“That’s all right. I’ll phone for an appointment.”

  “That will be quite satisfactory. Would you let me have your name, now?”

  “Not yet,” Mason said. “In real estate transactions I have found that it is a good idea to remain anonymous.”

  “But I should have some name so that when you telephone I …”

  “You may call me Mr. Cash,” Mason said, “and the initials are C. H.”

  “Mr. C. H. Cash,” Fargo said.

  “That’s right, and the initials C. H. stand for cold and hard, so that the full name is Mr. Cold Hard Cash.”

  He shook hands with Fargo, walked rapidly to his car, drove to the drugstore at Vance Avenue and Kramer Boulevard, and, from the same telephone booth from which he had received the mysterious phone call the night before, called Paul Drake.

  “Hello, Paul,” Mason said, keeping his voice low and speaking rapidly. “You got some men all ready to put out on a job?”

  “That’s right. I’m holding some reserves here in the office.”

  Mason said, “I’ve struck pay dirt.”

  “With Fargo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “The realtor on 2281 Livingdon Drive.”

  “His wife is your client?”

  “Apparently so,” Mason said. “I didn’t see her.”

  “How do you know she’s your client, then?”

  “Because,” Mason said, “I have the combination to the safe in Fargo’s office.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  Mason said, “Get some men out here right away, Paul. I want Fargo’s place covered. I want enough men so that you can tail anyone who leaves the place, and you’re going to have to hurry.”

  “You think someone’s going to leave?”

  “I think he is.”

  “Know where he’s going?”

  “He’s just going away,” Mason said. “He wants to sacrifice his house, furniture and everything, and be on his way. I made a noise like a sucker and he tipped his hand. He thinks he’s going to sell me the whole shooting works.”

  “Well, he won’t get away then before you give him an answer,” Drake said.

  “I’m not certain just what he will do. He sneaked out and tried to look at my registration certificate. When he couldn’t find that, he took the license number of my automobile. He’ll look that up. The answer may start him moving.”

  “But look here, Perry, if you were pointed out to him in the night club he must know who you are and …”

  “I evidently wasn’t pointed out to him,” Mason said. “The one I was pointed out to was his wife. I’ll swear he doesn’t know me. His face didn’t change expression by so much as the flicker of an eyelash when he opened the door and saw me standing there on the threshold.”

  “But you must have been pointed out to the wife.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Mason said, “Fargo told me that he had taken her in to the airport this morning to catch a six o’clock plane for Sacramento. She was going to visit relatives.”

  “You don’t think he did?”

  “I don’t think he did.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” Mason said, “there was a cold drizzle up until midnight. I don’t think he would have left his car parked at the curb. There’s a door leading directly from the garage to the kitchen of the house.”

  “Well, what are you getting at? Didn’t he drive the car into the garage?”

  “If he did,” Mason said, “he drove it in just once. There’s a gravel driveway going up to that garage. It’s quite soft. The car was in the garage and there was only one set of tracks going in. If he’d taken the car out to drive her to the airport and then driven it back, there would have been three sets of tracks.”

  “Where do you think the wife is?”

  “She could be dead.”

  “In the house?”

  “Could be,” Mason said. “I talked him into showing me around. One room was closed, but as we stood in front of the door I distinctly heard someone breathing on the other side of the door, someone who was listening with an ear at the keyhole.”

  “The wife?” Drake asked.

  “I don’t know why, but I don’t think so,” Mason said.

  “Okay, we’ll get on the job.”

  Mason said, “I’m going back to keep an eye on that house. Get your men out there just as fast as you possibly can. They’ll find me parked where I can tail the car in case it drives out. We’re going to have to work fast. He doesn’t know who I am now but he will by the time he gets my license number looked up.”

  “Okay,” Drake said, “I’ll tell my men to look out for you.”

  Chapter 10

  Mason eased his car around the corner and parked at the curb. From that point he couldn’t see the door of Fargo’s garage but he could see the driveway.

  Mason lit a cigarette and settled himself to wait until Paul Drake’s men would come to take over.

  He had hardly taken the first puff from his cigarette when a car backed rapidly out of the driveway. As it entered the street it turned so that the rear end was toward Mason, then the exhaust emitted a few puffs of smoke and the car moved rapidly down the street.

  Mason pushed on the starter, gunned his motor into life and took after the Cadillac. There was no opportunity for finesse, no chance to disguise the fact that he was following the machine.

  As Mason pushed his car into speed the car ahead of him increased its own pace until they were going some sixty miles an hour through a suburban residential district, showing only too well that the driver was aware of the following car and was trying to get away from it.

  The top of the convertible was up, and the relatively narrow rear window was insufficient to give Mason any opportunity to get more than a vague glimpse of the driver.

  The car drove smoothly through a boulevard stop without even pausing. Mason followed. He heard the scream of sliding tires as a car on the boulevard slewed around, trying to stop.

  Mason kept his eyes on the car ahead. It swung into an abrupt skidding turn and vanished. At that instant a motorcycle pulled alongside Mason’s car. A siren growled ominously.

