“The agency tells me that you asked especially for me.”
Della Street looked inquiringly at Perry Mason.
Mason said, “That’s right, Mrs. Bass. You see, I’d heard about you through the Jennings. They speak very highly of you.”
“The Jennings?” she asked.
“Lorraine and Barton Jennings,” Mason explained. They have a boy, Robert Selkirk. Her child by another marriage.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Bobby is quite a boy. He has a certain dignity that is exceptional in a child.”
“Crazy about guns, isn’t he?” Mason said.
“Well, he’s like any normal boy — what can you expect with all these ‘pistol pictures’ on television. He loves to watch galloping horses and, after all, those shows put on some pretty spirited gun battles.”
“They do for a fact,” Mason agreed. And then added, “I suppose Robert has his special pearl-handled imitation six-shooters with the holsters tied down in the most approved Western style.”
Hannah Bass became suddenly uneasy. “He likes guns,” she said, and clamped her lips together.
Mason eyed her thoughtfully. “That,” he said, “is the only thing which caused us some uneasiness, Mrs. Bass.”
“What is?” she asked, instantly on the defensive.
“Giving Robert a real gun to play with.”
“Who says I gave him a real gun?”
Mason let his face show surprise. “Didn’t you?”
“Who said so?”
“Why I understood that you did. Barton Jennings has this .22 automatic, you know, and Robert plays with it.”
There was a long interval of silence. Hannah Bass had little suspicious gray eyes and they glittered as they probed Mason’s face.
The lawyer met her gaze with searching candor. “Don’t you let him play with Barton’s gun?” he asked.
“What difference does it make?” Hannah Bass asked.
“I just wondered,” Mason said.
“I don’t talk about my other clients when I’m babysitting,” Hannah Bass announced with finality.
Mason said deprecatingly, “We were only discussing your recommendations and the reason we sent for you, Mrs. Bass.”
“I didn’t know anybody knew about it,” she said suddenly. “It was just a secret between Robert and me.”
Mason’s smile was enigmatic.
The street bell rang. Della Street went to the telephone, said, “Yes... oh, hurry up with it, will you? I’ll open the door for you.”
She pressed a buzzer and said to Perry Mason, “A Western Union telegram.”
Mason showed excitement. “He’s on the way up?”
Della nodded.
Alice Colton said, “Oh, Della,” and suddenly flung herself into Della Street’s arms.
Hannah Bass’s glittering eyes kept moving around the apartment, taking in every detail. “I want to look at the baby,” she said suddenly.
Della Street glanced at Mason.
Mason partially opened the door of the bedroom.
Della Street continued to comfort Alice Colton.
Hannah Bass got up and strode to the bedroom door, looked inside at the sleeping child, then stepped inside the bedroom and looked around.
The buzzer sounded on the door of Della Street’s apartment.
Della Street disengaged herself from Alice and went to the door. She accepted the telegram, signed for it and tore the envelope open.
For a moment she stood there with the telegram in her hand saying nothing.
“Oh, Della, it isn’t... it isn’t...?”
Della Street nodded, said, “Mother has passed away.”
There was a long moment of silence, then Alice Colton began to sob audibly.
“Well, after all,” Della Street said, “it’s for the best. Mother was bedridden and she had nothing to look forward to. The doctors said there was virtually no hope.”
Hannah Bass stood in the door of the bedroom for a moment. Then she marched over to where Della Street was holding the telegram, said, “Say, what kind of a plant is this, anyway?”
“What do you mean?” Della Street asked.
“You know what I mean,” Hannah said, snatching at Della Street’s left hand. Where’s your wedding ring?”
“At the jewelers, being repaired,” Della Street said coldly. “That is, if it’s any of your business.”
“It’s lots of my business,” Hannah Bass said. “You’re not married. That’s not your baby. This isn’t your husband. I’ve seen his face somewhere before — in newspapers and magazines somewhere — what are you trying to do?”
Della Street said, “My mother has just passed away. Here’s the telegram.”
She extended the telegram, holding her thumb over the top part of the telegram so that Hannah Bass could see the message, but not the place where the telegram had originated.
“Well, we won’t argue about it,” the woman said. “This was a forty-dollar job. Give me my forty dollars and I’ll be on my way.”
Della Street looked at Perry Mason.
Mason smiled and shook his head.
“Now don’t pull that line with me,” Hannah Bass said belligerently.
“What line?” Mason asked.
“Trying to talk me out of the forty dollars.”
“No one’s trying to talk you out of the forty dollars, Mrs. Bass,” Mason told her. “What you wanted, you know, was an all-night job; you wanted to be guaranteed it would be an all-night job. It is.”
“I wanted the forty dollars, not necessarily an all-night job.”
“You’ll get the forty dollars,” Mason told her, “and you’ll sit right there all night to earn it.”
Hannah Bass looked at him sharply. “You’re the lawyer,” she said. “You’re the man who does all that spectacular stuff in court. You’re Perry Mason!”
“That’s right,” Mason said. “Now, then, just sit down there and tell me how it happened that you would let Robert Selkirk play with a real gun whenever you were baby-sitting with him.”
“So that’s what you’re after!” Hannah Bass said.
“That’s what I’m after,” Mason told her.
Hannah Bass slowly seated herself. “So this was all a plant.”
“It was all a plant, if that will make you feel any better,” Mason told her.
“I don’t have to answer your questions. I can get up and walk out through that door. You don’t have any authority to question me.”
“That’s entirely correct,” Mason said. “You were hired to sit here until eight o’clock in the morning. You’re to get forty dollars for it. If you walk out through that door, you don’t get the forty dollars and you’ll still have to answer the same questions; but this time before a grand jury.”
“What difference does it make?” Hannah Bass asked.
“For your information, so there won’t be any misunderstanding, Mervin Selkirk was murdered. Norda Allison has been accused of that murder. She’s my client.
“I don’t know what happened. I’m trying to find out. I’m not making any accusations, at least not yet, but apparently when you were baby-sitting you let Robert have a .22 automatic, probably a Colt Woodsman model.”
“You can’t prove it,” Hannah Bass said.
“I think I can,” Mason told her. “If you have anything to conceal, if you are implicated in any way in the murder of Mervin Selkirk, you had better get out of here and retain a lawyer to represent you. If you have nothing to conceal, there is no reason why you can’t talk to me.”
“You got me here under false pretenses,” she said.
“I asked you to come here,” Mason told her. “I wanted to talk with you where I wouldn’t be interrupted by the police.”
“What do you mean, the police?”
“You should know what I mean. The police are employed by the taxpayers to look into matters of this sort. In case you haven’t met Lieutenant Tragg of the homicide department, you have a delightful experience in store. Tragg is very thorough, very shrewd, very fair and very determined.