“But where would Cullens have got Mrs. Bedford’s stones?” she asked.

  “Probably,” Mason said, “from a gambling joint known as The Golden Platter. He telephoned Mrs. Bedford that your uncle had pawned the stones there for six thousand dollars; that he was going to bring pressure to bear and try to redeem them for three. In the meantime, the gamblers didn’t like the idea of having pressure brought to bear.”

  “But,” Virginia said, “Aunty could never have taken those stones from Mr. Cullens. He might have given them to her, but …”

  “If she didn’t get them from Cullens,” Mason said, “she probably got them from the safe.”

  “Well, she might have done that,” Virginia Trent said. “I never thought of looking in that bag of hers. It’s a regular suitcase. She carries all kinds of stuff in it.”

  “She didn’t have it with her in the department store, did she?” Mason asked.

  “No, not this noon. She left it in the automobile.”

  “She’d hardly have done that if it had five big diamonds in it, would she?”

  “Well, you can’t tell…. After all, if Aunty had intended to do any shoplifting, it might have been the safest place for them.”

  “Yes,” Mason said slowly, “I can see that…. It’s a thought. What’s behind that door, Virginia, the shop?”

  She nodded.

  Mason opened the door, looked into the dark interior. “You seem to have quite a lot of space here,” he said.

  “Yes,” she admitted, “it’s more than Uncle George really had use for, but he needs more room than he could get in an office building.”

  “Where’s the light switch?” Mason asked.

  “There isn’t any,” she said. “You turn on each light as you want it by pulling on the drop-cord which hangs from the light. That keeps the men from wasting electricity…. Here, I have a flashlight if you want to find the drop-cord.”

  She opened her brown leather handbag and took out a nickel-plated flashlight some six inches long by half an inch in diameter.

  “That’s a cute little gadget,” Mason said. “Carry it all the time?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It … it comes in handy.”

  Mason switched on the flashlight, and, by its aid, located the drop-cord on the first light. He was moving over toward it when the beam from the flashlight, sliding over a pile of packing cases in a corner, caught a patch of color. Mason paused to center the beam on the discolored wood.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “This big pile of packing cases,” Mason said. “The top one has a … Never mind, I’ll take a look myself.”

  Holding the flashlight in his left hand, Mason walked over to the comer and examined the reddish-brown stain which had seeped out to stain the boards. The lawyer sniffed the air, then stood a small box on end and climbed up on it.

  The box swayed under the lawyer’s weight. Before he could step down, it buckled under him with a crashing sound. Mason flung out his hand to catch his balance, and caught the edge of the large packing case on top of the pile. A moment later, the entire pile of cases tottered precariously.

  “Look out!” Virginia Trent screamed from the doorway.

  Mason flung himself to one side. The big packing box slid down the pile, lit with a crash on one corner, and spilled out the inert body of a man, which slumped to the floor, where it lay, indistinct in the half-light, a grotesque sprawl of death.

  Virginia Trent stared, then started to scream, shrill, hysterical screams which cut through the silence of the building.

  Mason moved toward her. “Shut up!” he said. “Help me find that drop-cord.”

  He had dropped the flashlight in his fall, and now groped, with outstretched hands, searching for the cord which controlled me light. Virginia Trent backed away from him, as though, in some manner, associating him with that which lay on the floor. Her eyes were wide and staring. Her mouth formed a great dark circle as she continued to scream.

  Mason heard feet in the corridor, heard someone pounding at the door.

  “Shut up, you little fool!” Mason said, jumping toward her. “Can’t you see …”

  She ran screaming back into the outer office. The pound of fists on the door became louder. Virginia Trent backed into a corner. Someone knocked out the glass panel in the door, reached in through the jagged break in the glass and turned the knob.

  Mason stood facing the door as Sergeant Holcomb twisted back the knob. “What the hell’s coming off here?” he asked.

  Mason jerked his head toward the shop. “I don’t know. There’s something out there you’d better look at, Sergeant.”

