“That was after she married Gilman?” Mason asked.
“About a year before.”
“Where does Glamis think the money came from if she doesn’t know anything about the will and the settlement?” Mason asked.
“That I can’t tell you. Nancy has covered up in some way, but that’s generally the story.”
Mason got up and started pacing the floor. “Well,” he said, “that’s the kernel of the nut.”
“What is?”
“The blackmail,” Drake said. “This Vera Martel has found out about it in some way and she’s putting the heat on Nancy, or perhaps on Glamis, or perhaps on both of them.”
The phone rang.
Della Street picked it up, said, “It’s for you, Paul.”
Drake scooped up the instrument, said, “Hello, I’m coming right back to the office. If it’s anything that’ll wait... What!... You’re sure?... Okay, give me the details.” Drake stood listening at the telephone for a good three minutes, then he said, “Okay. Get men on the job. Find out everything you can... That’s right, give it the works. Don’t spare any expense.”
Drake hung up the telephone. Mason, grinning, said, “You’re spending a lot of someone’s money, Paul. I’d hate to be the client in that case.”
Drake looked at him with troubled eyes. “You are,” he said. “Police found the body of Vera Martel early this morning. She was in her automobile and the automobile had apparently gone out of control and gone over a mountain grade back up around Mulholland Drive somewhere.
“However, there are lots of things about the case that are suspicious. The cops started with the idea that the car had been deliberately driven off the road at a place where there was an almost perpendicular drop of more than a hundred feet. Then they got the body to the coroner’s office and a couple of hours ago the coroner gave them the information that it was murder, that there was a broken hyoid bone, distinctive petechial hemorrhagic spots and that Vera Martel had been quite dead when the automobile was pushed over the cliff.
“So the police started doing some high-class detective work and they found sawdust ground into Vera’s skirt and some sawdust in the inside of her shoes. It wasn’t the ordinary kind of sawdust but the sort that comes from a workshop where someone deals in rare woods — the kind one has as a hobby.”
“How long has she been dead?” Mason asked.
“The best guess is that she died somewhere between seven o’clock yesterday morning and noon. If the police hadn’t found the body when they did — in other words, if the body had remained there for a couple of days longer — police would have had great difficulty in fixing the time of death. The body was discovered because of good work on the part of a highway patrol who happened to notice peculiar automobile tracks in the dirt shoulder of the road. If it hadn’t been for that, the body could have been there for days or weeks, because it was impossible to see the car unless someone got off the road and climbed partway down the mountain. The car had rolled over into a clump of scrub oak and was almost completely concealed.”
Mason said, “How long have the police been working on this thing, Paul?”
“Since a little after daylight. They didn’t let the news leak out for a while and now they’re really closing a lot of loose ends. They—”
The telephone from the outer office rang. Della Street picked up the instrument and said, “Yes, Gertie.” And then she said to Mason, “It’s Muriell Gilman. She’s on the line and Gertie says she’s all but hysterical. She wants to talk with you right away.”
“Put her on,” Mason said, “I’ll talk with her.”
The lawyer picked up the telephone, said to Della Street, “You stay on the line, too, Della.”
Della nodded, said, “Put her on, Gertie.”
Mason heard a click and said, “Hello, Muriell. This is Mr. Mason.”
“Oh, Mr. Mason, the most terrible thing has happened,” Muriell said.
“All right,” Mason said. “Now, keep calm and tell me in as few words as possible what it is. We may not have much time.”
“The police were out here with a search warrant, Mr. Mason.”
“All right,” Mason said. “Who was home at the time?”
“All three of us. Nancy was asleep. Glamis got home in the small hours this morning and she was asleep. But I was up.”
“All right,” Mason said. “The police served the warrant on you?”
“Yes. They asked me who was in charge here and I said I guessed I was and they said they wanted to look in Daddy’s woodworking shop.”
“Did they?”
“Yes.”
“What did they do?”
“They had a man who had some sort of a vacuum-sweeping attachment and he got sawdust off the floor and they looked at the broken chair and at the upset paint and they took some powder and dusted the can of enamel and there were fingerprints on it and they photographed those, and then they told me I had better wait outside but not to go near a phone.”
“How long ago was that?”
“It must have been half or three quarters of an hour.”
“Then what?”
“Then they left and... well, they were very nice, but they wouldn’t answer questions. I kept asking them if there was some trouble, but they said they couldn’t answer questions, that their job was to get information and not give it out.”
“All right,” Mason said. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s been in Las Vegas. He was supposed to be back on an early-morning plane and was supposed to be at the office at nine o’clock, but Mr. Calhoun called at nine thirty and said Daddy hadn’t shown up and asked if I knew where he was.”
“What did you tell Calhoun?”
“Mr. Mason, I... I lied to him.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I didn’t know where Daddy was at the moment. I left the impression Daddy had been here for breakfast.”
“Did he ask if your father had been home last night?”
“No, he didn’t ask that specifically. He asked me if Daddy had intended to be at the office this morning and I told him I was quite sure he was going to be there.”
“All right,” Mason said. “Now, the police left there how long ago?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“I was just completely flabbergasted. I didn’t know what to do. I felt as though my knees had turned to rubber. I didn’t know whether to tell Glamis and Nancy or what to do.”
“What did you do?”
“I haven’t wakened either Nancy or Glamis.”
Mason said, “I want to talk with Nancy and I want to talk with Glamis. It’s probably better for me to go out there than to have you come in here. I—”
The door from the outer office opened and Lt. Tragg of Homicide, his distinctive black hat tilted somewhat to the back of his head, entered the room. A plain-clothes officer followed behind him.
“Well, well, good morning, folks,” he said. “I see you’re busy as usual here.”
Mason said in a sufficiently loud voice so Muriell would have no difficulty hearing him, “Well, well! What brings the Lieutenant of Homicide to my office this morning, and why don’t you ask to be announced? It’s only a trifling formality but it indicates a certain consideration for the conventions.”
“I’ve repeatedly told you, the taxpayers don’t pay me to be considerate of conventions,” Lt. Tragg said. “I could waste a lot of the taxpayers’ time waiting in people’s outer offices. And then again, Perry, it would give people an opportunity to prepare for my visit. They could perhaps remove evidence or think things over a little bit, or sometimes they might even slip out of the side exit door and then their secretary would be able to say quite truthfully that the man I wanted to see was gone and she didn’t know just where he could be located.