"After the murder!" Della Street exclaimed triumphantly.
"Now you're getting it," he told her. "The mask must have been an afterthought. But the quilt and blanket to muffle the gun weren't. They show premeditated deliberation. The mask shows haste."
"Why should a murderer mask himself after he'd committed a crime?" she asked.
"To get away, of course. The Fenwick girl saw a man sitting in Basset's office. His back was toward her. Basset told her to wait. She was sitting in the reception room, waiting. The man who was with Basset knew that."
"Then he put on the mask only to enable him to escape," she said.
"Looks that way. But why didn't he go out by the back way? Then he wouldn't have needed a mask. But if the man who prepared that mask in the first place was the man who wore it out of the room, why did he tear out an eye hole for his blind eye? Why didn't he tear out just the one eye hole?"
She shook her head and said, "That's getting too deep for me. How do you know Basset didn't put up a fight?"
"From the way the body fell, for one thing," he said, "and because he had a gun suspended from a spring shoulder holster under his left armpit. He hadn't gone for that gun."
"Then that makes three guns that were in the room," she said.
"Three guns," he told her, moodily.
"And you don't know yet which one actually did the killing?"
"Ten to one," he told her, "it's the gun that has my fingerprints on it… How long ago did Paul Drake leave?"
"He gave me the eyes after I'd been in the office about ten minutes. It couldn't have been over fifteen minutes ago."
"He'll be down at the Red Lion," Mason said, "having a drink with some of the newspaper chaps. See if you can get him on the telephone."
"Going to report your car as stolen?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"It'll turn up somewhere."
Della Street, who had been whirring the dial of the telephone, said, in her sweetest voice, "A client wishes to speak with Paul Drake. Is he there?"
A moment later she said, "Hello, Paul. Just a minute, the Chief wants to speak with you."
Mason took the telephone.
"Paul," he said, "take a pencil and make a note of this. Hartley Basset—Basset Auto Loan Company—a financier, money lender, and, perhaps, a fence. I want to get every bit of dope on him that you can pick up.
"He committed suicide tonight, and he left a suicide note in his typewriter. The newspaper boys will have photographs. I want prints of those photographs. I want the lowdown on Mrs. Basset and her son—a fellow by the name of Dick Basset. Hartley Basset, by the way, isn't the boy's father. I want to find out why the kid didn't keep his father's name. Now, here's another one. Peter Brunold, 3902 Washington Street. In case you don't know it, he's the man who matches up with the six eyes you got. I want all the dope on him. I want the fastest work I can get. I don't care how many men you put on the job. But get them started. Burn up the wires."
Paul Drake's voice, sounding over the telephone as though he were about to chuckle, said, "I like the casual way you mention the fact that it's suicide, Perry. I'm betting five to one it's murder, and I don't even know the facts."
"Shut up," Mason told him, grinning, "and turn that searchlight mind of yours on something that's going to bring shekels into the cash register."
He dropped the receiver back into place just as the knob of the door turned. Pete Brunold pushed his way through the door. He was puffing, and his forehead was beaded with perspiration. He glanced at his wristwatch and nodded with satisfaction.
"Made a record run of it, even if the taxi driver did…"
He broke off as he stared at the assortment of eyes on the desk.
"What are those?" he asked.
"Take a look at them," Mason told him.
Brunold examined the eyes carefully.
"Pretty good," he said. "They're darn good."
"Found the original eye yet?" Mason asked casually, as though he were making preliminary conversation.
Brunold shook his head and stared at Della Street.
Della Street pulled the fur coat about her legs. "How'd you like to get your eye back?" Mason inquired.
"I'd like it."
Della Street replaced the glass eyes in the box, surreptitiously slid a notebook into position on her knee, crossed her legs, and started taking notes.
"I think I can get your eye for you," Mason said. "Or, I can tell you how you can get it."
"How?"
"All you have to do," Perry Mason said, "is to take a taxicab, go to Hartley Basset's house at 9682 Franklin Street. You'll find some police there. Tell them that you think your eye is in the place and you want to identify it. They'll take you into a room. Hartley Basset will be lying on the floor with a bullet hole in his head. Something is clasped in his right hand. They'll pry the fingers apart. You'll see a bloodshot eye staring up at you from…"
Brunold recoiled momentarily, then recovered possession of himself, and picked up a cigarette from the humidor on the desk. The hand which conveyed the match to the cigarette was shaking.
"What makes you think it's my eye?"
"It looks like it."
Brunold said slowly, "That's what I was afraid of. Someone stole that eye and left a counterfeit. I wanted to get the original. I was afraid it would show up in some situation that would be like this. This is ghastly. This is simply awful!"
"Surprised?" Mason inquired.
"Of course I'm surprised… Look here, you don't think that I went out there and killed the guy and then stuck my eye in his hand? I couldn't have done it if I'd wanted to. I didn't have the eye. I told you this morning someone had stolen it and left a counterfeit in its place."
"Did you know Hartley Basset?" Mason inquired.
Brunold hesitated, then said, "No, I didn't know him. I'd never met him."
"Know his wife?"
"I've met her—that is… Yes, I know her."
"Know the boy?"
"Dick—er—Basset?"
"Yes."
"Well, yes, I'd seen Dick, met him, you know."
"You knew Harry McLane, who had been working for Basset."
"Yes."
"Where'd you meet him—out at Basset's place?"
"Out there. He was acting as assistant secretary and stenographer. I met him—once."
"Didn't he ever introduce you to Basset?"
"No."
"Did you ever see Hartley Basset?"
"No… I never saw him. I knew of him, of course."
"What do you mean by that?"
Brunold fidgeted uncomfortably.
"Look here," he said. "You're not doing this to sweat me, are you? This isn't a third degree stunt? You wouldn't kid me about Basset being dead?"
Perry Mason tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail.
"Certainly not."
"Well," Brunold said, "I may as well tell you the truth. I knew his wife, quite well—that is, I'd seen her several times."
"How long had you known her?"
"Not very long."
"Was the friendship platonic, or otherwise?"
"Platonic."
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"About two weeks ago, I think."
"If she thought you were drifting away from her," Mason said bluntly, "would she be above building up a case against you?"
Brunold nearly dropped his cigarette. "Good God," he said, "what do you mean?"
"I mean just what I said, Brunold. Suppose that you'd had a fight with Mrs. Basset. Suppose her husband committed suicide. Suppose she thought you were in love with some other woman and thought you were going to leave her. Would it be at all probable that she'd try to make it seem that her husband hadn't committed suicide, but had been murdered, and that you were implicated in the murder?"