“You could pound dynamite in her ear, set off the charge and blow most of her head away, but the idea would still remain intact.”
“Well,” Mason said, “I guess under the circumstances, Della, we’ll have to see Dorrie Ambler and find out how Gertie’s romantic mind has magnified the molehill into the mountain.”
“Don’t sell Dorrie short,” Della Street warned. “She’s a mighty interesting individual. She looks like a quiet, retiring young woman but she knows her way around and she wasn’t born yesterday.”
Mason nodded. “Let’s have a look at her, Della.”
Della slipped through the door to the outer office and a few moments later returned with Dorrie Ambler in tow.
“So nice of you to see me, Mr. Mason,” Dorrie Ambler said in a rapid-fire voice.
“You are concerned about a problem of personal identification?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“And you wanted to have me take steps to... well, let us say, to be sure you are you?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so anxious to establish your individual identification?” Mason asked.
“Because I think an attempt is going to be made to confuse me with someone else.”
“Under those circumstances,” Mason said, glancing at Della Street, “the very best thing to do would be to take your fingerprints.”
“Oh, but that wouldn’t do at all!”
“Why not?”
“It would make me... well, make a criminal out of me.”
Mason shook his head. “You can have your fingerprints taken and send them to the FBI to be put in their non-criminal file. Actually every citizen should do it. It establishes an absolute means of identification.”
“How long does it take?”
“To have the fingerprints taken and sent on? Only a very short time.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that much time, Mr. Mason. I want you to... well, I want to establish my identity with you. I want you to look me over, to...” She lowered her eyes, “...to see the scar of an operation.”
Mason exchanged a quizzical glance with Della Street.
“Perhaps,” Mason said, “you’d better tell me just what you have in mind, Miss Ambler.”
“Well,” she said demurely, “you’d know me if you saw me again, wouldn’t you?”
“I think so,” Mason said.
“And your secretary, Miss Street?”
“Yes,” Della Street said. “I’d know you.”
“But,” she said, “people want to be absolutely certain in a situation of this sort and— Well, when the question of identification comes up they look for scars and... well, I have a scar.”
“And you want to show it to us.”
“Yes.”
“I believe my secretary told me that you’d like to have some other witness present.”
“Yes, as I understand it, a lawyer can’t be a witness for his client.”
“He shouldn’t be,” Mason said.
“Then perhaps we can get someone who could be a witness.”
“There’s Paul Drake,” Mason said, again glancing at Della Street. “He’s head of the Drake Detective Agency. He has offices on this floor and does most of my work.”
“I would have preferred a woman,” she said. “It’s — rather intimate.”
“Of course,” Mason said, “you could retire to one of the other rooms and Della Street could make an inspection.”
“No, no,” she said hastily. “I want you to see, personally.”
Mason glanced at Della Street again and said, “I’ll send a message to Paul Drake. We’ll see if we can get him to step in for a few minutes.”
The lawyer pulled a pad of paper to him and wrote:
Pauclass="underline" Della will tell you what this is all about, but I want you to have one or more operatives shadow this young woman when she leaves my office. Keep on her trail until I tell you to stop. — Della, try to get an opportunity to look in her purse and see if she really does have a gun.
Mason tore off the sheet from the pad, handed it to Della Street and said, “Take this down to Paul Drake, will you please, Della?”
Della Street, keeping the formal atmosphere which would be compatible with the transmission of a message by paper rather than by word of mouth, said, “Yes, Mr. Mason,” and opened the exit door.
Dorrie Ambler crossed good-looking legs. “I suppose you think I’m being very mysterious, Mr. Mason.”
“Well, let’s put it this way,” the lawyer said. “You’re a little out of the ordinary.”
“I... I just have a suspicion that someone is trying to set me up as a— What is it you call a person who is made the victim of a frame-up?”
“A fall guy,” Mason said, “or a Patsy.”
“Since I am not a guy,” she said, smiling, “I prefer the word Patsy. I don’t want to be a Patsy, Mr. Mason.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Mason told her. “And, by the same token, I don’t want to be placed in a position which might prove embarrassing to me... I take it you gave your name and address to my secretary?”
“Oh, yes, to the receptionist. The young woman at the switchboard.”
“That’s Gertie,” Mason said.
“I gave her the information. I reside at the Parkhurst Apartment, Apartment 907.”
“Married, single, divorced?”
“Single.”
“Well,” Mason said, “you must have people there who can vouch for your identity — the manager of the apartment, for instance.”
She nodded.
“How long have you lived there?”
“Oh... let me see... Some six months, I guess.”
“You have a driving licence?” Mason asked.
“Certainly.”
“May I see it, please?”
She opened her handbag, holding it in such a way that Mason could not see down into the interior, then took out a purse and from that extracted a driving licence.
Mason studied the name, the residence, the description, said, “This was issued five months ago.”
“That’s right, that was my birthday,” she said, and smiled. “You know how old I am now, Mr. Mason.”
The lawyer nodded. “This being a California licence, there is a thumbprint on it.”
“I know.”
“So your objection to having your fingerprints taken was at least partially overcome by—”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I have no objection to having my fingerprints taken. It’s simply that the idea of having them taken and sent to the FBI...” She shuddered.
“We can make a perfect identification from this thumbprint,” Mason said.
“Oh,” she said, and looked at her thumb. “Are you a fingerprint expert, Mr. Mason?”
“No,” Mason said, “but Paul Drake is, and I know a little something about comparing prints.”
“I see.”
“Do you have any other scars?” Mason asked. “Any other operations?”
She smiled. “Just the appendectomy. It’s so recent I’m conscious of it all the time.”
Drake’s code knock sounded on the outer door, and Mason crossed the room to admit Della Street and Paul Drake.
“This is Paul Drake, the detective, Miss Ambler,” Mason said.
Drake bowed.
She smiled, said, “How are you, Mr. Drake.”
Mason said, “We have a peculiar situation here, Paul. This young woman wants to have a witness who can establish her identity. She wants you to take a good look at her and she even wants to go so far as to show the scar of a recent operation for the removal of her appendix.”
“I see,” Drake said gravely.
“And,” Mason went on, “I have explained to her that since it now appears she has a California driving licence with her thumbprint on it, that’s all that will be necessary. It will only be necessary to compare her thumbprint with the print on the driving licence.”