  Virginia Trent continued to scream. Sergeant Holcomb said, “What’s eating her?”

  “Having hysterics,” Mason said.

  Virginia Trent pointed toward the shop, tried to control herself, and couldn’t. Mason moved toward her and said, “There, there, kid, take it easy.”

  She recoiled from him in horror, flung her arms around Sergeant Holcomb and clung to him, trembling and shaking.

  “What the hell have you been trying to do?” Holcomb demanded of Mason.

  Mason said, “Be your age, Sergeant. The kid’s upset. There’s a body in the other room.”

  “A body!”

  Mason nodded.

  “Whose?”

  Mason said, “I wouldn’t know. It was stuffed in a packing case on the very top of a pile. I saw a stain which looked suspicious. I climbed up on a box and started to investigate. The box gave way. I grabbed at the packing case, and the whole pile toppled over. The body fell out. It’s half dark in there. She started to have hysterics and I tried to quiet her down.”

  Holcomb said, “Let’s take a look.”

  Virginia Trent clung to him in a frenzy of fear. Holcomb fought against the thin arms which clamped so rigidly around his neck. “Take it easy,” he said. “Snap out of it … Hell, you’re drunk!”

  “No, she isn’t drunk,” Mason said. “There’s some whiskey in the desk. She fainted when I told her about her aunt, and I gave her some whiskey.”

  “When was that?”

  “Just a minute ago.”

  “The janitor says you just came,” Holcomb grudgingly admitted. “Which drawer’s the whiskey in?”

  “The upper right.”

  Holcomb opened the drawer, took out the bottle of whiskey, then stopped, peered farther in the drawer, reached in and pulled out a gun. “What’s this?” he asked.

  Mason, inspecting it, said, “I’d say it was a thirty-eight caliber revolver.”

  Holcomb said, “Here, help me hold this girl’s arm while we pour some hooch down her. She won’t let go of me.”

  The girl screamed with fear as Mason approached her.

  “Seems to think you’re responsible for her troubles,” Holcomb said.

  “Shut up!” Mason told him. “She’s nuts. Here, Virginia, drink some of this…. Can’t you see, she’s having crazy hysterics.” She turned her head from side to side, fighting against the proferred whiskey. Mason said, “It’s the only way. Hold her on that side, Sergeant. It’s a good thing she has gloves on and can’t scratch.” Between them, they forced a generous draught of whiskey down her throat. She choked, sputtered, and started to cough. “Anyway,” Mason said, “that’ll make her quit screaming. Come on, Virginia, buck up. You’ve got to take it.”

  The janitor stood in the doorway. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  Holcomb said, “Take charge of this girl,” and half pushed Virginia Trent over to his arms. She clung to the janitor as she had clung to Sergeant Holcomb. Holcomb and Mason entered the shop and groped for the drop-cord, found it and switched an overhead incandescent into blazing brilliance.

  Mason said, “I presume that’s George Trent. He’s evidently been dead for a while.”

  Holcomb called to the janitor, “Hey, you! Come in here and take a look at this fellow and see if you can identify him.”

  As the janitor moved toward the door, Virginia Trent released her hold, dropped into the stenographer’s chair at the typewriter desk, put her head on her arms and sobbed violently.

  The janitor stared, open-mouthed. “That’s George Trent,” he said simply.

  Holcomb moved toward the telephone, reached over the girl’s shaking shoulders to pick up the instrument, dialed headquarters and said, “Homicide…. This is Holcomb. We have another one out here at nine thirteen South Marsh Street. This time it’s George Trent. Come on out.”

  He hung up the telephone and said to Mason, “Show me where he was.”

  Mason indicated the pile of packing boxes. “I heard them fall just as I was getting out of the elevator,” Holcomb admitted. “How did you know he was there?”

  “I didn’t,” Mason said. “I happened to notice that peculiar reddish-brown stain which had seeped through the crack in the bottom of the packing case. I climbed on a box. The box collapsed. I grabbed at the packing case, and the whole pile came down.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Jammed in that big packing case.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Up on the very top of the pile.”

