As the police car drove away, Mason said to the other operatives, “All right, boys, rush back and get those pictures developed. I want each man to keep track of his own pictures he took so we can identify them.”
Mason watched them drive away, then went back into the cabin and grinned at Lando.
“How did I do?” Lando asked.
“Okay,” Mason said.
“It was a lot of action there for a minute. Those flashlights certainly do blind a man.”
“We’ll change overcoats now,” Mason said. “This black one isn’t quite as good a fit. The tan one, I think, will be more comfortable. The car from the Blade should be here... Let’s see what this one is.”
Headlights shone down the long driveway, as a car approached the cabin.
Lando went to the door and looked out.
A man’s voice said, “We’re from the Blade. We want to interview Mr. Mason.”
“What are you talking about?” Lando asked.
“Oh, let them come in,” Mason said. “If they’ve located me here they’re entitled to an interview. We can’t dodge them.”
A newspaper reporter and a photographer entered the cabin.
“Hello, Mr. Mason,” the reporter said.
“Hello,” Mason said, grinning.
“You’ve been leading the cops quite a chase, haven’t you?”
The photographer raised his camera, a flash blazed into brilliance.
Mason said, “I’m working on a case. I’m not letting everyone know where I am, but I’m not dodging the police. In fact, the police were here not over ten minutes ago. You want another picture? Sergeant Holcomb was out here — with Goshen.”
They wanted more pictures and then asked Mason to pose in the doorway.
“And also coming out of the cabin,” the photographer said.
The photographer stood in the yard. Mason opened the door, emerged from the cabin, holding his hat slightly to one side of his face.
“That’s swell,” the photographer said. “Looks as though you’d been trying to dodge a picture and I’d slipped around to the side and got a good one.”
The reporter said, “We’d like to know more about this case, Mr. Mason, and...”
“Sorry, I have no comment to make on the case.”
The reporter looked at his watch. “I guess that does it. Come on, Jack, let’s rush these pictures back and get them developed. You say Holcomb was out here?”
“That’s right He’ll give you details on the phone.”
Chapter 23
At noon the next day, Mason, working casually and unconcernedly in his office, received word that Lieutenant Tragg was once more a visitor.
Tragg followed on the heels of Gertie as she made the announcement.
“Pardon me for not waiting in the outer office,” Tragg said, “but you have such a habit of slipping out of doors and things, and hiding in packing cases...”
Mason, a stack of morning papers on his desk, said irritably, “Damn it, Tragg, I don’t know how that rumor got started.”
“Well, the Blade certainly had a scoop,” Tragg said. “Guess you had quite a time out there, didn’t you?”
“Oh, so-so.”
“You knew that Goshen identified you?”
“Did he?”
“Absolutely. He saw you walk and he saw you run.”
Tragg settled himself comfortably in the chair. “Now look, Mason,” he said, “you have a lot at stake. Don’t let this two-timing little bitch get you into a position where your professional career is ruined.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Well, then, come clean.”
Mason said, “It’s just as I’ve told you, Tragg. You’re a square shooter, but there are people in the district attorney’s office who have been laying for me. They’d do anything on earth to get me.”
“Well, they’ve got you now.”
“Then let them prove it.”
“They just might surprise you.”
“On the other hand, I might surprise them. How did Sergeant Holcomb find out where I was last night?”
“I don’t know,” Tragg said. “Frankly, that was what I wanted to ask you about. Holcomb claims it was the result of some damn fine detective work. I had an idea it might — just might, you understand, have been the result of a tip-off.”
“The Blade had a clean scoop. You don’t suppose...”
“No. Holcomb’s sore as hell at the Blade.”
“Why?”
“Well, they didn’t use pictures of him. They only had pictures of you giving an interview in the cottage after he’d left, and pictures of you coming out of the door trying to hold your hat in front of your face.”
“I know exactly how he feels,” Mason said. “Only I don’t care about having my picture in the paper.”
Tragg grinned. “Holcomb does.”
“Is that so?”
“You know damn well it’s so. He’s been all over town buying papers, and he’s intimating he made good on the job after I fell down.”
Mason said, “That’s leading with his chin.”
Tragg looked long and searchingly at Perry Mason. “There’s something about Holcomb’s account of that thing that doesn’t jibe.”
“Is that particularly unusual?”
“I’m not commenting about what he says about his detective work. I’m referring to what he says about the photographers.”
“Oh?”
“According to Holcomb there were photographers all over the place.”
Mason lit a cigarette. “Well,” he said, “Sergeant Holcomb is a trained observer. He should know.”
“But no reporters,” Tragg went on, “only photographers. Now when you stop to think of it, that’s peculiar.”
Mason blew smoke at the ceiling.
“Moreover, with that number of photographers every newspaper in town should have had a picture. Only the Blade carried the story.”
“The trouble with Sergeant Holcomb,” Mason observed, his eyes following the spiral of smoke which eddied up from his cigarette, “is that he hypnotizes himself, because he always wants the facts to be his way. I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed it, Lieutenant, but Sergeant Holcomb will get an idea, then he tries to make the facts fit that idea.”
Tragg studied Mason with cautious, speculative eyes. He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, lit the cigar, and said, “I’m sorry I can’t promise you immunity all the way through the D. A.’s office.”
“I know,” Mason said.
“The way things look now,” Tragg said, “they’ve already charged Lucille Barton with murder. They’ll rush her up for a preliminary, and hold everything else in abeyance.”
“Uh huh.”
“Ready to close in on the others,” Tragg went on, “when the situation becomes a little more clarified, as it will at the preliminary hearing. You probably know you’re the one they’re laying for.”
“I thought they’d take me in this morning,” Mason said. “In fact, I thought that was why you were coming here. I was getting my business cleaned up a bit and...”
“There have been complicating circumstances,” Tragg said, grinning.
“What are they?”
“Hollister’s automobile, for one.”
“No trace of Hollister?”
“Not so far. It’s only due to luck we found the car. It could have stayed there for a month or two.”
“No trace of Dudley Gates?”
“Dudley Gates heard we were looking for him and telephoned us. He’s in Honolulu. He’d rushed over by plane on a business deal. He tells a straightforward story, but it deepens the mystery on Hollister. Gates was planning to go with Hollister on Monday afternoon, but he had to change his plans on a few minutes’ notice. He says he was supposed to go with Hollister leaving at six o’clock Monday night, but that afternoon an urgent matter came up and he suddenly decided to fly to San Francisco, and then take a plane to Honolulu. He says he’d previously advised Hollister and Hollister had talked with him in San Francisco at about quarter of five. A check of Hollister’s phone records shows that’s right. He called Gates at the airport in San Francisco and had him paged. Gates said Hollister told him he was going to leave Santa del Barra within an hour.”