“If I can beat the rap,” Mason asked, “what have you got to trade?”
“Simply this,” Marley told him. “If you play ball with me, there won’t be any rap. They’ll concentrate on Anders and try to pin the kill on him. They can’t do it. They can get so far, and then it sticks. Anders didn’t do it. Mae did.”
“What makes you so positive?”
“After I heard what had happened to my boat, I went down and looked her over.”
“When was that?”
“About two or three hours ago.”
“What did you find?”
Marley said, “You know, Mason, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“What did you find?” Mason repeated.
Marley said, “I found that a lock had been smashed, that someone had had the boat out. I always leave the boat with a full tank of gas. As nearly as I can tell from the gas gauge, she’d gone maybe ten miles. I know a little something about fingerprints — I learned it in the hard school of experience. I sprinkled some powder around where it would do the most good on the steering wheel, on the handle of the throttle, on the lighting switches.”
“What did you find?” Mason asked.
“Fingerprints.”
“Whose fingerprints?”
Marley shrugged and said, “I wouldn’t know. It would be up to the police to tell whose fingerprints they were.”
“What’s your proposition?” Mason asked.
Marley said, “I’ll give you five grand in cash right now. I’ll take an oiled cloth, go down and scrub off every fingerprint on the boat. I’ll buy this witness a ticket to Australia, and let her stay there until the case is over. You advise me about how to wind up the partnership business.”
“Why can’t any attorney do that?”
“I tell you, it’s a mess. I’ve been careless. I’ve relied too much on conversation and not enough on records. I did virtually all of the business recently. Penn got so he left things more and more to me.”
“Why do you think I could handle the widow better than any other lawyer?” Mason asked.
“You have the reputation. What’s more, you have the knowledge, and if she gets too tough, you could bring a little pressure to bear on her. You know, let her feel that you were going to rip her wide open when she came into court to testify. Penn had some stuff on Juanita. She’s nobody’s fool. She knows that.”
Mason said, “That’s all of your proposition?”
Marley nodded.
“Pardon me a minute,” Mason said as he rang the buzzer for Della Street.
When she opened the door, he said, with a nod to Frank Marley, “Mr. Marley will be leaving shortly. Tell Drake that he can come back. And tell him to make adequate preparations to report progress on everything that happens from now on. Emphasize everything. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I’ll tell him, Mr. Mason. Is there anything else?”
Mason shook his head and she closed the door.
“Sorry for the interruption,” Mason said, turning back to face Marley. “I don’t like your proposition.”
“I could up the cash a little — not very much because I’m short right now, and Penn’s death is going to...”
“No,” Mason said, “it isn’t the cash.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the idea.”
“What idea?”
“Of suppressing evidence, for one thing.”
Marley looked at him in surprise. “You mean to say that you’re going chicken on a little thing that’s done every day of the week?”
“You can call it that if you want to.”
Marley said, “Well, look. We don’t have to do anything. We can simply...”
Mason shook his head.
“Listen,” Marley said, “this is on the square. There’s just the two of us here. It isn’t any trap. It’s a straight out business proposition.”
Again Mason shook his head.
“For God’s sake,” Marley said, “don’t tell me you’re going to pull that line. If you’re going to act like that, it’s your duty to see that this witness tells her story to the police.”
“It may be at that.”
Marley said, “Look here, Mason, don’t be a fool. You’re in business. You know which side of the bread has the butter.”
Mason said, “From where I sit, it doesn’t seem to be your side.”
Marley said indignantly, “You mean I’m apt to sell you out? You mean you think you can’t trust me?”
Mason said, “I’m not interested.”
“Think it over for an hour or two,” Marley said. “I think you’ll figure it’s the only thing to do. Anders has spilled his guts. You’re in a spot. I’m in a spot. Mae Farr is in a spot. If we play this thing right, we can all get off the spot.”
Mason said coldly, “I like to lead my own aces, Marley.”
Marley said, “I know. You think I’m bluffing. You think there isn’t any witness. You think that I’d simply go down and clean the inside of the yacht, tell you I’d sent the witness to Australia, and be sitting pretty.”
“You could do just that,” Mason pointed out.
“Don’t be a damn fool,” Marley said.
“I’ll try not to,” Mason assured him.
Marley sighed, said, “Cripes, if you haven’t any better sense than that, I don’t want you for an attorney. I think you’re vastly overrated.”
“Sometimes I think so myself,” Mason said.
Marley started for the door, paused with his hand on the knob to look back at Mason. “No,” he said thoughtfully, “you aren’t dumb. You’re smart. You figure you can make me the fall guy. Well, think again, Mason.”
Frank Marley jerked open the door, then slammed it shut behind him.
Mason picked up the desk telephone and said to the operator in the outer office, “Get Della Street for me right away.”
Almost immediately he heard Della’s voice on the line. “Okay, Chief, what is it?”
“Did you get my message straight for Paul Drake?”
“I think so. You meant that you wanted Marley shadowed?”
“Yes. I was wondering if you’d get it.”
“Two operatives will be in the lobby,” she said. “Another operative is being planted at the elevator. She’ll put the finger on Marley for the two detectives downstairs. Drake had to work fast, but he did it.”
“Good girl,” Mason said.
Chapter 9
It lacked ten minutes until five o’clock when Paul Drake entered Mason’s office with news. “Marley,” he said, “left here and went directly to the Balkan Apartments on Windstrom Avenue. He kept buzzing the apartment of Hazel Tooms until he decided he was drawing a blank. Then he started out toward the harbour on Figueroa Street. My operatives are tailing him. Does this Tooms girl mean anything to you?”
“Not so far,” Mason said. “Look her up. See who she is. See if she’s a nurse.”
“Okay. Here’s something else. The police have found the murder gun.”
“They’re certain?”
“Yes. The bullets tally exactly.”
“Where did they find it?”
“That’s the funny thing,” Drake said. “They found it right where Anders says he threw the gun.”
“What do you mean?”
“Get this,” Drake said. “The highway is banked way up at that particular place, probably eight or ten feet above the level of the surrounding country. There’s a deep drainage ditch on each side of the highway.”