Mason said, with finality, “I’ll take you up on that proposition on one condition.”
“What’s the condition?”
“That I’ll use my best efforts to be fair. I’ll act in the highest good faith. If I make a mistake, and find myself involved, I have the right to return the two thousand dollars and wipe the matter off the books as effectively as though we’d never had this conversation.”
Peltham glanced inquiringly at the masked woman.
She shook her head vigorously.
Mason said, “That’s my proposition. Take it or leave it.”
Peltham looked about him at the walls of the office. His eyes fastened on the door to the law library. “Could we,” he asked, “go in there for a moment?”
“Go right ahead,” Mason said, and then added, “Are you afraid to have me hear this woman’s voice?”
It was Peltham who started to answer the question, but the vigorous nodding of the woman’s head gave Mason his answer.
The lawyer laughed. “Go ahead,” he said. “After all, it’s your show. I’m just sitting in the wings.”
“In a twelve-thousand-dollar seat,” Peltham said with some feeling. “It’s bank night as far as you’re concerned, Mr. Mason, and you’ve won the jackpot.”
Mason indicated the door of the law library with a gesture. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m going to be back in bed within thirty minutes. You have my proposition. Take it or leave it.”
Peltham crossed over to her chair. “Come, dear,” he said.
She arose with some reluctance. He cupped his hand under her elbow, and they walked across the office, her raincoat rustling as she walked.
The galoshes gave her a somewhat awkward gait. The raincoat, hanging loosely from her shoulders, gave no indication of the contours of her figure, but there was something in her gait which showed that she was young and lithe.
Mason pinched out his cigarette, tilted back in the chair, crossed his ankles on the corner of the desk, and waited.
They were back in less than three minutes. “Your proposition is accepted,” Peltham said. “I only ask that you use the highest good faith.”
“I’ll do the best I can,” Mason said, “and that’s all I can promise.”
For a moment, it seemed that Peltham was about to put more cards on the table. His face twisted with expression as he leaned forward across Mason’s desk. “Look here,” he said, in a voice harsh with emotion — and then caught himself.
Mason waited.
Peltham took a deep breath. “Mr. Mason,” he said, “I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t absolutely necessary. For two hours now, I’ve been racking my brain trying to find some method of accomplishing what I want to accomplish without undoing everything in the process. If it were ever surmised by anyone that this woman and I had any connection, it would… it would… it would be absolutely ruinous to all concerned. I must keep her out of that at any cost — no matter what it costs. Do you understand?”
“I can’t understand the necessity for all this hodgepodge,” Mason said. “After all, you could afford to be frank with me. I don’t betray the secrets of my clients. I respect them. If this young woman wants to take off her mask and…”
“That’s impossible,” Peltham snapped. “I’ve worked out the only scheme which will give us all protection.”
“You don’t trust me?” Mason asked.
“Suppose,” Peltham countered, “that you happened to have information which the police considered vital evidence. Would you be justified in withholding it?”
“I’d protect the interests of a client,” Mason said. “I’m a lawyer. A client’s communications are confidential.”
Peltham’s voice was determined. “No,” he said shortly. “This is the only way.”
Mason looked at him curiously. “You evidently have made elaborate preparations for this interview.”
“What do you mean?”
“The elevator for instance.”
Peltham dismissed the matter with a gesture. “Whenever I do anything,” he said, “I lay my plans carefully and well in advance. I have watched your career with interest. Months ago I decided that if I ever needed a lawyer, I’d call on you. It may interest you to know, Mr. Mason, that I drew the plans for this building when it was constructed — and that at the present time, I own a controlling stock interest in it. Come, dear.”
She arose and silently started for the exit door.
Mason, thinking perhaps he could surprise her into letting him hear her voice, called banteringly, “Good night, Miss Mysterious.”
She turned. He saw her lips tremble in a nervous smile. She made him a slight curtsy, and wordlessly left the office.
Mason pocketed the two one-thousand-dollar bills. He looked at the fragment of the ten-thousand-dollar bill, and chuckled. Walking over to the safe, he spun the combination, opened the door, unlocked the drawer, opened it, held his hand over it for a moment, and then noisily closed the drawer and clanged the door of the safe shut. He snapped the bolt home, and twisted the combination.
But the fragment of the ten-thousand-dollar bill had not been dropped into the drawer of the safe. Instead he had unobtrusively slipped it into his trousers pocket.
He walked over to the hat tree, put on his wet hat, got into his raincoat, looked out into the outer office, and made certain that the bottle of whiskey he had placed on the desk was no longer there. He locked the door of the reception room and switched out the lights. He returned to his private office and went to the exit door. As he had surmised, Peltham had left this door unlocked, the spring lock being held back with a catch.
Mason dropped the catch, releasing the lock, switched out the lights, and went out into the echoing corridor.
He noticed that the locked, dark elevator was still on the seventh floor. He rang the elevator bell, and after a few moments, the janitor came shooting upward in the cage.
Mason indicated the dark elevator. “One of your elevators stalled on this floor?” he asked.
The janitor stepped out of the cage to stare at the elevator. “Ay be a son of a gun,” he said in an astounded voice which seemed to Mason to be thoroughly genuine.
Mason entered the lighted elevator. “Okay, Ole,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 2
Della Street was opening the morning mail when Mason came sauntering into the office.
“You’re early,” she said. “Didn’t you remember that the Case of People vs. Smithers was dismissed by the district attorney?”
“Uh huh. I came down to study the newspaper.”
She stared at him with her brows arched, laughter trembling at the comers of her lips, but her eyes grew puzzled as she saw the expression on his face. “Going in for contemporary history?” she asked.
He scaled his hat to the hat tree, pushed the mail on his blotter aside without so much as glancing through it, and spread out the newspaper on the desk. “Quite a rain we had last night.”
“I’ll say. What about the newspaper, Chief?”
“Shortly after midnight,” Mason said, “I received a two-thousand-dollar retainer and a piece out of a ten-thousand-dollar bill. I had an interesting session with a masked woman and a man who seemed very much worried about something, who intimated that some startling news would be found in the morning newspaper.”
“And you can’t find it?” she asked.
“I haven’t looked as yet,” he said with a grin. “Sufficient for the day are the business hours thereof.”
“Who were the parties?”
“The man,” he said, “was Robert Peltham, an architect. He didn’t seem particularly pleased when I discovered his real identity. He wanted me to believe that he was John L. Cragmore of 5619 Union Drive. That was the one slip he made. There isn’t any Cragmore listed at that address in the telephone book. It was a slip which I can’t understand. He had so thoroughly prepared all the other steps in his campaign that I can’t imagine him falling down on such a simple matter. If he’d only given me a name that appeared in the telephone book, I’d have fallen for it — at least temporarily.”