  Sergeant Holcomb inspected the packing case and said, “He was evidently shoved in there right after he’d been shot.”

  “And then put up at the top of the pile,” Mason said.

  Holcomb nodded. “That was because they didn’t have a cover for the packing case, and they didn’t want him discovered.”

  Mason said, “It’s a cinch he’d be discovered there sooner or later.”

  “Later,” Holcomb said, “not sooner. The man who killed him was sparring for time.”

  He stood staring moodily down at the body for several seconds, and then said musingly, “At that, it’s a hell of a place to leave a body.”

  “Are you,” Mason asked, “telling me?”

  There was silence for several seconds, a silence which was broken only by the sobbing of Virginia Trent. Then Mason said, “Take a look under his shirt, Sergeant. See if there’s a chamois-skin belt with some stones in it.”

  Sergeant Holcomb said acidly, “I’ll make my investigation after the coroner arrives. If you want any further information, Mason, you can get it by reading the newspapers.”

  “You mean you don’t want me to stick around?” Mason asked.

  Holcomb considered for a moment, then said, “No. The janitor tells me you went in just a minute before I did. I heard the packing cases upset as I got out of the elevator, then heard the girl start to scream. I guess this is once I can give you a clean bill of health, and something seems to tell me I can get a lot more information out of this young woman if you’re not hanging around giving her advice.”

  “She’s hysterical,” Mason said.

  “She’ll get over it.”

  “It’d be a shame to question her now. You’ll make a nervous wreck of her.”

  “What was she doing here?” Sergeant Holcomb wanted to know.

  “She works here off and on. It’s her job.”

  “Yeah. What was she working on here this time of night? … When you come right down to it, Mason, how did you know she was going to be here?”

  “I didn’t,” Mason said. “I just dropped in. She’d been at a picture show, and came up here to write some letters.”

  “What letters?”

  “I don’t know. Some letters she wanted to write on a typewriter.”

  Sergeant Holcomb jerked his thumb in the direction of the corridor door. “Okay, Mason,” he said, “that’s all. She talks English. I won’t need an interpreter.”

  Chapter 7

  Mason rang Paul Drake’s office. “Any messages for me?” he asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Mason. Your secretary said to call her at the Green Room of the Maxine Hotel. She said it was important.”

  “Anything else?” Mason asked.

  “Drake just came in. He wants to talk with you.”

  Mason heard the click of the connection and then Paul Drake’s voice on the line. “What’s the commotion down at Homicide, Perry?”

  Mason said, “I dug up another body for them.”

  “You did!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s a break,” Drake told him.

  “What is?”

  “That I wasn’t with you. Who’s the body, Perry?”

  “George Trent.”

  Mason heard Drake’s whistle of surprise. “Where was it?” the detective asked.

  “In a packing case in his workshop. What had you been able to find out about him, Paul? Anything?”

  “Just a description. I have men out looking for him. I’ll call them in.”

  “Did you have a good description?”

  “Yes. Fifty-two years old, six feet tall, two hundred and ten pounds, brown hair, brown eyes…. Tell me, Perry, are you certain it’s George Trent?”

  “Reasonably so,” Mason said. “The niece had hysterics. The janitor identified him. The body had been jammed into a packing case. I wanted to look around some, but Holcomb kicked me out. He wanted to work on the girl while she was still hysterical. What else, Paul?”

  “I have a couple of likely prospects my men picked up coming out of The Golden Platter. I’m breaking license numbers down into names and addresses.”

  “Get anything on Ione Bedford?” Mason asked.

  Drake said, “She’s at the Green Room of the Maxine Hotel with Della right now, Perry.”

  “Okay,” Mason said, “Take advantage of her being there to have a man frisk her apartment. See what he can dig up.”

  “Right,” Drake said. “They’ve moved Sarah Breel—came to the conclusion her skull wasn’t fractured after all.”

