“What’s yours?” Della asked.
Mason abruptly folded the fortune and started to put it into his side pocket.
Della street laughed. “I caught you that time,” she said. “You haven’t even read it yet.”
Mason grinned, unfolded the slip of rice paper, read the printed message, then passed it across to Della Street.
The message read:
“To reach your goal, remember that courage is the only antidote for danger.”
“Well,” Mason said, “I guess we’d better telephone Drake’s office and see if they’ve uncovered anything.”
“Chief, somehow I... do you feel that there’s anything to these fortunes?”
Mason laughed. “Of course not, Della. They have them printed by the hundred. They’re inserted in the cakes and the cakes are baked so that when you break the cake the fortune is inside of it. I don’t know how many different fortunes there are. Probably not over a hundred or so.”
“Have you ever received a duplicate in any of the cakes you’ve eaten?”
“Come to think of it,” Mason said, “I don’t know that I have. I haven’t given it a great deal of thought.”
“Do you believe in Fate?”
Mason said, “The Chinese do to this extent. They’ll put a hundred different messages in a hundred different fortune cakes. They feel that the one you pick out was really intended for you. That’s the way most of their fortunetelling works. Sometimes you shake fortune sticks in a bowl until one drops out.”
She said, “I have a feeling that your fortune has a really personal message for you.”
Mason laughed. “What you’re really trying to say, Della, is that you hope the fortune you picked out has a personal message to you.”
Her face became a fiery red.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mason said, quickly and impulsively reaching out to place his hand over hers. “I was only kidding, Della. I didn’t want you to take me seriously — although,” he added, “I thought your psychology was a bit obvious.”
“Well, I didn’t,” she said. “Do you want me to call Paul Drake’s office?”
“Sit there and drink your tea,” Mason said, “and get over being angry, Della. I’ll go call Paul Drake.”
“I’m not angry. I... I’m...”
“Well, your face flushed up,” Mason said.
Abruptly she averted her eyes, said, “All right, go ahead. Call Paul Drake. You have his number.”
Mason went to the public phone, dropped a coin and dialed the number of Drake’s office.
When Drake’s switchboard operator answered, Mason said, “This is Perry Mason. I’m wondering if Paul Drake...”
“Just a moment,” the voice at the other end of the line interrupted with crisp efficiency.
Mason heard the click of a connection, heard the operator’s voice saying, “Mr. Mason for you, Mr. Drake,” and Drake exclaimed, “Good for you! Where did you get him?”
“I didn’t. He called in. He...”
“Hello, hello, Perry, Perry!” Drake said excitedly.
“Okay Paul, what is it? I thought you were asleep. Have you struck pay dirt?”
“Struck pay dirt by the ton,” Drake said. “Jeepers, what a hunch you had. You’d better play the races tomorrow and mortgage the family fortune.”
“Go on, Paul, what is it?”
“B. F. Barnwell and Helen Cadmus were married in a little Nevada town that no one would ordinarily check up on. A little place where a person would hardly think to look, a place north and east of Las Vegas on the road to Ely.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Give me the dope, Paul.”
“Got a pencil there?”
“Just a minute. I’ll get Della. Hang on.”
Mason left the receiver off the hook, hurried back to the booth, beckoned to Della Street. “Get your pencil and notebook, Della.”
Della pushed back the carved teakwood chair, ran to the telephone, opened her purse, hurriedly pulled out a shorthand notebook, hooked one strap of the purse over her left wrist, held the receiver to her ear and said, “Go ahead, Paul.”
Her pencil, flying over the page of the shorthand notebook, made a series of pothooks, then a figure and a name.
“That all?” she asked. “All right, the boss wants to speak with you.”
She turned away from the telephone. Mason grabbed the receiver, said, “Yes, Paul?”
“I’ve given the dope to Della, Perry. I’ve got the thing sewed up. The main thing is that after the marriage was performed, the Justice of the Peace wanted to know where he should send the documents after all the red tape had been complied with, and there was a moment’s silence, then the woman said, ‘Send them to Mrs. B. F. Barnwell.’ She gave an address, a little California town up on the edge of the desert.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Della has the dope?”
“Della has it. Now, for the love of Mike, Perry, don’t expect me to go tearing up there and...”
“I don’t,” Mason said. “Here’s what I want you to do, Paul.”
“What?” Drake asked in a weary voice.
“Go take a good hot bath,” Mason said. “Finish up with a cool shower, crawl into bed and sleep just as long as you can, because when I wake you up you’re going to have to go to work.”
Drake said wearily, “Is that music to my ears? I’d just started to go home when that message from Nevada came in. The elevator operator said you folks had just gone out for chow. I’ve been calling all the restaurants where you usually eat.”
“I’m sorry,” Mason said. “I intended to call your office but I didn’t think you’d get anything this soon. I thought you were asleep. Be seeing you, Paul.”
Mason hung up the telephone, grabbed Della Street’s arm, said, “Come on, Della, we’re on our way.”
He ran toward the cashier’s booth at the head of the stairs, pulled a ten dollar bill from his wallet, threw it on the counter and said to the Chinese cashier, “We haven’t time to wait for a statement. There’s ten dollars. Leave the waiter a dollar tip...”
“Must have waiter’s check,” the calm, unperturbed Oriental said.
Exasperated, Mason threw one of his professional cards on the desk, picked up the ten dollar bill, pulled a fifty dollar bill from his pocket, and slammed it down on the desk. “All right, you don’t trust me. I trust you. You give the waiter a dollar tip, and I’ll come in sometime tomorrow or the next day and pick up the change. Until then — good-by.”
He reached for Della’s wrist, and then went pell-mell down the flight of stairs to the street.
Mason ran to where his car was parked.
“All right, Della,” he said. “Hang on.”
He unlocked the car. Della Street jerked the car door open, jumped in, slammed the door shut behind her, reached across the seat back of the steering wheel to unlock the door on the driver’s side.
Mason slid in behind the steering wheel, stepped on the starter, then, easing the car away from the curb, began to open the throttle.
At the second intersection Della Street said, “and you object to my driving!”
“This time,” Mason told her, “we’re really in a hurry.”
“So I gathered,” Della Street said.
They picked their way through the more congested traffic of the city, hit a freeway and were soon spinning along with the needle of the speedometer indicating seventy miles an hour.
Twice Della Street glanced at Perry Mason, but seeing the fierce concentration of his face knew that his busy mind was working ahead, planning moves even as he crowded the car along.
Twenty minutes later they were out in the open and Mason sent the speedometer up into the eighties.
“What will happen if you get caught?” Della Street said.