"I'm doing nothing of the sort. I'm getting my money back."
"You're offering embezzlers immunity from prosecution if they make good the money embezzled."
"Let's not be overly technical about it," Basset remarked. "You know what you want. I know what I want. I'm talking plainly to you. I might not talk as plainly elsewhere. I want my money."
"And you think McLane has it?"
"No, I think his accomplice has it."
"But don't you think if McLane could get it from his accomplice, he'd have done so already?"
"No'" Basset said. "They stole money to gamble with. They lost some of it. They want to keep on gambling. McLane's sister will put up money to keep McLane from going to jail. That will leave the pair money to gamble with."
"Well?" Mason asked.
"The girl hasn't all of the money," Basset said. "She's got a little over fifteen hundred dollars. McLane's accomplice has about two thousand left. I'll get the girl's money and then I'll find out who the accomplice is and get what money he's got."
"Suppose," Mason asked, "it doesn't work that way?"
"It will."
Mason said slowly, "I can get you fifteen hundred dollars in cash and monthly payments of thirty dollars. I'm representing the sister."
"Her money?" Basset asked.
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"Yes."
"The boy hasn't kicked through with any of it?"
"No."
"I'll take the fifteen hundred cash and a hundred a month from the girl," Basset said.
Mason flushed, sucked in a quick breath, controlled himself, puffed on the cigarette, and said tonelessly, "She can't do it. She's supporting an invalid mother. She can't live on what would be left of her salary."
"I'm not interested," Basset said, "in getting my money back in small installments. Monthly payments of one hundred dollars will get the principal reduced reasonably so that Harry McLane may get a job in the meantime. He can pass the loss on to his new employer."
"What do you mean," Mason inquired, "by passing the loss on to his new employer?"
"He can work out some scheme of embezzling from his new employer to pay me off my losses."
"You mean you'd force him to theft?"
"Certainly not. I'm simply suggesting that he pass on the burden. He embezzled from me. I held the sack for a while. Let someone else hold it for a while now."
Mason laughed. "You might find yourself an accessory before the fact in that new embezzlement, Basset."
Basset stared coldly at him and said, "What do I care. I want my money. I don't care how I get it. There's no legal evidence against me. The moral aspect of the case leaves me completely indifferent."
"I gathered it did," Mason told him.
"That's fine. It eliminates misunderstandings. I'm not going to talk with you about the morals of your profession and you're not going to talk with me about the morals of mine. I want my money. You're here to see that I get it. The sister doesn't want the boy to go to jail. I've given you my terms. That's all there is to it."
"Those terms'" Mason told him, "won't be met."
Basset shrugged his shoulders and said, "He's got until tomorrow."
Knuckles sounded in a gentle knock on the panels of the door, which almost immediately opened. A woman, between thirtyfive and forty, glanced at Perry Mason with a quick half smile, and turned solicitously to Hartley Basset. "May I sit in on this, Hartley?" she asked.
Hartley Basset remained seated. He regarded her through the smoke which twisted upward from the cigar. His face had no flicker of expression.
"My wife," he said to the lawyer.
Mason got to his feet, surveyed the slender figure appreciatively, and said, "I am very pleased, Mrs. Basset."
She kept her eyes fastened apprehensively upon her husband.
"Please, Hartley, I'd like to have something to say about this."
"Why?"
"Because I'm interested."
"Interested in what?"
"Interested in what you're going to do."
"Do you mean," he asked, "that you're interested in Harry McLane?"
"No. I'm interested for another reason."
"What's the other reason?"
"I don't want you to be too hard if the money is coming from his sister."
"I think," Basset said, "I'm the best judge of that."
"May I sit in on your conference?"
The eyes were cold and hard. The voice was utterly without emotion, as Basset said, "No."
There was a moment of silence. Basset did nothing to soften the curtness of his refusal. Mrs. Basset hesitated a moment, then turned and walked across the office. She didn't leave through the door by which she had entered, but went, instead, into the adjoining office, and a moment later, the sound of a closing door announced that she had gone through it to the reception room.
Hartley Basset said, "No need for you to sit down again, Mason; we understand each other perfectly. Good night."
Perry Mason strode to the door, jerked it open, called back over his shoulder, "Good night, and goodby."
He strode across the outer office, slammed the door of the reception room behind him, and crossed the porch in three swift strides. He crossed to the left side of his coupe, jerked open the door and was just sliding in behind the wheel when he realized someone was huddled at the opposite end of the seat.
He stiffened to quick vigilance, and a woman's voice said, "Just close the door, please, and drive around the corner."
It was the voice of Mrs. Basset.
Mason hesitated a moment. His face showed irritation, then curiosity. He slid behind the wheel, drove around the block, stopped, and switched off lights and motor. Mrs. Basset leaned forward, put her hand on his sleeve, and said, "Please do what he asks."
"What he asks," he said, "is humanly impossible."
"No, it isn't impossible," she said. "I know him too well for that. He'll get blood out of a turnip. He'll get the last drop of blood, but he'll never ask for something that's impossible."
"The girl's supporting an invalid mother."
"But surely," Mrs. Basset said, "there's charitable aid for such people. After all, the girl doesn't have to do it. People don't starve to death in civilized communities, you know. If the girl should die, you know, the mother would be taken care of some way."
Mason said, savagely. "And you think the girl should try to live on sixty dollars a month, and cut off her mother without a cent; all in order to pay back your husband money that's been embezzled from him by a no account kid?"
"No," she said. "Not to get him back his money. To keep him from doing what he'll do if he doesn't get his money back."
Mason said slowly, "And you sneaked out here to tell me that?"
"No," she told him; "to ask you something. I just mentioned about that embezzlement incidentally."
"If you want to consult me," he told her, "come to my office."
"I can't come to your office. I never get away. I'm spied on all the time."
"Don't be foolish." Mason told her. "Who'd want to spy on you?"
"My husband, of course."
"Do you mean to say you couldn't come to a lawyer's office if you wanted to?"
"Certainly I couldn't."
"Who would stop you."
"He would."
"How would he do it?"
"I don't know how. He'd do it. He's utterly ruthless. He'd kill me if I crossed him."
Mason frowned thoughtfully and said, "What was it you wanted to ask me about?"
"Bigamy."
"What about it?"
"I'm married to Hartley Basset."
"So I understand."
"I want to run away and leave him."
"Go ahead."
"I have another man who wants to support me."
"Swell."
"I'd have to marry him."