“Dozens of places,” Wight said.
“Would you,” Mason asked, “mind if I looked around?”
Ellen Adair said, “Why, Mr. Mason, I wouldn’t think of leaving it here.”
“I was just asking questions,” Mason said.
The lawyer got-up, opened a door into a hallway, which disclosed a bathroom and two bedrooms.
“Which one of these is yours?” he asked the young man.
“That one right in front of you there.”
Mason went in, sniffed the air a couple of times, walked to the closet and opened the door.
A partially emptied quart bottle of whiskey was on the floor with an ice container and two glasses which still contained ice cubes.
There was lipstick on one of the glasses.
Mason said, “You weren’t studying, Wight; you were having a little social gathering. When your mother rang the bell the first time, you had your girlfriend get sufficiently presentable so she could leave via the back door. After you let us in the front door, she took your car and drove off.”
Wight Baird said, “Suppose you try minding your own business for a change, Mr. Lawyer.”
“This is my business,” Mason said. “I’m trying to get a line on a rather complicated situation.”
“All right,” Wight said, “so I’ve been a normal human being. Any law against that?”
“No law against that,” Mason said, “but I don’t like people who lie to me, and when you, with liquor on your breath, told me this story about having your nose buried in books all day and then I heard someone drive off in your car, I thought perhaps I’d like to check into your story a little bit.”
“All right, you’ve checked it. Now what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” Mason said. “I was just testing your truthfulness.”
“Wight is a good boy,” Ellen Adair said, “but the way boys are tempted these days you just can’t blame them for anything. I swear I don’t know what girls are thinking of.”
Mason turned to Wight. “Do you,” he asked, “have the address of Agnes Burlington?”
“I think she left it somewhere. I never paid any attention to it,” Wight said.
Mason suddenly whirled and grabbed Wight by the shoulders. “All right,” he said, “what did she want? Cut out this lying.”
Wight broke loose, said, “Keep your hands off me. I’m not lying.”
Mason said, “You’re lying and you can get yourself, as well as others, in a lot of trouble. Now what did she want?”
“All right,” Wight said in a surly manner; “she wanted money.”
“How much money?”
“She wanted ten per cent of whatever I acquired from that Cloverville estate.”
“Did you make a deal with her?”
“Well, I...”
“Did you make a deal with her?” Mason asked.
“All right,” Wight said; “I made a deal with her.”
“Was there anything in writing?”
“No; she said it would be better not to put it in writing but that if I tried to double-cross her I’d really be sorry.”
Mason said, “It would be a big relief if someone somewhere would tell me the truth.”
“Well, you move in pretty fast,” Wight said.
“I have to move in pretty fast with this family,” Mason told him. “Now, have you ever been to Agnes Burlington’s place?”
“No.”
“You don’t know where she lives?”
“Just the address she left — that’s all.”
“Have you ever had any social dealing with her?”
“What do you mean, social... My God, man, the dame was old enough to be my mother. I like them young and snappy and... Shucks, no; it was just a business proposition.”
“How many times did you see her?”
“Only once in the last month. She came here and...”
“And why didn’t you tell your mother?”
“She told me not to. She said that Mom was something of a square and old-fashioned and that if she and Mom made any business arrangement the lawyers might find out about it and it would be bad — that, after all. Mom wasn’t going to inherit any money. I was the one who was going to get it and...”
“Did she tell you how much?”
“A couple of million bucks.”
“And you agreed to give her ten per cent?”
“That’s right, provided...”
“Provided what?”
“Provided she came through with the testimony that would enable me to get it.”
Mason said, “In trying to work a deal of that sort, you probably did more to kick your case out of the window than anything that could have happened. Now, then, what about the paper?”
“What paper?”
“She had some kind of a paper, some kind of an agreement,” Mason said.
“No, she didn’t. I told you that she said it would be better if we didn’t have any agreement and...”
Mason said, “She had to have something signed by you. She had to have it for her own protection. Now quit lying.”
“Well,” Wight said, looking at his feet, “she did have me give her a memo. She said no agreement or anything — just a memo that would bind the deal.”
“And you signed this memo?”
“Yes.”
“Was there any copy?”
“No, she said a copy would be dangerous, that there’d be just the one original so that I couldn’t go back on the deal, and she’d keep it in a place where it could never be found.”
Mason said wearily, “You’ve done a lot of talking tonight, Wight, and in a short time you’ve told me more lies than...”
“Well, what do you expect — that I’m going to come blurting out with the truth about an arrangement that I’d sworn to keep confidential?”
Mason turned to Della Street. “I guess we can go home now.”
“What about me?” Ellen asked.
“You,” Mason said, “are to take a taxi back home. You are not to do anything in any way which would result in trying to destroy or tamper with evidence. And, above all, you are not to try and change the tires on your car, try to buy new tires, try to swap the tires around from wheel to wheel, or do anything else. Now do you understand that?”
“But if I sit tight that way, then I’d have to admit that—”
“You admit nothing,” Mason said. “From the time you are picked up by the police, you state that you have nothing to say, that you will make no statement unless I am present. And, when I am present, I will tell you to say nothing. Now is that understood?”
“I think that puts me in a bad light with the public.”
“Sure it does,” Mason said, “but it’s better to be in a bad light with the public than to—”
“What is this, Mom?” Wight interrupted. “Don’t let that man bully you. If you want to tell your story, go ahead and tell it.”
“No, no, Wight; you don’t understand,” Ellen said.
“Was your girlfriend going to come back later with your car?” Mason asked Wight.
“Yes,” he said, “if you want to be so damn nosy, she was coming back.”
“All right,” Mason said, “if you want to do something constructive for a change, you can call your mother a taxicab.”
Mason nodded to Della and they walked out of the front door of the house.
Chapter Fourteen
It was shortly before noon when Lieutenant Tragg, all smiles, entered Perry Mason’s private office, immediately on the heels of Gertie’s frenzied ringing of the telephone.
“Hello, Perry. Hello, Della,” Lieutenant Tragg said. “Nice morning this morning. How are you folks feeling?”
“Fine,” Mason said. “Is there any reason you can’t let Gertie announce you? Must you always come busting into my private office, Lieutenant?”