“How close was it?” Drake asked.
“So darned close that it had me fooled,” Mason said. “Della Street saw the difference.”
“I saw a difference in the little things that a woman would notice,” Della Street said. “The coloring, mostly.”
“The voices are quite different,” Mason said, “but in my opinion the resemblance simply can’t be coincidental. I think when we find Dorrie Ambler we’ll find another heir to the Harper Minden fortune.”
“And then there’ll be a knock-down, drag-out fight between Minerva Minden and Dorrie Ambler?”
“That would be my guess,” Mason said. “You’ll remember that Minerva Minden’s mother had a sister who died, presumably without leaving any issue. She lived with her married sister for a while. On the strength of the resemblance alone I’d be willing to gamble that Minerva’s father may have slept in more than one bed. The resemblance between Dorrie and Minerva is too striking to be coincidental.”
“You think Dorrie Ambler was kidnapped?” Drake asked.
“I keep trying to convince myself she wasn’t,” Mason said. “And so far I haven’t made much headway.”
“I’m thinking about the time element,” Drake said. “They’d have had a deuce of a time getting her out of the apartment house and down the stairs. They couldn’t have used the elevator because that would have brought them back into our line of vision, or rather where we might have seen them. They couldn’t afford to take that chance.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Mason said. “I’m wondering if perhaps they didn’t keep her right there in the building.”
“You mean they had another apartment?” Drake asked.
Mason nodded, thought for a moment, then said, “Check that phase of it, Paul. Try and find who has the apartments rented on the floor below and the floor above. There’s just a chance they spirited her into another apartment.”
“How about the shadowing jobs?”
“Call them off,” Mason said. “The cops wouldn’t like it, and shadows can’t do any good now.”
“Okay, Perry, I’ll take a crack at that angle of another apartment.”
“And now,” Della Street said, “let’s hope we can get the office routine back to some semblance of order, Mr. Perry Mason. You have a lot of canceled appointments and quite probably some irate clients.”
“And,” Mason said, “I know I have a stack of important mail that’s unanswered and I suppose you’re going to bring that up.”
“It will be on your desk within five minutes,” she said.
Mason made a gesture of helplessness, turned to Paul Drake. “Okay, Paul, back to the salt mines.”
Chapter Nine
As Perry Mason entered the office the next morning, Della Street said, “Good morning, Chief. I presume you’ve seen the papers.”
“Actually I haven’t,” Mason said.
“Well, you certainly made the front page.”
“The Ambler case?” Mason asked.
“According to the newspapers it’s the Minden case. You can’t expect a newspaper to waste headlines on an unknown when there’s a voluptuous young heiress in the picture.”
“And she’s in the picture?” Mason asked.
“Oh, definitely. Cheesecake and all.”
“She considered the occasion one for cheesecake?” Mason asked.
“Probably not, but the newspapers have a file on her, and she’s posed for lots of cheesecake pictures. She has pretty legs — or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I’d noticed,” Mason confessed, picking up the newspaper which Della Street handed him, and standing at the corner of his desk, glancing at the headlines. He made a step toward his swivel chair, then remained standing, fascinated by what he was reading.
The telephone rang.
Della Street said, “Yes, Gertie.” Then, “Just a minute. I’m sure he’ll want to talk.”
“Lieutenant Tragg,” she said.
Mason put down the paper, moved over and picked up the telephone. “Hello, Lieutenant,” Mason said. “I guess that your office was not only bugged but the bug must have been connected to one of the broadcasting studios.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk with you about,” Tragg said. “I had to make a report, and the news got out from the report, not from me.”
“You mean the release came from your superiors?”
“I’m not in a position to amplify that statement,” Tragg said. “I’ll say that the publicity came from the report and not from me.”
“I see,” Mason said.
“That is,” Tragg amended, “the initial publicity. But after it appeared that the papers had the story, your client filled in the details.”
“My client?” Mason asked.
“Minerva Minden.”
“I’ve tried to tell you she’s not my client. My client is Dorrie Ambler, who was abducted from the Parkhurst Apartments... What have you found out about her, Lieutenant?”
“Precisely nothing, as far as I’m concerned,” Tragg said. “I understand informally that the FBI is working on the case, although they haven’t entered it officially as yet. You know how they are. Their purpose in life is to collect information, not to give it out.”
“That would seem to be a logical attitude,” Mason said. “I’m a little surprised at Minerva Minden. I thought perhaps she would prefer to have the story kept under wraps, but it’s all here in the paper, all the details and ramifications, including the fact that this may reopen the entire question of her inheritance.”
“You’d think she wouldn’t want that broadcast,” Tragg said, “but she’s not particularly averse to newspaper notoriety.”
“I’ve noticed,” Mason said.
“Well, I just wanted to call you up and explain.”
“Thanks for calling,” Mason told him. “I’m tremendously concerned about Dorrie Ambler.”
“I think you have a right to be,” Tragg told him. “We’re doing everything we can, I know that. No matter whether it’s an abduction or a murder and flight, we want to find her.”
“Will you let me know as soon as anything turns up?” Mason asked.
Tragg’s voice was cautious. “Well, I’ll either let you know or see that she has an opportunity to do so.”
“Thanks,” Mason said. “And thanks again for calling.”
“Okay,” Tragg told him. “I just wanted you to know.”
The lawyer cradled the telephone, returned to the newspaper.
“Well,” he said at length, “it’s certainly all in here — not only what she told them but some pretty shrewd surmises.”
“What effect will that have,” Della asked, “on the matter Dorrie Ambler wanted to have you work on?”
“She wanted to be sure she wasn’t a Patsy,” Mason said. “She wanted to have it appear that...”
“Yes?” Della Street prompted, as the lawyer suddenly stopped midsentence.
“You know,” Mason said, “I keep trying to tell myself that it needn’t have been an abduction — that this thing could have all been planned.”
“Including the murder?”
“Not including the murder,” Mason said. “We don’t know what caused that murder, but we have a premise to start with. Our client was rather an intelligent young woman, and rather daring. She was quite willing to resort to unconventional methods in order to get one thing.”
“And that one thing?” Della Street asked.
“Newspaper publicity,” Mason said. “She wanted to have the story of the look-alikes blazoned in the press. She said she wanted it because she didn’t want to be set up as a Patsy in some crime that she hadn’t committed.”