interrupted, grinning. “You’re spilling all this stuff in front of a cash customer. He probably thinks my man went through the district with a fine-tooth comb to find the place where Carlin got his gasoline, and then …”

  “Yeah, I know,” Tragg interrupted, “and still managed to get on the job only thirteen minutes after the second man arrived. Now what about this jane that went in at one-twenty-eight?”

  “There,” Drake said, “you’ve got me. She must have gone out the back door before one-fifty.”

  “And no one else came in after that?”

  Drake said, “There’s one possibility. It’s just a possibility. This woman could have gone out before one-forty, say, and shortly after that someone could have gone in through the back door, stayed inside for ten minutes and still got out of the back door before my operative came on duty at one-fifty.”

  Tragg said to Mason, “Why all the rush, Perry?”

  “I was protecting my client’s interests.”

  “How does it happen you start spending money for all this high-priced detective service if you don’t know the person who is your client?”

  “She sent me a retainer.”

  “How?”

  “By messenger.”

  “Where?”

  “At the night club where we were dining.”

  “Which one?”

  “The Golden Goose.”

  “What time?”

  “Oh, I would say somewhere around ten minutes after eleven.”

  “What time was the call?”

  “Right around eleven o’clock. Perhaps five or ten minutes afterwards.”

  “All right,” Tragg said, “that’s last night. You’ve heard from her again this morning?”

  Mason shook his head.

  “Don’t hand me that line of talk, Mason. You know damn well she read the early morning edition of the paper, found out about Carlin being found dead and rang you up.”

  Mason shook his head. “I haven’t heard a word from her.”

  “You will.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “If you do, I want to know who she is. I want to talk with her.”

  “That, of course,” Mason said, “will depend on whether she wants to talk with you.”

  “This is a murder case, you know, Mason.”

  “What makes it look like murder?”

  Tragg grinned. “The Chief is narrow-minded in such matters, Mason. He has the old-fashioned idea that the function of a police force in murder cases is to gather information rather than to distribute it.”

  “How quaint!” Mason said.

  “I know, but he happens to be running the department.”

  Mason said very casually, “I understand there was a rather expensive safe in Carlin’s residence.”

  Tragg paused, surveyed the lawyer with searching eyes. “What’s that leading up to?” he asked.

  “I was just asking.”

  “All right, you’ve asked the question—or was it a question?”

  Mason said, “I might be able to help you out there.”

  “In what way?”

  “How is the safe? Damaged by the fire? I mean, is it pretty hot?”

  “No, it’s on the first floor. The fire did most damage to the upper floor and the roof. What do you know about the safe?”

  “I may not know anything about it,” Mason said, “but there’s just a chance, mind you, Tragg, it’s just one chance in a hundred, that I might have the combination to that safe.”

  “The hell you might!”

  “I mean I might be able to turn the dials and …”

  “Never mind all that stuff. I want to know how you happened to get this combination.”

  “I don’t know that I have it.”

  Tragg said angrily, “Look here, Mason, that safe is an important factor in the situation. We want to get it open and fast. I’ve had one man doing nothing but working on that since four o’clock, telephoning.” Tragg grinned. “The officers of the company that made that safe haven’t had much sleep since four. They’ve been down at their office looking up records. And their local representative, with all the dope, should be out there before long. But time is an important factor. If you’re sitting there with the combination to that safe …”

  “I don’t know that I have it.”

  “Well, how the hell are we going to find out?”

  “By trying it on the safe.”

  “How did you get it? Where did you get it? When did you get it? Why was it given to you?”

  “You’ve complicated the situation now, Lieutenant.”

  “You’re damn right I have.”

  Mason said, “Well, Lieutenant, when you do get the combination to the safe I’ll be glad to sit down and discuss it with you. For instance, if it should appear that the first figure is fifty-nine four times to the right—well, then, I might be able to help you.”

  “And how do you expect us to find out if the first figure is fifty-nine four times to the right?”

  “What about your factory expert?”

  Tragg grunted. “I don’t know that he’ll have the combination. He’ll probably have to drill into the lock and take the thing to pieces. No one knows how long it’s going to take him. Come on, Mason, you’re going for a ride.”

  “Where?”

  “Obviously,” Tragg said, “I can’t lug that safe in here and dump it in your lap, so you’re going out to the safe.”

  “And then what?”

  “You’re going to give me the combination and I’ll try it out.”

  “I can’t give it to you. I’m not at liberty to. It’s confidential.”

  “All right,” Tragg said, “you’ll try out your combination on the safe. Come on, you’re going places.”

  “How about the men who are waiting in Drake’s office?” Mason asked.

  “To hell with them,” Tragg said. “This is a lot more important.”

  Mason arose with every suggestion of weary reluctance. “Oh, all right,” he said. “I suppose that’s what comes of trying to be helpful. Now I’ve got to lose a morning going out to try to open a safe for the police department.”

  He glanced at Della Street, lowered his right eye in a swift wink.

  Chapter 8

  The interior of the house was dark and gloomy. The odor of charred wood, of fire which had been extinguished by tons of water, clung to the place as an unpleasant aura.

  The big safe stood in the far corner of what had evidently been a workroom.

  The room contained furniture which had been shoddy even before black water, soaked with charcoal from the burning timbers above, had rivuleted through the holes in the ceiling, to soak the upholstery to the point of saturation.

  Tragg indicated the safe and said, “Go ahead and open it.”

  Mason took a small fountain-pen flashlight from his pocket, moved over to the dials of the safe.

  Lieutenant Tragg crowded closer.

  “Don’t breathe down my neck. You make me nervous,” Mason said.

  “I want to see what you’re doing.”

  “I can’t work that way.”

  “Do the best you can.”

  Mason leaned so close to the big combination, held the small flashlight cupped in his hand so near the dial that it was impossible for Lieutenant Tragg to see the figures as Mason rapidly spun the dial through the series of numbers which had been on the slip of paper he had picked up in the telephone booth.

  The lawyer finished the last spins of the dial to number nineteen, twice to the right, then turned to the left until the combination stopped at ten.

  He surreptitiously brushed his hand against the handle. It didn’t budge.