“But… but doesn’t the surety company demand money from me as collateral security, or something?”
“Oh, I have an arrangement with them,” Mason said airily. “You can get your things together and go on home. Where do you live, incidentally? I may be able to drive you home.”
“At the Monadnock Hotel Apartments.”
Mason said, “I’m going to be busy. We stole a march on the newspapers. No one expected any fireworks. We walked into court, and gave Alder a very bad ten minutes.”
“Did he say anything about the … “
Mason glanced significantly in the direction of die matron, and said, “He started to let the cat out of the bag, and then tried to catch himself in time.”
The matron said with a laugh, “Don’t mind me, Mr. Mason. I have one-way ears… Perhaps I’d better withdraw for a while. You have the bail bond and the order for release?”
Mason handed her die papers.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be back here when you’re ready to go. Now, if you’ll excuse me a moment, I have another matter to attend to.”
She stepped out of the office.
Dorothy Fenner said in a quick, anxious voice, “Wasn’t anything said about the paper?”
“Certainly not,” Mason said. “He got excited and said something about a bottle, then he hastily tried to claim that you had a bottle to carry the jewels in.”
“All fifty thousand dollars’ worth of them, I suppose,” she said bitterly.
“Well,” Mason grinned, “that amount got whittled materially. It hadn’t occurred to him that the insurance company might be interested in this. And then I dropped a bombshell by stating that we were going to sue him for defamation of character. I wouldn’t be surprised if you heard from Mr. Alder and found that he wanted to patch things us.”
“And what do I tell him?”
Mason said, “You tell him precisely this ‘See my lawyer.’ That’s all. Can you remember to tell him that?”
“Yes.”
“And newspapermen may be calling on you,” Mason went on. “I want you to tell them that you are not in a position to make any statement. Can you remember to do that? Can I trust you?”
“But, Mr. Mason, what are we going to do now? How are we ever going to get that paper that was in the bottle brought into evidence? It seems to me now that we’re— well, we’re doing all this fighting just to get back to where we started.”
“That,” Mason told her, “is what comes of not doing what I told you to do at the start. However, don’t worry too much about the evidence now. Alder is on the defensive, and I don’t think he likes being on the defensive. Now let’s get started.”
“Where are you going to be?” she asked. “Can I get in touch with you—later on tonight if anything should develop?”
Mason said, “If anything really important should turn up, ring up the Drake Detective Agency that’s a detective agency that has offices in the same building as mine and on the same floor. They’re just to the right of the elevator as you leave the elevator. You ask for Paul Drake, and he’ll know how to get a message to me, but don’t call unless it’s something very important, and don’t let anyone stampede you into talking. They may try all sorts of tricks, but don’t let them get away with it.”
She took his hand in both of hers. “Mr. Mason,” she said, “you … I can’t…” Her voice choked up and tears were in her eyes.
“That’s all right,” Mason told her. “You just sit tight and carry on as though nothing had happened.”
She blinked back the tears. “But, Mr. Mason… somehow … that paper…”
“You leave all that to me,” Mason said.
“But I don’t see how you can … unless I make a statement now …”
“You keep absolutely quiet,” Mason warned. “Say nothing to anyone. Now we’ll get the matron, have you released, and I’ll drop you at your apartment house after we get to the city.”
Chapter 7
MASON FOUND DELLA STREET WAITING IN THE PRIVATE office.
“Well,” she asked, “what happened?”
Mason chuckled. “Alder had to make some explanation to his guests. He said the unknown thief had broken into his house and stolen fifty thousand dollars’ worth of gems. At the time he didn’t realize that Dorothy Fenner had left a bath towel, bathing cap, and a rubber bag on his property near the illuminated sign, so he embellished the burglary with a lot of lurid details.
“Then, very much to his consternation, the police ran down the clue of the laundry mark on the towel and apprehended Dorothy.
“Naturally, Alder is a little flabbergasted. Then when I pointed out to him that all of his jewelry was insured, and the insurance company would expect him to make a claim of loss—and he knew damned well that the insurance company would be suspicious of the whole setup —well, he began to lose his ardor very rapidly.”
Della Street said, “You have a visitor waiting in the reception room, Chief. He said he’d wait until I closed up the office no matter what time it was.”
“Who?” Mason asked.
“Mr. Dorley H. Alder.”
Mason gave a low whistle.
“He told me he simply had to see you tonight.”
Mason, narrowing his eyes in thought, gave the matter careful consideration, then said, “Try to fix the time when he came, Della. I want to find whether it was before or after George Alder began to realize he had a bear by the tail.”
“It must have been before. He’s been waiting since, oh, I’d say since quarter past four.”
“Describe him, Della.”
“As far as looks are concerned, that’s a cinch, but on his character it isn’t so easy. He’s in the middle sixties, well-dressed, well-preserved, shaggy-eyebrowed, and gray-haired. But there’s something about the man which hits you with—well, not an impact, exactly. It catches you on your blind side. It’s not exactly a benevolence. It’s a quiet power—something in his manner and in the tone of his voice.”
“Let’s take a look at him,” Mason said. “He sounds interesting.”
“Definitely,” Della Street said. “The man’s interesting, but he’s nobody’s fool and I’ll bet that this is the first time he’s waited any length of time in anyone’s reception room.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Bring him in.”
The lawyer seated himself at his desk, pulled some letters toward him which Della Street had placed on his desk for signature, and said, “I’ll be signing mail when he comes in. It’s the conventional thing to do, you know-appear busy.”
“You just keep right on signing them,” Della Street said, laughing. “I want them to get in the mail tonight. I’ll bring him in.”
Mason was signing the last of the letters when Della Street opened the door and said, “Right in here, Mr. Alder.”
Mason blotted the signature, dropped the pen back into its holder, and looked up to meet steady gray eyes which were surmounted by shaggy eyebrows.
“Mr. Alder,” Mason said, arising and extending his hand.
Alder shook hands without actually smiling. His eyes softened into a twinkle for a moment, then were once more keen, hard and probing.
He was a thick, powerful man, and in repose his face had deeply etched lines which, together with the keen scrutiny of his eyes, gave an impression of calmness, and of poised power.
Dorley Alder seated himself comfortably in the big overstuffed client’s chair and seemed to fill it completely.
That big leather chair was one of Mason’s most subtle psychological weapons. The cushions Were deep and soft. Clients who sat in it were inclined to relax physically and, in so doing, get off their guard, or, in more urgent matters, they would come forward to the extreme edge of the chair as though fearing to let themselves go.