“And you so reported to Olney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Olney thanked me and I heard nothing more of it for a while. Then about two weeks ago Olney came to me and asked me if I could arrange to turn those securities into cash for him.

  “I was instantly a little suspicious and asked him if they were his securities and if so, how he had secured them. He laughed and told me they were actually the securities of Mrs Warren, that they represented some wildcat investment she had made, that her husband didn’t like to have her making wildcat investments, but that she was always a pushover for oil developments where there was a chance to make a big killing, even if the chance was only one in a hundred thousand.

  “He said that Mrs Warren now found herself in a position where she wanted some money and didn’t want her husband to know it. Therefore she wanted to sell some of her securities, ones that he didn’t know she had.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I told Olney that I’d see what I could do. I told him I’d be willing to write my cheque for seventeen thousand dollars but if I had the securities transferred to my name I might do even better than that.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I had the securities transferred to my name and of course that started speculation on the part of other stockholders in the company who knew about the transfer. The fact that I was buying in the company made them think that they had an even better chance at success than they had realized.”

  “You sold the securities?” Mason asked.

  “I sold them and got the wonderful price of twenty-eight thousand dollars.”

  “And what did you do with the money?”

  “Now, there is the thing that bothers me,” Barrington said. “At Olney’s request I got this money in the form of cash – twenty, fifty, and one-hundred dollar bills – and turned over the cash to him.”

  “Did you take any steps to find out that the cash went to Mrs Warren eventually?”

  “Oh, yes. I was not that stupid, Mason. At a luncheon when I met her I asked her about it.”

  “Now, did you ask her specifically, ‘Did you get the specific sum that I turned over?’ or–”

  “No, no, I didn’t go into details. I simply told her that I felt I had secured a good price for her securities, and she told me that it was wonderful, that it was more than she had expected and that she had made a very handsome profit on the transaction, and thanked me very sweetly.”

  “Did she ask you not to say anything about it?”

  “Actually she did. Not exactly in those words, but she told me that she couldn’t ask her husband to handle the transaction because this was a speculation she had made on the side and she didn’t think her husband would approve of it. She told me he didn’t like her going into those highly speculative investments, or something of that sort.”

  “And now something has happened to make you suspicious?” Mason asked.

  “Well, that phone call and Olney pulling that business about being such an old friend of your secretary and, through Miss Street, having you present at – Well, I just want to know straight out, Mason, is your connection with Warren a business connection, and if so, is there any possibility of … well, a divorce, and could I become involved in any way?”

  Mason said, “You’re a businessman, Barrington. A moment’s reflection would convince you that you are coming to the wrong place to ask those questions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An attorney couldn’t tell you anything about his clients or about his clients’ business. If you feel that Horace Warren is contemplating any legal action involving his wife, and that you might be dragged into it, the thing to do is to go to Horace Warren and ask him in so many words if he is contemplating any such action.”

  “And the minute I do that I let the cat out of the bag.”

  “Exactly,” Mason said.

  “I – Well, frankly, I’m worried, Mason. I can’t go to Warren, you know that.”

  “And you know that I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

  “Well, I was hoping you could.”

  “If I had been employed by Warren in a business relationship and Warren wanted to conceal the fact that it was a business relationship, I would hardly be in a position to blab the information to the first friend of Warren’s who came to me and asked me.”

  “I’m not asking you to do that. I’m asking you to tell me whether … well, whether I’m in any sort of trouble over what I’ve done.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Mason said. “What you have done seems to me to have been open and above board, and if the circumstances are exactly as you related them to me, I can’t see where anyone could take offence.”

  Barrington’s face lit up. “Thank you very much, Mason,” he said. “Thank you very much indeed. I realize that you’re in a position where you can’t tip your hand.”

  “I can’t even tell you whether my presence at that party was purely social or business,” Mason said. “I can only assure you that Judson Olney came to this office to see Della Street, and told me the same story about the vacation trip, et cetera, that he subsequently told the others.”

  “Then there was no business connection, no significance connected with–”

  “Now, just a minute,” Mason said. “I don’t want you to put words in my mouth. I told you that Olney came to this office to see Miss Street. That subsequently he told me this same story.”

  “All right, all right. I guess somebody has been trying to make trouble.”

  “Any idea who it could be?” Mason asked.

  “Well,” Barrington said, “I think it was a woman. I think the attempt at disguising the voice was rather crude.”

  “Any idea what woman?”

  “Oh, a person always has ideas,” Barrington said, making a gesture with his hand, “but those ideas don’t necessarily mean anything. As you attorneys say, it takes evidence, and I wouldn’t want to make any accusation, not even an intimation, without evidence.”

  “In other words,” Mason said, “it’s now your turn to be cagey.”

  Barrington got to his feet. “Thank you very much for seeing me, Mr Mason. I am sorry that I got all worked up about this.”

  “Not at all,” Mason said.

