“She drove away as soon as she dumped it. I’m sorry, I guess I overlooked a bet, Mr. Mason. I made a note of it in my report, but I was supposed to follow her, so I didn’t dare take too much time prowling around on the dump. I went right back and picked her up at the house.”
“She drove directly back to her house?”
“That’s right. I spotted her car, and then kept an eye on her and stayed with her until she went to court. I come on at four o’clock in the morning and work until noon, and then my relief takes over. I made out a report and described this junk and the old inner tubes and things.”
“The significant part of the whole business is that they’re gone now,” Mason said.
“Well, that may not be so significant, Mr. Mason. The iron in that box was worth something. You know, she didn’t need to take that stuff down there. She could have called a junk peddler, and he’d at least have been willing to haul it away for the iron and stuff that was there. And it was a pretty good stool. Some of that stuff probably could have been used — the stool and some of those old bolts and nuts.”
“But,” Mason said, “the old inner tubes are missing, everything is missing.”
“Every blessed thing she took out there is missing,” Blanton admitted.
“Well,” Mason said, “there’s nothing we can do about it at the present time, except try to figure out why it’s missing.”
“I’m sorry,” Blanton said, “I don’t see how I could have played it any different. I was just shadowing her and—”
“It’s all right,” Mason said. “You should have telephoned Drake right away. When there’s anything unusual — Paul, put a couple more men on Mrs. Claffin. I want to find out everything she does. I want to know everyone she sees, and if anything she does is the least bit significant, I want to be notified immediately. No matter what’s happening, get word to me immediately. Have word relayed to Della, and she can bring it to me in the courtroom. No matter what I’m doing, I want to know.”
Drake nodded. “I’ll get busy on it right away.”
Mason turned to Della Street. “Okay,” he said wearily, “you may as well go home, Della. Tomorrow could be the most disastrous day in my legal career.”
Drake and Blanton left the office. Della Street went to the outer office, adjusted the switchboard, returned, and turned out the desk light. Then she walked up to the lawyer, looked up at his troubled eyes.
“It isn’t your fault, Chief,” she said. “If Mrs. Harlan hadn’t done all of that elaborate window dressing before she called you, she—”
“I know,” Mason said, “but... well, I have the responsibility.”
“And I suppose you’re going to stay here and pace the floor, wrestling with this thing?”
“I’m not going to waste time sleeping while this thing’s unsolved, Della.”
“You can’t do any good just beating your head against a brick wall.”
“Perhaps I can find a way to detour around the wall,” Mason said. “Why did that junk disappear?”
Della Street said, “I’m going to stay if you stay.”
“No, Della, you go get some sleep.”
She came close to him. “You may get some ideas you’ll want to have written up.”
Mason circled her with his arm. “Bless you, Della. You worry as much about this as I do.”
“If she’s guilty, you can’t help that,” Della Street said.
“I know,” Mason said, holding her closer to him. “What a comfort you are with your steadfast faith and loyalty, Della.”
“You know you have that, Chief,” she told him, “always.”
Mason bent and kissed her.
Her arm circled his neck. “Oh, Chief, I wish—”
She broke off as Mason’s form suddenly became rigid. “What is it, Chief? What’s the matter?”
“I’ve just thought of something,” Mason said. “That junk that disappeared. Hang it, Della! That’s significant.”
Della Street’s voice was wistful. “And I take it,” she said, “the client comes first.”
Mason patted her shoulder, then abruptly strode over to his desk. “Of course the client comes first, Della. That’s what a lawyer’s for. Della, sit in that chair. Let me ask you some questions.”
Mason’s voice was sharp with excitement.
“Here, Della, take a notebook. Make a list of questions. Let’s start analyzing this case. When a chemist starts analyzing an unknown substance, he tries to find out the basic ingredients that are in it by applying various tests. In other words, he asks the substance questions. Why don’t we start asking this case questions?”
Della Street said with some asperity, “I suppose if you were getting married, and just as the wedding march was starting you got an idea about a case, you’d be off for the courtroom. Go ahead, Chief, I’ve got my pencil all ready. What are the questions?”
“The disappearing junk,” Mason said. “Why did it disappear?”
Della Street’s pencil made swift shorthand notations in the notebook.
Mason started excitedly pacing the floor.
“That disappearance is the most significant clue in the whole case. That’s the break we’ve been waiting for. Why did that junk disappear?” Mason asked.
“Well,” Della said, “of course, it couldn’t have got up and walked away under its own power.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “And by that same token, Roxy Claffin didn’t go back and pick it up.”
“How do we know?”
“We know,” Mason said, “because Roxy Claffin was being shadowed. Don’t you see what that disappearance means, Della?”
She started to say something, checked herself, sat watching Mason as he excitedly paced the floor.
“Here are some more questions, Della. Make a note of these. Three shots were fired from the fatal revolver. Two bullets have been found. The third bullet has not been found. In what is the third bullet embedded? And why is the third empty cartridge, the one which contained the bullet that is missing, of a different brand from the other shells in the gun?
“Now here’s another question: Lutts got the information that connected my purchase of the stock in the Sylvan Glade Development Company with Sybil Harlan through a bank leak, but where did Enright Harlan get that information? He says Roxy got it from Mrs. Doxey. Mrs. Doxey denies that.”
Mason said excitedly, “Type out that list of questions, Della. Let me have it. We’ll start considering all the various answers which will fit in with the facts. Della, we’re on the track of something!”
His excitement reached Della Street. She jerked the cover off her typewriter, ratcheted in a sheet of paper and her fingers started flying over the keys.
Mason, his face showing intense concentration, continued pacing the floor.
Suddenly the lawyer reached for the telephone, dialed Paul Drake and said, “Paul, get a four-wheeled truck of the kind used by bellboys to transport baggage. Take the wheels off, remove all oil from the axles and put on some rosin or something so they’ll squeak to high heaven.
“Pile some boards, a stool and a couple of hundred pounds of scrap iron on it, cover the whole thing with a cloth and be prepared to wheel it into court tomorrow when I give you a signal. Never mind why. Just get the stuff together.”
And Mason was smiling as he hung up the telephone.
Chapter 16
Judge Sedgwick frowned with obvious distaste as he surveyed the jammed courtroom.
One of the newspaper columnists had made an analysis of Perry Mason’s strategy in the Case of the People versus Sybil Harlan, and that analysis had been so interesting, so deadly accurate that it attracted sensation-hungry spectators as honey attracts flies.