“All right,” Dr. Arlington said. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “Something was stuck in his chest.”

  “A knife?” Dr. Arlington asked.

  “No, no, not a knife,” Mason said. “I think it was a much smaller pointed object.”

  “Not a nail?” Dr. Arlington said.

  “Probably something about the size of an ice pick.”

  “I see.”

  “He probably won’t give you any information about how it happened,” Mason said, “although he may tell you that he was standing in front of the kitchen door when his wife came through with a big load of dishes, and kicked the door open. He was holding an ice pick in his hand, and the suddenly opened door jabbed it into his chest.”

  “Is that the way it happened?”

  “He may tell you that’s what happened.”

  “Did it happen that way?”

  “How do I know?” Mason asked. “You go on up and find out what’s wrong with the guy. He’s having chills.”

  “The devil he is!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’d better be looked into,” Dr. Arlington said. “An ice pick can be damned serious.”

  “All right,” Mason told him. “Go look into it.”

  Chapter 8

  Dr. Arlington took his professional bag, walked up to the door of the apartment house and pressed the button on 218.

  A few moments later the buzzer sounded and Dr. Arlington pushed the door open and went in.

  “Well,” Mason said to Della Street, “we’ll soon find out just how much of a problem we have. You got that ice pick placed all right?”

  “I’ll say I did. I put it in the utility drawer in the kitchen.”

  “You were working pretty fast,” Mason told her.

  “You gave me a wonderful opportunity, inquiring about the woman’s marital status. Wasn’t that rather mean, Chief?”

  “It was a good way to keep her attention occupied,” Mason said.

  “You didn’t need to rub it in! She’ll know what’s in the apartment and, when she finds that extra ice pick, particularly since the price mark was left on it, she’ll know it was planted and then she’ll put two and two together.”

  Mason said, “And again she may feel that the ice pick with a price tag still on it must have been the one used in the stabbing.”

  Della Street thought that over for a moment, then smiled. “I think I begin to see a light,” she said, “a very interesting and significant light.”

  Mason lit a cigarette. “We’ll see what they tell Dr. Arlington.”

  “Don’t you think you should have gone up with him?”

  Mason said, “I don’t want to be a witness. Let Dr. Arlington talk with the guy. Any court in the land will take Dr. Arlington’s testimony at face value.”

  “I’ll say,” she agreed. “He makes a fine witness.”

  Della Street, who was standing by the side of Perry Mason’s automobile, looking toward the back of the car, suddenly stiffened to attention, said, “Oh-oh, Chief! Here’s trouble!”

  “What?” Mason asked.

  “A very official-looking car with a red spotlight.”

  “Coming here?” Mason asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Jump in,” Mason told her. “We’ll get going. We don’t dare to get caught—”

  “There’s not time,” she interrupted. “They’re right on us. Make up a good story.”

  “Get in,” Mason said, sliding over so Della could get in behind the steering wheel. “They may not notice you.”

  Della Street, with quick, supple grace, twisted in behind the steering wheel, slammed the door shut, rolled the window down.

  “Act as though you hadn’t seen them,” Mason said, “and be talking. They probably won’t notice a parked car. They—”

  He broke off as the interior of the car was flooded with red light from a police spotlight.

  “Turn around,” Mason said. “Look surprised! Otherwise they’ll know we had seen them coming.”

  Mason turned quickly, then faced Della Street and said, “Look, look!” He pointed back toward the spotlight.

  “How’s that, Della?” he asked.

  “Corny, but good,” she said. “Here they are.”

  Sgt. Holcomb of Homicide Squad came walking up on the right side of the car. An officer moved up to the left-hand side.

  “Well, well, well,” Sgt. Holcomb said. “What are you doing here?”

  “And what in the world are you doing here?” Mason asked. “We were just leaving.”

  “Were you really!” Holcomb said. “It didn’t look like it to me. It looked as though you were waiting for someone. You know, Mason, you shouldn’t have such an attractive secretary. When you get a girl with a figure like Miss America…”

  “Miss Universe,” Mason interrupted, grinning.

  “All right, all right,” Holcomb said with the easy good nature of one who has trumped all the aces in the deck. “When you get a good-looking secretary with a figure like Miss Universe, we naturally notice her when she slides in behind the steering wheel of an automobile. Now, suppose you tell me just what you’re waiting for?”

  Della Street, looking toward the door of the apartment house, nudged Perry Mason.

  Dr. Arlington came hurrying out, took a step toward Mason’s car, then seeing the officers, veered over toward his own car.

  Holcomb watched him with smiling amusement.

  “Oh, Doctor,” he called.

  Dr. Arlington stopped, looked back over his shoulder, said, “Yes?”

  “You are a doctor, aren’t you?” Sgt. Holcomb asked, staring pointedly at the medical bag.

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask where you’ve been, Doctor?”

  “In that apartment house,” Dr. Arlington said.

  “Wonderful!” Sgt. Holcomb observed. “Since we saw you come out of the apartment house, I have no reason to doubt your statement. Now, could you be a little more specific, Doctor, and tell us just what apartment you were in, in that house?”

