“But what caused all of the commotion? What caused all this...?”
“Apparently,” Mason said, “there are burglar alarms and...”
“You’d better get in and sit down, ma’am,” the officer interposed. “If you’re the one who called the police, we’ll want to get a statement from you. You’d better wait right here.”
“My car’s parked down on the side street,” Della said. “I jumped out in such a hurry I didn’t take the key out of the lock. I’m afraid I left the motor running.”
“Let it run,” the officer told her.
“I could go down and shut it off and...”
“And again you could stay right here,” the officer said.
Mason said, “Apparently, Della, Mr. Benjamin Addicks has been murdered. The police naturally want to find out all they can about the circumstances surrounding his death.”
“Oh-oh!” Della Street said.
Mason opened the car door. “Get in and sit down.”
“Good evening, Miss Street,” Mrs. Kempton said.
“Good evening. What are you...?”
She broke off as Mason’s knee nudged her leg.
“Go on,” the officer said. “What were you going to say?”
Della Street said demurely, “I was just going to ask her what she was doing about transportation back to town. I was going to tell her that I was driving Mr. Mason’s car, and that we’d take her back to town.”
“You don’t need to worry a bit about that,” the officer said. “Her transportation back to town is all taken care of. So’s Mr. Mason’s transportation, and so’s yours.”
The loud-speaker said, “Calling car seven, car seven.”
The officer leaned forward, pushed a switch and said, “Car seven reporting. Go ahead.”
“You reported a homicide at the Addicks place?”
“That’s right. I got it from two people we picked up who were just leaving the house. One of them’s Perry Mason, the lawyer. He says Benjamin Addicks has been murdered.
“Now then, there’s a woman with him, Josephine Kempton, and just now Mr. Mason’s secretary showed up. Mr. Mason claims that she telephoned the police. What do I do?”
The officer leaned over and pressed a button.
“Car seven, in response to your inquiry, as soon as you have been rejoined by your fellow officer drive the car with Mr. Mason, Mrs. Kempton and Mr. Mason’s secretary to headquarters. Under no circumstances let them leave the car. Don’t let them communicate with anyone else. Don’t let them hide anything. We are giving instructions to your fellow officer to join you at once. That is all.”
The officer flipped a switch, turned his head back to Mason and said, “Okay, you heard those instructions.”
“I certainly feel,” Mason said, “that I should be given an opportunity to drive my own car to headquarters so that it will be there. I’ll follow you or go directly ahead of you along any streets you...”
“You’ll sit right there,” the officer said. “There’s something funny about this business. You know damn well what caused those instructions from headquarters.”
“What?” Mason asked innocently.
“Somebody made a telephone call from inside that house and reported something. Whatever it was, it was something that made... here comes my partner.”
The door leading to the zoo opened and a uniformed officer came running toward the car.
The officer who was guarding the three people in the back seat pressed the starter button and brought the motor to life, moved over to the side.
The other officer jerked open the car door and jumped in behind the steering wheel.
“Headquarters came on with instructions for us, and...”
“I know,” the driver said, slamming the car into gear. “They want these people up at headquarters just as quick as we can get them there. Start the siren, Mike, and keep her going.”
“I left Mr. Mason’s car parked with the motor running,” Della Street said.
No one paid the slightest attention to her.
The police car swept down Rose Street, turned to the right, and Della Street, looking back through the rear window of the car, said, “Oh dear, I’ve left the headlights on too.”
The man at the wheel concentrated on driving. The other officer started watching the side streets. The needle on the speedometer passed forty, went past fifty, up to sixty, then settled down at around seventy miles an hour as they hit a through boulevard.
Mason settled back and said, “Relax. Relax and enjoy it.”
“Relax!” Josephine Kempton said through clenched teeth. “In the name of heaven, why?”
“You,” Mason told her, “should be more familiar with Chinese proverbs.”
Chapter number 9
Perry Mason sat in a small witness room at police headquarters. Half a dozen battered chairs lined the wall. There was a scarred oak table in the center of the room, bearing the traces of cigarette burns along the edges. A water cooler, with a container of paper cups, was at one end of the room. Aside from the chairs, the table, the water container, a wastebasket and two battered spittoons, the room was entirely bare.
Mason shifted his position in one of the uncomfortable chairs, stretched out his long legs, crossed the ankles, and glanced significantly at the place where his wrist watch should have been, then hastily lowered his bare wrist.
The uniformed officer who sat there, stolidly puffing away at a cigar, said, “It won’t be long now. Take it easy.”
Mason said angrily, “I don’t like being treated this way.”
“I suppose you don’t.”
“You’d think we had committed the murder.”
“You could have, couldn’t you? There wasn’t anyone else in the house.”
“Oh, bunk!” Mason said.
There was silence for several seconds.
“This business of putting my secretary in one room, me in another, my client in a third, holding us all where we can’t get in touch with each other — that’s cheap theatrical stuff as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well,” the officer said, puffing away at the cigar, “it’s orders as far as I’m concerned. What do you think of the Giants?”
“Doing all right,” Mason said.
“Uh-huh. The Dodgers is quite a team.”
“Uh-huh,” Mason said.
The officer smoked with that air of complete detachment which indicated that the only hour on the clock which meant anything to him was the time at which he would be off duty. Aside from that he took things as they came. He had been instructed to sit in this room with Perry Mason and keep him from communicating with anyone, and he was making himself as comfortable as possible while he was carrying out his orders.
“Who’s the mastermind that gave these orders?” Mason asked.
The officer hesitated a moment, turned the cigar in his mouth, inspected the end of it to make certain it was drawing evenly, and said, “Sergeant Holcomb.”
“Well,” Mason said, “my time’s valuable. My automobile is out there with the motor running and the lights on.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s right downstairs. You don’t need to tell anybody I told you, but you can quit worrying about your automobile.”
“That’s fine,” Mason said. “I’ll drive it home then.”
The officer grinned.
“Good Lord!” Mason said. “You don’t mean they’re going to impound that for evidence too.”
“The boys are going over it,” the officer told him. “Maybe they’ll be done by the time you get out of here. Maybe they won’t.”