“I’ll submit the offer to her and advise her to reject it.”

  “May I ask why?”

  ‘Where were you on the day of the theft, at say eleven o’clock in the morning?”

  “Helene Chaney and I were in a beauty shop getting our weapons sharpened. You can check with the operators there if you wish. Then we went to lunch and then—well, you asked about the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the answer. Was I supposed to be alarmed or to try to evade the question?”

  “Not necessarily. I asked for information.”

  “And you got it. Are you going to accept this thousand-dollar settlement?”

  “Probably not. I’ll have to—”

  “Now wait a minute,” she interrupted. “You’re not going to play that kind of poker with me, Mr. Mason. I’m giving you exactly five hours to accept or reject. I’ll be at my home until ten-thirty. If you don’t telephone me by ten-thirty that you are accepting that compromise, I’ll instruct the bank to stop payment on the check. My telephone number is Halverstead 6-8701.”

  The private, unlisted telephone on Mason’s desk rang sharply. Since only Della Street and Paul Drake had the number of that telephone its ring always commanded precedence over anything Mason was doing. He said, “Pardon me,” picked up the receiver, said, “Hello,” and heard Della Street’s voice.

  “Hello, Chief. Is it all right to talk?”

  “For you.”

  “Not for you?”

  “No.”

  “Someone’s in the office with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone connected with the Evelyn Bagby business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well look, Chief, I’m out here at the Crowncrest Tavern. Evelyn Bagby is back from her shopping,” Della Street said. “She just came in. I’ve had a chance to exchange only a few words with her, but I’ve found out that the message from S.M. is from Steve Merrill all right. Evelyn picked up some back number movie magazines after she left our office, found some more pictures and became more certain than ever that Steve Merrill is really the Staunton Gladden who embezzled her money. So she called his number. He was out but a woman who answered the phone said she’d take any message.

  “Well, Evelyn left her name and the place where she was working and told the woman to ask Mr. Merrill to tell Mr. Gladden to call her there no later than five o’clock today.”

  “Just that message?” Mason asked.

  “That’s all, just that message. But it did the work. Merrill called and left that message for Evelyn—that he’d settle.”

  “Well,” Mason said, “I think you’d better get in here and we’ll discuss that phase of the matter.” f

  “You want me to come back right away?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m coming,” she said, “and shall I tell Evelyn Bagby to do nothing until she hears from you?”

  “That’s right, nothing.”

  Mason hung up the telephone, paused, waiting for Irene Keith to say something.

  Abruptly she arose, gave him her hand. “I think you’re bluffing,” she said. “I liked you a lot this afternoon. Now I’m not so certain.”

  “That,” Mason told her, “is one of the disadvantages of conducting your own negotiations. If you had permitted your attorney to call on me we could have retained our pleasant personal relationship.”

  She opened the door, turned to look at Mason over her shoulder, then archly blew him a kiss. “Good night, Counselor,” she said mockingly. “Good night,” Perry Mason said. The door slowly closed, shutting out the sound of Irene Keith’s heels as they clicked rapidly down the corridor.

  Chapter 7

  At this time of the year it got dark at an early hour and Mason, waiting for Della Street to return, walked over to the office window and stood moodily looking down at the tangled mass of blaring, congested traffic in the street below.

  Strangled by traffic, the tortured streets seemed to deplore their futility as the whole business district of the city became snarled in a bottleneck of slowly moving cars and pedestrians.

  After a few moments Mason went to the outer office to see if Gertie, the receptionist, was still at the switchboard. She had gone home. The board was fixed for the night. The office was dark.

  Mason walked back through the law library, paused to glance at the thousand-dollar check on his desk, then started slowly pacing the floor, turning various angles of the case over in his mind.

  From time to time he looked at his wrist watch, impatiently awaiting Della Street’s return, knowing that the time was running out when he had to either accept Irene Keith’s compromise offer or reject it.

  It was after six o’clock when Della Street reached the office.

  “Gosh, Chief, I sure had to fight through traffic.”

  “I was afraid you’d have trouble. How’s our client?”

  “Well, of course, she’s all worked up about this Steve Merrill business. I guess she needs money pretty bad. She intimated even a partial payment from Merrill would be a lifesaver.”

  Mason said, “Irene Keith was in. She left a thousand dollars by way of settlement. And she was wearing alligator-skin shoes.”

  “Oh-oh!” Della Street said.

  “The check’s on my desk there. Take a look at what’s written on the back of it.”

  Della Street read the endorsement on the back.

  “Now isn’t that something.”

  “We have until ten-thirty tonight to accept or reject it,” Mason said. “She left her telephone number and said she’d be waiting.”

  “Nice of her, wasn’t it?”

  Mason said, “The deuce of it is, Della, we’re in a spot. I presume that thousand dollars will look big as a barn to Evelyn Bagby. If I tell her about it she’ll instruct me to go ahead and accept the settlement, acting on the theory that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If I don’t tell her about it and we can’t get enough additional evidence to make a good case and get a better settlement, I’d have to make up the thousand dollars out of my own pocket.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I took it on myself to turn down an offer of compromise without communicating with a client.”

