“Well, make a figure eight, just for the sake of being absolutely certain,” Mason said.
When Drake had completed the maneuver, Mason nodded his satisfaction. “Okay, Paul, drive right to the bungalow.”
“That’s rather a snoopy neighbor,” Drake observed thoughtfully. “We’d better switch out the lights a block or so before we get to the house... How about parking a few doors away, Perry?”
“No,” Mason said, “I want to make it fast. You can drive around the block once, and I’ll size up the situation, then switch off your lights, and swing in to the curb as near the screen porch as you can make it... I hope this damned parrot doesn’t squawk when I start moving him.”
“I thought parrots slept at night,” Drake said.
“They do,” Mason told him. “But when they’re being dragged around the country in automobiles, they get nervous — and I don’t know how much of a squawk Casanova will make when I steal him.”
Drake said, “Now listen, Perry, let’s be reasonable about this thing. If anything goes wrong, don’t get pigheaded and keep trying to make the switch. I’ll be all ready to make a getaway. For God’s sake, drop that parrot and make a run for it.”
“I don’t think anything will go wrong,” Mason told him, “—not unless the house is being watched, and we should be able to find that out by swinging around the block.”
“Well, we’ll know in a minute,” Drake said, turning the wheel sharply to the left. “We’re within two blocks of the place now.”
He ran two blocks and swung once more to the left. Mason sized up the bungalow as they glided past. “The house is dark,” he said. “There are lights in the house next door, and lights across the street. The screen porch looks easy.”
Drake said, “Maybe you think it won’t be a relief to me when this is over, Perry.”
He circled the block, swung in to the curb, with lights out and motor off.
Mason glided out of the car, the cage and the parrot in his hand, and vanished into the shadows. He found it a simple matter to cut the screen, snap back the catch on the screen door and effect an entrance to the porch. The parrot he had brought with him was restive, moving about on the perch in the cage, but Casanova, apparently drugged with sleep, barely stirred when Mason gently lowered the cage from its hook, and substituted the cage he had brought with him.
A few moments later, Mason had deposited Casanova in the back of the automobile. “Okay, Paul,” he said.
Drake needed no signal. He lurched the car into motion, just as the door of the adjoining house opened and the ample figure of Mrs. Winters stood framed in the doorway.
As Paul Drake skidded around the corner, with the lights out, the parrot in the back of the car mumbled sleepily, “My God, you’ve shot me.”
Chapter eight
Mason unlocked the door of his private office, and then suddenly stood motionless, staring in surprise at Della Street.
“You!” he exclaimed.
“None other,” she told him, blinking back tears. “I guess you’ll have to get a new secretary, Chief.”
“What’s the matter, Della?” he asked, coming toward her solicitously.
She started to cry then, and he slid his arm around her shoulders, patting her reassuringly. “What happened?” he asked.
“That t-t-t-two-timing little d-d-d-devil,” she said.
“Who?” Mason asked.
“That librarian, Helen Monteith.”
“What about her, Della?”
“She slipped one over on me.”
“Come on over here; sit down and tell me about it,” Mason said.
“Oh, Chief, I’m so d-d-darned sorry I let you down!”
“How do you figure you let me down, Della? Perhaps you didn’t let me down as much as you think.”
“Yes, I did too. You told me to keep her where no one could find her, and...”
“What happened?” Mason asked. “Did they find her, or did she take a run-out powder?”
“She took a p-p-p-powder.”
“All right, how did it happen?”
Della Street dabbed at her eyes with a lace-bordered handkerchief. “Gosh, Chief, I hate to be a b-b-bawl-baby,” she said. “... Believe it or not, this is the first tear I’ve shed... I could have wrung her neck with my bare hands... She started in and told me a story that tore my heart inside out.”
“What was the story?” Mason asked, his face without expression.
“It was the story of her romance,” Della said. “She told it... Oh, Chief, you’d have to be a woman to understand... It was all about her life. She’d been romantically inclined when she was young. There’d been a high school, puppy-love affair, which had been pretty serious with her... But it hadn’t been so serious with the boy... that is, it had at the time, Chief. I don’t know if you can get the sketch, I can’t tell it to you the way she told it to me.
“This boy was just an awfully nice boy. She made me see him just the way she saw him — a nice, clean, decent chap, with something of the mystic, or spiritual, in him... something that a woman really wants in every man she loves, and this was a real love affair.
“Then the boy went away to get a job, so he could make enough money to marry her, and she was all thrilled with pride. And then, after a few months, he came back, and...”
“... And he was in love with someone else?” Mason asked as she hesitated.
“No, it wasn’t that,” Della said. “He was still in love with her, but he’d become sort of smart-alecky. He looked on her as something of a conquest. He wasn’t in such a hurry to get married, and he’d been running around with a crowd of boys that thought it wasn’t smart to have ideals. They had a sophisticated attitude, and... well, I’ll never forget the way she described it. She said the acid of their pseudo-realism had eaten the gold off his character and left just the base metal beneath.”
“So then what happened?” Mason asked.
“Then she naturally became bitter — toward men and toward love. At a time when most girls were seeing the world through rose-tinted spectacles, she was embittered and disillusioned. She didn’t care too much for dances, and parties, and things, and gradually became more and more interested in books. She said she formed her friendships among books; that books didn’t tease you along until they’d won your friendship, and then suddenly reverse themselves and slap you in the face.
“Along about that time, she acquired the reputation of being narrow-minded and strait-laced, and a poor sport. It started in with a few fellows whose vanity was insulted because she wouldn’t drink bathtub gin, and neck. They advertised her as an awful pill, and gradually that reputation stuck to her. Remember, Chief, she was in a small town. It’s pretty hard for people to really see each other in a small town. They only see the reputation which has been built up by a lot of word-of-mouth advertising.”
“Was that the way she described it?” Mason asked.
Della Street nodded.
“All right, go ahead. Then what happened?”
“Then, when she’d just about given up any idea of romance, along came Fremont Sabin. He was kindly and gentle, he wasn’t greedy. He had a philosophy of life which saw the beautiful side of everything. In other words, Chief, as nearly as I can explain it, there was Something of the idealism in this man that she had worshiped in this boy with whom she’d been in love. But, whereas the boy had the ideals of youth, and they weren’t strongly enough entrenched in him to withstand the cynicism and cheap worldly wisdom of his associates, this man had battled his way through every disillusionment life had to offer, and won his idealism as an achievement, as an ultimate goal. His ideals stood for something — they were carefully thought out. They’d stood the test of time.”