“Then we’ll have made the offer,” Mason told him. “Up to this time, it’s your word against hers. Now I’ll call up as your attorney, and she’ll refuse to see a doctor and that will be that.”
Mason nodded to Della Street. “Look up Beatrice Cornell, Della. See if she has a phone listed. If she doesn’t, we’ll have to get her through the Ancordia Apartments.”
Della Street nodded, pushed back her chair and went to the telephone booth.
A moment later she beckoned Perry Mason, and, when the lawyer crossed over to the booth, Della said, “May I speak with Miss Beatrice Cornell, please? Yes... This is Miss Street. I’m the secretary for Mr. Perry Mason, the attorney. He wants to talk with you... Yes, Perry Mason... No, I’m not fooling. Will you hold the line a moment, please...? Yes... My name is Street. S-t-r-e-e-t. I’m speaking for Mr. Mason. He’s right here. Will you hold the line, please?”
Mason stepped into the booth. “Miss Cornell?” he asked into the telephone.
“Yes.”
“I’m Perry Mason, the lawyer.”
“Say, just what sort of a gag is this?” the voice on the line demanded.
“I thought I’d heard them all, but this is a new one.”
“And why does it have to be a gag?” Mason asked.
The voice over the telephone was pleasing to the ear, but an element of humorous skepticism was quite apparent. “My friends,” she said, “know of my admiration for Mr. Mason. I make no secret of it and I suppose this is someone’s idea of a gag. But go right ahead. I’ll ride along with it. Let’s suppose that you’re Mr. Perry Mason, the attorney, and I’m the Queen of Sheba. Where do we go from here?”
“As it happens,” Mason said, “I’m calling you on behalf of a client.”
The voice suddenly lost its humorous skepticism and took on a note of genuine curiosity. “The name of the client?”
“George Ansley,” Mason said. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Should it?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t.”
“He is the one who took you home a short time ago.”
“Took me home?”
“From the automobile accident.”
“What automobile accident are you talking about, Mr. Mason?”
“The accident in which your car was overturned. You have a Cadillac, I believe, the license CVX 266?”
She laughed. “I am a working girl, Mr. Mason. I haven’t had a car for several years. All I have is an interest or an equity or whatever you want to call it in the public buses. I have been here in my apartment all evening, reading, as it happens, a mystery story, and hardly anticipating that I was going to be called in connection with one.”
“And you live at the Ancordia Apartments?”
“That’s right.”
“Miss Cornell, this may be a matter of some importance. Would you mind giving me a physical description of yourself?”
“Why should I?” she asked.
“Because, as I told you, it may be a matter of some importance. I think perhaps someone has been using your name.”
She hesitated a moment, then said, “I’ll give you the description that appears on my driving license, acting on the assumption that perhaps this is Mr. Perry Mason. I am thirty-three years of age, I am brunette, my eyes are dark, I am five feet, four inches in height, I weigh 122 pounds, and I’m trying to take off five of those pounds. Now, is there anything else I can tell you?”
“Thank you,” Mason said, “you have been of the greatest help. I am afraid someone has been using your name. Do you know anyone who might have used your name?”
“No.”
“Someone perhaps who lives in the same apartment house?”
“I know of no one, Mr. Mason... Tell me, is this on the level? Is this really on the up-and-up?”
“It is,” Mason said. “A young woman was in an automobile accident earlier this evening. Mr. Ansley offered to drive her home. She gave him the name of Beatrice Cornell, the address of the Ancordia Apartments. This man drove her to that address. She thanked him and went in.”
“Can you describe her?”
Mason, suddenly cautious, said, “I haven’t as yet checked on her physical description with my client, but I might be able to call you back later on. Say perhaps tomorrow sometime.”
“I wish you would,” she said. “I’m very curious, and if this is really the Perry Mason with whom I’m talking, please accept my apologies for my initial skepticism. May I say that this was due to the fact that all my friends know I am a fan of yours. I have followed your legal adventures with considerable interest and enjoy reading about your cases in the newspapers.”
“Thanks a lot,” Mason told her. “I’m honored.”
“I’m the one that’s honored,” she said.
“You’ll probably hear from me later,” Mason told her. “Good night.”
Mason hung up the phone, frowned at Della Street, said, “Ring up Paul Drake at the Drake Detective Agency, Della. Ask him to get busy at once on a car having the license plates of CVX 266. I want to find out about it fast. I’ll go back and rejoin Ansley.”
“Well?” Ansley asked as Mason returned to the table.
Mason smiled. “She says she wasn’t in any automobile accident, that she’s been home all evening, that she doesn’t know what it’s all about. The description, according to her driving license, is age, thirty-three, brunette, dark eyes, height, five-feet-four, weight, 122 pounds.”
Ansley frowned. “I don’t think the woman in the car could have been more than thirty. I’d say maybe twenty-eight. That weight is a little heavy, and I’m quite certain the hair was reddish brown. I... well, I just don’t know.”
“What about the height?”
“That’s another thing. I think she was more than five feet, four inches. Of course, I don’t remember all the details. She jumped in the car and then I—”
“But she was standing alongside of you,” Mason said. “What happened when you said good night?”
“I kissed her.”
“All right,” Mason said, “get a visual recall of that event. How was she when you kissed her? Did she tilt her chin up, or was her face more nearly on a level with yours? How tall are you?”
“Five-feet-eleven.”
“All right. Did you bend over when you kissed her?”
“Slightly.”
“You think five-feet-four is about the right height?”
“I... I’d say she was taller. I saw her legs, and they seemed to be... well, they were long legs.”
“Slender or chunky?”
“Well formed. I... I suppose I should be ashamed of myself, but when that flashlight gave its last flicker of light and showed her lying there, I realized how beautiful a woman’s legs can be. I thought there were lots of them — the legs I mean.”
“You would, under the circumstances,” Mason said. “You were standing at her feet and looking up. The legs would look longer under those circumstances. Your best way to estimate her height is how she stood when she was close to you and you were kissing her good night. Was she wearing shoes with fairly high heels?”
“Let me think,” Ansley said, frowning.
“Oh-oh!” Mason said. “Here’s Della with something important.” Della Street came hurrying toward the table from the phone booth.
“What?” Mason asked as he saw the expression on her face.
“Paul Drake took a short cut on getting the ownership of that automobile,” she said. “I told him you were in a hurry so he decided to work through a friend in police headquarters.”
“And what happened?” Mason asked.
“CVX 266,” she said, “is the license number of a Cadillac sedan that was stolen about two hours ago. The police have broadcast a description, hoping they could pick up the car. It seems it belongs to someone rather important and was stolen from the place where it had been parked at some social function. Quite naturally, when Paul Drake telephoned in and asked for the registration report on a Cadillac, CVX 266, and the man at Headquarters found out that the car was hot and police were trying to locate it, you can imagine what happened.”