“She told me it was a rainy night, that I’d have trouble getting a cab, and that was the reason she’d asked me to ride with her. She said that she had to make one brief stop on the road home.”
“This cocktail party was here in town?”
Dawn Manning shook her head. “Out in Mesa Vista,” she said. “This whole story is a little weird, Mr. Mason. To understand it you’ll have to know a little about my background. I’ll have to tell you some of my personal history.”
“Go ahead,” Mason told her, his eyes narrowing slightly, “you’re doing fine.”
“I’ve been married,” she went on, “Dawn Manning is my maiden name. I took it after we split up. My ex-husband is Frank Ferney. He’s associated with Meridith Borden. He’s a chiseler. When we split up, I couldn’t go to Reno to get a divorce. Frank agreed to go. He wrote me he’d filed papers, and I made an appearance so as to save problems of serving summons. I thought everything had been taken care of.
“I don’t know how much you know about Meridith Borden. He makes his living out of selling political influence. I did some posing for him. I met a local politician, the politician fell for me, and Borden wanted to use me just as he’d use some party girl to get this politician to the point where — well, where Borden could get something on him.
“I hate these man-and-wife feuds where people are intimate for years and then suddenly start hating each other. My ex-husband wasn’t what I thought he was, but I had tried to keep friendly with him.
“This Borden deal was too much. I told them both off. I told the amorous politician he’d better do his playing around home, and I walked out on the lot of them.
“Well, last night we drove along the road, and this woman said she wanted to turn in to see a friend very briefly. Then she mentioned casually that someone had told her that my husband and I had planned a divorce but that he had not gone through with it. About that time she started to swing into Meridith Borden’s driveway. I sensed a trap and grabbed at the wheel to keep her from turning in. We met another car coming out of the driveway. I guess I shouldn’t have grabbed at the wheel, but I wasn’t going to let them trap me. Anyway, we went into a skid.”
“Go on,” Mason said, “what happened?”
“We went completely around. I know the other car hit us because I felt the bump, or perhaps I should say we hit the other car. Then I have a recollection of crashing through a hedge and the next I knew I was lying on the damp grass on my left hip with my skirts clean up around my neck as though I had skidded or been dragged some little distance. I was lying in a cold drizzle and I was wet and chilled.
“I moved around a bit, trying to find where I was and thinking what had happened, and finally recollection came back to me all at once. I tested myself to see if I had any broken bones. Apparently, all that I had was a bruised and skinned fanny. I was lying up against the stone wall that surrounds Borden’s place. The car I had been riding in was on its side. I looked around for the other woman. She was nowhere around. I was cold, wet and shaken up. I found my way to the driveway, walked through the gates to the highway. After a while a motorist stopped. I hitchhiked to town.”
“Do you know this motorist?”
“No, I don’t. I didn’t get his name and I didn’t want his name. He had an idea he could furnish me board and lodging for the night and was rather insistent. I didn’t tell him anything about myself or my background. I let him think I was walking home from a ride during which I’d had an argument with my boy friend.
“As Beatrice can tell you, in this business we get so we can handle ourselves with most men, turn them down and still leave them feeling good. But this particular specimen was a little hard to handle. However, I put up with things until I got to where I could get a bus. Then I slapped his face good, got out, and removed the dollar bill I always keep fastened to the top of my stocking. I took a bus to the corner nearest my apartment and then had to ring the manager to get a duplicate key. I’d lost my purse and everything in it — cigarettes, lipstick, keys, driving license, the works.”
“Did you look for your purse?”
“I felt around in the car and on the ground. I couldn’t find it. Evidently this woman took it with her.”
“What time was this?” Mason asked. “Can you fix the time?”
“I can fix the time of the accident very accurately.”
“What time was it?”
“Three minutes past nine.”
“How do you know?”
“My watch stopped when I hit the ground, or when I hit the side of the car or something. In any event, the watch stopped and hasn’t been running since.”
“Do you know what time it was when you left the grounds?”
“I can approximate that.”
“What time?”
“I would say about twenty-five minutes before ten. I arrived home at perhaps fifteen minutes past ten, I think. Why? Does it make any great difference?”
“It may make quite a difference,” Mason said.
“Would you mind telling me why, Mr. Mason?”
“Unfortunately, I’m a one-way street as far as information is concerned at the moment. I can receive but I can’t give. There’s one other thing I want. I want the best possible description you can give of the woman who picked you up and gave you a ride in that car.”
“Mr. Mason, you’re putting me through quite a catechism here.”
“I’m paying for your time,” Mason reminded her.
“So you are,” she said, laughing. “Well, this woman was somewhere in the late twenties, or say, on a guess, around thirty. She was about my height... oh, say around five-feet-five, and she weighed... well, from 116 to 120, somewhere in there. She had reddish hair, the dark, mahogany type of red that—”
“Comes out of a bottle?” Mason asked.
“Comes in a hair rinse of some sort. I have an idea she might have been a natural brunette.”
“What can you remember about her eyes?”
“I remember her eyes quite well because she had a peculiar habit of looking at me, and when she did, it gave me rather an uneasy feeling. Her eyes were dark and... it’s hard to describe, but there’s a sort of a reddish, dark eye that doesn’t seem to have any pupil at all. I suppose if you looked carefully enough you could find a pupil, but the color of the eyes is dark and sort of reddish, and you just don’t see any pupil.”
“You remember that?”
She nodded.
“Anything else?”
“She wore rings on both hands, I remember that. Diamonds. Fairly good-sized stones, too.”
“How was she dressed?”
“Well, as I remember it, she didn’t have any hat on and her coat was a beige color, rather good-looking. She had a light wool dress in a soft green that went well with her coloring.”
“You hadn’t seen this woman before?”
“You mean to know her?”
“Yes.”
“No. I’m quite certain I haven’t.”
Mason glanced at Beatrice Cornell.
Beatrice Cornell slowly shook her head. “There’s something vaguely familiar about the description, Mr. Mason, but I don’t place it — at least at the moment.”
“All right,” Mason said. “I guess that covers the situation at the moment. I’d like some pictures.”
“Bruises and all?” Dawn Manning asked, laughing.
“Bruises and all — particularly the bruises.”
“Okay. We’ll throw in the all,” Dawn Manning said. “Beatrice can show you how to work that Strobolite.
“Pull the shades, Beatrice, and we’ll get to work.”
Chapter Six
The cafeteria was a small, cozy place that featured home cooking.
Perry Mason, moving his tray along the smoothly polished metal guide, selected stuffed bell peppers, diced carrots, fried eggplant, pineapple-cottage-cheese salad and a pot of coffee. He moved over to a table for two by the window and settled himself for a leisurely lunch.