  “I fail to see that it concerns anyone,” Dr. Arlington said.

  “Oh, but I think it does,” Sgt. Holcomb observed. “If you were up in Apartment 218, it would be of the greatest concern to the police. And if you were sent there by Mr. Perry Mason, then the situation would be more than interesting. It would be downright exciting.

  “The fact that Mr. Mason was quite apparently waiting for you to come out indicates that he knew you were in there. If he knew you were in there, the probabilities are that he was responsible for you being there. The fact that you started to walk toward Mr. Mason’s car as though to make a report to him, then saw the police car parked behind and made a sudden swing over to the car which, I take it, is your car, was quite a giveaway. What did you find, Doctor?”

  Dr. Arlington reached a quick decision. He smiled and said, “I was making a checkup on a person who had been injured. I assumed it was a civil case with the possibility of malingering.”

  He looked past the officer standing by the side of the car to Perry Mason, raised his voice and said, “The man was dead by the time I got there. The woman who was with him, and who I assume is his wife, gives a history of an ice pick having been inserted in the man’s chest. I made a quick examination and convinced myself that there had indeed been a small puncture wound in the chest. Under the circumstances, I felt that it was a case for the coroner and did nothing further.”

  “You called the police?” Sgt. Holcomb asked.

  “The police had been called before I arrived,” Dr. Arlington said. And then, with a meaning glance at Perry Mason, said, “I would, of course, have notified the coroner if the young woman hadn’t already called the authorities.”

  “That’s most interesting,” Sgt. Holcomb said. “Now perhaps someone will tell us how it happened that Mr. Mason knew this man had been injured.”

  Mason said, “Just a moment, Doctor. Was there anyone in the apartment when you left?”

  “Just the young woman.”

  “Do you know whether she’s his wife?”

  “I don’t know. How should I? I didn’t ask to see the marriage license.”

  “In other words, then, she’s up there alone with the body and any evidence that may be in the apartment.”

  “That is correct,” Dr. Arlington said.

  Sgt. Holcomb sighed. “All right, Mason,” he said, “you win. Much as I would like to interrogate you, I realize that my first duty is to get up there and investigate the homicide.”

  “Homicide?” Mason asked. “Wasn’t it accidental?”

  Sgt. Holcomb grinned. “The story we got over the telephone is that some woman pushed an ice pick right into his chest. However, we’ll find out a lot more about it Don’t go away, Mason.”

  “Why not?” Mason asked.

  “I’m going to want to talk with you.”

  “You can talk with me at my office.”

  “I don’t want to waste the time,” Sgt. Holcomb said. “I’m not going to detain you any longer than necessary, but you and the doctor stay right here. Now, let me ask you, have you been up in that apartment, Mason?”

  “Yes,” Mason said.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “You want me with you, Sergeant?” the other officer asked.

  “I want you with me,” Holcomb said. “Another car with a deputy coroner and a fingerprint man will be here any minute.”

  He turned to Mason. “I’m giving you a lawful order from an officer in the performance of his duty. Don’t leave here until I have a chance to talk with you.”

  Mason said, “All right, if it’s a reasonable order, I’ll obey it. But it has to be reasonable. I’ll give you fifteen minutes. That’s a reasonable length of time. If you have any questions you want to ask me or Dr. Arlington here, be back inside of fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ve a job of investigation to do up there.”

  “You can get the woman out of the apartment, seal up the apartment so that nothing will be touched,” Mason said, “and you can do all that within two minutes. You’ll have ten minutes for a first investigation and then you can come down here and talk with me. At the end of fifteen minutes I’m going to be on my way, and Dr. Arlington is going to be on his way.”

  Sgt. Holcomb hesitated a moment, then turned to the officer. “Come on, let’s go!” he said.

  When they had gone, Dr. Arlington said in a low voice to Perry Mason, “I didn’t know what to do, Perry. The man was dead when I arrived. He evidently had been dead for about ten minutes.”

  “How about the woman with him. Hysterical?”

  “Upset…. But I wouldn’t think he was irreplaceable in her life.”

  “Did she tell you anything I should know?” Mason asked.

  “Only that she’d telephoned the officers. She said she told them Carl Harrod had been murdered.”

  “Murdered?”

  “That’s what she said: murdered. I was in a spot, Perry. I didn’t know what you wanted; whether I should dash back down here and tell you that the man was dead and that she had called the authorities, or whether I should take a quick look at the body so I could see the nature and location of the wound.

  “I decided you’d want to know something about the wound, so I pulled back the blankets and took a look. There was a small, livid puncture wound, and, unofficially, I have no doubt it was made with an ice pick and that it was the cause of death.”

  “Just one wound?” Mason asked.

  “Just one wound. Of course, I didn’t examine the entire body, but the man was naked from the waist up. I’m quite certain there was just that one puncture wound, at least in the chest cavity.”

  “All right,” Mason said wearily. “We seem to be in a hell of a spot right now. Della, I think you’d better go telephone our client… Hold it,” Mason said sharply, as she placed her hand on the door latch, “here comes an officer to ride herd on us until it suits Sgt. Holcomb to come down and give us the third degree.”

