After some ten or fifteen minutes, Drake came bustling back into the room and said, “I have a whole flock of lines out, Perry, but it’ll take me awhile to get details. Want to wait or get ‘em in the morning?”
Mason grinned, perched himself on the one uncluttered corner of Drake’s desk and said, “Foolish question … we’ll wait.”
Drake pulled out a package of cigarettes from his desk drawer, made a gesture of invitation to Della Street, who shook her head, and to Mason, who said, “Thanks, Paul, I have one of my own.”
Mason opened his cigarette case and he and Drake lit up.
“This is the sort of stuff that drives you nuts in this business,” Drake said. “I have two dozen men on the job. It gets around to the slack time and I start calling them in. Then something like this breaks. I’m like a runner with too short a lead off first base with the batter rapping out a short single. I’m falling all over myself trying to get started.”
“If you feel that way about it,” Mason said, “think about me.”
Drake shook his head. “Your job hasn’t started yet. I’m getting you the facts. After I get them, you can take whatever action is indicated—probably nothing, now that the guy’s been murdered.”
Mason glanced at Della Street, grinned, and said, “Listen to the detective telling the lawyer how easy the life of an attorney is.”
Drake said, “You think a detective has a cinch. Remember I have a reputation. I’m supposed to get you the facts all wrapped up in a neat package so you can go to work on them. Tell me, Perry, what will this thing do? Will it close out your interest in the case?”
“I don’t think so,” Mason said. “I’m gunning for bigger stakes.”
Drake glanced at him, raised an inquiring eyebrow, but didn’t put the question into words.
Della Street picked up the evening paper that was on the floor beside the chair she occupied and started reading.
Mason said, “I hate to hold out on you, Paul”
“It’s okay,” Drake said. “Sometimes I can be of a little more help if I know what you’re working on, that’s all. From where I sit, it looks as though Dorothy Fenner was out in the clear right now. The D. A. won’t be able to prosecute without someone to swear that certain specific property is missing. From all I can hear, you gave Alder quite a going over in the courtroom this afternoon.”
Mason said, “There’s more to it than Dorothy Fenner’s case, Paul.”
“Yeah, I know,” Drake said. “That’s what I gathered.”
Mason said, “This has to be in strict confidence, Paul.”
“I’ve never let you down yet, have IF’
“Nope,” Mason said, “but when you take a look at this, you’ll see that it’s loaded with dynamite.”
Mason took from his pocket the copy of the letter which had been contained in the bottle and passed it over to Paul Drake. “Take a look at that, Paul.”
Drake read the letter, at first with nervous impatience, his eyes on the sheet of paper, but his ears listening for the telephones. Then suddenly he snapped his attention to sharp focus on the letter, and muttered half under his breath, “For the love of Mikel”
“Some dynamite, eh, Paul?”
Drake didn’t answer. He remained utterly engrossed in the letter.
Della Street looked up from the newspaper, started to say something, then folded the paper and waited until Drake had finished reading.
Mason adjusted himself to a more comfortable position, interlaced his fingers over his kneecap.
One of the telephones rang.
Drake, with his eyes still on the letter, groped absently for the telephone.
With swift efficiency, Della Street picked up the phone and put it in Drake’s groping hand.
“Thanks,” Drake said. Then, into the telephone, “Yes, hello?”
He listened to words which came rattling from the receiver, said, “Well, that’s a lot better! Give me some more facts.”
He listened for a few seconds, then put down the letter he was reading, picked up a pencil, and started making notes.
For some two or three minutes the receiver made noises and Drake kept on taking notes.
“That all?” he asked.
He listened to some more talk on the receiver, said, “Okay, I think you’re doing good. Now, you’ll have help down there in just a little while. I want to get all the facts I can and I want to find out what the police are doing. HI be sitting right here. Keep feeding in the facts.
“Good lord, Perry,” Drake said, “that letter is really something. Where did you get it?”
Mason said, “Apparently it was found in a bottle that had drifted ashore and was picked up by a beachcomber who turned the thing over to Alder. Now, that’ll show you something of what I have in mind. What did you leam just now, anything new?”
“Looks like a real break for your client,” Drake said.
“Shoot.”
“That is,” Drake went on, “unless Dorothy Fenner went back to Alder’s house to finish the job she started Saturday night.”
!®
“Don’t be silly,” Mason told him. “Dorothy Fenner is a good little girl. She’s following my instructions. I took her home, and she’s staying at home.”
“How do you know?”
“I told her what to do. I think she has enough confidence in me to do exactly what I told her. What have you found out, Paul?”
Drake said, “That was my man down at Alder s place. He contacted a deputy sheriff who gave him all the dope. It looks as though the same prowler that was down there Saturday night came back and went to work again. This time she didn’t jump out of the window. The dog was shut up in the closet and when Alder surprised her, she gave him the works with a thirty-eight caliber double-action revolver.”
“What makes them think it’s the same one?” Mason asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Because of what police refer to as ‘modus operandi,’ the person who was in the study ran out through open French doors at the back of the study. These French doors open on the bay side. Sally Bangor, the servant who made the discovery of the body, had enough presence of mind to close the gate across the bridge when she ran back to the mainland. That left the murderer marooned on the island.
“The maid’s screams got action from a passing motorist, and radio cops were on the job within a matter of minutes. When they heard Sally Bangor’s story they drew their guns and started making a routine search of the premises, leaving a committee of curious citizens who had gathered to stand at the mainland end of the bridge and see that no one doubled back behind them and got off the island that way.”
“And?” Mason asked.
“And they found precisely nothing,” Drake said, “no sign of the murderer. The only way that the murderer could have escaped was by water, just as she did the other night.”
“What’s the rest of it?” Mason asked.
“Well, George Alder was lying face down in a huge pool of blood. He’d been shot through the neck with a thirty-eight caliber revolver, and the bullet had severed one of the big arteries, gone clean on through the neck and apparently didn’t lodge anywhere in the room. That gives police the line of fire. The woman who shot him must have been standing right by the desk. Alder apparently fell in his tracks.”
“How do the police figure she was standing by the desk?”
“Because only in that case could the bullet have gone through Alder’s neck and then out through the open French doors. Alder pitched forward. The girl must have thrown the gun at him as he fell.”
“How come?”
“The gun was found under the body, all crusted with blood, and one shell fired. So there they have things in a nutshell, Perry.”