“It’ll have to be quite a story, Perry.”
“Well, he may be just the boy who can think one up. I’d like to force his hand, Paul. I’d like to make him tell his story before he’s ready to tell it. I want to make things so hot for him, he’ll start squirming and twisting.”
“How would you go about doing that?”
“I think the first place to start might be his girl friend.”
“Want to go out there first thing in the morning, and...”
“Why not go out there now?”
Drake made a little shrugging gesture with his shoulders.
Mason said, “What is it? An apartment house, Paul?”
“Uh huh.”
Mason said, “She’s had a phone call from Fleetwood. She’s awake. She’s probably curious. Let’s go out and have a talk with her.”
“Okay by me,” Drake said. “I just swigged about a gallon of coffee, and won’t be able to sleep tonight, anyway. I thought you’d probably have enough stuff to keep me going all night.”
“That’s fine,” Mason said. “We’ll drive out in your car. You have the address?”
“Right.”
“Let’s go.”
They left the office, entered Drake’s car, and Mason immediately settled back against the cushions, put his head on the back of the front seat and closed his eyes.
“Tired?” Drake asked.
“I’m just trying to think,” Mason told him. “This isn’t an ordinary case where you don’t know what happened or how it happened. This is a case where the District Attorney is going to have to prosecute one of two persons for murder. One or the other of those persons simply has to be guilty as the facts now stand. If my client is lying, she may be guilty. If she is, I’m simply going to represent her to the best of my ability and let it go at that, but if Fleetwood is guilty and he is trying to blame it on my client, I’m going to try and outwit him.”
It was some fifteen minutes later that Drake eased his car to a stop in front of an apartment house. “This is the place,” he said. “We’ll probably have to drive a couple of blocks in order to find a parking space. It’s pretty well cluttered up with automobiles.”
Mason said, “Looks like a place across the street there. That’s a fire plug.”
“How about it?”
“Sure,” Mason said, “provided you can park and still leave access to the plug in case there should be a fire.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Drake told him. “In case there’s a fire these boys get to the fire plug all right. It’s kind of tough on your automobile, but they get there. I saw one car that had been left locked in front of a fire plug. There was a fire and the fire department just chopped a hole in both sides of the car, put the hose right through and went to work. When the owner came back, he had a car with a tunnel chopped through it and tickets for overtime parking and tickets for parking in front of a fire plug.”
“Probably cured him,” Mason said. “Wait a minute, Paul. That man looks as though he’s going to get in a car and drive away. If he has a parking place... there he is, unlocking that Dodge. Hey, Paul, drive on past, fast!”
Mason dropped down, out of sight.
“What’s the matter?” Drake asked, speeding up.
“That fellow,” Mason said, “is George Jerome, Allred’s partner.”
“Want to try to tail him?” Drake asked.
“Hell, no,” Mason said. “It isn’t where he’s going that’s important. It’s where he’s been.”
“You mean he’s...”
“Sure,” Mason said. “He’s been calling on this girl friend of Fleetwood’s. What did you say her name was?”
“Bernice Archer.”
“Drive around the block,” Mason said, “then come on back. Perhaps we can get in the parking place that Jerome had.”
Drake said, “He’s a big brute, isn’t he?”
“Uh huh.”
“A powerful man like that could pick a fellow up and break him with his bare hands. I’d hate to get tangled with him in an alley on some dark night.”
“We may have an opportunity to do that very thing before we get done,” Mason said. “He’s mixing in this case altogether too much to suit me.”
“What does he want?”
“He says he wants to get Fleetwood’s testimony nicely sewed up in order to protect him in a lawsuit.”
Mason got back on the seat. Drake drove around the block, found that the parking place which had been vacated by Jerome’s car was still available, and skillfully parked his car.
The doors of the apartment house were closed and locked at this hour of the night, but there was an electric callboard and a buzzer system.
Drake ran his fingers down the directory until he came to the card of Bernice Archer, then pressed the button opposite it.
“Suppose she’ll use the speaking tube?” Drake asked. “If she does, what’ll we tell her?”
“She’ll probably buzz the door open,” Mason said. “She’ll think it’s Jerome coming back.”
They waited for a moment, then Drake pressed the button again.
The electric buzzer signified that the catch had been thrown back on the street door. Mason, who had been standing with his hand on the knob, pushed it open, said, “Okay, Paul, here we go.”
The small lobby was dimly lit, but they could see a corridor and an oblong of bright light which indicated the location of the automatic elevator.
“Jerome left the elevator for us,” Mason said.
They walked down the thinly carpeted corridor, entered the elevator, and Drake pressed the button.
The elevator rattled slowly upward.
“You do the talking,” Drake asked, “or do you want me to?”
“You start in,” Mason said. “Introduce yourself as a detective. Don’t say whether you’re police or private, unless she asks. Start asking her questions about Fleetwood, about when she heard from him last, and things of that sort. I’ll chip in if she gives me an opening. Don’t introduce me. She may think I’m another detective.”
The automatic elevator stopped. The door slowly opened. Drake, sizing up the numbers on the apartments, said, “Okay, Perry, it’s down here to the right.”
Drake knocked at the door.
The woman who opened it was about twenty-five, a blonde with clear blue eyes and skin which needed but little make-up. The silk robe did not conceal much of a strikingly good figure.
There was a wallbed in the room which had been let down. The covers were rumpled and the pillow showed that it had been in recent use. The door to the closet was open, showing several dresses on hangers.
Drake, assuming a hard-boiled voice, said, “I’m Paul Drake. You may have heard of me. I’m a detective.”
“May I see your credentials, please?” she asked very quietly.
Drake glanced dubiously at Perry Mason, then produced a billfold which he showed briefly, then snapped shut and started to return to his pocket.
“Just a moment,” she said, “please.” She calmly reached out for the billfold, studied the card, said, “Oh, I see. This is your license as a private detective.”
“That’s right.”
“And the gentleman with you?” she asked.
Mason grinned. “I’m Mason.”
“A detective?”
“No.”
“May I ask what you are, then?”
“A lawyer.”
“Oh,” she said, and then after a moment, “you’re Perry Mason?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you’re Mrs. Allred’s lawyer.”
Mason, beginning to enjoy the situation thoroughly, said, “That’s right.”
“Won’t you gentlemen please be seated?”
She indicated chairs for them, and went over herself to sit on the edge of the bed. The bottom part of the robe slid away from a smoothly stockinged leg. She was wearing street shoes.