“You can’t touch me, even if it is the same wrist watch,” she said.

  “That’s what you say,” Mason told her. “Let’s concede that someone gave you the wrist watch and you didn’t know it was stolen. You know it’s stolen now. What are you going to do about it?”

  “You can’t prove it’s the same wrist watch,” she said.

  Mason said, “A platinum oval wrist watch, rimmed with diamonds, with four emeralds on the top, bottom, and each side.”

  “There’s some mistake …” she said. “I … I have such a wrist watch, but that doesn’t mean anything. How do I know it belongs to you?”

  Drake said, “I think she’s right, Perry. You can’t expect her to give up the wrist watch just on our say-so.”

  Mason said, without sympathy, “Okay, let’s call headquarters and get them to send a man from the burglary detail out here. They can take the girl down to headquarters, your wife can make the identification and back it up with an identification from the jewelry company. I thought your wife didn’t want her picture in the papers.”

  “She doesn’t,” Drake said. “We’d much prefer …”

  “Wait a minute,” Marjory Trenton said as Mason strode toward the telephone. “I certainly don’t want my picture in the papers.”

  Mason hesitated, one hand on the telephone.

  “The watch I have was given to me,” Marjory Trenton said, her eyes puckered in thought. “Wait a minute and let me make a telephone call. I think perhaps we can straighten this all out.”

  “Whom are you going to call?” Mason asked.

  “The man who gave me the wrist watch,” she said.

  Mason pushed the telephone away from her and said, “Oh, no, you’re not.”

  “Why not? That’s the way to settle this.”

  Mason said, “He may be the chap who lifted the wrist watch. Now, you look like a lady. We’re willing to give you all the breaks, but you’re not going to tip off the bird who gave you the wrist watch and give him a chance to skip out. Come on, sister, we’ll go down to headquarters and they can handle it from there.”

  “But I’m absolutely, positively certain,” she said, “that a mistake has been made. If this is a stolen wrist watch the thief sold it to some reputable jewelry store, which sold it to the man who gave it to me. That man has plenty of money. He’s an executive in a big company and would no more steal a wrist watch than …”

  “Tell you what we’ll do,” Mason interrupted. “You can ring him up and tell him to come over here right away on a matter of the greatest importance, but don’t tell him what it is, and don’t tell him anyone else is here. Now, is that understood?”

  She nodded.

  “All right,” Mason said, moving away from the telephone, “go ahead. But remember, no funny stuff or I’ll have the burglary detail on the job within ten seconds after you make the first phoney move.”

  She dialed a number, said, “Let me speak to Mr. Rooney, please,” and then, after a moment, “Hello, Custer, this is Margie. Listen, Big Boy, I want you to come over here right away. … It’s something I have to see you about. … I can’t tell you what it is over the phone. … No … no, it’s not that. … I can’t tell you, but it’s important. Please come. … How soon? … All right, just as fast as you can. … Of course I do, sweetheart, you know that. … All right, precious.”

  She hung up the telephone and said, “It’ll be just a few minutes.”

  Mason dropped into a chair, crossed his long legs in front of him. Drake perched on the edge of a table. Marjory Trenton crossed to a chair, pulled her negligee together above her crossed knees, and said, “Well, it looks as though we have to wait.”

  “Do you want to dress?” Mason asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not going to leave you men alone in this room, and I’m not going to have you standing in the bedroom while I dress. So we’ll wait just the way we are.”

  Drake said, “How about a drink?”

  “I think you men are detectives,” the girl charged.

  “That’s no reason why you shouldn’t buy a drink, is it?” Mason asked.

  “Okay,” she said, “come on in the kitchenette, and help get out the ice cubes.”

  Mason laughed. “Come on, Paul, it’s a two-man job. She won’t leave you alone here in the room.”

  “Do you blame me?” she asked.

  Mason said, “You’re a smart kid.”

  “You’d be smart, too, if you’d been through what I have,” she told him, as Mason opened the ice box, took out a tray of cubes and held them under the tap in the sink.

