She parked the car, joined Mason in the phone booth.
“First James Etna and then Paul Drake, Della,” Mason told her.
Della Street’s swiftly competent fingers dialed the number, and a moment later she said, “Just a moment, Mr. Etna, Mr. Mason wants to talk with you.”
She passed the telephone across to Mason, and Mason said, “Hello, Etna. Mrs. Kempton has been trying to get you. There have been complications in...”
“I heard about it,” Etna said. “There was a bulletin on the radio. I was at a friend’s house. My wife and I came home at once and I’ve been trying everywhere I could think of to locate you.”
“You didn’t call the right place,” Mason said.
“Where?”
“Police headquarters.”
“Oh-oh!” Etna said.
“Our client, Mrs. Josephine Kempton, is being held at headquarters tonight.”
“What charge?”
“No charge.”
“Do you want to get a writ of habeas corpus?”
“I don’t think it would do any good. They’ll turn her loose tomorrow anyway, unless she tells them something tonight, and I don’t think she will.”
Etna said, “I may be able to find out something about what the score is, Mason. Can you tell me just briefly about it?”
“She rang me,” Mason said, “and told me she couldn’t get you, that she needed a lawyer at once. She was out at Stonehenge. So my secretary and I drove out there. She agreed to have the door on the back street opened for us. The door was open, but she was lying unconscious on the floor of an upper bedroom, and the body of Benjamin Addicks was lying face down on the bed. He’d been stabbed several times, and the handle of a big carving knife was protruding from his back.”
“I understand the animals were loose and that the place had been wrecked,” Etna said.
“I wouldn’t say it had been wrecked, but there’s a lot of commotion going on out there.”
“What do you think about letting her tell her story?”
Mason said, “I never let a client tell a story to the police unless I know what that story is.”
“You’re the doctor,” Etna told him.
“I’m not the doctor,” Mason said. “I’m associate counsel.”
“No you’re not. You’re in charge of the whole thing — in case there is anything. I don’t feel competent to handle a case of that kind. Frankly, I’m quite certain there’s something in connection with the case that we don’t know anything about, and it may be something that’s rather disquieting. What was Mrs. Kempton doing out at Stonehenge?”
“That’s what the police want to know.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“No. Actually she didn’t have the opportunity.”
“I have some contacts with newspapermen, and I think I can find out something of what’s going on. Suppose I get in touch with you, at say nine o’clock in the morning.”
“That’s fine,” Mason said.
“All right, I’ll be at your office at nine o’clock. I think I’ll have some information.”
“And,” Mason said, “if they haven’t turned Mrs. Kempton loose by that time we’ll get a writ of habeas corpus.”
Mason hung up the phone, waited a moment, then dialed the private, unlisted number of Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency.
When he had Paul Drake on the line, Mason said, “Paul, I have a job for you, an emergency job.”
“Why the devil is it your cases always break at night?” Drake asked irritably.
“They don’t, always,” Mason told him.
“Well, I can always count on a sleepless night whenever I get a phone call from you. Just what am I supposed to do?”
Mason said, “You’re supposed to find out everything about the late Benjamin Addicks.”
“The late Benjamin Addicks?”
“That’s right. Somebody pushed a carving knife down between his shoulder blades some time this evening, and the police are holding a client of mine, a Josephine Kempton, for questioning.”
“What do you want to know about Addicks?”
“Everything.”
“What do you want to know about the murder?”
“Everything.”
Drake said sarcastically, “I suppose you want me to have it all ready by nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“You’re wrong,” Mason told him. “I want it by eight-thirty,” and hung up.
Chapter number 11
Promptly at 8:30 Mason stopped by the Drake Detective Agency, which had offices on the same floor as Mason’s law offices.
“Paul in?” he asked the girl at the switchboard.
“He’s in,” she said, “and waiting for you, Mr. Mason.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “tell him to come on down to my office. I have an appointment at nine, and Della Street said she was going to be there at eight-thirty.”
Mason went on down to his office and found Della Street waiting.
“Hello, Della. Been here long?”
“About ten minutes.”
“You had a pretty hard day yesterday.”
“I had? You’re the one who had a hard day, playing tag with gorillas. Did you have nightmares?”
Mason grinned. “I didn’t have nightmares, but I had the devil of a time getting to sleep. There’s something about those gorillas — they give you something to think of when they start looking at you and beating themselves on the chest.”
“I’ll say. Is Paul Drake coming in?”
“Uh-huh. I stopped in and left word. See if you can get Homicide on the line for me, Della. We’ll put it up to Lieutenant Tragg and find out what he wants to do.”
Della Street rang police headquarters and found that Lieutenant Tragg was not in his office.
“Try Sergeant Holcomb,” Mason said.
“You know how he hates you,” Della Street warned.
“That’s all right,” Mason told her. “We’ll see what Holcomb has to say. I want information.”
A moment later Della Street nodded. Mason picked up the telephone.
“Hello,” Mason said, “I wanted to get some information about a client of mine, Sergeant.”
“What do you want?”
Mason said, “I want to know whether I’m going to have to get a writ of habeas corpus on Josephine Kempton, or whether you’re going to turn her loose.”
“She’s loose.”
“She is? I haven’t heard anything of it.”
“Well, you will. She was released about half an hour ago. I tried your office and got no answer. You don’t have your residence telephone listed in the book. You’re exclusive. Mrs. Kempton didn’t know where it was, and I didn’t know where it was. Her other attorney, James Etna, had a phone listed. I telephoned him. He said he wanted to come by and pick her up.”
“So you released her,” Mason said.
“That’s right.”
“Then she’s no longer under suspicion?”
“Who said she ever was under suspicion?”
“All right,” Mason said wearily, “I guess that’s that.”
He hung up.
Della Street raised her eyebrows.
“Holcomb says she’s been released,” Mason reported.
Paul Drake gave his code knock at the door.
Della Street opened the door.
“You guys,” Paul Drake said, “fresh as daisies, aren’t you? Had a nice sleep, I suppose. Look at me. I’m groggy. Filled with equal parts of coffee and information.”
“That’s fine,” Mason told him. “Sit down. Keep the coffee, give us the information.”
Paul Drake, a tall, cadaverous, solemn-looking individual, whose eyes had been trained by years of poker-faced observation to show no flicker of expression, assumed his favorite position in the big, overstuffed, leather chair, his long legs hanging over one rounded chair arm, the other arm supporting his back.