“Did he say why?”
“No.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him that I’d do it. He’d been fair with me, very truthful, and very candid. I trusted him.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“He told me to see that my time could be accounted for — in case that should become necessary.”
“In other words, he expected that you might be accused of the murder.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. He only told me that, and I didn’t ask him why.”
“But you knew why, didn’t you?”
She hesitated a moment, then faced him defiantly, and said, “Yes.”
“That’s better,” Mason said. “Now then, you arranged to keep in communication with Peltham?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
She said, “Mr. Peltham didn’t actually leave town. He went to a little hotel and registered under the name of Bilback. I kept in communication with him.”
“By telephone?”
“Both by telephone and in person.”
“What happened last night?”
She said, “I went to see him.”
“He was in his room?”
“Yes.”
Mason glanced at Della Street. “And did you,” he asked, “call him after you read the paper this morning?”
“Yes, of course.”
“With what result?”
She said, “I was advised that Mr. Bilback hadn’t been seen this morning — that he wasn’t in his room.”
Mason said, “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble in this case keeping me groping in the dark.”
She smiled. “I was trying to protect Mr. Peltham,” she said. “Under the circumstances, you can appreciate my position.”
“That was your only reason?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
Mason said, “On Monday night Mr. Tidings had an appointment with a woman, a woman who was in a position to cause him a great deal of trouble. When he left his office, he was in a hurry to keep that appointment.”
Her face was a studied mask.
Mason said, “Suppose you tell us about that appointment, Miss Hastings.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Mason said, “I’m warning you, and I’m warning you for the last time.”
She blinked tears back from her eyes.
Mason consulted his wrist watch. “You have exactly thirty seconds,” he said.
She waited for ten seconds, then said, in a voice that was choked with emotion, “I saw him.”
“Where?” Mason asked.
There was another interval of silence, then at length she said, “Here.”
“Not here,” Mason said. “On the turntable out by Mrs. Tidings’ bungalow. He asked you to meet him there. He didn’t want to be seen coming to your apartment. You’d already accused him of being short in the trust accounts. He said that if you’d meet him there, he’d explain everything.”
She shook her head in tight-lipped silence.
“Where,” Mason asked, “did you meet him?”
“Here.”
Once more Mason crooked his elbow so that he could consult his wrist watch. “Thirty seconds,” he said.
The room became uncomfortably silent. At the end of twenty-five seconds, Adelle Hastings stirred and inhaled a quick breath, as though getting ready to speak. Then she clamped her lips again into dogged silence.
Mason got to his feet. “Come, Della,” he said, and held the door open to let her precede him into the corridor. Then he turned to face the motionless form of Adelle Hastings sitting mutely on the chair. “Remember,” he said, “you had your chance.”
He pulled the door shut.
Chapter 12
Mason latchkeyed the door of his private office and said, “Skip out to the reception room, Della. See who’s there, and tell Gertie I’m back but that I don’t want to see anyone.”
Della Street slipped silently through the door. She returned to find Mason lighting a cigarette.
“What’s new, Della?” he asked.
She motioned with her finger on her lips for silence, and tiptoed across to him. In a low voice, she said, “There’s someone in the law library.”
Mason raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He wouldn’t give any name to Gertie, said that he simply must see you, and that he couldn’t wait in the reception room. She told him she’d have to have his name, and he pushed his way past her into the law library and told her to go peddle her papers. Gertie was peeved about it, but she said he seemed to be a rather high-class individual, and she didn’t want to have him thrown out.”
Mason said, “That, Della, will be Robert Peltham.”
He strode across the office, jerked open the door to the law library, and said, “Hello, Peltham. Come in.”
Peltham, who had been seated at the long table, nervously puffing a cigarette, jumped to his feet and walked rapidly across to where Mason was standing. “What the devil,” he asked, “has happened? How could anyone have got my overcoat, my car, and…”
Mason said, “It took you long enough to get here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had to see you,” Mason said. “I tried to get you in here the easy way. That didn’t work. So I tried the hard way.”
Peltham stared at him. “You mean that you…” His voice trailed away into silence.
Mason said, “This is Della Street, my secretary. I don’t have any secrets from her. Come in and sit down. Why didn’t you let me talk with you?”
“I didn’t think it was wise.”
“Why didn’t you put your cards on the table the first time you came to the office?”
“I did.”
Mason said, sarcastically, “Yes, you certainly did. You and your masked friend. You and your mysterious allusions to what was going to happen. Why the devil didn’t you tell me Tidings was dead?”
“Because I didn’t know it.”
“Bunk,” Mason said. “And why didn’t you tell me that I was to represent Mrs. Tidings? Then I might have done a decent job of it instead of floundering around.”
“You’ve done nobly,” Peltham said.
“That’s what you think,” Mason told him. “Now you listen to me. Time is precious. I want you to do exactly as I tell you to do… You’re dead, do you understand?”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I say. You’re dead. You’ve been murdered.”
Peltham said impatiently, “Mason, can’t you understand? I wanted you to protect Mrs. Tidings. I…”
“I am protecting her,” Mason said, and then added significantly, “now.”
“Weren’t you before?”
“How could I? I was chasing will-o’-the-wisps. Why the devil did you say it was okay for me to represent Byrl Gailord?”
“Because it was. I know all about her. Tidings was trustee handling her funds — and a sweet mess he made of it, too. You’ll probably find that there’s an enormous shortage in her trust accounts.”
“How does it happen you know all about her?” Mason asked.
“Through Mrs. Tump, Mrs. Tump has been sort of a godmother to her, rescued her from Russia, and brought her over here, and saw that she had a chance… That is, she did her best. The child was spirited out of the welfare home where she was left for safekeeping and…”
“And you thought there wouldn’t be anything inconsistent in the representation of Byrl Gailord’s interests and of Mrs. Tidings’?”
“That’s right.”
“And you know Byrl Gailord personally?”
“No, I don’t. I only know of her through her godmother.”
“Then,” Mason said, “you didn’t know that Byrl Gailord was a social climber, that she was trying to crash the set that Adelle Hastings travels with, that she’s set her cap for a young man in whom Adelle Hastings is interested.”