  “That bad?” Mason asked.

  “Listen,” she told him, “I’m not going to bust out and tell you the story of my life.”

  “Well, we have to talk about something,” Mason pointed out.

  She laughed nervously.

  “How long have you had the wrist watch?” Mason asked casually.

  “How long since it was stolen from Mrs. Drake?” she countered.

  “About three months,” Mason said.

  “Well, it certainly looked new when I got it.”

  “I’ll take Scotch in mine,” Drake remarked. “Let’s forget the wrist watch until her boy friend gets here.”

  “I didn’t say he was my boy friend!” she blazed.

  “Sure not,” Mason agreed, dropping ice cubes into the glass, “probably just a chap who knocked at the door with an armful of magazines. He was working his way through college and you wanted to help him out, so you subscribed to a club of half a dozen magazines, and got this wrist watch as a premium.”

  She held a bottle of Scotch over the glasses and said, “A little more of that sarcasm, and you won’t get any drink.”

  “Under those circumstances,” Mason assured her, smiling, “we’ll discontinue the sarcasm.”

  Her hand held the whiskey bottle tilted over the glass as she studied him. “You,” she announced, “are putting on this hard-boiled act. You’re not really like that. Why don’t you snap out of it and be natural? What are you trying to do, frighten me?”

  For a moment Mason was disconcerted, then he laughed and said, “Thanks for the compliment. I’m not trying to act hard-boiled. I’m trying to act like a gentleman.”

  “Baloney!” she said, and poured the whiskey.

  “Make mine light,” Mason warned.

  She continued pouring, until she had a good two fingers of whiskey in the bottom of the tumbler.

  “Okay,” Drake said, “just make them all alike.”

  She carefully measured the liquor into the three glasses. The detective squirted in charged water and said, “That’s fine. Do we drink here or do we go back to the other room?”

  “We go back to the other room.”

  When they had seated themselves, Drake looked around and said, “Nice apartment.”

  “I like it.”

  “Been here long?”

  “Three months.”

  “This place,” the detective remarked, “runs into money.”

  “If,” she told him, “you’re interested in the rents, you might talk with the management.”

  Mason laughed. She shifted her eyes to his and said, “Why don’t you snap out of it? You and I could be friends.”

  “Thanks,” Mason said.

  Her eyes made an interested survey of his features. She nodded slowly, sipped her drink, and said, “You put on that hard-boiled act to frighten me, didn’t you? Now, why did you want to scare me?”

  “We want to find out about that wrist watch,” Mason said.

  “What about it?”

  Drake interposed hastily. “Take it easy, now, Perry. She’s handing you a little soft soap. Personally, I don’t want to prosecute her on the charge of receiving stolen property, because I don’t think she knew it was stolen, but that’s just what I think. You know what’ll happen if we let her out of this and it turns out she’s a fence. We’ll be guilty of compounding a felony.”

  She shifted her eyes to Drake’s and said, “The more I see of this, the more fishy it sounds to me. Mr. Rooney is a busy man. If you’re trying to pull something, you’d better beat it while the beating’s good. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourselves in a lot of trouble.”

  “Trouble’s our middle name,” Mason grinned, clinking the ice in the glass. “What does Rooney do?”

  “He’s an executive.”

  “Where?”

  “In a big company.”

  “What sort of a company?”

  She smiled sweetly at him, and said, “After all, it was the wrist watch that was stolen, wasn’t it? Mr. Rooney wasn’t stolen, was he?”

  “I don’t know,” Mason countered. “Was he?”

  “Not that I ever heard of.”

  “He isn’t married, is he?”

  “Poof!”

  “No kidding, is he?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Are you engaged to him?”

  “I think we were talking about wrist watches, weren’t we?”

  “I’m trying to get a line on him,” Mason told her, “because if he bought this watch in good faith, that’s one thing; if he bought it from a crook, knowing it was stolen, that’s another thing. This wrist watch is worth fifteen hundred dollars. If he picked it up for a hundred or two, it’s a pretty good sign he knew it was stolen.”

