“I get you,” Della Street said. “What time are you going to lunch?”
“Not until after you telephone again,” Mason told her. “Snoop around a little bit and see what you can find.”
“Okay, I’ll call you back.”
Her next call came in less than thirty minutes later. “Someone,” she said cautiously, “has taken the lid off the bean pot, and the beans are spilled all over everything.”
“What did you find out, Della?”
“Two men,” she said, “drove up about nine o’clock this morning and pounded on the door of Mae Farr’s apartment until she answered. The men walked right on in and didn’t take their hats off. The woman who has the apartment across the court saw that much.”
“That,” Mason said, “is all she needed to see. Come on back to the office, Della, and we’ll go to lunch.”
Chapter 7
Paul Drake was waiting for Mason when the lawyer and Della Street returned from lunch. “Well, Perry,” the detective said, “the best I can do is to give you this information about an hour in advance of publication. The newspapers will have it on the street in the early afternoon editions.”
“Shoot,” Mason said.
“It doesn’t look so good for Mae Farr or her boyfriend. I don’t know just what lead the police followed, but they followed it right to Mae Farr. I understand the man who saw her leave her car has identified her absolutely.”
“Anything else?” Mason asked.
“Yes. They have a lead on the boyfriend.”
“Did they find him?”
“I think they had the devil of a time finding him,” Drake said. “They picked him up out of town somewhere. The story I get is that they found him up at North Mesa.”
“Then what?” Mason asked.
“I understand the girl’s sitting tight, but telegraphic advices from the north are that when representatives of the district attorney’s office flew up to San Francisco to meet local authorities who had brought Anders down that far, Anders made a fairly complete confession.”
“Confession?” Mason asked.
Drake nodded and then said, after a moment, “You’re not looking well, Perry.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“You don’t look right around the eyes. You’ve been on pretty much of a strain lately. Why don’t you take a vacation?”
“Why,” Mason asked, “would I want a vacation?”
“I thought it might be a good idea,” Drake said. “If I were you, I’d start right away.”
“What,” Mason asked, “did Anders say?”
“I don’t know,” Drake admitted, “but it was something pretty hot, I think. The tip that came to the newspapers was that a prominent attorney was going to be implicated.”
Mason said, “Bunk. Anders can’t implicate anybody.”
“It might be well if you were out of the picture for a day or two until I can get all the dope,” Drake said. “I can turn the whole thing inside out if I have forty-eight hours.”
“To hell with that stuff,” Mason said. “Can’t you see the field day the police would have if I suddenly took a powder? They’d smear it all over the newspapers that I’d left hurriedly on being advised of Anders’ statement.”
“Do they,” Drake asked, “have anything on you?”
Mason shrugged his shoulders and said, “How do I know what they have? How did they get Anders to talk?”
“Same old scheme,” Drake said. “They told him Mae Farr had confessed to the whole business and was going to take the blame, and he got chivalrous and said it wasn’t her fault, and spilled his guts.”
Mason said, “Well—” and broke off as the telephone buzzed. Della picked it up, said, “Hello,” hesitated a moment, then covered the mouthpiece. She looked up at Perry Mason and said, with no expression whatever in her voice, “Sergeant Holcomb of the Homicide Squad and Carl Runcifer, a deputy district attorney, want to see you at once.”
Drake said, “Oh oh, those birds get around fast.”
Mason jerked his head toward the exit door. “Slip through there, Paul,” he said. “Okay, Della, go out and bring them in.”
Drake covered the distance across the office with long, easy strides and opened the exit door. A man’s voice said, “Hold it. Stay where you are.”
Drake stood motionless.
Before Della Street had reached the door to the outer office, it was shoved open by Sergeant Holcomb, who came pushing his way into the office behind a cloud of cigar smoke, his hat tilted back on his head, his eyes hard with hostility.
The man in the corridor called out, “Here he is, Sergeant.”
Holcomb strode over to the corridor door, took a look at Drake, and said, “He’s just a stooge. Let him go. Come on in, Runcifer.”
He held the door open while Carl Runcifer, a tall man in his late thirties with heavy features and grey eyes, walked somewhat sheepishly into the office.
“I thought it was Mason from the description I had,” he said.
Mason, behind the desk, said affably, “No apology’s necessary, Runcifer. You’re one of the deputies I haven’t met. Come on in and sit down.”
Runcifer, seeming ill at ease, moved over to the client’s chair and sat down.
Mason glanced at Sergeant Holcomb and said, “And how are you, Sergeant? I haven’t seen you for a while.”
Sergeant Holcomb did not sit down. He stood with his legs spread apart, his hands shoved down into the side pockets of his coat. “Looks as though you’ve made quite a slip, Mason,” he said.
Mason said to Runcifer, “You haven’t been in the office long, have you?”
“About three months.”
Sergeant Holcomb took the cigar out of his mouth. “Don’t try to pull that casual line with me, Mason, because it won’t work.”
Mason countered, “Don’t try to pull that get you on the defensive line with me, Sergeant, because it won’t work. If you want to know anything, come out and say so.”
“Where’s the gun?” Sergeant Holcomb asked.
“What gun?”
“The gun that killed Wentworth.”
Mason shrugged his shoulders and said, “You can search me.”
“You’re damn right I can,” Holcomb said grimly.
“Got a warrant?” Mason asked.
“I don’t need one.”
“It depends somewhat on the viewpoint,” Mason observed.
Holcomb came over and sat down on a corner of the desk. “It’s one thing,” he said, “to act as a lawyer and hide behind this professional confidence business and this privileged communication gag. It’s another thing to stick your neck out so far that you become an accessory after the fact.”
Mason said irritably, “Go ahead. Say it. Get it out of your system.”
Runcifer interrupted. “Perhaps, Sergeant, I might ask Mr. Mason a few courteous questions before we make any serious accusations. After all, you know, Mr. Mason is an attorney and...”
“Oh hell!” Sergeant Holcomb exclaimed disgustedly, and then, after a moment, said, “Go ahead,” and walked across the office to stand in front of the window, deliberately turning his back on Runcifer and Mason.
“I believe you’re aware that Penn Wentworth was found dead on his yacht at an early hour this morning?” Runcifer asked.
Mason nodded.
“He had been shot. Circumstances pointed the finger of suspicion at a girl named Mae Farr and a man by the name of Harold Anders. The girl was undoubtedly around last night at the scene of the shooting. Anders admits it, admits that he was in the vicinity of the yacht when the shooting took place. From his story, it probably isn’t first degree murder, but it’s undoubtedly a homicide which will have to be cleared up by a jury.