Mason finished switching out the lights. His small flashlight illuminated the way to the door. “All ready?” he asked.
“All ready,” she told him.
“A stiff upper lip,” he said, “and chin held high. We’re on our way.”
Mason flung the door open.
The fog-filled air stroked their faces with cool fingers. The street seemed deserted. Mason gave Della Street his arm. “The next few seconds are the bad ones,” he said. Together they walked down the stairs to the sidewalk. Halfway to the carline, Della Street said, “Lord, how I want to run. My feet seem to fly up at me. Do we take a car?”
“Yes. Remember, that radio patrol car is cruising around here, looking for two people who answer our description.”
“But if they stop us, they’ll recognize us.”
“That’s just the trouble. Seeing us together will make them realize how closely we check with the description given by the frightened party in the rubber-soled shoes.”
“Oh-oh,” Della Street said. “And even on the cable car we’ll be conspicuous. If there were only a phone handy so we could call a cab!”
Mason laughed. “In any event, you have to admit our lives don’t consist of a mere drab procession of uninteresting events.”
“No,” she admitted, chattering nervously to keep herself under control. “Life doesn’t bother us at all that way. Do we wait here for the car?”
Mason said, “We walk a couple of blocks, find some place — No, here comes a car now. We take it.”
The cable car which swung around the corner to the accompaniment of a jangling bell slowed at Mason’s signal.
“Got mad money?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“All right, get on by yourself. Sit in back. I’ll sit out in front. We’re just two people who happened to have taken the car at the same corner.”
The motorman pulled back on the big brake. Mason caught the hand grip and swung aboard a couple of seconds before the car came to a stop, permitting Della Street to board the enclosed section. The motorman released levers, pulled on a grip, and the car rattled forward.
After what seemed an interminable interval of twisting and turning, clanging across intersections, and being braked down steep hills, the cable car slowed in response to Mason’s signal. The lawyer slid from his seat, swung Ms long legs out to the ground, and walked rapidly away. Della Street followed demurely a half block behind. Abruptly Mason turned, started back, caught Della Street’s eye, and raised his hat “Well, well, well,” he exclaimed. “Fancy seeing you here!”
Her face lit in a glad smile. “Perry!” she exclaimed.
Two Marines who had been quite obviously interested in Della Street turned disappointedly away. Mason said, “This is indeed a pleasure. How about something to eat?”
“Do you know, that’s a peculiar coincidence. I was just thinking of going to a restaurant.”
“There’s a very nice café in the next block,” he told her. “Locarno’s — noted for its broiled steaks.”
“The way I feel right now, two cocktails and a steak would make a new woman of me.”
“Going to trade in the old model?” Mason asked.
“I’m thinking of it. What am I offered?”
“Two cocktails and a steak.”
“Sold.”
Laughing, she took his arm, and they started up the street together. She said, “My knees are wobbly. I’ve got the jitters. I need a drink, but I’m still hungry.”
“You’ll get accustomed to corpses after a while,” he told her.
“Yes. Working for a man who isn’t content to sit back and let a case develop, but has to go out and develop it, has its decided drawbacks.”
Mason said, “One of the first rules of secretarial efficiency is never to find fault with the boss when he’s about to buy a meal.”
“Isn’t a secretary entitled to her necessary traveling expenses?”
“Yes, but when she steps outside of her secretarial position and becomes an accessory, she loses her amateur status.”
“What’s an accessory?” she asked.
Mason said out of the corner of his mouth, “A moll who cases de joint.”
“Stop it,” she commanded. “I certainly led with my chin on that one. My face gets red every time I even think of it.”
Mason piloted her through the doors of the grill. “I’ve got some telephoning to do,” he said. “I’ll seat you, order some cocktails, and run.”
A headwaiter came smiling toward them. “Something near the...”
“A corner, somewhere far back,” Mason said.
The headwaiter’s smile became almost a smirk. “Yes, sir. I understand. This way, please.”
When they were seated and had ordered cocktails, Mason went to the telephone booth. He first called the airport, found that two seats were available on the midnight plane, and engaged them. Then he called Paul Drake’s office on long distance. Drake was not in, but Mason left instructions. “As nearly as possible,” he said, “I want to find out where Rodney Wenston was during every minute of the day. Tell Paul to get a line on Delman Steele, a roomer at the Gentrie house on East Dorchester. Got that?”
“Yes. Paul will be in in an hour or so.”
“Tell Paul to wait up for me,” Mason said. “I’ll be in his office about two-forty-five.” He hung up, returned to the table where two full cocktail glasses were waiting.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Getting formal and waiting for me?” he asked.
“I am not. This is my second. He just brought it. Here’s to crime.”
“Here’s to crime,” Mason said. They clicked glasses.
Chapter 17
Paul Drake, seated at his office desk, a cup of black coffee in front of him, an electric percolator plugged into a socket and bubbling away, said, “How do you two do it? I’ve got my eyes propped open with toothpicks.”
Mason said, “Excessive sleep is a habit, Paul. You must learn to control it. It will grow on you until you’ll find you’ll need two and three hours’ sleep a night if you aren’t careful.”
“Well,” Paul said, “I haven’t got to that point yet. An hour or an hour and a half would seem like a swell break. Two hours would leave me doped. I suppose you two have been skylarking around in night clubs and just couldn’t get here sooner because the orchestra didn’t quit.”
“That’s right,” Della Street said, holding out her arms straight from the shoulders and moving around the office in a waltz as she hummed a tune. “It was perfectly divine, Paul!”
Drake grinned and said, “Nuts to you. You’re not kidding me any. You’ve been out committing a murder somewhere. Whose body have you turned up now?”
Della Street ceased waltzing, said scornfully, “That’s the trouble with you, you have no romance. You’ve let life get you into a business rut, and just when I was beginning to tingle you start bringing up murders! Now the boss will talk shop — and we were having such a good time!”
Drake said, “I’ve been having a great time stalling Mrs. Gentrie for you folks. Tragg arrested her boy tonight. She’s frantic. She called me around midnight I told her you’d be in here around half past two or three o’clock. She said she’d wait up for you. I said I didn’t think you’d see her tonight, but she said she’d wait up anyway.”
Mason said, “I might see her, at that.”
“She doesn’t know anything new, Perry. She’s just a frantic mother, trying to save her boy.”
Mason slid over on the edge of Drake’s desk. “Got any more coffee cups, Paul?”
Drake opened a drawer, pulled out some agateware mugs and said, “I can give you a couple of these. It’s all I ever use.”
Della Street said, “Don’t talk so much. Just pour.”