The musical voice of the secretary said, “They are ready, Mr. Calhoun. I was waiting to see if you wished them brought in.”
“Bring them in,” Calhoun said.
The door opened and Miss Colfax entered the office and handed the three receipts to Calhoun.
Calhoun read the receipts, signed all three of them, handed one to Mason and said, “That’s all, Miss Colfax.”
She turned and left the office. There was something in the way in which she walked which indicated she was conscious of the fact both men were watching her back as she left the room and that she was not at all displeased.
Mason said, “Well, I guess that covers everything I have to do here.”
“I am very anxious to see Mr. Gilman,” Calhoun said.
“How much longer will you be here?” Mason asked.
“At least for another hour.”
“How about Mr. Gilman’s secretary?” Mason asked casually. “Is she in the office? I would like to speak to her.”
Calhoun depressed a key, said, “Miss Colfax, will you find out if Miss Matilda Norman is in Mr. Gilman’s office?”
He sat waiting by the interoffice communication unit until the voice of the secretary said, “Miss Norman has left for the night, Mr. Calhoun.”
Calhoun said very formally, “Thank you, Miss Colfax,” and switched off the intercom. “It is long past closing time. I had some of the employees work overtime.”
Mason said, “Thank you, and good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Mason,” Calhoun said.
Mason left the private office, walked across the outer office, paused in the doorway and looked back at the gorgeous brunette. “Good night, Miss Colfax.”
Her eyes softened into an amused smile. “Good night, Mr. Mason,” she said, and her right eye closed in a deliberate wink.
The lawyer walked down the street to his own office building and stopped in Paul Drake’s office.
“Any news from Paul?” he asked the girl at the switchboard.
She shook her head. “He went out on a job for you, Mr. Mason, right after you phoned and he hasn’t been back. He couldn’t get an operative who was available.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Tell him I want to see him when he comes in.”
The lawyer walked down to his private office, latch-keyed the door and said to Della Street, “Well, here’s Carter Gilman’s brief case. Let’s look through it and see what’s in it. I delivered some contracts and here’s the cardboard jacket they were in, a jacket that has the notation on it Muriell told me about. Let’s see what else is in the brief case.”
They looked through it together and found only half a dozen timetables of the various airlines leaving Los Angeles, plus a notation giving the address: Steven A. Barlow, 5981 Virginia City Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Well?” Della Street asked.
“For your information,” Mason said, “I have recently been associating with some very, very beautiful women.”
“Does the adventure bear repetition or verbal description?” Della Street asked.
Mason said, “In the first place, I have had a delightful visit with our Miss Muriell Gilman, a young woman who has considerable ability as an actress and is somewhat proud of the manner in which she can use an air of childish innocence to cover up a background of thought which she feels is quite sophisticated.
“Then there is a curvaceous character by the name of Glamis Barlow who is blond, blue-eyed, very seductive and feels that gentlemen who assist her into automobiles should be given a generous glimpse of what she herself describes as a very good-looking leg.”
“You fascinate me,” Della Street said. “You mean I have been neglecting my feminine prerogatives by jumping casually into cars instead of waiting for men to assist me?”
Mason said, “I always felt that women liked to know the latest approach so that they could be in style.”
“Your hint is appreciated. There have been others?”
“Oh, many others,” Mason said. “There is a red-headed receptionist in the office of the Gilman company that has probably provoked as many whistles as any railroad crossing in the country. Then there is a young woman named Colfax who somehow manages to take dictation in a manner as suggestive as the motions of a striptease artist in taking off a pair of long-sleeved gloves — in other words, she has the ability to invest a thoroughly conventional action with an unconventional atmosphere, if you get what I mean.”
“I get what you mean,” Della Street said. “In the meantime, I am interested in knowing more about the personality of Mr. Gilman’s private secretary, because there is no doubt on earth that she is the woman who telephoned and stated that she was Vera Martel, delivered the mysterious message about the fingerprints and gave us the number where Mr. Gilman could be reached. For your further information, Mr. Mason, that number was the number of a public pay-station telephone. It is in a booth about four blocks from the building where Mr. Gilman has his office.”
Mason said, “Miss Matilda Norman, the secretary in question, had left for the night. She is reported to be somewhere in the fifties and is built along the lines of a string bean.”
“These other women, I take it,” Della Street said, “were not built along the lines of string beans.”
“Definitely not,” Mason said. “They were built like a mountain highway in Mexico. In other words, they were full of curves.”
“And hard-surfaced?” Della Street asked.
“Well,” Mason said, “they had an appearance which would indicate that all operations would be close to the maximum speed.”
“You didn’t exceed the limit, I take it.”
“Oh, definitely not,” Mason said. “I met a very pompous young man who takes himself very, very seriously indeed; a man who is saturated with college economics, with the analsyis of financial trends, who would exude stock-market quotations as a wrestler would exude perspiration.”
“My, but we’re getting flowery,” Della Street said.
“That,” Mason told her, “is due entirely to the atmosphere of the office I have just visited. If you have any surplus funds that you wish to invest I would recommend the Gilman company. It is painfully conscious of the fact that its stability depends upon keeping the reputations of the executive personnel free from the slightest taint.
“And, for your further information, Mr. Calhoun has recently made the startling discovery that Glamis Barlow, the long-legged blonde with the seductive habits, was born a year too soon to be the legitimate offspring of the Barlow marriage.”
“Dear, dear,” Della Street said. “I’m surprised your Mr. Calhoun could bear up under such a horrible example of moral depravity.
“Good Lord, Chief, I’m catching the pompous mood myself. Suppose I should start exuding stock-market quotations?”
“No,” Mason said. “Your way of fitting into the picture would be to practice walking from the office the way Miss Colfax does.”
“And how’s that?”
“I can’t describe the means, only the general effect. It is like a snake walking on its tail while holding its head rigidly motionless.”
Suddenly the lawyer lost his bantering manner and said, “To hell with it, Della, what do you say we go out and get dinner? We’ll leave word for Paul where we are. I gave him a tailing job, thinking he was going to tail Muriell, because I wanted to find out whether she went directly to her father after I dropped her at her car. However, Glamis took over the parking ticket from Muriell and now Paul Drake is shadowing Glamis on an expedition which may be rather unprofitable — at least as far as advancing the case is concerned.”
Mason and Della Street walked down the hall and stopped in at Paul Drake’s office, which was by the elevators.