  “And you will regard my visit as confidential?”

  Mason said, “From a social standpoint, what you have told me is confidential. From a business standpoint, I am representing clients. I have to represent those clients, and from time to time I have to give them whatever information I have uncovered.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Barrington said. “I didn’t tell you this with the idea that you’d pass it on to any of your clients.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have told me,” Mason said. “An attorney is the representative of his clients. He is their agent. He has to play fair with them.”

  “Well – Oh, all right,” Barrington said. “I’ve come to you and put my cards on the table and I’m going to leave it that way. I trust your discretion and … well, somehow I have an idea that you won’t betray my confidence unless it’s necessary. Good afternoon, Mr Mason.”

  “Good afternoon,” Mason told him gravely.

  Mason looked in the outer reception room, found that Gertie had gone home. He closed up the office and stopped by Paul Drake’s office on the way to the elevator.

  “Paul Drake in?” Mason asked the receptionist, who was busy at the telephone.

  She nodded, gestured toward the wooden gate which led to a corridor and kept talking on the telephone.

  Mason worked the concealed latch on the wooden gate, walked down the long corridor with the rows of little cubby-hole offices on each side where operatives could interview clients or witnesses, and came to Paul Drake’s office at the end of the corridor.

  The office was barely large enough for Drake’s desk and chair, two clients’ chairs and a wastebasket. There were four telephones on Drake’s desk and he was talking on one of them.

  He nodded to Mason, motioned for him to sit down, and said into the telephone, “All right, see what you can find out but don’t tip your hand any more than you have to. Handle it in relays and see if you can find who else is on the job … I know it’s difficult but do the best you can.”

  Drake hung up and said to Mason, “I presume you want to know if we learned anything about the man who was in your office.”

  “That’s right,” Mason said.

  Drake grinned. “That guy is wearing tails like Halley’s Comet.”

  “What do you mean?” Mason asked.

  “Well,” Drake said, “in the first place he was wearing a rough shadow. And on a job of any real importance that means at least two smooth shadows and sometimes as many as five.”

  “Did your man spot the smooth shadows?”

  “My men,” Drake said. “I put two on, with instructions to relay and telephone in information so I could be advised … I can tell you this, Perry. He knows he’s being shadowed, and I think he knows that my men joined in the procession, although I can’t be sure because we just have to guess at those things. But he sure as hell knows there’s a rough shadow on the job.”

  “Yes, I know he does,” Mason said.

  “He’s staying at a little hotel here, the Exman Hotel. That’s a little building they haven’t got around to tearing down yet. It’s sandwiched in between a couple of old-timers and the whole place is just waiting for someone to come along with a modern office building and tear the whole block down. In the meantime this Exman Hotel makes a specialty of cheap rooms.”

  “How’s he registered?” Mason asked.

  “Under the name of Newton, which I doubt very much is his real name.”

  “He went directly there from my office?”

  “Led the whole procession of shadows directly there,” Drake said. “He knows of at least one shadow but he isn’t trying to ditch anybody.”

  Mason said, “Paul, when it comes to dealing with a blackmailer, I’m ruthless.”

  “Who isn’t?” Drake asked.

  Mason said, “I would do things that might be considered unethical if one looked at them in the cold light of business ethics.”

  “In dealing with a blackmailer one has to be unethical,” Drake said.

  Mason said, “For your information, this man’s name is Collister Damon Gideon, he’s a blackmailer and he’s clever. Since he’s just out of federal prison, he’s in a vulnerable position. If it weren’t for that, he’d have me crucified. I’ve got to run a bluff on him, but I have to play my cards as if I were holding four aces.”

  “Who’s he blackmailing?”

  “Me.”

  “You!” Drake said in surprise.

  “That’s right.”

  “What in the world does he have on you, Perry?”

  “He doesn’t have anything on me,” Mason said, “but he could make an embarrassing situation by continuing to come to my office.”

  “Oh-oh,” Drake said. “That accounts for it. The government detectives will think some client of yours will lead them to the hidden money.”

  “Exactly,” Mason said. “They are naturally quite interested in all the people on whom Gideon calls.”

  “So he has called on you, and now you’re a focal point of government interest.”

  “Perhaps not yet,” Mason said, “but if he makes repeated calls I certainly will be. It’s quite possible the government will feel that I am acting as the go-between.”

  Drake frowned. “He’s in a position to put you in one hell of a spot, Perry.”

  Mason nodded.

  “And,” Drake went on, “there’s not one damned thing you can do about it. If he just wants to keep calling at your office, you can’t very well stop him unless you want to make a complaint that he’s attempting blackmail, and you’re not in a position to do that – not if you want to protect your clients.”

  “That’s why I said, Paul, that in dealing with a blackmailer one uses any weapon one can.”

  “You have some weapon in mind?” Drake asked.

  Mason nodded. “You can get the original mug shots on Gideon?”

  “Sure. They’re in the police files.”

