“It looks like it,” Mason commented, the beam of his flashlight playing around on the ground.
“She couldn’t have dragged the other woman very far,” Della Street said. “Not in the brief time she had.”
Mason sent the beam of the flashlight in questing semicircles over the wet grass.
“Well,” Mason said at length, “it’s pretty certain that this other woman either recovered consciousness and walked off, or else someone came for her and carried her off. In the brief interval that elapsed from the time you left the automobile and started for the house, Ansley, and then returned to find the young woman struggling to a sitting position, a body could hardly have been dragged more than a few yards. Unless, of course, there were three people in the automobile, and one person continued to drag the body over the wet grass while the other one spread herself out to decoy you back.”
“Do you think that could have happened?”
“It could have,” Mason said, “but I doubt it. In the first place, there are lots of heel tracks in the wet soil there around the automobile, but we don’t find any others after that.”
“Miss Street isn’t making any heel tracks where she’s walking,” Ansley pointed out.
“Because she’s not dragging anything,” Mason said. “If she were trying to drag a body, she’d leave tracks.”
“So what do I do now?” Ansley asked.
“We’ll take a look inside of the automobile, then we’ll take one more quick look in the immediate vicinity. If we don’t find someone lying here unconscious or wandering around in a dazed condition, we get in the car and you go home and forget it.”
Mason turned his flashlight on the interior of the car. “There doesn’t seem to be anything there,” he said, “and I don’t want to leave finger-prints on it, making a detailed search.”
He moved the beam of the flashlight around the interior of the car.
“What about the car being stolen?” Ansley asked.
“I’ll let Paul Drake tell the police that a client of mine saw a car skid off the road and overturn, that he happened to remember the license number of the car, that it was driven by a young woman who gave the name of Beatrice Cornell, that she said she was unhurt, that he picked her up and took her to her home at the Ancordia Apartments. I’ll state that I was consulted simply because my client wanted to know whether it was necessary to report the accident to the police. That will be the truth, perhaps not all the truth, but it covers the essential facts. I’ll make it appear a routine matter, and the police may let it drop at that.”
“Suppose they don’t?”
“Then,” Mason said, “I’ll protect you as much as I can as long as I can.”
“That suits me,” Ansley said. “Let’s go. This place gives me the willies. I feel shut in.”
“Yes,” Mason agreed. “Wandering around these grounds at night with a flashlight without permission puts us in a questionable position. We—”
He broke off as an electric gong sounded a strident warning.
“What’s that?” Ansley asked apprehensively.
“I don’t know,” Mason said. “It may be we’ve set off an alarm. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Which direction is your car?” Ansley asked.
“This way,” Mason said. “Now, let’s keep together. Della, hang onto my coat. Ansley, keep at my right hand.”
A peculiar whirring sound came from the darkness ahead. As they came through the hedge, they heard the clang of metal. The flashlight disclosed that the heavy iron gates had shut. A lock clicked.
“Now what?” Ansley asked in dismay. “We’ll have to go to the house to have the gates opened for us.”
Mason went to the gates, studied the lock.
Ansley reached for the gates.
“Don’t touch them,” Mason warned. “There may be a—”
The warning came too late. Ansley pulled at the gates. Almost instantly a siren screamed from someplace in the yard. Big floodlights came on, dispersing the shadows in a blaze of light.
Suddenly they heard the barking of a dog.
“Come on,” Mason said, breaking into a run and dashing through the break in the hedge. The others followed his lead.
The brick wall loomed ahead of them.
The barking dog had now been joined by another dog, and the frenzy of barking was drawing unmistakably closer.
“All right,” Mason said, “there’s only one way out of this fix. Della, we’re boosting you up the wall. Help me put her up, Ansley, then I can give you a boost to the top of the wall. Then you can help me up. Here, take off your coat.”
Mason whipped off his own coat and threw it up over the broken glass at the top of the wall. Ansley, after a moment, followed suit.
“Come on,” Mason said, picking Della Street up in his arms. Then, cupping his hand under her foot, said, “Put a hand on my head, reach up to the top of the wall. Be sure to grab the coat. Straighten your knees. Keep your legs rigid. Up you go.”
Mason boosted Della Street up to the wall. “Watch your hands,” he warned. “Keep the coats between you and the glass and barbed wire.
“All right, Ansley, you try it. Della, give him a hand. Ansley, put your foot here on my leg. Now get your hip up on my shoulder. Hold your legs rigid as soon as I get hold of your feet and ankles. Then after I’ve raised you, you can— We’re going to have to hurry.”
Ansley scrambled up, extended a hand to Della Street.
“Careful now,” Mason warned. “Don’t pull Della off. Let me give you a shove.”
The lawyer pushed Ansley up, then caught his shoes and said, “Straighten your legs now. That’s it! Get hold— All right, quick! You’re going to have to grab me — both of you.”
Della Street, crouched on the wall, reached down a hand. Ansley did likewise. Mason caught the two hands and jumped. They slowly straightened, pulling the lawyer up to where he could get his feet on the wall. Mason had no sooner reached the top of the wall than a dark object came streaking out of the dazzling light to hurl itself against the wall, leaping almost to the top.
“Doberman pinscher,” Mason said, “and he’s trained for this sort of stuff. Come on, let’s get down on the other side. We lower Della first, Ansley. Then you and I make a jump for it.”
The dog was jumping up against the wall, snapping his teeth in an ecstasy of rage, coming within a matter of inches of the feet of the trio as they stood on the wall.
Della Street backed over the edge of the wall. Mason and Ansley lowered her.
“Go ahead, jump,” Mason said to Ansley. “It isn’t over six feet.”
Ansley placed a hand on the folded coats, vaulted to the ground. Mason followed.
“What about your coats?” Della Street asked.
Mason said, “I’ll lift you on my shoulders. Try to salvage the coats. You won’t be able to keep from tearing them when you pull them loose, but try not to leave enough for evidence. We’ll have to hurry! Those confounded lights will make us the most conspicuous objects on the highway.”
Mason picked up Della Street. “All right,” he said, “straighten your knees, Della. Don’t get panicky and don’t scratch your hands.”
“I can help hold her,” Ansley said, “if—”
“No. You get the coats as she hands them down,” Mason said. “This is all right. I can hold her.”
Della Street worked at the garments. “They’re pretty badly tangled on the barbed wire,” she said.
“Tear them loose,” Mason said, “a car’s coming.”
The dog continued its frenzied barking from the other side of the wall. Della Street glanced down the highway at the headlights which were coming through the rain-swept darkness, tugged at the coats, got them loose, tossed them to Ansley, then said, “Okay, Chief, I’ll slide down.”
A moment later she was on the ground.