"This man," Perry Mason said, indicating Bradbury, "is the one who retained me to represent Marjorie Clune. He is the one who told me to beat it out ahead of the police and get her out of trouble."
"I did nothing of the sort," Bradbury said.
"He is the one who told me to represent Dr. Robert Doray."
"I did nothing of the sort," Bradbury repeated.
"What the hell do we care what either one of you did?" Riker said. "We've got you, and we've got this broad. She's wanted for murder. You knew she was wanted for murder. It's been in the newspapers. You had her in your office, and you were concealing her. That makes you an accessory after the fact. It's a felony, and we don't need any warrant to arrest you. We've got the proof on you. It's a felony that was actually committed in our presence, as far as that's concerned, although in a felony case it doesn't make any difference."
"If you'll listen to me," Perry Mason said, "I'll explain the entire situation to you."
"You can tell it to the judge," Johnson said. "I've chased around after you just as long as I'm going to, Perry Mason. You've been giving us the merry ha, ha and the runaround for a long time. Now you're going with us. Put the bracelets on him, Riker."
Perry Mason stared steadily at the two detectives.
"I want to talk," he said.
"I don't give a damn what you want to do," Johnson told him.
"When we get to police headquarters," Perry Mason said, "they will ask me what I have to say. I will tell them that I was on the verge of making a complete confession; that you two dumb dicks wouldn't let me talk; that now the prosecution can go to hell and try to prove me guilty."
Johnson turned to Riker.
"Lock that door," he said. "If the man wants to confess that's different.
"You want to confess?" he asked.
"Yes," said Mason.
"To what?"
"To things that I shall outline in my confession."
Riker opened the door to Perry Mason's outer office.
"You," he said to Della Street, "come in here and take down what this guy says in shorthand."
"It's his own stenographer," Johnson objected.
"That's all right. She'll take it down if he tells her to," Riker said. "And, if he doesn't tell her to take it down, he won't do any talking."
Mason laughed.
"Don't think you boys are going to bluff me," he said, "but as it happens, I want it taken down. Della, you will please take down every word that is said in this room. I want a complete transcript of what is said, and who says it."
"Go on," Johnson remarked, his lip curling slightly. "Start your speech."
"When I first came into contact with this case," Mason said, "I was employed by J.R. Bradbury, the gentleman standing there. He had been to the district attorney's office. They couldn't help him. He wanted me to find Frank Patton and to prosecute him. At my suggestion, he employed Paul Drake, and Drake's Detective Bureau to find Patton."
"This doesn't sound like a confession," Riker said.
Perry Mason fixed him with a cold eye.
"Do you want to listen, or do you want me to keep quiet?" he said.
"Let him go ahead, Riker," Johnson commented.
"I want it understood I am not bound by anything this man says," Bradbury stated.
"Shut up," Johnson told him.
"I won't shut up until I have expressed myself," Bradbury replied. "I know what my rights are."
Riker reached out and caught Bradbury by the knot of the necktie.
"Listen, you," he said, "we're sticking around here to hear a guy confess, not to hear your solo. Sit down and shut up."
He pushed Bradbury back, and into a chair, then turned to Mason.
"Go ahead," he said, "you wanted to talk. Start talking."
"Bradbury came to my office," Perry Mason said. "Before that I had received a telegram signed Eva Lamont. Bradbury said he had sent that telegram. The telegram asked me to hold myself in readiness to act in a certain case involving Marjorie Clune. Bradbury outlined that case. Marjorie Clune had been victimized by Frank Patton. He wanted me to find and prosecute Frank Patton. Through Drake, I located Patton. In locating Patton, we had occasion to interview a young woman named Thelma Bell who lives at the St. James Apartments on East Faulkner Street. Her telephone number was Harcourt 63891. I have always had an uncanny memory for telephone numbers.
"On the evening that Drake located Frank Patton, I was sitting in my office awaiting a telephone call from Drake. We were going out together and try to shake a confession out of Patton. Bradbury came to my office. I told him to wait. I put him in the outer office. Drake's call came through. I told Drake I would meet him. I grabbed a cab and went down to meet Drake. In the meantime, I sent Bradbury back to the hotel to get some newspapers. He is staying at the Mapleton Hotel. He anticipated it would take him half an hour to make the round trip in a taxicab. That's about right. It would have taken just about that time."
"Are you going," asked Bradbury, in a cold, accusing tone, "to confess about entering Patton's apartment in advance of the officers and locking the door behind you as you went out?"
Johnson turned to Bradbury.
"What do you know about that?" he asked.
"I know that's what he did," Bradbury said.
"How do you know?"
"Because," Bradbury remarked with a triumphant leer at Perry Mason, "this man telephoned me here at his office not much after nine o'clock and told me the details of the murder. He told me how the murder had been committed. Even the police didn't know it at that time. I told him to do what he could to protect Marjorie Clune. I referred, of course, to purely legal methods."
Johnson and Riker exchanged glances.
"Was that the telephone call that Perry Mason put through from the drug store?" asked Riker. "We've traced his taxicab from here to Ninth and Olive, from Ninth and Olive out to Patton's apartment, from Patton's apartment down to a drug store where he telephoned, and from the drug store out to the St. James Apartments."
"I was the one he talked to on the telephone," said J.R. Bradbury. "I want to have it definitely understood that I have made this statement before witnesses, and just as soon as I had any knowledge that the things Mason did were at all illegal. I am not going to be involved in any technical illegality."
Riker looked at Della Street.
"You got that down?" he asked.
"Yes," Della Street said.
"Go ahead," Johnson said to Bradbury.
"Let him go ahead," Bradbury remarked, nodding to Mason.
"I went to Patton's apartment," Mason said. "I knocked at the door. No one answered. I opened the door and walked in. The door was unlocked. I found Patton's body. He had been stabbed. I found a blackjack lying in a corner of the livingroom. I started out and heard a police officer coming down the corridor. I didn't want to be seen leaving the apartment, and I didn't want to be seen standing there by the open door. I had a skeleton key in my pocket, and I locked the door and pounded on the panel. I told the officer I had just arrived and was knocking to try and effect my entrance."
Perry Mason stopped talking. There was a silence in the office which enabled those present to hear the scratching of Della Street 's pen on the shorthand notebook, to hear the sobbing intake of her breath.
"You're a hell of a lawyer," said Riker scornfully. "That confession, and Bradbury's corroboration, will put you in jail for the rest of your life."
"On the table," said Perry Mason, without noticing the comment, "in Patton's apartment, were two telephone messages. One of them was to tell Thelma that Marjorie would be late for her appointment. The other one was to call Margy at Harcourt 63891. I saw those two telephone messages. I remembered the telephone number of Thelma Bell. As I mentioned, I have a photographic memory for such things. I surmised at once that Marjorie Clune could be found at Thelma Bell's apartment. I telephoned Bradbury and asked him for instructions. He told me to protect Marjorie Clune regardless of what I had to do, or what means I had to employ."