  “And you can get an artist,” Mason said.

  “An artist?” Drake asked.

  “A police artist,” Mason said. “Then get some of these police forms that they use in making composite sketches of criminals. I want a couple of real good sketches of Gideon which look pretty much like him, but I want them made in the relatively crude manner that characterizes the sketches made from the descriptions of eyewitnesses. You know how these police composite pictures are put together. Get a police artist to sketch a picture of Gideon from his mug shot so it will unmistakably be Gideon, or that is, have an unmistakable resemblance to Gideon.”

  “And then what?” Drake asked.

  “Then,” Mason said, “I’m going to give him an opportunity to get away from his shadows – both the rough shadows and the smooth shadows, so he’ll be on his own.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “It’ll take money,” Mason said. “I’m going to give him money.”

  “Once you start giving him money it’s a one-way street,” Drake said. “It’s like pouring it down a rat hole.”

  Mason shook his head and smiled. “Then when Gideon has shaken the shadows he’s automatically removed any possible alibi he may have.”

  “And then?”

  “Then,” Mason said, “I’m going to flash this sketch on him and tell him that’s a sketch made by a police artist from the description of an eyewitness to a hold-up or murder or some crime that he will have read about in the papers.”

  “He’ll know you’re framing him,” Drake said.

  “He may know it but there’s not a damned thing he can do about it,” Mason said. “The weak point in the armour of a crook who has been convicted is the fact that his prior conviction can be brought out to impeach his testimony in the event he tries to deny committing the crime.”

  “But,” Drake protested, “if he checks with police he’ll find out that the sketch is purely a synthetic bit of evidence, that the police don’t have that sketch in their files and–”

  “A blackmailer, an ex-crook who has been to a lot of trouble to ditch the shadows, going to the police and asking to please inspect their files?” Mason asked.

  Drake thought for a minute, then broke out laughing.

  “All right,” he said, “you win.”

  “I haven’t won yet,” Mason said, “but I’m going to take that smooth, suave Gideon and jar him back on his heels. I told him that when it came to dealing with blackmailers I was completely ruthless.”

  “Even so, you wouldn’t frame a man for a crime he didn’t commit,” Drake said.

  “I’m not talking about that,” Mason said. “I’m talking about making him think I’m framing him for a crime that will either put him in the gas chamber or send him back to prison for life. When you start dealing with a blackmailer, Paul, there’s only one thing to do and that’s take the offensive.”

  “Okay,” Drake said. “How strong do you want me to go with these shadows?”

  “Keep the shadows on him,” Mason said. “Get that mug shot, get the artist, and make me some police-type sketches of Gideon.”

  “Okay,” Drake said, “will do.”

  Chapter Eight

  When Mason entered his office shortly before nine o’clock the next morning Della Street said, “How did you get along with Mr Barrington last night? Did he cross-examine you about me?”

  “No,” Mason said, grinning. “I beat him to the punch and cross-examined him about him, and by the time he got done telling his story he was in such a predicament that he didn’t feel like asking questions.”

  “Paul Drake phoned in a moment ago and said he had the sketch you wanted. What was that?”

  “We’ll take a look,” Mason said, “and see if you recognize it. Give Paul a ring and tell him to come in.”

  A few moments later when Paul Drake’s code knock sounded on the door, Della Street opened it.

  “You’ve got it?” Mason asked.

  “I’ve got it,” Drake said, and handed Mason a sketch together with several photostatic copies.

  Mason looked at it, smiled, and passed the sketch over to Della Street. “Who is it, Della?”

  “Why good heavens, it’s that man, Gideon!”

  “A darned good likeness, Paul, and the nice thing is it’s handled in such a way that it looks as though it had been done by a police artist.”

  “It was,” Drake said. “I have this friend who does this work for the police and I gave him Gideon’s rap sheet. He knocked off a sketch for me from the old flier they used some time ago.

  “You’re dealing with a pretty hard man to bluff,” Drake warned. “This fellow is above the average in intelligence, and by the time a man does time in a federal prison he soaks up enough criminal knowledge to be a match for anyone.”

  “Meaning me?” Mason asked.

  “Well, I didn’t say that,” Drake said. “But don’t think the guy’s going to be easy, Perry.”

  “I don’t.”

  The telephone rang, and Della, picking up the extension, said, “Yes, Gertie … Who’s calling?”

  Della Street’s face registered extreme annoyance. “Well, you just tell him – Wait a minute.”

  She placed her hand over the transmitter, said to Mason, “This man, Gideon, is on the telephone. Shall I tell Gertie to cut him off, and that we don’t ever want to talk with him or–”

  “Not at all,” Mason said, “tell Gertie to put him on the line, and you listen in, Della.”

  Mason picked up the phone on his desk, said, “Hello, Mason speaking.”

  “Gideon,” the voice at the other end of the line said. “How are you this morning, Mr Mason?”