"Good work, Paul," the lawyer said.
The door from the outer office opened and Della Street walked through, closing the door carefully behind her. She went to Perry Mason's desk and stood waiting.
The detective said, "Okay, Perry, I'll get that stuff for you early this afternoon. If I get the party located in one of the hotels, I'll give you a ring. I should be able to cover the principal ones within the next half hour."
He opened the door and took the precaution of thrusting out his head and looking up and down the corridor before he stepped out into the hallway, letting the door click shut behind him.
Perry Mason turned to Della Street.
"Well?" he asked.
"You've got to help them," she said.
"You mean Brunold and Mrs. Basset?"
"Yes."
"We don't know the facts yet."
"You mean about the murder?"
"Yes."
"Apparently," Della Street said slowly, "she's never had the breaks. The cards in life have been stacked against her. Why not give her a break now?"
"Perhaps I will," Mason said slowly, and then added. "if she'll let me."
Della Street motioned toward the outer office.
"The McLanes are out there," she said.
"Harry and his sister?"
"Yes."
Mason nodded his head. "Show them in, Della."
Chapter 8
Bertha McLane started talking before Perry Mason had said more than a courteous "Good morning."
"We read about it in the papers. Is it going to make any difference?"
"It will make this much difference," Mason said slowly; "the estate will be handled by an administrator or an executor. If Sylvia Basset handles the estate, she'll be friendly. If some other person handles it, the probabilities are there will be trouble. We can't square it now. If there should be a will contest, or something, and a temporary executor should discover the shortage…"
Her eyes had grown wider as he talked. Now she interrupted him, saying, "Good heavens, don't you know what happened?"
Perry Mason stopped talking and stared steadily at her.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice and manner wary.
She turned to the boy.
"Tell him, Harry."
Harry McLane said, "I paid him off."
Mason stared thoughtfully at the boy.
"Did what?"
"Paid him off."
"Paid who off?"
"Hartley Basset."
"How much?"
"Every damned cent—three thousand nine hundred and fortytwo dollars and sixtythree cents."
"Did you," asked Perry Mason, "get a receipt?"
"I didn't need a receipt. I got back the forged notes. That was all the receipt I needed."
"When did you pay him off?"
"Last night."
"At exactly what time?"
"I don't know. It was around eleven o'clock, I guess, or perhaps a little later."
Mason tried to hold the boy's eyes, but McLane looked toward his sister, then out of the window.
"It's all okay now," he said. "We just thought we'd let you know. Come on, Sis, I guess there's nothing else we can do here."
"Wait a minute," Mason said. "Look at me."
Young McLane turned his eyes to the lawyer.
"Now keep looking at me," Mason said. "Don't move your eyes from mine. Now tell me. You read the newspapers this morning."
"Yes, that's why we came here—to find out if it would make any difference."
"Just how long," the lawyer asked slowly, "before Hartley Basset was murdered did you pay that money to him?"
"I don't know, because I don't know when he was murdered."
"Suppose that he was murdered at around midnight?"
"I must have paid it to him a little while before he was murdered, then… Maybe someone stole the money from him."
"You paid him in cash?"
"Cold, hard cash."
"Where did you get the money?"
"That's my business."
"Did you win it gambling?"
"What do you care where I got it? It isn't important."
"It may," Mason told him, "be very important. Do you realize that… But never mind. Let me ask you a few questions first. Hartley Basset gave you back the forged notes?"
"Yes."
"These forged notes were the only things that he held against you in the line of evidence, is that right?"
"Yes."
"Now, where did he get those forged notes from? In other words, where were they?… No, young man, don't look away. Keep your eyes right on mine… Where did Hartley Basset get those forged notes?"
"From a locked note file that he had on his desk."
"Where was the key to that file?"
"On his key ring, of course."
"Do you realize," Mason asked, "that when Basset's body was found and searched there wasn't more than twentyfive dollars in actual currency in his pockets and that the police haven't discovered any large sum of money either in the safe or in the room where he was murdered?"
"Perhaps," Harry McLane suggested, "the motive of the murder was robbery."
Perry Mason thumped the desk slowly with his fist, giving emphasis to his words.
"Young man," he said slowly, "do you realize that there wasn't anything on God's green earth to have prevented you getting admission to the room where Hartley Basset was working by telling him that you had come to pay off the money, that, when you were once in that room you could have killed Hartley Basset, that you could have taken the key from Basset's key ring, opened the note file on his desk—a file with which you are thoroughly familiar because of your employment with Basset, taken out those forged notes which represented the only evidence against you, placed a fake suicide note in the typewriter, and left the house… No, don't interrupt—and keep looking at me… That the only thing on earth that will prevent you from having to answer questions to the police predicated upon such a theory of what might have happened, is an ability to show exactly where you got the money that you paid Hartley Basset and being able to account for your whereabouts at the exact time the murder was committed?"
"Why!" Bertha McLane exclaimed. "You're accusing Harry of murder! Harry wouldn't ever have done…"
"Shut up," Mason said, without looking at her. "Let's hear Harry's story first."
Harry jumped up from the chair, turned and walked toward the window.
"Aw, nuts," he called over his shoulder. "You know who killed the old buzzard. You ain't going to make me the goat."
"Come back here," Mason said.
"The hell I will!" McLane said, standing with his back to them, looking out of the window. "I don't have to come back and sit in a chair and let you bore our eyes into mine and frame me, so you can get the breaks for some other client of yours."
"Can you," Mason inquired, his face flushing, "show where you got the money that you paid to Hartley Basset?"
"No… Perhaps I could, but I'm not going to."
"You've got to."
"I don't have to."
"I've got to be able to give the police that evidence, Harry, or they're going to arrest you."
"Let them arrest me, then."
"It's more serious than that. If you can't show that you paid this money and secured legitimate possession of those notes, the police are going to think that you secured possession of them illegally."
"To hell with the police."
"It isn't what the police think; it's what a jury's going to think. Remember, young man, that the evidence would show that you were an embezzler. The prosecution would claim Basset was going to send you to jail—you killed him to keep him from doing so."
"Aw, nuts," Harry McLane said again, but kept looking out of the window.
Mason shrugged his shoulders and turned toward Bertha McLane.
"I'm simply telling you," he said.