Mason picked up the receiver, said, “Hello.”
Paul Drake’s voice at the other end of the line said, “We’ve found your horse, Perry.”
“Where?”
“Ranch down near Calexico.”
“You’re sure it’s the same horse?”
“Yes. The horse came wandering in to the ranch all saddled and bridled, with a broken bridle rein, as though he’d been galloping and had stepped on it. The horse answers the description, but the pay-off is the saddle. It’s a beautiful hand-tooled saddle made by Wyatt of Austin, Texas, and it has what my operative cautiously described over the party telephone as some additional metal inserts other than those put on the saddle by the maker.”
“A bullet, Paul?”
“Judging from his words and the tone of his voice, that’s what I inferred he was trying to tell me.”
“I want that horse, also the saddle and bridle.”
“You’ve got ’em,” Drake said. “My man put up fifteen dollars covering all charges and has the horse. Then he rented a horse trailer, loaded the horse, and is well on his way up here right now. He was smart enough to wait until he got out of Imperial County before phoning.”
“Good work, Paul. Remember I want the horse, the bridle and the saddle.”
“Okay, you’ve got ’em.”
“Anything else?” Mason asked.
“Just a lot of routine.”
Mason said, “Hold the line a minute, Paul.”
He turned away from the telephone, squinted his eyes against the light of the window, once more made rapid, nervous drumming motions on the desk. Then he turned back to the telephone. “Any mark on the horse, Paul?”
“A scratch along the horse’s left hip. I gather from what my man said it was probably made by the bullet before it embedded itself in the saddle.”
“Okay,” Mason said, crisply. “That does it. Come on in here. I want to talk with you.”
“Be right in,” Drake said, and hung up.
Mason said to Della Street, “They’ve got the horse. Open the door for Paul, will you, Della? He’s coming in.”
Della Street moved swiftly across the office, stood waiting at the door, and as she heard the pound of Drake’s feet in the corridor, opened the door and admitted the detective.
Paul Drake, lanky and loose-jointed, crossed over to the overstuffed leather chair and doubled himself into a position resembling a jackknife.
“Gosh, what a break!” he exclaimed.
“Finding the horse?” Mason asked.
Drake grinned and the grin lit up a lugubrious countenance. “Identifying the damn thing,” he said. “It saves me a trip to the Valley.”
“Give me the dope, Paul,” Mason said.
“Well, I put three operatives on the job. I told them to hire men to help them in the Valley if they had to. I had visions of having to go down there to unscramble the mess. I was afraid each man would show up with a horse that was his favorite candidate, and I’d have to be the arbiter. What the hell is an American saddle-bred horse, Perry?”
Mason grinned. “Take a look at the one you’ve got when he gets here.”
“To me,” Drake announced, “a horse is a horse. Gosh, it sure was a break that we ran onto this one. My man hit it first thing. Of course, when you come right down to it, Perry, the fact that he had a saddle on when he got away gave us a real break.”
Drake waited for Mason to volunteer information. Mason said nothing.
Drake asked, “How did it happen that the horse got lost when it was saddled and bridled?”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about horses.”
“I know the facts of life. When you put a saddle on a horse it means someone wants to ride him. When you put a bridle on a horse it means the same thing. And that bullet hole... well, let’s hope we get the right answers before the questions are made official.”
“Can you depend on this chap who’s bringing the horse in, Paul?”
“I’d trust him anywhere, any time with anything.”
“And is he suspicious about the circumstances under which the horse became lost?” Mason asked.
“Put that ‘lost’ in quotes,” Drake said. “Of course he’s suspicious.”
“What was the name of the rancher — the one who had the horse?”
Drake consulted his notes. “A chap by the name of Nolan,” he said. “Wait a minute, I’ll give you his full name. Frank Loring Nolan. Of course, Perry, when my man gets back we’ll have a lot more detailed information. What I know now is stuff I picked up over the telephone in a hurried conversation. What I want to find out from you is how to answer the questions that I’ll be asked.”
“Nolan’s place fenced?” Mason asked.
“Gosh, Perry, I don’t know. My man got the horse and, after all, that was the main thing. As soon as he mentioned that extra bit of metal in the saddle and the mark on the back of the horse, I thought it would be a fine idea to do our talking at this end of the line after he got here with the horse.”
Mason said, “Paul, where can I get an assessor’s map that would show the various acreages and the ownership in that part of the country?”
Drake grinned. “Believe it or not, right in my office.”
“You have one?”
“I have two dozen. Talk about coincidences! A few weeks ago I worked on a case where I needed detailed assessor’s maps of the Valley, so I had ’em on hand for the boys when they drove in. And a good thing, too, considering the hour you...”
Mason interrupted the detective to nod at Della Street. “Get the maps, will you, Della?”
Della Street glided out through the exit door and down the corridor.
Drake slid around sideways in the big, overstuffed chair, adopting his favorite position with one arm of the chair under the small of his back, the other one supporting his knees. There was about him a mournful look of extreme pessimism, an innocuous, self-effacing expression which in any gathering would automatically relegate him to the background.
Della Street returned with the maps and Mason spread them out on his desk.
“You want to find this man Nolan on the map?” Drake asked.
“That’s right.”
“Down somewhere southwest of El Centro, just north of Black Butte somewhere,” Drake said. “Now this was the strip of territory my man was to work. Here we are. Down this road. See that patch there? Looks like forty acres — F. L. Nolan — that must be the place.”
Mason studied the map.
“What is it?” Drake asked, leaning over, as Mason’s finger came to a stop on an oblong etched on the map.
“The name,” Mason said, “seems to be Jose Campo Colima.”
“Sure,” Drake said, “there are a lot of persons of Mexican descent who own land down there and...”
Mason looked up at Della. “Mean anything to you?”
“Why yes, of course. That’s the courteous gentleman who took the old Mexican woman who had been hurt in to see a doctor.”
“Jose Campo Colima,” Mason repeated, musingly, “and he has a twenty-acre place about — let’s see, I’d say it was about a mile and a half to the north of the ranch of F. L. Nolan.”
“You know this guy Colima?” Drake asked.
“I’ve met him,” Mason said, and then added significantly, “and that’s all. Come on, Paul, we’re going to go call on a man in the Richmell Hotel.”
“Your car or mine?”
“Mine, unless we can spot a taxi at the stand down here on the corner.”
They found a cab waiting at the taxi stand and Mason gave the address of the Richmell Hotel.