Brunold turned toward Perry Mason, and said, "Look here, Counselor, you've got to…"
Holcomb nodded to the two men. They jerked Brunold to the door.
"Oh, no, you don't," Holcomb said. "You've had your little chat."
"You can't keep me from talking with a lawyer!" Brunold bellowed.
"Oh, no," Sergeant Holcomb said; "after you've been booked and placed in jail, you've got a right to call for a lawyer—but a lot's going to happen between now and then."
The men pushed Brunold through the door. He hung back and tried to struggle. Handcuffs flashed. Metal clicked. Brunold was jerked forward. "You asked for it," one of the men said.
The door hanged shut.
Sergeant Holcomb, left behind, glowered at Perry Mason.
Mason yawned, and covered the yawn with four polite fingers.
"Pardon me, Sergeant," he said, "if I seem to yawn. I've had rather a strenuous day."
Holcomb turned, jerked open the door, paused in the doorway, and said, "For one whose methods are so damned cunning, you get rotten results."
He slammed the door.
Mason grinned at Della Street cheerfully.
"How about looking in on one of the late night clubs before you go home?"
She glanced down at herself and said, "If I took this fur coat off I'd be arrested. Remember, you told me to dress in a hurry. This coat covers a multitude of sins."
"Then you're going home," Mason said firmly. "At least one of us should keep out of jail."
Her eyes were worried.
"Chief, you don't mean he's going to get you?"
He shrugged his shoulders, bowed, and held the door open for her.
"One never knows," he said, "just what Sergeant Holcomb will do. He's so blunderingly ubiquitous."
Chapter 7
Perry Mason, freshly shaved, paused at Della Street 's desk to smile down at her.
"Feeling all right after your late hours?" he asked.
"Like a million," she said. "I see the papers play up Hartley Basset's murder, but say nothing about Brunold."
"The newspaper boys don't know anything about Brunold," he told her.
"Why?"
"Because Holcomb didn't take him down to headquarters. Brunold was taken to some outlying precinct where they could sweat him."
"Wasn't there anything you could do about that?"
"I might have got a habeas corpus, but I didn't want to show my hand—yet. I don't know the facts. Brunold may be better in than out. The police would have all they wanted out of him before I could have had the writ issued."
"How about Mrs. Basset?"
"I telephoned her as soon as I got to my apartment."
"Talk with her?"
"No. She staged hysterics after I left. Holcomb couldn't get anywhere with her. The son called a doctor and then he pulled a fast one. He said he was taking her to a hospital, but she didn't show up at any of the hospitals. The boy won't tell where she is. He says he'll produce her whenever it's necessary."
"He wouldn't even tell you where she was?"
"No."
"How did it happen Holcomb let him get away with that?"
"Holcomb came rushing up to get Brunold. That left young Basset his chance. He took it. But it's a cinch the dicks were watching the place. They know where she is. They may not be letting young Basset know it, but they do."
"Then," she said, "all Dick Basset did was to fix it so you couldn't reach his mother, but the police could. Is that it?"
"That's about the size of it."
"Then Mrs. Basset doesn't know about Brunold's arrest?"
"Probably not."
"When will she find it out?"
"When she comes down to earth and acts human. I told young Basset to have his mother get in touch with me at the earliest moment; that it was a matter of the gravest importance."
"And she hasn't telephoned?"
"No."
"But couldn't you have found her?"
"What's the use? It's a cinch the police have her under surveillance. If I had gone trying to force my way into the case, they'd have had me in a tough spot, and I may not be in any too good a spot as it is."
"Why?"
"My fingerprints may be on that murder gun."
She made little designs on the corner of her shorthand notebook with a sharp pencil.
"This is the most peculiar murder case you ever got mixed up in," she said. "We haven't any clients in this murder case yet—that is, we haven't any retainer except Brunold's."
He nodded slowly and said, "I wish I had known where I could have reached Bertha McLane last night. She didn't leave us any address, did she?"
"No, only the boy—Harry McLane—and that, I think, is the number of a pool room."
"It probably would be. See if you can get him on the telephone. Ring the number he gave, and see if they can give any other number where we can reach him right away."
She nodded, made a note on her shorthand notebook and asked, "Was there anything else?"
"Yes," he told her, "ring up the Basset residence. Tell Dick Basset I'm still trying to get in touch with his mother and that it's very important. And, by the way, see if you can…"
The telephone bell rang. She picked up the receiver, said, "Yes, who is it, please?" listened a moment, then cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and stared at Perry Mason with eyes that held a glint of amusement.
"Know where your car was found?" she inquired.
"No. Where?"
"Parked in front of the police station. The traffic department's on the line. They say the car has been in front of a fire plug ever since two o'clock this morning. They're inquiring whether it had been stolen."
Perry Mason winced.
"That," he said, "is once they've got me dead to rights. Tell them no, that the car wasn't stolen, that I must have inadvertently left it parked in front of the fire plug."
She took her hand away from the mouthpiece, passed the information into the telephone, then once more cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.
"And," she said, "it's in a twenty minute parking zone. They've been putting tags on the car at twenty minute intervals ever since nine o'clock this morning."
Mason said. "Give one of the boys a blank check. Send him down to square the thing and pick up the car. Tell him not to do any talking. Can you imagine the crust of the little devil? Taking the car down and parking it directly in front of the police station!"
"Do you think she did it, or do you think the cops picked her up and had her drive down to the station?"
"I don't know."
"If they did," Della Street went on, "it's a great joke on you, because they parked it in front of a fire plug and in a twenty minute parking zone, knowing that you wouldn't dare to claim the car had been stolen—not after you gave the girl permission to drive it away."
He nodded and strode toward his private office.
"It's all right," he said. "Let them laugh. The bird who laughs last is the one who laughs longest… Have you got those eyes?"
"You mean the eyes that Paul Drake had for us?"
"Yes."
She opened a drawer in her desk and took out the box of eyes.
"It sure gave me the willies," she said, "to look at them."
Mason opened the box, picked up a couple of eyes, slipped each into a vest pocket and said, "Put the other four in the safe. Keep them locked up where no one else can find them. These eyes are just a little secret that you and I are going to share between us."
"What are you going to do with them?"
"I don't know. It depends on what Brunold's next move is."
"What should his next move be?"
"Telephone me and ask me to act as his lawyer on the murder charge."
Her forehead showed a pucker of worry.
"How about the way you're getting mixed into this, Chief?" she inquired solicitously. "Will Sergeant Holcomb be back with a warrant?"