“I’ll wait,” Mason said, “but I’m going to look around.”
Muriell hurried up the staircase. Mason glanced briefly around the living room, then walked to the dining room, pushed back the swinging door to the kitchen, looked in the kitchen, studying the location of the doors and windows, and was back in the dining room by the time Muriell returned.
“Did you get them up?” he asked.
“I got them awake,” she said. “Nancy is coming right down. I don’t know about Glamis. She was really put out.”
“That’s too bad,” Mason said casually. “Now, I notice that standing here in the dining room you can look out at the garage and the workshop, but you can’t see them from the kitchen.”
“That’s right. The dining-room wall makes a little jog right here and you can see the garage and workshop through that window.”
“Where was your father sitting?”
“Right near where you’re standing, right there at that place at the table.”
“Then he could have seen the workshop from the window while he was eating breakfast.”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“But you couldn’t see out from the kitchen?”
“No, the kitchen door opens onto a service porch— You can see the workshop and garage from the door of the service porch, however, but you can’t see out from the kitchen. Why, Mr. Mason? Does it make any difference?”
“I don’t know.” Mason said. “I’m trying to get the picture — and it’s rather a confused picture right at the moment. I’m hoping your stepmother can—”
“Can do what?” a woman’s voice asked.
Mason turned to encounter the curious, slightly indignant eyes of a tall, blond woman who, despite the lack of make-up and the fact that she apparently was dressed only in a housecoat and slippers, was remarkably attractive.
“I’m hoping,” Mason said, “you can clear up certain matters for me.”
“I hope so, too. I’m Nancy Gilman. I understand you are Perry Mason, the noted lawyer, and that you have some very important news for me about my husband. I didn’t stop for make-up or anything, I just put on a housecoat and slippers, and here I am, Mr. Mason. I’m certainly hoping that the information you have is sufficiently important to justify an invasion of this sort at this hour of the morning.”
Mason reached a sudden decision. He said, “All right, I’ll hand it to you straight from the shoulder. Your husband, Carter Gilman, is in jail.”
“For heaven’s sakes! What’s he been doing?”
Mason said, “The authorities think he’s guilty of murder.”
“Of murder!”
“That’s right.”
Nancy Gilman drew out a chair and seated herself. She looked at Mason long and earnestly, then shook her head and said, “There’s something completely fantastic about all this, Mr. Mason. You don’t seem to be the drinking type. Are you sure of your facts?”
“I have just come from visiting him in the jail,” Mason said.
“May I ask what this murder is all about — drunken car-driving, or what?”
Mason, watching her closely, said, “Apparently he is accused of the deliberate, willful murder of Vera M. Martel.”
Nancy Gilman’s eyebrows went up. She looked inquiringly at Muriell, then back at Mason. “And who is Vera M. Martel?”
“A private detective who may have been blackmailing you,” Mason said, standing with his shoulders squared, his weight on the balls of his feet, his manner indicating impatient disapproval of Nancy Gilman’s attitude and his intention of forcing the truth out of her.
“Blackmailing me?”
“That’s the general idea.”
Nancy Gilman shook her head. “Nobody’s been blackmailing me, Mr. Mason.”
“Or trying to?”
Again there was a shake of the head.
“What about the ten thousand dollars?” Mason asked.
“What ten thousand dollars? Mr. Mason, you have a peculiar attitude. It’s the attitude of someone who is trying to force an unwilling witness to give out information.”
“What attitude would you suggest?” Mason asked.
“Really, I don’t know, Mr. Mason. I know who you are, of course, and your reputation; otherwise, I wouldn’t have come down here. I hardly feel qualified to tell you how to practice law but your manner arouses my curiosity and, if you’ll pardon my frankness, a certain instinctive resentment.”
“All right,” Mason said, “have all the resentment you want. Let’s get the facts straight. There’s no time to play cat and mouse with a situation of this sort. The police are going to be out here at any minute and they’re going to question you. You have an attractive personality, are evidently quite accustomed to dominate any situation in which you find yourself by using personality and sex appeal, both of which commodities are of no value in dealing with the police. For your information, the police don’t play games.”
“I’m not playing games, Mr. Mason.”
“Do you know anything about ten thousand dollars in cash?”
“What am I supposed to know about it?”
“Did you know your husband drew that money from his bank?”
She shook her head.
“Did you draw it from your bank?”
“Heavens, no!”
“Did you have ten thousand dollars in cash within the last few days?”
“Certainly not.”
“Have you ever had any conversation with Vera M. Martel?”
“I wouldn’t know her from any woman I’d meet on the street. You say she’s a private detective?”
“A private detective,” Mason said, “and she may have been a blackmailer. The police have reason to believe she was choked to death in the workshop out in back of the house and that ten thousand dollars, which was intended to be used as a bribe or a blackmail payment, was left in the workshop while someone went out to dispose of Vera Martel’s body.”
“Mr. Mason, you seem sober, you seem serious and what you’re saying at least seems logical to you, but from my standpoint I’d say you were either drunk, had been taking dope, or were completely crazy.”
Glamis Barlow swept into the room imperiously. She was attired in a filmy negligee which silhouetted her long legs and the curves of her body, and she was angry.
“May I ask what in the world this is all about?” she asked.
Mason said, “I wanted to question you.”
“Well, question me at some decent hour then,” she said, “and don’t think I have to answer your questions just because I was attracted by you yesterday. Today you’re a pain in the anatomy. Now what’s this all about?”
Nancy said, “Carter has been arrested for murder, Glamis.”
“For murder!”
Nancy nodded. “So Mr. Mason insists. It seems a woman named... what was that name again, Mr. Mason?”
“Vera M. Martel,” Mason said.
“Mr. Mason seems to think a woman named Martel was murdered out in the workshop,” Nancy Gilman said.
Glamis looked at the lawyer with eyes that were like blue ice. “Mr. Mason, is this your idea of a joke or are you trying to get some information out of us and have chosen a shock approach in order to do it?”
Muriell, hurrying in from the kitchen with a cup of steaming coffee, said, “Here, honey, have some coffee.”
Glamis made no effort to reach for the coffee cup, no effort to thank Muriell. She simply ignored Muriell as though the girl had no existence, and continued to hold Perry Mason with a fixed stare of hostility.
“I’m waiting for an answer, Mr. Mason,” she said.
Mason said, “Listen, I’ve told your mother and I’m telling you — we aren’t playing games here. We don’t have much time. The police are going to be here within a few minutes and, believe me, when you start talking with the police you’ll come face to face with reality.