  “That means you’ll have to tell her?”

  I suppose so.

  “Want me to get her on the phone?”

  “No,” Mason said. “I’ve been thinking—what’s that noise, Della?”

  Della Street said, “Someone is ringing the board in the outer office. When it’s connected up for the night and a call comes in it makes that buzzing noise, but that’s all. Shall I see who it is?”

  “It might be a good idea,” Mason said. “We have so many irons in the fire that anyone who is that persistent deserves to be encouraged.”

  Della Street went out to the outer office, plugged in the switchboard and Mason could hear her say, “Good evening. Perry Mason’s office.”

  A moment later Della Street hurried back into the office. “It’s Evelyn Bagby,” she said. “She’s terribly excited. She says she simply has to talk with you right away, something that’s vitally important.”

  Mason said, “Put her on this phone, Della,” and picked up his desk phone.

  Della Street hurried back to the office to make the connection.

  “Better listen in, Della,” Mason called. “See what she has to say. Take notes—if there’s anything you need to take notes on.”

  “Okay,” she called, and plugged in the connection.

  “Hello,” Mason said.

  “Oh, Mr. Mason,” Evelyn Bagby exclaimed, her voice quavering with excitement. “Something has happened. I don’t know what to do. I—”

  “All right,” Mason said. “Tell me, what about it?”

  She said, “I went shopping today and—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I came back and Miss Street was here and—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Get to the point.”

  “Well, I want you to understand just how it happened. I had some new clothes I’d purchased, so I went into my room and took a shower and got ready to put on these new clothes and looked in my bureau drawer and—I found something.”

  It was impossible for the lawyer to keep skepticism out of his voice. “You mean more of the stolen jewelry?”

  “No, no, Mr. Mason. Please understand me. I’m leveling with you.”

  “What did you find?”

  “A gun.”

  “A gun!”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Tucked right in the middle of a lot of folded garments I’d put in the drawer and—”

  “No chance that it was in the drawer when you put your things in?”

  “None whatever. It very definitely was placed there while I was uptown shopping.”

  “Where is it now?” Mason asked.

  “I have it here with me. It’s in my purse. I’m talking from the telephone booth upstairs.”

  “Take a look at it,” Mason said. ‘Tell me what kind of a gun it is and whether it’s loaded and whether it has been shot.”

  “I’ve already done that, Mr. Mason. It’s a Colt. It’s very, very light, almost no weight to it at all. It’s fully loaded. It’s a .38 caliber. It has a very short barrel, I guess about a two-inch barrel—the kind that officers carry with them. There are six cartridges in the cylinder.”

  “Has it been fired lately?” Mason asked. “Can you smell and—”

  “No, I’ve smelled the barrel. It just has a smell of oil.”

  Mason said, “You have a car out there. Can you bring it in at—”

  “I doubt if I can make it all the way into your office and then get back here in time to go on work at eight o’clock. I’ll have to leave it for you somewhere.”

  Mason said, “This is important. Get out of there immediately. Jump in your automobile and drive to Hollywood. There’s a restaurant known as the Joshua Tree Cafe at 6538 Pemberton Drive. Joe Padena can tell you how to get there. Ask for Mike, the headwaiter. He knows me. He’ll show you to a table. Della Street and I are on our way out there. We’ll get there very shortly after you do. Get started immediately.”

  “Very well,” she said. “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes,” Mason said. “Before you start, look through your room carefully. Make sure that nothing else has been planted there.”

  Mason hung up the phone.

  Della Street called from the outer office, “Do you want me to call Mike at the Joshua Tree?”

  “Please,” Mason told her.

  “Okay. I’m putting through the call right now.”

  Mason carefully folded the thousand-dollar check, placed it in his billfold, got his hat and coat, then took Della Street’s coat from the closet and was holding it ready for her when she returned from the telephone.

  “Okay,” Mason said, “slip into this. How’s the weather, Della?”

  “It looks like rain. It’s dark as a pocket and there are heavy clouds with a south wind. It may start raining any minute. Feels like it, too. The air’s damp and heavy.”

  “All right,” Mason told her, “let’s go. We’ll meet Evelyn at the Joshua Tree Cafe.”

  Della Street adjusted her hat. Mason switched out the lights as soon as she had finished and they walked down the corridor, stopping in at Drake’s office to have a quick word with Paul Drake.

  Mason deftly piloted the car through traffic, avoiding the freeway, taking the through boulevards which were not quite so crowded at this time of night.

  “She’ll be there before us?” Della Street asked.

  “She should be.”

  “What do you think of that gun, Chief?”

  “She called Merrill once and got framed for a jewel theft. She called him a second time and—well, she says she found a gun—and she was out most of the afternoon.”

  “My but you’re cynical!”

  “A lawyer is trained to look at facts with a good, healthy cynicism.”

  “But she said the gun hadn’t been fired.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  Della Street looked at him sharply, then lapsed into silence.

  Mason concentrated on driving the car, speeding for traffic signals whenever he had a chance, avoiding cars that were going to make left turns, threading his way in and out of traffic, yet carefully observing the traffic laws. The doorman of the Joshua Tree Cafe was glad to see them. He took Mason’s car and said obsequiously, “Good evening, Mr. Mason. Good evening, Miss Street. Looks as though it might rain tonight.”

