“Nothing.”
Mason eased the car over to the right and left the freeway on one of the cross streets.
“Where are we going?” Locke asked somewhat apprehensively.
“I’m going to a telephone,” Mason told him. “I have a detective working on the case and I want to find out if he’s learned anything. While I’m telephoning I’d like to have you think over every possible place where Nadine might be. Perhaps you’ll think of some place where you can reach her by telephone.”
“Suppose I don’t go home tonight at all — won’t that look bad?”
“That would look very bad indeed,” Mason said. “You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to do anything that will make the police suspicious. But you have two hours, or perhaps three hours, before you have to show up. You can tell them you were doing some research work.”
“Suppose I say I was at a movie?”
“They’ll ask you to describe it and all about it.”
“I can do that. I’ll pick out one that I’ve already seen.”
“It’ll have to be in a big theater,” Mason said, “where no one will remember you. Buy a ticket, walk in, keep the stub of the ticket, then after a few minutes walk out. I’ll take you to a theater as soon as I can find a phone. There doesn’t seem to be much along this street. Oh-oh, here’s a phone booth.”
Mason had to drive around the corner in order to find a place to park the car. “You two wait here,” he said, then walked back to the phone booth and called Paul Drake.
“Hello, Paul,” Mason said when he had Drake on the line. “What’s new? Anything?”
“Nothing particularly startling.”
“Located Nadine Farr?”
“No, but I’ve located Jackson Newburn.”
“And she’s with him?”
“Definitely not.”
“Why do you say definitely not?”
“I intimated that she might be and got a very, very cold turndown.”
“How come?”
“I had a man trying to get Newburn located on the phone. I was calling every possible place where he might be. I guess the police were probably doing the same thing. Anyway, I got to him first, or at least I think I did.”
“Where?”
“I looked up all the clubs he belonged to and called them all, leaving word that it was important that he call me as soon as he got in. I left the same message at every one of the clubs. Finally he called in from the Wildcat Exploration and Development Club. That’s a small group of plungers who go in for wildcat wells. I understand it’s quite some club — lots of action and horseplay and that sort of stuff.
“According to the story Newburn told me he’d just walked into the club. They’d given him my message and he’d called. Well, I told him that it was a matter of considerable importance and that I had to reach Nadine Farr right away.”
“What happened?” Mason asked.
“His voice got cold. He told me that he believed there was a phone in the house where she was staying, that the phone was listed under the name of Mosher Higley, and that if I’d call up and ask for Nadine she’d answer, otherwise he had no suggestions to make.”
“Then what?”
“I told him that we’d been calling the house and had no luck.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, I told him that I understood she’d been with him earlier in the evening. He said that I had been misinformed, so then I couldn’t resist trying to drop a bombshell. I told him that one of my men had reported that Nadine Farr had checked out of a motel at the beach and that he had been with her when she checked out.”
“What did that do?” Mason asked.
“Well, that had to be either kill or cure,” Drake said, “and it definitely wasn’t a cure. He told me that I was completely and absolutely mistaken, that he didn’t like the insinuation I was making, that he didn’t like the tone of my voice, that he had not been with Nadine Farr, and that if I repeated that statement or if any of my employees repeated that statement he would be forced to take action.”
“Then what?”
“Then he hung up — rather he slammed the receiver into place so it sounded like an explosion.”
“Where is he now?”
“At that club as nearly as I can tell. I started a man over there to check on him and report but the man hasn’t had time to get there yet.”
Mason said, “I want to see him, Paul.”
“Well, why not come up here and wait until my man reports? Then—”
“Because I’m hot, and I have somebody with me who is even hotter than I am.”
“Nadine Farr?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Then it must be—”
“No names, Paul.”
“Okay, the person you went out to contact.”
Mason said, “I have some information that’ll be very valuable. I’ll take a chance on Jackson Newburn being at that club. I think I want to try and interview him there.”
Drake said, “I have a few clients who are in the oil business. I’m quite certain one of them is a member of the Wildcat Club. Do you need a guest card?”
“It would simplify matters if I had one, but I can’t spare the time. I’ll just go to the door and ask for Newburn. If he refuses to see me—”
“Okay, if you run into trouble let me know and I’ll see what I can do.”
Mason hung up, walked back to his car, opened the car door, said, “Hello, what’s happened to Locke?”
“He thought of something.”
“What?”
“He felt certain he knew where he could find Nadine.”
“Well, that’s fine,” Mason said. “I wanted him to telephone her and—”
“He thought he could get to where he could see her and he might not be able to get her on the phone.”
“Did he say where she was?”
“No.”
“You should have found out,” Mason said. “I don’t like the idea of his running around loose.”
“Will the cops catch him?”
“Sooner or later.”
“He seemed to understand the necessity of keeping away from the officers.”
“Hang it,” Mason said, his voice edged with annoyance, “I told him to stay here and wait. You heard me, Della.”
She nodded.
“You should have kept him here.”
“He’s nervous and impulsive and when he gets an idea through his head it gets in there all at once. He suddenly realized where Nadine must be and he wanted to go to her.”
“Well, how did he go?” Mason asked. “He didn’t just start out walking.”
“He talked to the driver of a car that was getting gassed up at the service station across the street. The man gave him a ride.”
“All right, who was the fellow?” Mason asked. “What was his license number?”
She shook her head.
“What kind of a car?”
“Well, it was a sedan, sort of a black sedan.”
“Big or little?”
“One of the medium-sized cars.”
“Old model or new?”
“Well, fairly new but not right spanking new.”
“In other words, you didn’t notice.”
“Frankly, Chief, I didn’t notice.”
Mason started to say something, caught himself, started the car, drove back toward the freeway, then suddenly pulled in to the curb.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
Mason said, “Look at me, Della.”
She raised her eyes to his in surprise.
“That wasn’t like you,” he said.
“What?”
“You heard me tell Locke to stick around. You could have held him until I had finished telephoning.”
“He’s hard to hold. When he gets an idea through his head he’s gone.”
Mason regarded her thoughtfully for several seconds, then said, “All right, come clean.”
“On what?”