Nathan Fallon didn’t bother any longer to keep up the front of smiling affability. He looked at Mason through his thick-lensed glasses in silent appraisal.
“No,” he said.
For a moment there was silence, then Nathan Fallon stepped back to indicate the door. “Won’t you come in?” he invited.
They entered a reception hall, which, with its ponderous, powerful architecture, still seemed to carry out the motif of a state prison.
Curtains parted from a doorway on the right, and a tall, slender individual stood there surveying them.
His eyes were slate gray, utterly without expression, and were so large that when he closed his eyelids the process seemed deliberately exaggerated as though one might have been looking at the eyes of an owl. The slow closing of the lids disclosed a distinct convexity of the big eyes, then the lids opened again like the shutters of twin studio cameras perpetuating a photographic image on film.
“Good evening,” the man said in a voice that somehow made the simple greeting a matter of slow, deliberate formality.
“This is Mortimer Hershey,” Nathan Fallon said, “Mr. Addicks’ business manager.”
“I take it,” Hershey said, “the young lady is Miss Street, and I have the honor to address Mr. Perry Mason.”
“That’s right.”
“Won’t you step in here, please.”
He ushered them into a room which was a cross between a library and a huge office.
There was a massive table fully fifteen feet long. Comfortable leather directors’ chairs were arranged along one side of this table.
Huge as was the table, the very size of the room kept it from dominating the surroundings. Low bookcases ran around three sides of the room. Over these bookcases were oil paintings depicting knights engaged in battle.
Some of these pictures showed armored knights on horseback, leaning forward, lances set, charging each other. Others portrayed individual knights engaged in hand to hand conflict. Still others showed bodies of armored knights charging against footmen; bowmen drawn up in battle array, releasing arrows from their longbows, arrows which arched heavily in flight, indicating their weight and momentum as they sped toward a group of armored knights; horses screaming in agony or dying among corpses of foot soldiers piled one on the other and armored knights holding shields and swords that were crimson with blood.
Elsewhere around the room were big leather chairs in which a person could settle down into luxurious comfort. There were footstools in front of each of these chairs, and beside each chair was a shaded reading light. The room itself was illuminated by an indirect lighting system.
“Won’t you be seated?” Hershey invited, and led the way toward the table, pulling out chairs so that Mason and Della Street could sit on one side, Nathan Fallon and Hershey on the other.
“Now then,” Hershey said, smiling with slow deliberation, “I wish to apologize to you, Mr. Mason, on behalf of Mr. Addicks.”
“Why?” Mason asked.
“Because you were underestimated.”
“You mean Mr. Addicks underestimated me?”
“Fallon did,” Hershey said, and turned to look deliberately at Fallon. He raised his lids, lowered them, and raised them again.
There was something in the slow, winking appraisal which seemed deliberately scornful, but Hershey’s lips remained in a fixed smile.
He turned back to Mason.
“All right,” Mason said, “I’ve been underestimated, and I’ve been apologized to. The apology wasn’t at all necessary.”
“Certainly not.”
Mortimer Hershey opened a drawer in the desk. He took out a sheaf of bank notes and slowly, deliberately counted them until he had thirty new, crisp, one hundred dollar bills before him.
“What’s that for?” Mason asked.
“The diaries and the photographs,” Hershey said.
“And why do you make that offer?”
“Because Mr. Addicks wants them. Of course, Mr. Mason, you understand that Mr. Addicks would never admit that he paid any such sum for the documents, and you would be under no necessity to make any such admission.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this,” Hershey said. “The books of Mr. Addicks would not show that you had been paid three thousand dollars. The books of Mr. Addicks would show that you were reimbursed the amount of five dollars which you paid for the books. The other three thousand dollars would be in the nature of a gift which Mr. Addicks would make you. As such, it would not be subject to income tax. Do I make myself clear?”
“Oh quite,” Mason said. “The only thing I don’t understand is why Mr. Addicks is so anxious to get hold of the photographs and the diaries.”
“There are reasons.”
“I think,” Mason said, “that I would prefer to discuss the matter with Mr. Addicks. I thought that I was going to see him. That’s why I came out here.”
“Mr. Addicks begs to be excused. He is indisposed.”
Mason shook his head. “I came out here to see Benjamin Addicks. You told me he was indisposed and couldn’t come to see me. I told you I’d come out to see him. I want to talk with him.”
“If you insist,” Hershey said, “I am quite certain that Mr. Addicks would be willing to see you, but, after all, Mr. Mason, I can assure you that this offer is complete and final. Mr. Addicks won’t raise it not so much as a red cent. You can either accept it or reject it.”
“All right,” Mason said promptly. “It’s rejected.”
“You reject offers rather abruptly,” Hershey said.
“Well, if you’d prefer more diplomacy,” Mason told him, smiling, “I’ll state that in view of the fact that I find the diaries most interesting, and in view of the fact I think they offer a very distinct clue, I do not care to part with them.”
“Clue?” Hershey said in cold solemnity.
“A clue,” Mason said.
“To what, may I ask?”
“Certainly you may ask,” Mason said, “and I won’t answer. The answer to that question will be reserved for Mr. Addicks himself.”
“You understand, Mr. Mason, that this is going to cause Mr. Addicks some inconvenience, but I’ll be very glad to convey your message to him, and I’m quite certain he’ll be willing to see you. If you’ll wait just a moment, please.”
Hershey turned and looked at Fallon.
Nathan Fallon jumped up from the chair as though he had suddenly received an electric shock, and, walking with his distinctive, energetic strides, crossed the room and went through the curtained doorway.
Hershey looked at the three thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills, picked up the money, stacked the bills together in an inviting pile and made a gesture of extending them toward Mason. Mason shook his head.
Hershey opened the drawer in the table, dropped the money back into the drawer, then closed it, put his hands in front of him on the table, interlaced long fingers, and sat silent and motionless.
A moment later the heavy draperies at the far end of the room parted, and a barrel-chested man, leaning heavily on a cane, came hobbling into the room. His face was partially covered by a bandage, and his eyes were concealed behind dark glasses. Nearly all of the right side of the face, and part of the left side, was covered by the bandage. The left side had a bit of gauze held in place by adhesive tape, which failed to conceal evidence of a blue-black beard under the clean-shaven skin.
It was hard to judge the face beneath the bandage, but the jaw seemed heavy, and the low forehead was surmounted by a shock of black hair, cut short.
“Mr. Benjamin Addicks,” Hershey announced.
Addicks nodded, said, “How do you do? How do you do? Sorry that I’m indisposed.”
Followed by Nathan Fallon, he hobbled across the room and extended his hand.