“Wenston acts the part of the wealthy playboy. He has quite a place down between Culver City and Santa Monica. There’s a hangar and a swell little private landing field. He flies back and forth to San Francisco quite a lot. Guess who he has for a passenger on nearly all of the trips?”
“Karr?” Mason asked.
Drake nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Yes. When Karr’s taking the plane, a big limousine comes to Wenston’s place. The driver opens a locked gate in the fence around the estate, follows the driveway around back of the house to the hangar, then past the hangar out to the far end of the flying field. Wenston has his plane all warmed up. He taxies out there, and turns around; then a door opens, a couple of men get out — that Chinese servant and Johns Blaine, who apparently is a bodyguard. Then Karr gets out and...”
“Wait a minute,” Mason interrupted. “You say gets out?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You mean he walks?”
“Uh huh. Not very well, but he walks.”
Mason said excitedly, “How did you get that, Paul?”
Drake said, “Talking with a queer old hobo who lives in a scrap house down on the edge of the railroad right of way near where Wenston has his landing field. You know the sort. They squat down on waste land that no one cares anything about and build houses out of flattened-out coal-oil tins, old pieces of corrugated iron, and a few boards here and there.”
Mason nodded.
“This chap’s seen Wenston take off and come back from trips. Occasionally a passenger gets aboard or gets out down at the far end of the landing field. A heavy-set man who’s probably Johns Blaine is always on hand. Also there’s a Chinese. The passenger usually walks the few steps from the plane to the automobile, and gets in. He walks rather slowly, but he walks. From the description, it has to be Karr.”
“Is that hobo on the level?” Mason asked.
“I can’t guarantee him,” Drake said. “I think he’s okay, but he’s a queer cuss. I spotted his shack and thought it might be worth while trying to pump him for information. You told me to get a line on Wenston. I don’t think any amount of money would have bribed the old codger, but I got some old clothes and a roll of blankets and came walking along the railroad. I stopped to pass the time of day with him, and had a bottle of cheap liquor in my blanket roll. We got pretty well plastered. I’ve still got a headache from it. But he loosened up and told me a lot of stuff.”
Mason grinned. “Perhaps I’d better go out and talk with him.”
Drake said, “You! Hell’s bells, Perry, if you’d had to go through what I did, you’d have died. That booze was awful. My head feels like a toy balloon just before it busts.”
Mason slid off of Drake’s desk, said, “Why don’t you get better booze when you want to get plastered, Paul? It’s on the expense account. First time I ever knew you to economize on it.”
Drake said grimly, “Yeah. A nice time I’d have hitting the rails as a hobo, and then pulling a bottle of bonded hooch out of my blanket roll. Here I sit up most of the night finding bodies for you, grab a couple of hours’ sleep, go out and get drunk on cheap rotgut, and this is all the thanks I get.”
Mason started for the door. “It’s lack of imagination, Paul. You should have told him you were a hijacker, or poured some bonded stuff in a bottle with a cheap label.”
Drake snorted. “Let’s see you try that stunt on this coot. Go right ahead, my lad. Hop to it.”
Out in the hallway, Mason asked, “These people waiting, Della?”
“Yes. I told them you were in conference in another lawyer’s office, and I couldn’t reach you on the telephone, as you’d left word you weren’t to be disturbed, but I thought I could go over, explain the situation, and get you to come back with me. How about it? Did you plant that tin?”
“Nothing to it,” Mason said. “I walked in with a bulging brief case and wearing gloves, said I wanted to look the premises over again, and particularly wanted to see the smudges of paint on the garage door. They sent Hester, the stolid servant who certainly seems none too intelligent, down to show me around. I waited until her back was turned and slipped the tin up on the shelf.”
“You don’t think she spotted it?”
“She didn’t even so much as look back when I started upstairs. She’s either just an ox, or she’s trying to keep out of the mess by seeming to be one. So now we’ve baited the trap, and we’ll wait to see what walks in.”
“I don’t like the bait,” Della said. “Be careful someone doesn’t steal it.”
“I’ll do that little thing,” Mason promised.
He unlocked the door of his private office, and pushed it open. Della Street said, “I’ll go and bring them in. Mr. Wenston wants to talk with you before you see this girl.”
“All right, get him in. Let’s see what’s on his mind.”
Wenston, looking very trim and military, entered Mason’s private office. He had a courteous bow for Della Street, a handclasp for Mason. “This ith a complication,” he said. “This girl ith an imposter. I have refused even to listen to her. I want you to hear her story the first time she tells it. I don’t want to take her to the guv’nor until after you’ve talked with her. After that, I won’t have to. You can trap her, and expose her as an impothtor.”
“What makes you think she’s an impostor if you haven’t talked with her?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know,” Wenston said, “unless it’s some sort of a telepathic intuition. She doesn’t theem genuine. There’s something phoney about her whole approach.”
“And you want me to talk with her?” Mason asked.
“I want you to cross-examine her — give her the works.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to do that in front of Mr. Karr?”
“No. I know most of the facts. I want to see if she’s telling the truth. If she isn’t, I’m not going to let her even get near Karr.”
“And you want me to cross-examine?” Mason asked.
Wenston nodded.
Mason said, “Well, let’s have her in here and see what she looks like.”
Doris Wickford followed Della Street into the office. She was between twenty-seven and thirty, Mason judged, with very dark hair, dark, thin eyebrows, long lashes, slate-colored eyes, and a pale skin which, coupled with a poker-faced immobility of countenance, gave her a peculiarly detached manner. She said, “Good afternoon. You’re Mr. Mason, aren’t you?” and came over to give him her hand. The slate-gray eyes gave him a long, steady scrutiny. She said, “I presume Mr. Wenston has told you I’m an imposter.”
Mason laughed.
Wenston said with dignity, “I told him to give you a croth-examination.”
“I expected that,” she said. “The reason I didn’t tell Mr. Wenston all the details is that I don’t want to keep going over them again and again. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Mason, that I know Mr. Wenston isn’t the one who put that ad in the paper. For one thing, it’s very apparent that Mr. Wenston is rather young to have been in partnership with my father in 1920. I also know it because I know something about the persons with whom my father had that partnership. One of them was a man by the name of Karr, and I presume that he’s the one who’s really back of this ad in the paper. I’ve asked Mr. Wenston if that wasn’t a fact, and he refused to answer. I’ve asked him if he isn’t related to a Mr. Karr or employed by him, and he told me we’d go over that when we got to your office. Well, the way I look at it, if Mr. Karr is the one who’s really interested, why can’t we go to see him and then have it settled one way or the other?”
Wenston shook his head firmly. “I won’t subject the guv’nor to the strain of such an interview unleth I know it’s justified. You’ve got to convince me before you can ever see him.”