“Yes, I understand that. She explained how that happened. It seems that...”
“Never mind,” Mason interrupted. “If you fall for those explanations, I don’t. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Milter was a blackmailer. I took your word for it when you told me that you were very much distressed at his talking and had dismissed him from your employ. In view of what’s happened since, I’m not so certain.”
“Not so certain about what?” Allgood asked, his eyes looking all over the office, except at that particular portion of it which was occupied by Perry Mason.
Mason said, “Your agency seems to be mixed in it right up to its necktie.”
“Mr. Mason, are you intimating that I...”
Mason said, “I haven’t time for the dramatics. I’m simply telling you that at first I took your word and your explanation. I’m not taking either, now, without checking up. There’s altogether too much coincidence. I talk with you about one of your operatives who’s gone in for blackmail. You ‘inadvertently’ leave the intercommunicating office system on so that my conversation is audible to your secretary. She goes down to El Templo. She has a key to this man’s apartment. You know, Allgood, it could be that you were engineering a little shakedown. Having got all the money you could legitimately gamer from Witherspoon, you used Milter as a stalking horse to put the finger on Witherspoon and get some more.”
Allgood jumped to his feet. “I came here to make an explanation, Mr. Mason, not to be insulted!”
“All right,” Mason said, “that’s why you came here. You’re here. You’ve made your explanation. Please consider the insult as a purely gratuitous interpolation which was not on the original program as planned.”
“It’s not a joking matter,” Allgood said blusteringly.
“You’re damn right it isn’t.”
“I’ve tried to be fair with you. I’ve put all of my cards on the table.”
“You put a deuce spot on the table,” Mason said. “The picture cards didn’t get there until I shook them out of your sleeve. When I entered your office, your secretary went in to your office to tell you I was there. I couldn’t hear your conversation because at that time the interoffice communicating lever wasn’t thrown over. You must have done that after she went out and while I was on my way in. That means you did it deliberately. How about this column in the Hollywood scandal sheet?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
Mason nodded to Della Street. “Get me Paul Drake on the line.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Della broke it by saying, “He’s on the line, Chief.”
Mason picked up the telephone. “Paul, Allgood is here in the office. The more I think things over, the more I think that whole blackmailing business may have been thought out in advance — sort of a sequel to employment, if you know what I mean.”
Drake said, “I see.”
“Allgood’s here in the office now. I’m wondering if that Hollywood scandal sheet didn’t get its tip through Allgood. You said they didn’t pay anything?”
“That’s right, not in money. They pay in advertising and hot tips.”
Mason said, “See if they’ve been boosting Allgood’s agency, will you? And don’t leave the office. I’m going out. I’ll stop by on my way to the elevator and give you some interesting news. Check up on that scandal sheet and see if it looks as though Allgood is the fair-haired boy-child.”
Mason dropped the receiver into place, said to Allgood, “Well, I won’t detain you. I just wanted you to understand the way I felt about it.”
Allgood started for the door, paused, turned, and jerked his head toward Della Street. “Get her out of here.”
Mason shook his head.
“I have something to say to you.”
“Go ahead and say it then.”
“I notice that police picked up Marvin Adams when he got off the train this morning.”
“Well?”
“I also am advised that you had a highly confidential talk with Marvin Adams before the train pulled in at the depot. He handed you a letter.”
“Go ahead,” Mason said.
“I’m wondering if you told the police about that talk and about the letter.”
Mason said, “I have lots of talks about which I don’t tell the police. My talk with you, for instance. I haven’t told them about that — yet.”
Allgood said, “How would you like it if this Hollywood paper published a little quip to the effect that the police might do well to check up on the distinguished lawyer with whom a certain young man was talking just before the train from El Templo pulled into Los Angeles; that it might be well to ask this young man what the lawyer told him not to mention to the police — and what was in the letter he gave the lawyer. You see, Counselor, when it comes to being nasty, two people can play at that game very nicely.”
Mason motioned to Della Street. “Get Paul Drake on the phone,” he said.
Once more there was a silence while Della Street got the detective on the wire. This time, however, Allgood’s eyes were not shifting around the office. Hard and glittering, they stared defiantly at Perry Mason.
“Here’s Drake,” Della Street said.
Mason said, “Hello, Paul. I’m countermanding that order about having you look up Allgood’s connection with that scandal sheet.”
A triumphant smile twisted Allgood’s face. “I thought you’d see the light, Counselor. After all, we may as well be reasonable. We’re both businessmen.”
Mason waited until Allgood had finished, then said into the telephone, to Paul Drake. “The reason I’m telling you that is because there’s no use wasting time on that angle. Allgood didn’t tip off the man who writes that column... He writes it himself. He owns the damn paper. He’s just given himself away.”
Once more Mason dropped the receiver into place.
Allgood looked as though someone had punched him in the stomach.
Mason said, “You’re not dealing with a tyro now, Allgood. I know my way around. You gave yourself away with that last threat. It’s rather a neat racket. You publish these little innuendoes and hint at scandal. The persons who are affected come running to the office of the publication to find out what can be done about it, and wind up in the hands of the Allgood Detective Agency. In the meantime, some of the big Hollywood moguls are considering buying the paper out so as to put a muzzle on it, and your price is one that will give you about ninety-nine per cent clear profit.”
“You can’t prove one word of that,” Allgood said.
Mason indicated Della Street. “I’m making the statement in the presence of a witness,” he said. “Go ahead and sue me for slander, and give me a chance to prove it! I dare you.”
Allgood paused for a moment uncertainly, then turned and stormed out of the room.
Mason looked at Della Street, smiled. “Well,” he said, “that clears up one angle.”
“What?”
“Where that tip-off came from in the paper. Allgood thought he was going to put the squeeze on Witherspoon. He thought he’d pull the wool completely over my eyes.”
“But you were onto him?”
“Not entirely. I did notice that he’d left the lever depressed on that interoffice communicating system, so the girl in the outer office could hear everything we said. That’s why I told Drake to shadow her. Come on. Let’s beat it for El Templo.”
Della grabbed up her shorthand notebook. “Well,” she said, “our suitcases are still in the car. We might well be commuting. Don’t forget to stop in and see Paul Drake.”
“I won’t. Did you get the gist of that telephone conversation?”