  “It does for a fact,” Mason said.

  “Staying for dinner?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll have the car all ready when you come out.”

  Mason entered the restaurant and Mike, the head-waiter, came hurrying over toward them.

  “You have a young woman waiting for me, Mike? A redhead?”

  The headwaiter glanced quickly at Della Street, then back to Mason, shook his head.

  “The deuce! She should have been here. I—here she comes now,” Mason said as Evelyn Bagby walked in the door. “How about a nice table for three over in a corner, Mike? We want to be where we can talk.”

  Della Street hurried over to Evelyn Bagby. “You didn’t find anything else, did you?”

  Evelyn Bagby shook her head.

  “We thought you’d be here before us.”

  “I … I had an experience.”

  Della Street piloted the redhead over to Mason, and Mike ensconced them in a corner booth.

  “Della and I are Bacardi cocktail fans,” Mason said to Evelyn Bagby. “Do you—?”

  “I love them,” she said. “Could I have a double one?”

  “Three double ones,” Mason said. “It looks like rain. We’ll keep warm within.”

  Della Street made a gesture of surrender. “Good-by now,” she said.

  Mason looked sharply at Evelyn Bagby. “What’s wrong?”

  She laughed nervously.

  “Where’s the gun?”

  “Here in my purse.”

  “You’re sure it hadn’t been fired?”

  She said, “It has now,” and leaned forward, putting her chin on her hand. “I’m shaking like a leaf. I—I’m supposed to be pretty hard-boiled but I’m not too certain I’m not going to faint.”

  “Whoa. Back up!” Mason said. “What’s the trouble?”

  “Everything. Is it all right if I wait a minute before I try to tell you? I can do a lot better after I’ve had that Bacardi cocktail.”

  Mason said sharply, “The details can wait, but I want to know generally what happened and I want to know right now. We may not have too much time.”

  “I was held up.”

  “And you fired the gun?”

  She nodded.

  There was a moment of silence. She was apparently trying to get herself nerved up to a point where she could tell about it.

  “I never had such a shock in all my life,” she said. “Someone tried to kill me. I said it was a stick-up but I think it was an attempt to kill me.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mason told her. “Take it easy. Who was this? Did you get a look at him?”

  She nodded.

  “Was it anyone you know?”

  “I couldn’t tell. His face was covered. He tried to kill me. He tried to run me off the road.”

  “Is that what took you so long?”

  “I guess so. I searched my room.”

  “Find anything else?”

  She shook her head.

  “And then what?”

  “I got in my jalopy and started down the grade and—I’ll tell you in a minute. Let me sort of get my breath.”

  Mason and Della Street exchanged glances.

  The waiter brought three double Bacardi cocktails.

  “Like steaks?” Mason asked her.

  “I won’t eat here,” she said. “I’ll go on back. I’ll have something light and then eat when I go off duty. You see I get meals with the job up there.”

  Mason said, ‘You’re not going back on an empty stomach. Can you eat a steak?”

  “I can always eat a steak.”

  “Medium rare?”

  She nodded.

  Mason said to the waiter, “Three steaks, medium rare, with French fried onions, baked potatoes, lots of butter and paprika, some Tipo Chianti—a big bottle of the red wine. Coffee later.”

  The waiter nodded and moved away.

  “Here’s how,” Mason said.

  They raised glasses. Mason noticed that Evelyn Bagby’s hand was trembling so that she had to steady the cocktail glass with the tips of the fingers of her left hand.

  “Let’s see the gun,” Mason said.

  Evelyn Bagby fumbled in her purse, took out the gun, passed it across to Mason under the table.

  “Oh-oh,” Mason said as he balanced the gun in his hand.”What’s the matter?” Della Street asked.

  “It’s one of those new aluminum alloy jobs,” Mason said. “This is the Colt ‘Cobra.’ A gun that, believe it or not, weighs only nineteen ounces. It has sufficient tensile strength to fire high-speed ammunition. This is a dream of a gun. Has the number been filed off or anything?”

  “I didn’t look.”

  Mason turned the gun so that he could get the light reflected on the number. “Take this” down, Della,” he said.

  She wrote down the number as he called it off. “Number 17474-LW.”

  Mason said, “This gun hasn’t been out very long. Whoever bought this did so recently … Della.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Skip to the telephone. Try and get Paul Drake before he goes out for dinner. Give him the number on this gun. Tell him to get an operative started on it right away. I think we can find out who purchased it. It’s probably a stolen gun, but at least we can find out when it was sold and where.”

  “Will the records be open this time of night?” Evelyn Bagby asked as Della Street slid out from behind the table and hurried to the telephone.

  “Some of them will,” Mason said. “When they sell a gun they make out slips in triplicate, giving the number of the gun, the name and address of the purchaser and all of that. One of them is filed with the chief of police, the other with the sheriff. I think Paul can get action on a recent sale of this sort. That is, if it was sold in any nearby county, which takes in quite a lot of territory.”