“This is the thing that Mason has been planning all along. He set an elaborate trap for us,” Fallon went on.
“Keep talking,” Mason said. “You’re doing fine, Fallon. Just watch what you say.”
“I don’t have to watch what I say,” Fallon said angrily. “When you went through this hall the first time you tossed those objects into the stone urn, then you made up a story about a monkey having hidden them.”
“I didn’t go near the stone urn,” Mason said.
“You walked right by it.”
“You were standing right here with me at the time.”
“I had my back turned. I was leading the way into the other room.”
Mason said, “Fallon, I want you to look at me, look me right in the eyes.”
Fallon looked at him.
“You’re a damn liar,” Mason said.
Fallon doubled up his fist, then thought better of it.
“Now wait a minute,” Addicks said. “This thing is moving pretty fast. I want to get some more information about this business. Hershey, I have confidence in you. Were you standing where you could see Mason when he walked past this urn?”
“He didn’t go near the urn,” Hershey said. “He looked at it, but he didn’t go near it, and he couldn’t have tossed anything in it. You can see for yourself there’s dust all over these things. They’ve been there a long time.”
“That’s the trouble with you, Fallon,” Addicks said. “You’re always putting two and two together and making six, and then trying to sell me on the idea that that’s the answer. Dammit, you’re going to get us all into trouble. Now sit down and shut up.”
The telephone in the entrance hallway rang sharply.
“Now what the devil?” Addicks said, and then to Fallon, “Answer it.”
Fallon picked up the telephone, said, “Hello, this is Nathan Fallon... Who is it?... Well, Mr. Addicks wasn’t expecting him... Just a moment.
“Here’s something,” Nathan said to Addicks. “Your lawyer, Sidney Hardwick, is out there.”
“I can’t see him,” Addicks said. “I’m definitely not going to subject myself to any further nerve strain or have any further visitors tonight. To hell with him. I didn’t ask him to come out.”
“Well, he says it’s important,” Fallon said. “What are we going to do? We can’t very well turn him away from the gate.”
Addicks turned. “Who are you to tell me what I can do and what I can’t do, Fallon? I picked you up out of the gutter. Some day I’ll toss you back. I told you I wouldn’t see Hardwick and I meant it. I don’t care how important it is.”
Addicks hobbled from the room, then came back to stand for a moment in the doorway. “You played your cards damned cleverly, Mason,” he said. “Good night.”
Mortimer Hershey gave Fallon a meaning look. “You’re going to have to take care of Hardwick, Nathan.”
Fallon said into the telephone, “Open the gates. Sidney Hardwick can come in any time.”
He hung up the phone and said, “I’m going to have to ask you to wait right here a minute, Mr. Mason. I’m sorry I shot my face off the way I did. I’m sorry. I was trying to protect Benny’s interests. You see how much thanks I got for it.”
Mason, bending over the assortment of objects which had spilled from the urn, said to Della Street, “Make a list of every object that was in this urn, Della.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Fallon warned. “Don’t touch a thing there. I’m warning you.”
“I’m not touching anything,” Mason told him. “I’m looking. Is there any objection to looking?”
Fallon hesitated a moment, then said, “I’ve said enough. Hardwick will answer all questions now.”
He opened the front door. “Well, well, well, Mr. Hardwick. Come on in. Come right on in!”
Hardwick, a tall, bony-faced individual in the middle sixties, with a long nose, sharp chin, bushy eyebrows, keen gray eyes, paused in the doorway to shake hand with Fallon.
He wore glasses from which dangled ostentatiously a black ribbon. There was a hearing aid in his right ear. He said, “How do you do, Nathan? How’s Benny this evening?”
“Benny isn’t at all well,” Nathan said. “He can’t see you.”
“What?” Hardwick exclaimed in surprise. “Can’t see me? It’s important. I’ve told him about the complications that have necessitated that his will be...”
“A lot of other things are important,” Fallon said meaningly, jerking his thumb over to where Perry Mason and Della Street were standing. “We’re in a little trouble.”
“What do you mean?” Hardwick asked, seeing Mason and Della Street for the first time.
“We’re having legal troubles,” Nathan Fallon said. “This is Perry Mason.”
“Well, bless my soul, so it is,” Hardwick said. His face lit up in a smile. He came over and extended a strong bony hand, which gripped Mason’s cordially.
“Miss Della Street, my secretary,” Mason said.
Hardwick bowed. “So pleased to meet you, Miss Street. Well, well, Mason, what brings you here?”
“I came here,” Mason said, “at the request of Mr. Addicks, and on an entirely different matter. As Mr. Fallon will explain to you, we have just uncovered evidence indicating that the alleged thefts claimed to have been committed by Mrs. Josephine Kempton, a housekeeper, were actually committed by a monkey.”
Hardwick’s face instantly lost its smile and became fixed in a look of professional gravity. He turned to Fallon. “How did it happen, Nathan?” he asked.
“Mr. Mason came here to see Hershey and me about another matter. We offered him some financial adjustment.”
“What matter?” Hardwick asked, his voice cracking like a whip.
“Those diaries of Helen Cadmus.”
“I saw Mason’s picture in the paper in connection with those,” Hardwick said. “That’s another thing I want to see Addicks about.”
“We offered him money for them.”
“How much?”
“Three thousand.”
“What happened?”
“He turned it down.”
Hardwick frowned, turned to Mason. “Really, Counselor, I would have anticipated you’d have been glad to turn those diaries over in return for what you paid for them.”
“If they’d acted halfway decent, I’d have given them the diaries,” Mason said. “But they were scared stiff. I thought I’d see what it was that was frightening them.”
“Just the thought of publicity,” Hershey said.
Mason’s smile was coldly skeptical, a silent contradiction of Hershey’s words.
Hershey closed his eyes.
“Go ahead,” Hardwick said.
Nathan Fallon supplied the information. “From reading those diaries, Mason got the idea of looking in the stone urn here in the reception hallway. You can see for yourself what we found in it. There it is on the floor. Benny has the diamond ring, but there’s the platinum watch, a girl’s compact, some other jewelry, a billfold that probably is pretty well filled with cash. In fact, I think that’s my billfold.”
Hardwick walked over to look down at the assortment of stuff on the floor.
“I can tell you in a minute about the billfold,” Fallon said.
He stooped over, picked up the billfold, opened it, smiled and showed Hardwick the identification card in the front of the billfold.
“Well,” he said, “that’s it. I’ve been missing it for some time.”
“How much money is in it?” Hardwick asked.
“Thirty-two dollars when I lost it,” Fallon said. He unfolded the leather so that he could peer inside of the billfold, said, “That’s right,” and hurriedly dropped it into his pocket.
“Better count it and see if there’s any missing,” Mason suggested.
Fallon looked at him coldly. “It’s all there.”