“What time did Rosalind call you?”
“Around ten or eleven o’clock, I think— I can’t tell exactly.”
“Well,” Mason said, “if you want me to represent your sister in the divorce action, you’d better have her come in and talk with me.”
Rita Swaine nodded, leaned across the arm of the chair and spoke rapidly. “Yes, that’s all right, Mr. Mason, I’ll have her do that, but don’t you think it would be a good plan to fix things so we could keep Walter from ever finding out that Jimmy was there at the house? You see, Rosalind left this morning and Walter might make it appear that Jimmy had something to do with her leaving.”
“But Jimmy is in love with you,” Mason said.
She nodded.
“Well, then,” Mason said, “why not simply come out and say so? Why not announce your engagement?”
“Because,” she said, “people would think it was something Jimmy, Rosalind and I had cooked up to keep Walter from getting anywhere with his case.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “So you’ve thought of that, have you?”
“Why,” she said, “it seems to me the logical thing for Walter’s lawyer to claim. So I thought perhaps you could investigate this accident, and if the man in the coupe was in the wrong, fix it so he didn’t sue, and if the driver of the van was responsible, see that they made a prompt settlement so there wouldn’t be any lawsuit. Then it wouldn’t come out that it was Jimmy who was there in the house.”
“How seriously was the man injured?” Mason asked.
“I don’t know. He was unconscious when Jimmy helped load him in the van.”
“Do you know who owned the van?”
“Yes, there was a sign. It’s ‘Trader’s Transfer Company.’ ”
“How about the coupe?”
“It’s still out in front,” she said, “pretty badly smashed. The license number is 6T2993, and the registration certificate wrapped around the steering post shows that it’s registered in the name of Carl Packard, who lives at 1836 Robinson Avenue, Altaville, California.”
Mason nodded, turned to Della Street and said, “Ring the Drake Detective Agency, Della. Ask Paul Drake to step in here.” Then to Rita Swaine, “I’ll get busy right away and see what can be done about that automobile accident. In the meantime, you tell your sister to come in and see me.”
“I don’t know just where Rossy is right now,” she said, “but as soon as I hear from her I’ll tell her to come in.”
“Where can I reach you?” Mason asked.
“I’ll be at my apartment.”
The lawyer glanced across at his secretary. “You have the address, Della?”
“Yes,” Della Street said. “What’s your telephone number, Miss Swaine?”
“Ordway six-naught-nine-two-two.”
Mason arose, crossed the office, and opened the corridor door.
“Isn’t there a retainer to be paid now?” Rita Swaine asked, opening her purse and pulling out a sheaf of currency.
“Now now,” Mason told her. “After all, you know, I asked for this... And you’d better put that money in the bank, young lady. Good Lord! You don’t carry sums like that around in your purse, do you?”
“Of course not. I thought you’d want some money before you went ahead with the case, so I stopped at the bank and got two thousand dollars.”
Mason started to say something, then smiled, held the door open for her and said, “Well, you’d better put it back in the bank, Miss Swaine. I’ll fix a fee later on when I feel more generous. Right now I can only think of you as a young woman who spoiled a mystery. Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Mason,” she said. She put the money back in her purse, picked up the canary cage and walked rapidly from the office. In the corridor she paused to inquire, “Do you know anything about the pet store that’s in this block?”
“The man who runs it,” Mason said, “was once a client of mine. He’s an old German, quite a character. Karl Helmold’s the name. Why did you ask?”
“I thought I’d leave Dickey there for a while.”
“That’s the canary?”
“Yes. Then, when Rossy gets settled she can send for him. But I’d want to be certain that Walter wouldn’t know where I’d left him.”
“I’m quite sure,” Mason said, “you can trust the discretion of Karl Helmold. Tell him I sent you.”
She nodded, and her clacking heels echoed rapid steps as she walked toward the elevator.
Mason closed the door and turned to Della Street.
“That,” he said, making a wry grimace, “is what comes of trying murder cases. I’m constantly translating everyday occurrences into terms of the bizarre. That girl came in here carrying a caged canary. She was excited, nervous and upset, and I, like a fool, began to clothe her with all sorts of mysterious backgrounds.”
“Why didn’t you refuse to take her case, Chief?” Della Street asked.
“Not after I’d pried into her private affairs, Della. Remember, this is just a business with us. It’s something else to the client. The sister’s divorce case is a chore to me, but right now it’s the most important thing in that young woman’s life — except her love affair with Jimmy Driscoll.”
Della Street surveyed the lawyer with thoughtfully speculative eyes. “Chief,” she said, “speaking to you as a woman who is under no illusions as to her sex, and is, therefore, immune to feminine wiles and tearful entreaties, did it occur to you there’s something strange about the way she reacted to that love affair? She wouldn’t look you in the eyes when she talked about it. She acted as though it were something furtive, something to be concealed, something of which she was ashamed. Don’t you think that she may have doublecrossed her sister more than she admits — in order to get Jimmy, I mean?”
Mason chuckled delightedly and said, “There you go, Della. I tell you, it’s too many murder cases. First it’s a caged canary which throws me for a loss, then this love affair gets you. What we need’s a vacation. What do you say we chuck the whole business and take a trip around the world? I’ll look into the jurisprudence of the different countries we visit, and you can take notes on what I find.”
Her eyes widened. “You mean it, Chief?”
“Yes.”
“How about the law business?”
“We’ll leave it. Jackson can handle routine matters while I’m gone, and there’ll be plenty of big things when we get back.”
“And how about this case?”
“Oh,” Mason said casually, “we’ll get Rossy out of her difficulties. That won’t take long.”
Della Street picked up the telephone and said to the exchange operator in the outer office, “Get me the Dollar Steamship Company on the line. Right away, please, before the boss changes his mind.”
Chapter two
Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, braced his tall, thin form languidly against the door jamb. The film which covered his slightly protruding eyes seemed like a veil drawn between his thoughts and the outer world. During moments of repose, his fish-like mouth hung partially open, giving his face an expression of droll humor. Even an acute observer would have admitted he looked more like a drunken undertaker than a detective.
“My God, Perry,” he said, in drawling protest, “don’t tell me you’re starting on another case.”
Mason nodded.
“I wish,” Drake went on in the same good-natured, drawling voice, “that you’d take a vacation for my health.”
“What’s the matter, Paul? Can’t you take it any more?”
Drake sauntered over to the big leather chair, sat down in it cross-wise, one of the chair’s arms supporting his back, the other catching his legs just back of the knees. “I’ve known you now for five years,” he said reproachfully, “and I never saw you yet when you weren’t in a hurry.”