Della Street hurried through to the outer office, opened the door. Mason heard her exchange a few words, then she came back with a late edition of the afternoon paper. On the paper had been written, “Mr. Mason. Compliments of Sidney Hardwick. I want you to see that I am a fast worker.”
Della Street once more sat down at her secretarial desk. Mason leaned over her shoulder as she spread the afternoon paper out on the desk.
Headlines across three columns at the top of the paper screamed:
“Why, the nerve of him,” Della Street said, “the...”
“That’s all right,” Mason said, “let’s take a look and see how far he’s gone, Della.”
Together they read the article, an article which stated that police were now making inquiries of Mrs. Josephine Kempton concerning the mysterious death of Helen Cadmus, the attractive secretary who was supposed to have jumped overboard from Benjamin Addicks’ palatial private yacht in a storm-tossed sea some months earlier.
That death, the newspaper pointed out, had been treated by the authorities either as a suicide or as an accident, but with the murder of Benjamin Addicks authorities had reopened the entire files surrounding the death of Helen Cadmus.
The article went on to say:
The district attorney pointed out that Josephine Kempton, who is at present under arrest as a suspect in the murder of Benjamin Addicks, shared connecting staterooms on the Addicks’ yacht with the attractive secretary. Helen Cadmus mysteriously disappeared during the night of a wild storm off the coast of Catalina Island. Mrs. Kempton swore that she had taken a seasick remedy which had made her drowsy and had gone to bed and gone to sleep.
While the statement was taken at its face value at the time, the district attorney declared that, in the light of more recent developments, investigation into the death of Helen Cadmus is being reopened. “We are,” he said, “making no accusations or insinuations at the present time because we are not in a position to make any. We simply feel that in the interests of justice the death of Helen Cadmus which, at the time, was taken as a tragic accident in a storm, may have had more sinister implications.
“All I can say is that we are making an investigation, and that we have interrogated Mrs. Kempton as to her knowledge of what transpired on the night Helen Cadmus disappeared, and that Mrs. Kempton has refused to give us anything more than the time of day.
“I care to make no other statement.”
Mason’s jaw clamped, his eyes were cold and angry.
“Well,” Della Street said, “Hardwick was as good as his word.”
“No better certainly,” Mason said. “All right, Della. Wait here for a minute. I’ll go see Paul Drake. We’re in a shooting war, and I hope he has some ammunition for us.”
“You want me to give him a ring?” Della Street asked.
“No,” Mason said. “I’ll go on down to his office and see what’s cooking. In the meantime, Della, ring up the newspapers and tell them that if they’ll send representatives over here I’ll make a statement about the Addicks murder case.”
“Do you want me to wait until you’ve seen Paul before...?”
Mason shook his head.
“You mean if Paul doesn’t have anything you’ll make a straight denial and...?”
Mason said, “A straight denial, Della, won’t buy us anything in this situation. We’re going to have to put Hardwick and his side of the case on the defensive. I’ll need something spectacular. If Paul Drake has the ammunition I’ll shoot it. If he doesn’t, I’ll shoot blanks, but those blanks will make so much noise the other side will start running for cover. You put through the calls, Della, and hold the fort. I’ll be back as soon as I can get in touch with Paul.”
Mason went out through the exit door from his office into the corridor, walked down to the offices of the Drake Detective Agency, jerked open the door, caught the eye of the receptionist at the switchboard, and said, “Is Paul in?”
She smiled. “He insists he’s all in.”
“That’s fine,” Mason told her, glancing vaguely at a blonde who was waiting. “Tell him I’m on my way.”
Mason opened the gate in the long corridor leading to Paul Drake’s office, and found Drake holding his ear to a telephone, sorting out papers while carrying on a conversation with one of his men.
Drake motioned for Mason to sit down, and after a moment the detective said into the telephone, “All right. Get her to write her name on the back of the photographs so that it will make an absolute identification. She probably won’t care to make an affidavit as yet, but tie her up so she can’t back out. Be sure she identifies the photographs.”
Drake hung up, gave Mason a tired smile, and said, “Your hunch paid off, Perry.”
“What?”
“Getting the telephone numbers from which Addicks placed his collect calls to the yacht, and...”
“You mean you’ve tied him up with a woman?”
“That’s right.”
“Woman or women?”
“Apparently it’s the same woman in both instances — Helen Cadmus.”
Mason whistled.
“That’s about all there is to it. On a couple of occasions when the yacht got into port along about nine or ten o’clock in the evening, Addicks started back from the beach and yet didn’t get in until the next morning. When Addicks hadn’t taken Nathan Fallon, Mortimer Hershey, or Josephine Kempton along, there was nobody to make a check between the house and the yacht, and find out when the yacht did get in. I checked on the yacht’s log.
“A couple of times when Addicks started out on the yacht and then got off in Catalina, and sent the yacht cruising, he called the captain to give instructions. Those telephone calls were from these same two motels.
“I haven’t checked on the dates as yet, but there’s no question but what that’s where the calls came from, and in one of the motels the woman who runs the place is very definite in her identification. She identifies the photographs of Benjamin Addicks and that of Helen Cadmus.”
“How did he register?” Mason asked.
“He used a fictitious name, naturally.”
“They want license numbers of cars,” Mason said. “Did he...?”
“Yes, he gave the license number of his Cadillac.”
Mason thought that over. His eyes narrowed.
“Did you notice a blonde out in the office when you came in?” Drake asked.
“Yes, what about her?”
“I was going to call you. I asked her to wait a few minutes. She’s Mrs. Blevins, the wife of the animal psychologist. I got her to come to my office because...”
“Let’s get her in,” Mason said. “I want to talk with her. Now listen, Paul, very definitely I don’t want any slip-up on this thing. I want your men to get this angle tied up tight. What alias did Addicks use?”
“In both instances it was Barnwell. He was registered under the name of B. F. Barnwell.”
“What was Benjamin Addicks’s middle name, Paul?”
“I don’t know.”
Mason snapped his fingers and said, “I bet you a dime it was Franklin. Benjamin Franklin Addicks.”
“Well?” Drake asked.
“B. F. Barnwell would naturally be the way he’d register. He’d keep his first two initials B. F. Now look, Paul, Addicks had a lot of mining interests. He was in Nevada a lot. I want you to get your men started checking everything they can find in Nevada. I want you to find if there are any registrations in motor courts for B. F. Barnwell. And, while you’re about it, just for the fun of the thing, check the vital statistics. But find out everything you can about Barnwell.”