  “Pull over.”

  Mason said, “Look here, officer, I’m after a car ahead and …”

  “Pull over.”

  “I’m chasing another car. I …”

  “Pull over.”

  The lawyer, face red with anger, pulled over.

  The officer pulled the motorcycle in to the curb, came alongside and said, “You can’t hog the traffic like that. I watched you …”

  “I’m chasing a car ahead. It may be …”

  “Who’s in it?”

  “Someone who has to do with a case I’m investigating.”

  “You a detective?”

  “No. I …”

  “Connected with the Department?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s take a look at your license.”

  Wearily Mason produced his driving license, said, “I’m an attorney.”

  “Oh, Perry Mason, eh? Well, under the circumstances I’ll let you go with a warning, Mr. Mason, but, regardless of the circumstances, you have to be more careful at intersections. You were taking all sorts of desperate chances there. People had to slam on brakes in order to avoid hitting you. Don’t let it happen again.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said. “Can I make a U-turn here?”

  “I thought you said you were chasing a car?”

  “I was,” Mason told him with elaborate sarcasm.

  The officer said, “I could give you a ticket, you know.”

  “I know,” Mason told him.

  For a moment there was silence, then the officer returned to his motorcycle, eased in the clutch and roared away down the block.

  Mason made a U-turn and returned to the Fargo residence.

  Cruising around the block, he had no difficulty in picking up one of Drake’s men parked in almost the same position where Mason had left his own car.

  Mason swung in ahead of the detective’s car and walked back to the man who was seated behind the steering wheel of the nondescript sedan.

  The man rolled down the window.

  “You’re Drake’s man?”

  The man regarded Mason in thoughtful silence.

  Mason produced his driving license. “I’m Perry Mason, the lawyer. I’m employing the agency to cover this case.”

  “Okay,” the man said.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “About five minutes.”

  “Any sign of activity?”

  “No one in, no one out.”

  Mason said, “The car I wanted to have followed made a getaway. I tried to tail it, but I got a bad break.”

  “It’ll happen all right,” the man said sadly. “Once a person knows he’s being followed he can almost always lose a shadow. All he has to do is get into traffic and keep moving until he gets a break on a signal, then give it the gun and leave the other fellow behind to argue with the traffic.”

  “In my case,” Mason said, “the argument was with a traffic officer.”

  The man’s eyes regarded him sympathetically. “Well, you have one advantage.”

  “What’s that?” Mason asked.

  “You don’t have to try to explain how it happened to Paul Drake and listen to him tell you what a job it’s going to be explaining it to the client.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Mason said, smiling. “I think the horse has been stolen but we’ll watch the stable anyway.”

  He drove to the drugstore, telephoned his office, and when he had Della Street on the line said, “Want to grab a taxi and come out here and join me?”

  “Where are you?”

  “At that drugstore on the corner of Vance Avenue and Kramer Boulevard.”

  “Right away?”

  “Right now.”

  “I’ll be out within ten minutes,” she said.

  “Okay,” Mason told her. “I’ll be having a cup of coffee at the counter. What else is new? Anything?”

  “Nothing too important.”

  “Okay. Pick me up out here.”

  Mason hung up, picked up a magazine at the newsstand, moved over to the counter, ordered a cup of coffee and killed time until a taxi deposited Della at the door of the drugstore.

  Mason paid his check, moved out to join his secretary.

  “What’s the pitch?” she asked.

  Mason said, “I’m buying a house. You’re to be the bride.”

  “Oh-oh!”

  “You won’t make me a very good wife,” Mason said.

  “You underestimate me! What’s wrong with me?”

  Mason grinned. “You’re too critical.”

  “Oh, is that so? Of what am I critical?”

  “Of everything.”

  “I don’t like the character you’re sketching for me. It isn’t bridal.”

  “I know,” Mason said. “You’re planning to string me along until you have me safely hooked. You want to get married, but you’re nervous, cross and irritable.

  “Now that we’re just engaged, whenever you find yourself being a little too peevish you catch yourself at it and make up for it with some affectionate little gesture. After we’re married you’re going to start nagging. Nothing that I do will be right. Think you can portray that sort of young woman?”

  “I hate even to think of the pattern.”

  “Particularly,” Mason went on, smiling, “if we find one of the bedrooms locked, you’re going to be very annoyed. You simply have to see the inside of that bedroom before you can make up your mind on the house.”

  “We’re planning on buying a house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whose?”

  “Arthman D. Fargo’s residence. We’re going to get it furnished and we’re going to get it cheap.”

  “And right now we’re inspecting the premises?”

  “That’s right—provided we can get in. A car left the place a short time ago. Fargo may have been driving, or it may have been someone else—maybe his mistress—checking out.”

  “Is he married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s his wife?”

  “He says she’s visiting her mother in Sacramento. However, her body could have been in the trunk of the Cadillac that was driven from the place a few minutes ago.”

