“Did you think that a phone call from you, Miss Martel, would be all that was necessary to make any lawyer at any time quit working for any client you might designate?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “I’m not foolish enough to waste my time or yours. Now, simply ring up Graystone 9-3535 and ask whoever answers the phone to connect you with Edward Carter. Tell him who you are and tell him Vera Martel rang you up and said to tell him, ‘Your fingerprints are over those of the person you are trying to protect.’ Do you understand, Mr. Mason? Simply give him that message. You aren’t to tell him any more than that — and the number once more, Mr. Mason, is Graystone 9-3535 — although I feel quite certain your very beautiful secretary is either taking this conversation down in shorthand or else it’s being recorded on a tape recorder. There’s no need for any comment, Mr. Mason. Your client is a fool. Good-by!”
The phone slammed at the other end of the line.
Mason hung up and Della Street, who had been taking shorthand notes, slowly replaced her receiver.
“Well?” Mason asked.
“Good heavens, what a delivery!” Della Street said. “I guess I got all of it but it certainly was a job. She talked like a house afire. It seemed like she was going five hundred words a minute.”
“Anything else?” Mason asked.
“Miss Martel seems to keep very well informed on what happens with the people whom she decides to blackmail.”
“Doesn’t she!” Mason said.
“Any idea how she does it?” Della Street asked.
“Not yet.”
“And what about the fact that Edward Carter is really Carter Gilman?”
“That’s not news, at least to us,” Mason said.
“But how in the world could she know? He evidently gave you a name that he felt would throw you off the track just so she wouldn’t find out, and here within... within four hours of the time he left the office she calls up to warn you to lay off.”
“Well,” Mason said, “we’ll at least check her information. We owe that much to our client and to ourselves, Della. Call Graystone 9-3535 and ask for Mr. Carter.”
“Won’t that just be playing into her hands?” Della Street asked.
Mason grinned. “We’re leading from the dummy, Della.”
Della Street put through the call, asked for Mr. Carter, then nodded to Mason.
The lawyer picked up his phone. A moment later a voice sounding somewhat puzzled said, “Hello, who did you wish to speak with?”
“Mr. Carter?” Mason said. “This is Perry Mason, the lawyer.”
“What!”
“Do you wish me to repeat? This is Perry Mason, the lawyer.”
“Great heavens!... I told you not to try to call me. How in the world did you ever locate me here? What do you want?”
“Miss Martel just rang me up,” Mason said. “She told me to call you at this number and say to you, and I quote, ‘Your fingerprints are over those of the person you are trying to protect.’
“Now, does that message mean anything to you?”
There was a long period of silence.
“You there?” Mason asked.
The voice at the other end of the phone was shaken, all but inaudible. “I’m here... I’m trying to think... I... what have you done so far, Mr. Mason?”
“I have a detective agency working on the investigation. It has representatives here and in San Francisco digging up information.”
The voice at the other end of the line suddenly snapped with decision. “Very well, Mr. Mason, I can see the matter is more serious than I supposed it was when I called on you. I’m going to have to change some of the instructions I gave you.”
“Now just a minute,” Mason said. “So far you’re just a voice over the telephone. I don’t accept instructions that way. Can you identify yourself?”
“I am the man who called on you this morning, Mr. Mason. I gave you one five-hundred-dollar bill, two one-hundreds and a fifty. I have your receipt signed by Della Street, your secretary.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Mason said. “Is there any other way you can identify yourself?”
“Good heavens, Mason, this is a serious matter. Isn’t it enough that I have given you a substantial retainer and that you have accepted it?”
“Since you ask the question,” Mason said, “I’ll answer it. The answer is: No, that isn’t enough. I want definite identification.”
“All right,” the man said, “I suppose I’ll have to come clean. My real name is Carter Gilman. I made the appointment with you as Edward Carter. When I came to your office I told you I was a little late and you told me that traffic conditions being what they were, you always found it advisable to try to get to your appointments a few minutes early and then, if you were held up, the other man wasn’t kept waiting.
“Your secretary sat on your right-hand side at a little desk of her own with a telephone on it and took notes. She handed me the receipt immediately after you and I had shaken hands when I was leaving.”
“How were you dressed?” Mason asked.
“I had on a brown suit, a gray tie with red bars on a diagonal. I wore brown and white sports shoes and tortoise-shell glasses; that is, the so-called horn-rimmed glasses.
“Mr. Mason, the message which you have just given me has come as a distinct shock because it means that persons whom I thought I could trust are arrayed against me. I now admit my identity. I am Carter Gilman.
“I am going to give you detailed instructions which are very important and which must be followed to the letter. My daughter, Muriell, I can trust. She is very much upset over the manner in which I left the house this morning. She has driven to my office in the Piedmont Building and is making discreet inquiries of my secretary, Matilda Norman. I am going to telephone her to put her mind at ease and I am going to give her certain specific instructions. She will go at once to your office in carrying out those instructions and tell you just what you are to do.
“I want you to accept Muriell’s instructions just as though they came directly from me. She will tell you some things that are so highly confidential I don’t dare discuss them over the telephone.
“And, Mr. Mason, please do not underestimate Vera Martel. The fact that she knew I could be reached at this number at this particular time is very disturbing. The message which she gave you is one that was designed to get me to run for cover and call this whole thing off. Now that the situation is out in the open, now that she knows I have consulted you, now that she knows we are headed for a showdown, I am going to come out in the open and start fighting.
“I will no longer masquerade as Edward Carter, a friend of the family. If you will wait there at your office you will hear from my daughter, Muriell, within the next ten minutes. It shouldn’t take her longer than that to get to your office. Please do everything she says.”
“Now just a minute,” Mason said. “You’re dealing the cards pretty fast here, Gilman. You wanted me to try and find out something about Mrs. Gilman. Now suddenly you’re changing all of the instructions and dumping an entirely different case in my lap.”
“Well, does it make any difference what I ask you to do, just so I pay you for doing it, Mr. Mason?”
“It may make a whale of a difference,” Mason said. “And what you want me to do now may cost a lot more money than what you wanted me to do this morning.”
Gilman said, “Very well, Mr. Mason. I will see that you are paid. Remember that I not only gave you a retainer of seven hundred and fifty dollars, but you wanted title to all of the machinery and personal property that was in my workshop. I don’t know what put that particular idea in your mind, but I can now tell you, Mr. Mason, that if you will drive out with Muriell to that workshop you will find a large sum of money on the floor. That money should serve as additional compensation until you can hear from me again. Please wait right there until you hear from Muriell.”