“You mean Anita Bonsal?”
“Yes. I met Anita first. I went with her for a while. Then I went with both. Then I began to gravitate toward Fay Allison. I thought I was just making dates. Actually I was falling in love.”
“And Anita?”
“She’s like a sister to both of us. She’s been simply grand in this whole thing. She’s promised me that she’ll do everything she can do.”
“Could Fay Allison have been living with Carver Clements?”
“She had the physical opportunity, if that’s what you mean.”
“You didn’t see her every night?”
“No.”
“What does Anita say?”
“Anita says the charge is ridiculous, absolutely absurd.”
“Do you know of any place where Fay Allison could have had access to cyanide of potassium?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you about, Mr. Mason.”
“Go ahead.”
“Out at my place the gardener uses it. I don’t know just what for, but... well, out there the other day, when he was showing Fay around the place...”
“Yes, yes,” Mason said impatiently as Grover paused, “go on.”
“Well, I know the gardener was explaining to her something about it. He told her to be very careful not to touch that sack because it contained cyanide, and I remember she asked him a few questions about what he used it for, but I wasn’t paying much attention. It’s the basis of some sort of a spray, and then I believe it’s used for the plants.”
“Who else was present?”
“Just the three of us.”
“Has your gardener read the papers?”
Grover nodded.
“Can you trust him?”
“With my life. He’s very devoted to me. He’s been with us for twenty years.”
“What’s his name?”
“Barney Sheff. My mother took an interest in him and... well, rehabilitated him.”
“He’d been in trouble?”
“Yes.”
“In the pen?”
“That’s right.”
“Then what?”
“Then he was released. He had a chance to get parole if he could get a job. Mother gave him the job. He’s been terribly devoted ever since.”
“You have a hothouse?”
“Yes.”
“I’m wondering if you have fully explored the possibilities of orchid growing.”
“We’re not interested in orchid growing. We can buy them and—”
“I wonder,” Mason said in exactly the same tone and with the same spacing of words, “if you have fully investigated the possibilities of growing orchids.”
“I tell you we...”
“Fully investigated the possibilities of growing orchids,” Mason said again.
“You mean... oh, you mean we should send Barney Sheff to...”
“Fully investigate the possibilities of growing orchids.”
Dane Grover studied Mason silently for a few seconds. Then abruptly he arose from the chair, extended his hand, and said, “I brought you some money. I thought you might need it.”
He carelessly tossed an envelope on the desk.
“How about your mother?” Mason asked.
Grover touched his tongue to dry lips, then clamped his mouth in a straight line. “Mother,” he said, “is naturally embarrassed. I don’t think her feelings need to enter into it.”
And with that he marched out of the office.
Mason reached for the envelope Grover had tossed on his desk. It was well filled with hundred-dollar bills.
Della Street came over to take the money. “When I get so interested in a man,” she said, “that I neglect to count the money, you know I’m becoming incurably romantic. How much, chief?”
“Plenty,” Mason said.
Della Street was counting it when the unlisted telephone on her desk rang stridently.
She picked up the receiver and heard Drake’s voice on the line.
“Hi, Paul,” she said.
“Hi, Della. Perry there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Drake said wearily, “I’m making a progress report. Tell him Lieutenant Tragg nabbed the Grover gardener, a chap by the name of Sheff. They’re holding him as a material witness, seem to be all worked up about what they’ve discovered. Can’t find out what it is. Think the tip-off to grab him came from Dane’s mother, Caroline Manning Grover.”
Della Street sat motionless at the desk, holding the receiver.
“Hello, hello,” Drake said. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” Della said. “I’ll tell him.” She hung up the phone.
Chapter eight
It was after nine o’clock that night when Della Street, signing the register in the elevator, was whisked up to the floor where Perry Mason had his offices.
The offices of the Drake Detective Agency on the same floor, nearer the elevator, were kept open twenty-four hours a day. The innocent-looking entrance door showed merely a single oblong of frosted glass, the illumination back of the glass showing the offices were open, but giving no indication of the unceasing nocturnal activities of the staff which worked in a veritable rabbit warren of offices.
Della Street started to look in on Paul Drake, then changed her mind and kept on walking down the long, dark corridor, the rapid tempo of her heels echoing back at her from the night silence of the door-lined hallway.
She rounded the elbow in the corridor and saw that lights were on in Mason’s office. She fitted her latchkey to the outer door, crossed through the entrance office, and opened the door of Mason’s private office.
The lawyer was pacing the floor, thumbs pushed in the armholes of his vest, head shoved forward, wrapped in such concentration that he did not even notice the opening of the door.
The desk was littered with photographs. There were numerous sheets of the flimsy which Paul Drake used in making reports to clients.
Della stood quietly in the doorway, watching the tall, lean-waisted man pacing back and forth. He was granite-hard of face, broad-shouldered, flat-stomached; the seething action of his restless mind demanded physical outlet in order to preserve some semblance of internal balance, and this restless pacing was but an unconscious reflex.
After almost a minute Della Street said, “Hello, chief. Can I help?”
Mason looked up at her with a start. “What are you doing here?”
“I came up to see if you were working and, if so, if there was anything I could do to help.”
He smiled. “I’m not working. I’m like an animal running around his cage trying to find an outlet.”
“Had any dinner?” she asked.
He glanced at his wristwatch and said, “Not yet.”
“What time is it?” Della Street asked.
He had to look at his wristwatch again in order to tell her. “Nine-forty.”
She laughed. “I knew you didn’t even look the first time you went through the motions. Come on, chief, you’ve got to go get something to eat. The case will still be here when you get back.”
“How do we know it will?” Mason said. “I’ve been talking with Louise Marlow on the phone. She’s been in touch with Dane Grover and she knows Dane Grover’s mother. Dane Grover says he’ll stick. How does he know what he’ll do? He’s exploring uncharted depths in his own mind. He doesn’t know what he’ll find. His friends and relatives are turning the knife in the wound with their sympathy, the silent accusation of their every glance. How the hell does he know what he’s going to do? How can he tell whether he’ll stick?”
“Just the same,” Della Street insisted, “I think he’ll do it. It’s through situations such as this that character is created.”
“You’re just talking to keep your courage up,” Mason said. “I’ve pulled that line with a jury once or twice myself. Soul-seared in a crucible of adversity — the tempering fires of fate — burning away the fat of wealthy complacency as he comes to grips with the fundamentals of life — baloney!”