Mason broke off abruptly as a red spotlight suddenly blazed into brilliance ahead. A motorcycle officer motioned Mason to one side, said, “Get in line behind those other cars. Move up slowly.”
There were a dozen cars ahead, and several officers were examining credentials, asking questions.
Mason exchanged glances with Della Street, then eased the car forward as one of the officers said, “May I see your driving license and the car registration, please?”
Mason showed him the documents.
“You’ve been down here … Oh, oh, you’re Perry Mason, the lawyer.”
“That’s right.”
The officer ‘smiled and said, “Pardon me for stopping you, Mr. Mason. It’s okay, go ahead. We’re looking for some gem thieves. You can detour right around those other cars and around the end of the road block. Sorry I bothered you … However, as a matter of routine, I’d better check the person-with you because it was a woman who …
“Miss Della Street, Mr. Mason’s secretary,” Della Street said, handing the officer her driving license.
He checked the driving license, glanced at her, handed the license back, and said, “Sorry, but we’ve been instructed to make a check. Down here on business, Mr. Mason?”
“Just looking up some witnesses,” Mason said non-committally.
Another car, which had been coming up fast, screamed to a stop as the red light stabbed through the windshield and the motorcycle officer motioned die car to the side of the road.
“Okay,” Mason said, “be seeing you,” and eased on around the road block.
Back on the main road, Mason once more urged the car into speed.
“Chief,” Della Street said, suddenly serious, “do you suppose that girl did steal any jewels?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you don’t know?”
“I looked her over pretty thoroughly, Della. She had a bottle in her right hand, a bottle containing a note which had apparently been thrown overboard from the Thayerbelle, George Alder’s yacht, by a woman who was afraid she was going to be murdered and who was subsequently found dead.”
“Chiefl” Della Street exclaimed.
“And,” Mason went on, “I looked her over pretty carefully to make certain there wasn’t anything concealed.”
“Did you look in the tops of her stockings?”
“Not In the tops of her stockings,” Mason said, “but when she climbed over the front of the canoe, I saw a pair of very symmetrical legs with no ugly bulges such as would have been made by fifty thousand dollars’ worth of Jewelry. A wet dinner gown leaves but very, very little to the imagination.”
“Did you get her name?”
“Dorothy Fenner was the name she gave. She’s supposed to be related to Corrine, the half sister who’s been missing for several months.”
“Looks?”
“Lots.”
“Figure?”
“Swell”
Della Street said, “Well, boys will be boys.”
Mason said, “Now that we’re past the road block HI let you read something.”
He took from his pocket the copy of the letter which Dorothy Fenner had made, and handed it to Della Street
“What’s this?”
“A copy of the letter that was In the bottle. Hie girl is a good typist I held the flashlight and read the original letter to her. She balanced a portable typewriter on her knees and made a copy.”
Della Street unfolded the pages, switched on the map light on the dashboard, and read with increasing interest. When she had finished she said, “Good heavens, Chief, doesn’t that letter give us a stranglehold on George S. Alder?”
“Or else it gives George S. Alder a stranglehold on me.”
“You mean that the whole thing was a plant?”
“That,” Mason said, “is what’s worrying the hell out of me. Alder knows I’m representing that syndicate. He could have made a pretty shrewd guess that I was going to drop by and look his island over, and after all I didn’t see where this swimming girl came from. The first thing I knew she was sliding along through the water, then she reached the island, walked out to stand outlined against the light of that illuminated NO TRESPASSING sign, and started drying herself with a towel One can’t imagine anything better calculated to arrest the attention of a prowling canoeist.”
“And you with your binoculars!” Della Street said, laughingly.
“Me with my binoculars and my damn curiosity, leading with my chin. The whole thing was perfectly timed. After her discovery, the girl had just enough head start to reach the water in front of my canoe before they turned the dog loose. And the dog was right at her heels. Naturally I pushed the dog away and invited the girl to get in. She was good-looldng, casually flippant—she didn’t seem like a thief—and you have to admit the approach was unusual.”
“But,” Della Street said, “you took precautions, you..
“I thought I was taking precautions,” Mason said. “She was wearing a strapless dinner gown without a darn thing underneath it except a pair of stockings. She made a point of displaying this bottle quite prominently—and then, of course, when I read what was in the bottle, I realized it was right down my alley. You couldn’t have asked for a better trap.”
“Better bait, you mean.”
“It’s the same thing.”
They drove in silence for a while, then Della Street said, “And then George Alder announces she took fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels and had a male accomplice waiting in a boat. Just where does that leave you, Chief?”
“Right behind the eight ball. If I’d done the obvious thing, told this girl who I was, persuaded her to let me take the letter—well, that would have left me really in a spot”
“But, as it is, she doesn’t know who you are,” Della Street pointed out
“If it’s a trap she does,” Mason said. “In that case she knew before she ever swam ashore and started drying herself with a bath towel, which she conveniently left for the police to find—and I suppose there’s a laundry mark on that bath towel which will enable the police to trace her.”
“Oh, oh,” Della Street said.
“Exactly,” Mason commented.
Della Street folded the copy of the letter, handed it back to Perry Mason.
“This letter is dynamite,” she said.
“It is, if it’s true.”
“It looks to me as though you’ve really got him on the defensive,” Della Street said.
Mason said, “Just who has whom on the defensive is one of those things that events will have to determine.”
She glanced up at him with eyes that were filled with confidence.
“You have a way of determining events,” she pointed out.
Chapter 3
AT NINE-FIVE MONDAT MORNING WHEN MASON ENTERED his office, Della Street, her finger on her lips, looked up from the phone in Mason’s private office, said into the mouthpiece, “Yes, Mrs. Brawley, yes, indeed. Could you hold the phone just a momentP Someone is calling on the other plume.”
Della Street cupped hex hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone, said rapidly to Ferry Mason, “Mrs. Brawley, the matron at the jail in Las Alisas, has a prisoner there, a Dorothy Fenner, held on suspicion of a jewel robbery, who wants to consult an attorney, and wants you.”
“Oh, oh,” Mason said. “It’s a trap then. She knew who I was all along.”
“Perhaps she didn’t,” Della Street said, her hand still over the mouthpiece. “Do you want me to send Jackson down there and let him talk with her? That way you can find out whether it’s just a coincidence or … “