“Della Street was one,” Tragg said.
Mason said nothing.
“The other fellow probably was a contractor by the name of George Ansley,” Tragg observed.
Again Mason was silent.
“And you didn’t know Borden had been killed?”
“Not until this morning.”
“All right,” Tragg said. “You’ve been out hunting witnesses. What witnesses?”
“Frankly, I was trying to find the driver of the automobile that had turned over in the Borden grounds.”
“You had Paul Drake looking for that last night. The car was stolen.”
“So I understand.”
“You’re not offering me much information.”
“I’m answering questions.”
“Why don’t you talk and then let me ask the questions?”
“I prefer it this way.”
Tragg said impatiently, “You’re playing hard to get, Mason. You’re letting me drag everything out of you. The idea is that you aren’t trying to tell me what you know, but are trying to find out how much or how little I know so you can govern yourself accordingly.”
“From my standpoint,” Mason asked, “what would you do?”
“In this case,” Tragg said, “I’d start talking.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Tragg told him, “whether you’re aware of it or not, I’m giving you a break. When I get done talking with you, I’m going to move over to that telephone, call Homicide and tell them that there’s no need to get a subpoena for Perry Mason, that I’ve had a very nice, friendly chat with him and he’s given me his story.”
Mason’s face showed slight surprise. “You’d do that for me?” he asked.
“I’d do that for you,” Tragg said.
“This isn’t a gag?”
“It’s not a gag. What the hell do you think I’m here for?”
“Sure,” Mason said, “you’re here, but you’ve got a couple of plain-clothes men scattered around. And, by the time the D.A. releases the story to the newspapers, it will be to the effect that Perry Mason was run to earth by clever detective work on the part of Lt. Tragg of the Homicide Squad.”
“I’m handing it to you straight,” Tragg said. “I looked at your modus operandi card, I got the name of this cafeteria, I felt there was a chance you’d be here, I came out entirely on my own. No one knows where I am. I simply said I was going out to lunch. As far as I know, there isn’t a plain-clothes man within a mile.”
Mason studied Tragg’s face for a moment, then said, “If you have any information that will give you the identity of my client, you’ll have to rely on that. I’m not going to admit the identity of my client right at the moment. I’ll tell you the rest of it.
“Della Street and I were having dinner. It was a little after ten o’clock. This man came up to us, he told us that an hour earlier a car had swung past him and overturned in the grounds of Meridith Borden, that the license number was CVX 266, that it had apparently been driven by a young woman who was injured.
“He had a flashlight. As it turned out, the batteries were on their last legs. He got out and walked around the front of the overturned car. He found a woman who had evidently been thrown out and had skidded along on the wet grass. He was looking at lots of legs. She was still alive but unconscious. He didn’t dare to move her because he knew that might not be the thing to do. He started toward the house and then heard a call for help behind him. He turned and groped his way back through the darkness. Apparently, the woman had regained consciousness. He helped her to her feet, she said there were no bones broken, she was bruised, that was all, and suggested he drive her home.
“He drove her home. That is, he drove her to the address she gave.
“After I questioned him about it, and he began to think things over, there were things that made me suspicious there might have been two young women in the car, that when my client started toward the house the other passenger, who may or may not have been the driver of the car, had pulled the unconscious woman along the wet grass into a position of concealment against the wall, and then had taken her place and had started calling for help.”
“Why?” Tragg asked.
“Apparently so my client wouldn’t go up to the house.”
Tragg took the cigar out of his mouth, inspected the end with thoughtful concentration, then returned the cigar, puffed on it a few times, slowly nodded his head, and said, “That might check. What did you do this morning?”
Mason said, “I tried to find out who the young woman was.”
“What did you find out?”
“I went to the address where my client had left her.”
“What was the address?”
Mason thought for a moment, then said, “The Ancordia Apartments. The woman had given him the name of Beatrice Cornell. There was a Beatrice Cornell registered. She’s some kind of a talent agent and has a telephone-answering service. A lot of people know about her and she has a lot of clients. She says she wasn’t out of the apartment yesterday evening, and I’m inclined to believe her.”
“Go ahead,” Tragg said.
Mason said, “I came to the conclusion that this young woman had given the name of Beatrice Cornell, that she had gone to the apartment house where she knew Beatrice Cornell lived, had rung Beatrice Cornell’s doorbell so as to be admitted, had kissed my client good night, then—”
“That cordial already?” Tragg interrupted.
“Be your age, Lieutenant,” Mason said.
Tragg grinned. “That’s the trouble, I am. Go ahead.”
“She went in the apartment house, seated herself in the lobby, waited until my client had driven away, then called a cab and left the place.”
“So what did you do?”
“I got Beatrice Cornell to show me her list of pin-up models — girls who rent themselves out at twenty dollars an hour to art photographers.”
“In the nude?” Tragg asked.
“I would so assume,” Mason said. “Not from the models, but from some of the calendars I’ve seen. However, it’s legal and artistic. They’re nude but not naked, if you get what I mean.”
“It’s always been a fine distinction as far as I’m personally concerned,” Tragg said, “but I know the law makes it. Go on, what happened?”
“I found a young woman who seemed to answer the description.”
“How?”
“By a process of elimination.”
“Such as what?”
Mason grinned and said, “Looking for a girl with a bruised hip.”
“Well, that’s logic,” Tragg said. “You make a pretty damned good detective for a lawyer. What happened?”
“I got this young woman to come out to Beatrice Cornell’s apartment. I paid her for two hours’ time and her taxi fare. I asked her questions and she told her story.”
“Which was?”
“That she had been at a party, that she had gone alone and was planning to return via taxicab, that when she went to the curb to pick up a cab, the party who was driving this Cadillac with the license number CVX 266 pulled in to the curb, seemed to know her by name, and acted as though they had met. This woman offered the girl, Dawn Manning, a ride home. She accepted it.
“The woman driving the car said she wanted to stop just for a moment to leave something with a man she knew, and started to turn into Borden’s driveway. Another car was coming out—”
“Your client’s?” Tragg asked sharply.
Mason said doggedly, “I’m giving you Dawn Manning’s story. She said a car was coming out; that she had known Meridith Borden and didn’t like his style; that her ex-husband was associated with Borden; that apparently they had wanted to use her in some sort of a badger game to trap a politician; for that reason her husband had delayed finishing up the divorce action. Dawn Manning wouldn’t go for it, so naturally she didn’t want to be taken into the Borden place; she pulled at the wheel; the Cadillac went into a spin, skidded, grazed the bumper of the other car, crashed through the hedge and that was all she remembered.