“Thanks for your hospitality, Salty, but we’re heading toward Mojave right after breakfast.”
Della glanced quickly at the lawyer, fighting surprise back from her eyes.
“Better look up Nell Sims when you get there,” Salty said.
“We intend to.”
“Maybe she’ll have her pies going by today. She said she would.”
“Suppose Pete went with her?”
Salty’s lips clamped into a tight line. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You don’t care much about Pete?”
“He’s all right.”
Mason grinned. “Well, I’ll go take a look at Mojave.”
“You don’t know when — That is — the funeral?”
“No. They won’t release the body for a while, Salty. Not until tomorrow anyway.”
Salty suddenly thrust out his hand. “Thanks,” he said.
They said good-by to the others, loaded their car and started down the dusty, winding road, Della Street at the wheel.
“Thought you planned to stay for a day or two,” Della said.
“I did,” Mason admitted. “I wasn’t exactly running away, but I didn’t want to be available for questioning until the situation had clarified itself somewhat. If I don’t produce that stock certificate, I’m in bad. If I do, it becomes apparent that the endorsement is, as matters now stand, a forgery. Then there’s one other thing that bothers me. The minute Mrs. Bradisson finds that other will has disappeared she’ll know who has it. You see she knows I couldn’t have gone in that room and fallen asleep, because she left it only a relatively short time before I was discovered in there at the desk.”
“What will she do when she finds out, Chief?”
“I don’t know. Her position will then be untenable, so she may decide to beat me to the punch. All in all, I thought it would be better to keep out of circulation for a while. But that information about the ipecac — well, if they start anything, we can fight back.”
“At that you’re in hot water again,” she observed after a few minutes during which she silently concentrated on driving the car.
“It’s hot all right,” Mason admitted, “and it keeps getting hotter. It won’t be long until it starts boiling.”
“Then what?”
“Then I’ll become even more hard-boiled.”
“For one like that, you deserve to be conversationally ostracized,” she proclaimed. “I’m going to put you in verbal quarantine.”
“It’s really justified,” he admitted, letting his head drop back to the cushions, closing his eyes. “I really should be shot.”
Mason dozed while the dusty miles slipped behind. Then the dirt road joined a ribbon of paved highway and the car purred smoothly toward Mojave, topped a little rise, and the town of Mojave sprawled out across the face of the desert as listless, when seen from this distance, and as sun-bleached as a dried bone.
“Well,” Della Street said, easing the pressure on the foot throttle, “here we are. Where do we go?”
Mason, still with his eyes closed, said, “Nell Sims’ restaurant.”
“Think we can find it all right?”
Mason chuckled. “Her return should be quite an event in the history of Mojave. Doubtless there will be some manifestation. Her individuality is too strong to be swallowed without a trace in a town of this size.”
The road swung along for a short distance parallel to the railroad track. Della Street said, “Looks as though it had been snowing.”
Mason opened his eyes. Pieces of paper were plastered up against every clump of greasewood that dotted the face of the desert.
“Railroad track over here,” Mason said with a gesture, “and the winds come from that direction, and you’ve never really seen the wind blow until you’ve been in Mojave. Trains always spew out pieces of paper, and along here the winds blow them against the little greasewood bushes so hard that they stick. The accumulation of years along here. Down here a way, a man had a hat farm.”
“A hat farm?” Della asked.
“That’s right. It gets hot in the desert and people stick their heads out of the train windows. A certain percentage of hats blow off, and the wind rolls them along the ground like tumbleweeds until they fetch up against the greasewood on this fellow’s little homestead. His neighbors plowed up the ground on their homesteads and tried to grow things. The country starved them out. This man left all the natural brush in place and picked up enough hats in the course of a year to keep him in grub.”
Della Street laughed.
“No kidding,” Mason told her; “it’s a fact. Ask some of the people around here about the hat farm.”
“Honest injun?”
“Honest injun. You ask them.”
The road went down a little dip, made a slight curve and entered Mojave. At closer range the little desert metropolis presented more signs of external activity.
“There was a time,” Mason said, “when the only people who lived here were those who didn’t have carfare enough or gumption enough to get out of town. This was too civilized to have the real advantages of the desert, and too much of the desert to have the advantages of civilization. Now, with air-conditioning and electric refrigeration, the place is quite livable, and you can see the difference in the whole appearance of the city. — I guess this is the place we want, Della, dead ahead. See the sign?”
A sign made of bunting had been rigged up and hung out across the sidewalk. It proclaimed in vivid red letters at least three feet high, “NELL’S BACK!”
Della Street eased the car to a stop. Mason held the car door open while she slid out from under the steering wheel, across the seat, and, with a flash of trim legs, stood on the sidewalk beside him.
“Any particular line we use?” Della asked.
“No. We just barge in and start talking.”
Mason held the restaurant door open for her. As they entered the room, after the glare of the desert, their sun-tortured eyes took a second or two to adjust themselves so they could see into the shadows. One thing, however, which was clearly visible as soon as they entered the room was a long thin piece of bunting stretched over the mirror behind the lunch counter. On it was painted in big letters: “BECAUSE I RUN A BETTER RESTAURANT, THE WORLD HAS BEAT A MOUSE TRAP TO MY DOORS.”
“This,” Mason announced, “is undoubtedly the place.”
From the dark coolness near the back of the room, Nell Sims exclaimed, “Well, for the land sakes! Now, what on earth are you two doing here?”
“Just looking for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie,” Mason said, grinning and walking across to shake hands. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. Well, you folks certainly do get around.”
“Don’t we?” Della said laughing.
“It’s just a little early for me to get my shelves stocked with pastry,” Nell Sims apologized, “but I’ve got some pies coming out of the oven in just a minute now. How’d you like a piece of hot apple pie with a couple of scoops of ice cream on top of it and a nice big slab of cheese on the side of the plate?”
“Can you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Serve pie, cheese, and ice cream at one time?”
“I ain’t supposed to, but I can. Out in these parts Hospitality can’t read — at least, any of these new-fangled government regulations. Sit right down and I’ll have those pies out of the oven in just a minute or two. You’ll like ’em. I put in plenty of sugar. Never did care for desserts that were just half sweet. I put in lots of butter and sugar and cinnamon. May not be able to bake so many pies, but those I do bake certainly taste like something.”