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“What do I do?” Dr. Denair asked.

“You, Della Street and Nadine Farr wait right here until you hear from me,” Mason said. “I’m going up to police headquarters and beat them to the punch.”

“I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes,” Dr. Denair said.

Mason shrugged. “They pinch a little, Bert. Well, here’s looking at you.”

“Down the hatch,” Dr. Denair said.

Mason said, “We have one chance, and only one chance. It’s about one in a million.”

“What’s that?”

“That Hermann Korbel has found out what’s in the tablets and so I can make a grandstand play by having him telephone the police telling them that I instructed him to report immediately to the police as soon as he had discovered the nature of the tablets and that I’m on my way to police headquarters.”

Mason reached through the swinging door to the kitchen, said, “We’re raiding your Scotch, Della, and I want to use the telephone.”

“The cord is long enough so you can take it out in the kitchenette,” she told him.

“Could I have a drink of that Scotch?” Nadine Farr asked.

Mason shook his head. “Not yet. I want you to keep all of your faculties.”

Della Street handed Mason the telephone. Mason pulled the instrument on its long cord out into the kitchenette, set it on the drainboard of the sink and dialed Hermann Korbel’s number. When he heard the chemist’s voice on the phone, he said, “Perry Mason. Any progress yet?”

Korbel was so excited that for a moment he lapsed into German. “Ja, ja,” he said.

“Hey, what’s the excitement?” Mason asked.

“The police.”

“The police?” Mason echoed, dismay in his voice. “What about the police?”

“They have been here.”

“What did they do?”

“They took the bottle.”

“Oh-oh!” Mason exclaimed.

“All of the bottle, the pills, the shot, the evidence.”

“How did they know anything about it?”

“I think they have gone to the lake. They have learned that you had divers to get a bottle. They found the parents of the boy who had the bottle. They located the boy. They work fast, those police.”

“I’ll say they work fast,” Mason said. “And they took everything away from you?”

“Everything except one small bit of a tablet which already I had crushed. That they don’t know about.”

“Enough for an analysis?” Mason asked.

“Not for the best analysis, but enough to tell perhaps what the substance is.”

“Cyanide?” Mason asked.

“As yet I do not know what it is. If you think it is cyanide, that I can soon find out. But the police are looking for you.”

“Yes, I imagine,” Mason said. “Okay, I’ll call you back.”

Mason hung up the phone, turned to Dr. Denair. “All right, the fat’s in the fire,” he said. “The police went out to Twomby’s Lake. They must have arrived there not too long after I left. They found I had divers looking for the bottle, that we had located it and that I had taken it away. They learned the name of the boy who had found the bottle. They went to his home. His parents told the police about my having been there. Police located the boy, Arthur Felton. He must have told them about Hermann Korbel. Police used the phone and radio cars. They swooped down on Korbel and nailed the evidence.

“Now we’re in a fix. Now that police know that I’m involved and that I’m protecting Nadine Farr, they’ll know at once that the probabilities are that she’s with Della Street. They’ll start looking for Della—”

“You mean they’re coming here?”

“Probably they’re on their way now,” Mason said.

“What do we do?”

Mason said, “We get out. I don’t want Nadine Farr to become a fugitive from justice. On the other hand, I don’t want her questioned until I’ve had a chance to talk with her, and I can’t waste a second now.”

Mason kicked open the swinging door from the kitchenette, said, “We have to leave. Get your things.”

Della Street looked at him apprehensively. “Is it—?”

“It is,” Mason interposed.

“Come,” Della Street said to Nadine Farr. “No, you haven’t time to powder your nose. This is an emergency.”

“What’s happened?” she asked, getting to her feet. “Can’t we wait and—”

“We can’t wait,” Della Street said, pushing her toward the door.

They were out of the apartment within a matter of seconds. Mason glanced apprehensively about as they crossed the lobby.

“Do we all go in one car?” Dr. Denair asked.

Mason shook his head. “We go in separate cars, and we go fast.”

Where do we go?” Dr. Denair asked.

Mason said, “We want to be certain that there is nothing in what we are doing that indicates flight. Bert, you make a round of the clinics. Be hard to find, but make certain you’re not placed in the position of running away from anything.

“Della, you and Nadine take your car. Drop Dr. Denair at the first place where you encounter a taxicab. Then you and Nadine drive to the High-Tide Motel at the beach. You get two units. Register under your own names.”

“And what about you?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned. “I understand the police are looking for me. I always believe in co-operating with the police.”

“Are you going to let them find you?”

“With luck I’m going to be at police headquarters before they can release any story to the newspapers.”

“Wouldn’t it be more dignified if they talked with you in your office, Perry?”

“Dignity, hell!” Mason exclaimed. “I’ll be lucky to get out of this without an indictment.”

Chapter Six

At police headquarters Mason walked down the corridor to the door marked “Homicide,” pushed it open and walked in.

“Lieutenant Tragg around?” Mason asked the orderly on duty.

“I’ll see. What name? Hey, it’s you!”

“Sure it is,” Mason said. “Whom did you expect? An impostor?”

“Wait just a second,” the orderly said, and dove through a door.

Within a matter of seconds a plain-clothes officer sauntered through the door, crossed the office, and went out of the exit door, but from the shadow on the frosted glass it was apparent he was waiting in the corridor just outside the door, blocking escape.

A moment later the orderly opened the door and said, “Lieutenant Tragg’s in there. He wants to see you. Go right on in.”

Mason entered Tragg’s office.

Lieutenant Tragg, a tall, good-looking individual who seemed somewhat harassed, indicated a chair. “Sit down, Mason.”

“How’s everything coining, Tragg?” Mason asked.

“So-so. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Mason sat down. Tragg said, “Excuse me for a second,” opened the door and walked out.

It was a good three minutes before Tragg returned. This time he was accompanied by Hamilton Burger, the big, barrel-chested district attorney, who tried to make it appear that his presence was casual.

“Hello, Mason,” he said. “Happened to be in the building. Heard you were here. What the devil’s all this about Nadine Farr and that bottle of poison?”

“That,” Mason told him, “is what I was trying to find out.”

Burger’s face. darkened. “You led with your chin this time, Mason.”

“Did I?”

“You know it.”

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not going to institute formal proceedings until we’ve had an absolute identification,” Burger said, “but I’m damn soon going to have an identification.”