Dick Basset, bending tenderly over the young woman on the couch, exclaimed, "Good God!"
The girl opened her eyes. Dick kissed her, and she let one of her arms slide around his neck. She talked with him in a low voice. A moment later Dick Basset gently disengaged her arm, and turned to face them.
"It wasn't Hartley who hit her," he said.
"It must have been," Mrs. Basset insisted. "She must be delirious. I came as far as the outer office with her. I knew Hartley was alone."
Dick Basset said, excitedly, "It wasn't Hartley. Hazel didn't even talk with him. She knocked at that door to Dad's office. There was no answer. She opened the door and the office was empty. She crossed the office and knocked at the door of the inner office. Dad opened the door. Someone was with him. She couldn't see who it was. The man had his back to her. Dad told her he was busy, to go back and sit down.
"She waited almost ten minutes. Then that door opened. A man reached through and turned out the lights. He started to run through the office, saw her, and turned. Light from the inner office struck his face.
"She saw the black mask and the eyes through the black mask. One of the eye sockets was empty. She screamed. He struck at her. She tore off the mask. It was a oneeyed man she'd never seen before in her life. He cursed her and clubbed her with a blackjack. She lost consciousness."
"Only had one eye?" Sylvia Basset cried. "Dick, there's some mistake!" Her voice rose as though with hysteria.
"Only one eye," Dick Basset repeated. "Isn't that right, Hazel?"
The young woman nodded slowly.
"What happened to the mask?" Mason asked.
"She tore it off. It was a paper mask—black paper."
Mason, down on his hands and knees, pulled a sheet of carbon paper from the floor. Eye holes had been cut in it, one corner was torn off. The paper was ripped down the center.
"That's it," she said. She struggled to a sitting position, then got to her feet.
"I saw his face." She swayed. The redheaded woman stretched out a muscular arm just a second too late. The girl pitched forward, throwing her hands in front of her. The palms rested against the diamondshaped plate glass panel of the outer door. The redheaded woman shifted her grip, picked the younger woman up as though she had been a doll, and laid her back on the couch.
"Oh, my God," moaned the young woman.
Mason bent over her, solicitously. "All right?" he asked.
She smiled wanly. "I guess so. I got dizzy when I got up, but I'm all right now."
"This man had one eye?" Mason asked.
"Yes," she said, her voice growing stronger.
"No, no!" Sylvia Basset said, her voice almost a moan.
"Let her tell it," Dick Basset said savagely. "Everyone else keep out of it."
"Did he hit you more than once?" Mason asked.
"I think so. I don't remember."
"Do you know whether he went out this front door?"
"No."
"Did you hear him drive away?"
"I don't know, I tell you. He hit me and everything turned black."
"Let her alone, can't you?" Dick Basset said to Perry Mason. "She isn't a witness on the witness stand."
Perry Mason strode toward the door which led to the inner office. He reached his hand to the knob, then hesitated a moment, drew back his hand, and took a handkerchief from his pocket. He wrapped the handkerchief around his fingers before he turned the knob. The door swung slowly inward. The room was just as he had seen it the first time. A light in the ceiling gave a brilliant, but indirect, illumination.
Mason crossed to the door of the inner office. It, too, was closed. Once more he fitted a handkerchief in his hand and turned the knob. The room was dark.
"Anyone know where the light switch is here?" Mason asked.
"I do," Mrs. Basset said. She entered the room, and, a moment later, the lights clicked on.
Mrs. Basset gave a half scream of startled terror. Perry Mason, standing in the doorway, stiffened to immobility. Dick Basset exclaimed, "Good God! What's that?"
Hartley Basset lay face down on the floor. A blanket and a quilt, folded together, partially covered his head. His arms were outstretched. The right hand was tightly closed. A pool of red had seeped out from his head, soaked up by the blanket and quilt on the one side and the carpet on the other. A portable typewriter was on the desk in front of him, and a sheet of paper was in the machine, approximately half of it being covered by typewritten lines.
"Keep back, everyone," Perry Mason said. "Don't touch anything."
He stepped cautiously forward, keeping his hands behind his back. He bent over the corpse and read the paper which was in the typewriter.
"This," he said, "seems to be a suicide note. But it can't be suicide, because there's no gun here."
"Read it aloud," Dick Basset said in an excited voice. "Let's hear what's in the note. What reason does he give for committing suicide?"
Perry Mason read in a low monotone:
I am going to end it all. I am a failure. I have made money, but I have lost the respect of all of my associates. I have never been able to make friends or to hold friends. Now I find that I cannot even hold the respect and love or even the friendship of my own wife. The young man who is supposed to be my son and has taken my name hates me bitterly. I have suddenly come to the realization that no matter how selfsufficient a man may think he is, he cannot stand alone. The time comes when he realizes that he must be surrounded by those who care something for him if he is going to be able to exist. I am a rich man in money, and a bankrupt in love. Recently something has happened which I do not need to put on paper, but which convinces me of the futility of trying to hold the love of the woman who is the dearest thing in the world to me. I have, therefore, decided to end it all, if I can get nerve enough to pull the trigger. If I can get nerve enough… if I can get nerve enough…
"He's got something in his hand," Dick Basset said. Perry Mason leaned down, hesitated a moment, then pried the fingers slightly apart.
A glass eye, clutched in the dead hand, stared redly at them, unwinking, evil.
Mrs. Basset gasped.
Perry Mason whirled to her.
"What does that eye mean to you?" he asked.
"Nnnnothing."
"Come on. Come clean. What does it mean to you?"
Dick Basset pressed forward. "Look here," he said, "you can't talk to my mother that way."
Mason waved him away with a gesture of his hand.
"Keep out of this," he said. "What does that eye mean to you?"
"Nothing," she said, more defiantly this time.
Mason turned toward the door.
"Well," he said, "I guess there's no further need for my services."
She clutched his sleeve in frenzy.
"Please," she said. "Please! You've got to see me through this."
"Are you going to tell me the truth?"
"Yes," she said, "but not now—not here."
Dick Basset moved toward the dead man.
"I want to see," he said, "what…"
Perry Mason took his shoulder, spun him around, and pushed him out through the door.
"Turn out the lights, Mrs. Basset," he said.
She switched out the lights. "Oh, I've dropped my handkerchief'" she said. "Does it make any difference?"
"You bet it makes a difference," Perry Mason said. "Get your handkerchief and get out."
She groped around for a few moments. Perry Mason stood impatiently in the doorway. She came toward him.
"I have it," she breathed, clinging to his arm. "You must protect me, and we've both got to protect Dick. Tell me…"
He broke away from her, jerked the door closed behind them, and crossed the other office to the entrance room.
The woman who had been on the couch was now standing. Her face was dead white. Her lips made an attempt at a smile. Mason faced her.