  “Well,” she said emphatically, “he didn’t pick it up for a hundred or two. Mr. Rooney is a sport and a spender.”

  “We’ll talk with him when he comes,” Mason said. “What’s your opinion of the European situation?”

  “I haven’t any.”

  There followed several seconds of silence, then Marjory Trenton said, “Suppose you tell me about you?”

  “What about me?” Mason asked.

  “You’re a lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you want to frighten me?”

  “Take it easy, Perry,” Drake warned.

  She moved her chair a few inches nearer Mason’s. The negligee slid back along the silk of her stockings. “Is this,” she asked, “a game of some kind? Because if it is, you might just as well come out in the open and be frank.”

  “All I want is that wrist watch,” Drake interposed hastily.

  “I think this is a racket. I don’t think your wife ever had a wrist watch.”

  A latchkey clicked back the lock of the outer door. Marjory Trenton frowned at the sound, started to get to her feet, then sank back in the chair. Drake grinned at her discomfiture. She flashed him a disdainful glance, drew her negligee around her. The door opened, and a man in the late forties, with a dark mustache, very black eyes, and hair which had turned gray at the temples, recoiled as he saw the two men.

  “Come in, Rooney,” Mason invited, “and close the door behind you.”

  Rooney indignantly kicked the door shut. “What’s the idea?” he demanded of Marjory Trenton. “Why didn’t you tell me these men were here? Who are they, and what the hell … ?”

  “Take it easy,” Drake cautioned. “We’re doing this to give you a break. We’re trying to save you a lot of publicity.”

  Rooney’s face became cold and cautious. “What do you mean, publicity?” he asked.

  “Simply this,” Drake said. “The wrist watch you gave this little lady was stolen from my wife. Now then, what I want to know is how it happens you were dealing in stolen property.”

  “You’re crazy,” Rooney said.

  “Not so you can notice it,” Drake rejoined.

  Rooney turned to Marjory Trenton. “This is a skin game. These men are trying to shake you down for something. They’re blackmailers. I suggest you call the police.”

  “Suits me,” Mason said.

  She flashed him a warning glance. “That was what they wanted to do all along. I thought it would be better to keep it out of the papers.”

  Rooney sat down. “Look here, there’s been some mistake. I bought that watch.”

  Mason said, “If you’ll tell us which pawnshop …”

  “It wasn’t a pawnshop. What sort of a man do you think I am? I bought it at a reputable jeweler’s.”

  Mason’s smile was patronizing. “I understand how you feel,” he said. “You want to put up a good front with your girl friend. But this sort of thing isn’t going to help you any. You’re in a spot, and she’s in a spot, and the only way you can get out is to come clean.”

  Marjory Trenton said, “Go ahead, Custer, tell him the truth. I’ve had that trick played on me before. A man gets a bargain at a pawnshop, picks up a box from a first-class jeweler and …”

  “I tell you I didn’t do any such thing!” Rooney exclaimed hotly. “I got that watch at Coontz & Cutter, and paid thirteen hundred and fifty dollars for it!”

  Mason yawned.

  Marjory Trenton became impatient. “Listen,” she said, “are you going to keep stalling around, trying to save your face and get us all in hot water? I don’t want to have to go up before the D.A. and explain how I happened to come by that watch. I’ll have my pictures in the paper and it’ll look like hell.”

  “Maybe you think I want my picture in the paper!” Rooney shouted.

  “Well,” Mason said, “I’m going to put the whole thing up to the police. God knows, I’ve tried to give you a break. You insist on playing ring-around-the-rosy. So I’m all finished.”

  “Wait a minute,” Rooney said. “How the devil do we know that this is your watch? Did they identify it, Margie?”

  “They described it, all right.”

  “Give any numbers or anything of that sort?”

  She shook her head.

  Rooney became belligerent. “You two heels!” he said. “What are you trying to pull? I know damn well where that watch came from. I tell you, I bought it from Coontz & Cutter. You’ve probably seen Margie wearing that watch someplace and tried to pull a fast one!”