  “What a perfectly divine house for a newly married couple!” Della Street exclaimed. “I’m enchanted with it already. Let’s go!”

  They drove to the Fargo residence. Mason parked the car directly in front of the house, said to Della Street, “Remember this is during the period of courtship and engagement. We haven’t as yet got to the point where we hurl barbed remarks at each other except inadvertently, and then we always make up for it with a little affection, so sit still and wait for me to run around and open the door.”

  Mason jumped out from behind the steering wheel, ran around the back of the car to open the door and helped Della Street to the sidewalk.

  She smiled up at him, snuggled her hand into his.

  Hand in hand they walked up the sidewalk.

  Mason said, “It’ll be in order to look around a little bit before we go in, Della, noticing the advantages of the place. And, incidentally, giving me an opportunity to study the wheel tracks in the driveway in front of the garage.”

  Mason led Della Street around to the graveled driveway.

  “A soft spot directly in front of the garage,” he said. “There was only one set of wheel tracks when I was here a short time earlier. Ah, yes, there are two sets of tracks now. I’m afraid our bird has flown.”

  “What bird?” Della Street asked.

  “Well, let’s say Fargo’s mistress.”

  “He brings her here to the house?”

  “That would be my guess. He told me his wife had taken the six o’clock plane to Sacramento.”

  “The mice didn’t lose much time playing, with the cat away,” Della Street said.

  “But,” Mason went on, “these car tracks indicate to me that he didn’t take his wife to the six o’clock plane.

  “Moreover,” Mason went on, “there’s something about Mr. Fargo that I definitely don’t like. He impresses me as a man who has a great deal on his mind. Well, let’s walk back to the front of the place now, Della. We’ll ring the bell and you may have an opportunity to form your own impressions of Mr. Fargo.”

  Mason slipped his arm around her waist, said suddenly, “Della, you know, we don’t need to play-act on this thing. We could really play for keeps.”

  There was something wistful in her laughter. “And then I’d be staying home in this house and you’d be going to the office and hiring another secretary to run your business and …”

  “No,” he said, “you could continue to be my secretary.”

  “Phooey! That never works out and you know it.”

  “Why doesn’t it work out?”

  “Darned if I know,” she said, “but it doesn’t. I suppose a man can say things to his secretary he wouldn’t dare say to his wife and … You know it doesn’t work. Are you going to ring the bell or are we going to stand here and … Chief, the door isn’t closed. There is a half-inch crack between the door and the jamb.”

  Mason nodded, pressed his thumb against the bell button. After five seconds he rang the bell again, waited another five seconds, then held his thumb against the button.

  From the inside of the house they could hear the noise of the bell.

  Mason frowned. “You know, Della, it’s the strangest coincidence that I have the combination to his safe in the office.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  Mason said, “Of course, I wouldn’t take a chance on opening it in the absence of Mr. Fargo, but since the door is partially open we might just peek through the crack and see if …”

  Mason fitted his eye to the crack in the door, then suddenly gave an exclamation and pushed his shoulder against the door.

  The door moved only a scant inch, then hit an obstruction which kept it from moving farther.

  “What is it?” Della Street asked.

  Mason said, “It seems to be the foot of a man who’s lying on his back and is very, very inanimate. I guess we’d better try the back door, Della.”

  A cheery voice behind them said, “Well, well. What seems to be the trouble with mother’s little angels? Having some difficulty with your housebreaking?”

  Lieutenant Tragg, taking advantage of their preoccupation at the partially open door, had walked quietly up behind them.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” Mason asked irritably.

  “Well,” Tragg said, smiling, “as it happened I wanted to get in touch with you, Mason, and since you seemed to be a little difficult to comer, I decided that I would keep a routine watch on Miss Street and see if perhaps she left the office rather hurriedly. When my shadow reported that she was evidently speeding on her way by taxicab to an appointment, I instructed him to follow and relay directions to me. These two-way radio cars are a great invention. And so you’re having some trouble getting in. What’s the matter? Won’t the man on the other side of the door cooperate, or are you afraid of a charge of housebreaking?”

  Tragg eased his way past Perry Mason, placed his hand on the doorknob, peeped inside, then suddenly stiffened to attention. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  Mason said, “We just came here, Tragg, and …”

  “I know you just came here,” Tragg said. “I’ve followed you all the way from the drugstore where Miss Street met you. My car is parked just around the corner. Were you ringing the bell?”

  “We rang the bell,” Mason said, “before Miss Street noticed that the door was unlatched. I pushed it open just to see …”

  “Just to see what?” Tragg asked as Mason hesitated.

  “Well,” Mason said, “I wanted to make sure the bell was working and I wanted to see if anyone was at home.”

  “Yes, yes,” Tragg said. “It’s very interesting. Suppose we go round to the back door, Mason.”

  “Will you want me with you?”

  “Right with me, Mason. I wouldn’t want you out of my sight now. It would certainly seem that there’s a man’s body lying there on the floor blocking the door.”