  “Where did they move her?” Mason asked.

  “The Dearborn Memorial Hospital.”

  “Was she conscious?” Mason asked.

  “I gathered not, but aside from possible internal injuries, they’ve figured it down to a broken leg and a concussion. How about Trent, Perry? What killed him?”

  “Apparently a bullet,” Mason said. “Incidentally, there was a thirty-eight caliber revolver in the upper right-hand drawer of the desk in Trent’s office. That may or may not be significant. There was also a bottle of whiskey in the drawer. I’d been feeding whiskey to the niece and told Holcomb about the bottle. He pulled out the drawer a little farther than I had and got a glimpse of the gun.”

  “I’ll get men on the job and see what I can find out,” Drake said. “Della wants you to call her.”

  “I’m calling,” Mason told him.

  He hung up the telephone, dialed the Maxine Hotel, asked for the Green Room and had Della Street paged. A few moments later her voice, a bit higher-pitched than usual, said, “How long does this keep up, Chief?”

  “What keep up?” he asked.

  “You know,” she told him, and giggled.

  “You mean following instructions with Ione Bedford?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t know,” Mason said, “perhaps not much longer. Why?”

  “The girl has ideas,” Della Street said.

  “Such as what?” Mason asked.

  “Such as what we’re doing now.”

  “And what are you doing now?”

  “Putting drinks on the expense account,” she told him.

  “Stay with it,” Mason told her. “The expense account can stand it.” Della Street hiccoughed into the telephone. Mason couldn’t tell whether she was joking or if the hiccough were genuine.

  “Pardon me,” she said with dignity. “Somethin’ I ate … Maybe the expense account can stand it, but I can’t.”

  “Hold everything,” Mason told her, “I’m coming up.”

  “You’ve heard about the music, haven’t you, Chief?”

  “What about the music?”

  “Goes round ’n round,” Della Street said, and hung up.

  Mason drove to the Maxine, entered the Green Room, and found Della Street, Ione Bedford and three men sitting at a table. Mason tried to make the meeting appear casual. “Well, well, well,” he said, “what have we here? … And, Mrs. Bedford. This is indeed a pleasure.”

  Ione Bedford grinned up at him. “Are you,” she asked, “telling me?”

  “Sit down, Chief,” Della Street said. “We can always crowd in one more chair.”

  “It’s your secretary’s birthday,” Mrs. Bedford explained.

  A waiter brought up a chair. Mason sat down at the table. The men nodded to him without enthusiasm. No one performed any introductions. Della Street fidgeted about in her seat, looking around for the waiter. “Well,” she said, “I’ve just about reached my capacity. I’d better pay my check and get out.” She opened her purse, fumbled in the interior, opened a coin purse, and her face showed consternation. “Good gosh!” she said. “I came away without my billfold, just my coin purse.”

  Mason started to reach for his pocket, but checked himself as Della Street kicked his shins under the table. Dance music started. One of the men said, “You’ll excuse me, I’m dancing this one with a girl from San Francisco.” Della Street caught the waiter’s eye. Mason heard the scraping of chairs in a general exodus. Della Street grinned delightedly and pulled a roll of bills from her purse.

  Mrs. Bedford said, “Now, was that nice.”

  “I had to get rid of them some way,” Della said, “The boss wants to talk business.”

  “Who were they?” Mason asked.

  “Just table lizards,” Della Street said. “They come over and dance, and drink and go away, and come back. It’s a racket, you know, circulating around and looking ’em over, but not getting stuck for anything.” She returned the bills to her purse.

  “You could have been more tactful about it,” Ione Bedford said to Della Street. “One of the men hadn’t had a chance to ask for my telephone number yet.” She giggled.

  Mason said, “That’s what comes of letting you two girls get on the loose. Come on, Della, we’re going places.”

  The waiter moved over to the table. “Something?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Della Street said, “my check.” She fumbled around in her purse. “I just can’t find those bills,” she said. “I guess I came away without them.”