  Mason said wearily, “Okay, brother, we go to police headquarters.”

  “No, we don’t go to police headquarters!” Rooney said. “You two guys get out of here, and get out fast.”

  “Or else?” Mason inquired.

  Rooney tried to think of an alternative, and the thought took some of the color from his face.

  “There’s one thing we can do,” Drake suggested, his manner that of an impartial conciliator. “We can go down to Coontz & Cutter’s and take the watch along. You can’t tell. Maybe the thief was slick enough to put up some stall that Coontz & Cutter fell for. After all, these big jewelry stores are always willing to pick up a little dough if the deal looks right.”

  “I don’t think I like that idea too much,” Rooney said. “After all, you folks are prying into a lot of my private affairs.”

  “I didn’t think you’d like the idea,” Mason said pointedly.

  “So you did get it at a pawnshop!” Marjory accused.

  Rooney reached for his hat and said, “Get your clothes on, Margie.”

  “You watch these two,” she said.

  “Don’t worry,” Rooney said grimly. “I’ll watch them.”

  “It won’t take me over three minutes,” she told him, dashing for the bedroom, her negligee trailing out behind her.

  Rooney nervously consulted his watch. “I’m a busy man,” he said “I’ll have to get back to the office before five o’clock.”

  “I’m busy, myself,” Mason told him. “And Drake is busy, too.”

  Rooney sat in stiff, awkward silence, his eyes shifting apprehensively to the bedroom door. After a few minutes, Marjory Trenton, attired in a light blue tailored suit, opened the door and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

  In the taxicab, the girl tried to make conversation, but Rooney was moody and preoccupied, so she lapsed into a silence, which she broke only when the cab swung in at the curb. “Okay, Big Boy,” she said to Perry Mason, “it’s your party. You pay for the cab.”

  Mason grinned and handed the cab driver a bill. “You win,” he told her. “Let’s go.”

  They found Arthur P. Cutter in his office. He spoke with effusive cordiality to Rooney, eyed Marjory Trenton with the approval of one who has learned to appreciate beautiful things, nodded to Drake and Perry Mason.

  Mason said, “What we want is to find out whether Mr. Rooney bought a wrist watch from your store.”

  Cutter said cautiously, “He has made several purchases. Perhaps …”

  “Show him the wrist watch, Margie,” Rooney commanded.

  She produced the wrist watch. Cutter looked at it, then glanced at Rooney. “You wish me to answer that question?” he asked.

  Rooney nodded.

  “Mr. Rooney bought that wrist watch from this store,” Cutter said. “He bought it approximately six weeks ago.”

  “What did I pay for it?” Rooney asked.

  “I’d have to look it up on our books to tell the exact price,” Cutter said. “I don’t remember those things. I remember the watch and remember the transaction. I think it was between twelve and thirteen hundred dollars.”

  Rooney said, “These two men insisted that the watch had been stolen. What have you to say to that?”

  Cutter’s eyes fastened in cold appraisal on the lawyer and the detective, then he reached for the telephone and said, “I’ll show you what I have to say to that! Get me police headquarters.”

  Rooney grabbed Cutter’s arm. “We don’t want any publicity,” he said.

  “There won’t be,” Cutter told him grimly. “I have an understanding with the bunco department on men of this type. I’ve seen this man’s picture somewhere—probably in a circular sent out. … Hello, this is Cutter, of Coontz & Cutter. I have a couple here for questioning. Rush a radio car over right away, will you? … Thanks. … Yes, looks like a skin game of some sort. I haven’t figured it out yet. You can do the questioning.”

  He dropped the receiver back on the hook and said to Mason, “Now you two sit down and stay put. Don’t try to leave the store. Otherwise, our private detective, who’s a regularly deputized officer, will take you into custody.”

  Mason dropped into a chair and said to Drake, “May as well sit down, Paul.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve been annoyed about this,” Cutter apologized to Rooney, and once more his eyes swept approvingly over Marjory Trenton’s figure.