  The officer who had gone up with Sgt. Holcomb came back from the apartment house, started across the sidewalk.

  A second police car rounded the corner. The driver was unable to find a parking place, so double-parked with the red blinker on the top of the car flaring vivid flashes of warning light.

  Men hurried from the car. A photographer carrying a heavy camera case by means of a shoulder strap, a smaller camera in one hand and a Strobe-light in the other hand, hurried across to the apartment house. He was followed by an officer carrying a fingerprint camera and a small, black case of the sort used to carry materials for developing latents.

  The officer who had come down from the apartment moved over to confer with the newcomers briefly.

  Two more men debouched from the second police automobile and entered the apartment house.

  The officer came over to stand by Mason’s car.

  “Sgt. Holcomb says he doesn’t want to detain you unduly, but he does want to question you and he doesn’t want any of you to drive away.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Dr. Arlington said. “I can’t neglect my patients. I have to be where I can be available for phone calls and—”

  “I know, I know,” the officer interrupted. “It won’t be long.”

  “Fifteen minutes from the time Sgt. Holcomb spoke to us,” Mason said, “is a reasonable time. I advise you, Doctor, that if you are not interrogated and released within fifteen minutes, you are legally within your rights in leaving.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” the officer said. “You can’t pull that stuff. The law doesn’t say anything about fifteen minutes.”

  “The law requires that any police order must be reasonable,” Mason said. “Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, I feel that fifteen minutes is a reasonable time. I’m willing to accept that responsibility.”

  “Well, you may be accepting a hell of a lot of responsibility,” the officer warned roughly.

  “In my business I’m accustomed to accept a hell of a lot of responsibility,” Mason told him.

  The officer was plainly uneasy. He glanced anxiously at the door of the apartment house. “The sergeant said to hold you until he got here.”

  “I tell you I’m leaving in fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re leaving when the sergeant says you can leave.”

  “I’m leaving in fifteen minutes from the time he told us to wait,” Mason snapped.

  The officer was trying to think of the answer to that, when the door opened and Sgt. Holcomb came striding across the sidewalk and out to the car.

  “So,” he said, “you and Miss Street got a statement from the guy and Della Street took it down in shorthand.”

  “Right,” Mason said.

  “He was stabbed by a client of yours.”

  “Wrong,” Mason said.

  “How the hell do you know?” Sgt. Holcomb asked.

  “My clients don’t stab people.”

  “Well,” Sgt. Holcomb said, “it seems that the stabbing was done by a woman who was in the apartment occupied by Fern Driscoll, 309 at the Rexmore Apartments. Is Miss Katherine Baylor a client of yours, Mason?”

  “I’ve never seen her in my life.”

  “How about Fern Driscoll?”

  “Fern Driscoll is my client.”

  “All right. I’m going to see her. What’s more, I want to see her before you have a chance to do any telephoning.”

  Sgt. Holcomb looked at his watch. “You hold them here for ten minutes,” he said to the officer, “and then you can let them go. However, I’m going to want to hear from you, Mason. I want a statement from you and I want a copy of the statement that this man Harrod made as to the circumstances surrounding the stabbing.”

  “How about the doctor?” the officer asked.

  “Don’t let anybody get to a phone for ten minutes,” Sgt. Holcomb said. “I want to get up to that apartment and talk with this Driscoll woman before Mason has a chance to tip her off to clam up and say nothing. As I see it, she’s the most valuable witness we are going to find.”

  Mason said, “I’m afraid, Sergeant, you don’t understand how I work.”

  “I know all about how you work,” Holcomb told him. “Keep them here, Ray. In exactly ten minutes you may let them go.”

  Sgt. Holcomb hurried away.

  Mason looked at his wrist watch, stretched, yawned, lit a cigarette, put his head back against the cushion and closed his eyes.

  Dr. Arlington, taking his cue from Perry Mason, went over to his car, opened the door and started to get in.

  “Stay right here for ten minutes,” the officer warned.

  “Nine minutes now,” Dr. Arlington said, climbing into his car and slamming the door shut.

  Della Street, with an eye on her wrist watch, counted off the minutes.

  “All right, Chief,” she said, “nine and a half minutes.”

  At Mason’s nod, she started the motor.

  “Hold it,” the officer said. “You have thirty seconds to go.”

  “Just warming the car up,” Mason told him.

  The officer seemed uneasy. “I’d like to get word from Sgt. Holcomb. He could communicate with us through communications and on the car radio.”

  “I know he could,” Mason said, “but he said ten minutes, and ten minutes it is.”

  The officer seemed undecided.

  “Okay, Della,” Mason said.

  Della Street, in the driver’s seat, eased the car into gear.

  Dr. Arlington’s car slid out behind them.

  “Now where?” Della asked.

  “Drake Detective Agency,” Mason said, “but first signal Dr. Arlington to come alongside.”

  Della Street drove for a block, then pulled off to the side of the road, motioned with her arm for Dr. Arlington to come alongside on the one-way street.

  When Dr. Arlington was running abreast Mason said, “Go on home, Doctor, and don’t answer questions.”