“With Jennings?”
“I’ve made several trips with him — I’ve made other trips. I like Las Vegas. I like the glitter. I like the excitement. I... I’ll be frank with you, Mr. Mason. I like to gamble.”
“Have you ever been there just by yourself?”
“Never. I always go in a foursome or with perhaps some escort as in the case with Norbert Jennings and — well, gambling is a little expensive for a working girl... If an escort wants to furnish me with chips, I...”
“You say you didn’t ask for alimony?” Mason asked, as her voice trailed away. “May I inquire just how you do get along?”
She said hurriedly, “There’s a taxicab right over by those apartments, Mr. Mason! If you’ll let me out here, please, right here at the corner! I’ll take a cab instead of a bus.”
She lowered the car window. “Taxi,” she called. “Taxi.”
Mason eased the car to a stop. The cab driver nodded, opened the door of the cab and hurried over to pick up the baggage from the lawyer’s car.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Mason,” she said.
She blew him a saucy kiss, then turned to the cab driver.
Behind Mason a car honked its horn and the lawyer moved on into traffic.
Chapter 6
Perry Mason drove up to the Eden side of the house, noting that half a dozen automobiles were filling every available parking space there. As he rolled smoothly to a stop in the middle of the driveway, a newspaper photographer with a camera and flashgun came running toward the car.
Other photographers, seeing the running cameraman, scurried into activity and soon Mason’s car was surrounded with popping flash bulbs.
As Mason opened the car door, a reporter said, “What the hell? We’ve been out here nearly fifteen minutes! This guy says we can’t get in the house until you arrive.”
“I’m sorry if you were kept waiting,” Mason said.
“You can’t keep a newspaper waiting,” the man said, “but the city editor wants an interview from you. Come on now, we’re in a rush. Let’s get the door open and take a look. What the hell is this all about?”
“Have you tried to get in the other side of the house?” Mason asked.
“No one answers the doorbell and the door is locked. We’ve been around and got photographs of the exterior and all that, but the place is all locked up. I understand Mrs. Carson was a model, and Eden says she parades around in a very abbreviated bathing suit.”
“I didn’t say any such thing,” Eden interrupted indignantly. “I said nothing about her parading around. I said that at one time she was taking a sunbath in an abbreviated bathing suit.”
“It’s all the same,” the reporter said. “Come on, you’ve got a key to the joint, let’s open it up.”
Another reporter said, “My city editor wants an interview with Mason. How about telling us what it’s all about, Mason?”
The lawyer said, “I’ll give you a very brief summary of the facts in the case. I would prefer not to have my photograph taken. As an attorney I’m not courting newspaper publicity and—”
“Phooey,” the reporter interrupted. “My editors want an interview and they want photographs. We’ve got photographs. Now come on, tell us what’s it all about.”
Mason briefly sketched the background of the litigation.
“And you filed this suit for fraud?” the reporter asked.
“That’s right. We’ve asked for punitive or exemplary damages, as well as actual damages.”
“And Carson told Eden that he had the deadwood on his wife, that he had a detective who had traced her to various weekend resorts where she’d been having a torrid affair with some guy. Is that right?”
“As to that,” Mason said, “you can get your facts from Morley Eden, or from the pleadings. I prefer not to discuss that phase of the case, and naturally I would prefer not to have it tried in the press but in a courtroom.”
“Lawyers have ideas about ethics and all that stuff,” the reporter announced, “but newspapers exist for the purpose of getting news. This is a hell of an interesting situation. You may not want to talk about it, but the newspaper is going to make a whale of a yarn out of it. If you give us the facts we’ll have them straight. If we have to get them from someone else we may have them garbled. You have any idea when Mrs. Carson is going to be back?”
Mason shook his head. “I didn’t know she was away.”
“We need a little cheesecake,” the reporter said. “A photograph of her in that bikini suit on one side of the barbed-wire fence, and Morley Eden on the other, would be a knockout. He says she handed him a cup of coffee early one morning. Maybe we could get her to pose handing a coffee cup through the barbed wire.”
“I have nothing to say about Mrs. Carson,” Mason said.
“Your client would go for it if we could fix it up?” the reporter asked.
Mason caught Eden’s eye. “My client would probably go for it,” he said.
“This is going to make a helluva story,” one of the reporters said. “Any objection to us going in now and going through the place?”
“Only one side of it,” Mason said. “Morley Eden’s side.”
“Well, it is his house. He had it built. Does he have keys to the other side?”
“He has keys to the other side, but there’s a restraining order. He can’t set so much as a foot on the property. He can’t even put his hand or arm through the barbed-wire fence unless he has permission from the owner of the property on that side.”
The reporter said, “Damn it, I’ll bet my editor is going to make us wait here until we get cheesecake to go with the art work.”
He turned to Morley Eden. “Haven’t you any idea where Mrs. Carson is? Didn’t you see her go out?”
“I got here just about the same time you did,” Eden said. “If you remember, you drove in right behind me.”
“And you haven’t as yet been in the house?” Mason asked.
Eden shook his head. “Miss Street told me not to open up until you got here. I was afraid to unlock the door for fear they would push in past me. These fellows are in a hurry and they want a story.”
“We’re not in such a big hurry we aren’t going to get the whole story,” the reporter said. “Let’s go inside. We want a picture of you standing on the springboard of the swimming pool in a bathing suit but afraid to dive for fear you’ll come up on the other side of that barbed-wire fence. Haven’t you any idea where Mrs. Carson is?”
Eden shook his head, took a key ring from his pocket and unlatched the front door.
“But you do have a key to the other side of the house?” the reporter asked.
“I have a key that did fit the side door. I haven’t tried it since the restraining order was served on me. I don’t know whether the locks were changed or not. I do know they had a locksmith out here so they could get the door open. It may be he changed the locks.”
Reporters and photographers moved in a compact group into the reception hallway. “Which way to the swimming pool?”
Eden pointed.
They started hurrying down the steps to the living room, then suddenly the leaders recoiled.
“Hey, what’s this?” one of the men said.
“Someone’s lying there!” Eden exclaimed.
“Someone’s not only lying there,” Mason said, “but there’s a pool of blood. You boys had better keep back and...”
His words were wasted as reporters and photographers surged forward. Flashlight bulbs filled the room with spasmodic spurts of brilliant illumination.
Mason moved far enough forward so he could see the features of the man lying on the floor, then whirled and raced for a telephone. He found one in the hall.