“Now, here’s what I’m going to do. In precisely ten minutes from the time I hang up the telephone I am going to go to the elevator. I want you to get aboard the same elevator and ride down with me. Just speak to me casually.
“We’ll ride down together, then separate, and I’ll walk to the taxi stand on the corner, pick up a cab, and go to the railroad depot. Once there, I’ll go into a telephone booth, put through a call, walk out, get another cab, and come back to the office. I want you to have an operative waiting in a cab so I can be tailed to see if I am being shadowed by anyone else.
“Can you do that?”
“Can do,” Drake said. “I’ve got a couple of operatives in the office right now, making out some reports. I can send one of them down and have him engage a cab and be waiting.”
“Do that,” Mason said; “if he should lose me at a traffic signal, you can tell him to drive right to the depot and pick up my trail there. I’ll wait around the telephone booths for a minute or two before putting in the call. Look at your watch now; we’re going out in exactly ten minutes.”
Mason hung up the phone, said to Della, “Give me Ellen Adair’s telephone number, Della.”
Della Street, watching him curiously, said, “Aren’t you going to a lot of trouble and a lot of expense just on mere suspicion?”
“It’s not mere suspicion,” Mason said. “If that man wasn’t a private detective, I’ll go see my oculist. And when a small city newspaper sends a private detective instead of a reporter to get a story, it means something big is in the wind. Furthermore, I have a hunch there are two men on the job. One of them may be local, but this one came from Cloverville.”
Promptly at the end of nine minutes and forty-five seconds. Mason left his office, walked to the elevator, and pressed the down button.
Just before the cage came to a stop, Paul Drake emerged from his office.
“Hi, Perry,” Drake said; “what’s new?”
“Nothing much,” Mason said.
“You aren’t quitting for the day?”
“Heavens, no! Just have to consult with a client on a matter of business.”
They entered the cage together.
“Going to see a client, eh?” Drake asked.
“Uh-huh,” Mason said, without making any effort to carry on further conversation.
In the foyer of the building, Drake paused to buy a package of cigarettes. Mason strolled across to the sidewalk hailed a taxicab.
“Take me to the Union Depot,” he instructed, and settled back against the cushions.
The driver skillfully threaded his way through traffic and duly deposited Mason at the station.
Mason paid the fare, gave the cabby a tip, and walked toward the line of telephone booths near the station entrance. He entered one and stood so that his shoulders concealed the dial of the telephone from anyone who might have been watching to see what number he dialed; then he dialed the number of Paul Drake’s office.
Drake’s switchboard operator came on the line and Mason said, “Perry Mason, Ruth. Is Paul where you can put him on?”
“He’s just receiving a telephone report from one of his operatives,” she said. “I think it’s on the case that you’re interested in.”
“I’ll hang on,” Mason said, and waited some two minutes at the telephone. Then he heard Paul Drake’s voice.
“Hi, Perry; you’re down at the telephone booths at the depot?”
“Right.”
“Well, you’re wearing a tail all right.”
“A heavyset individual in the late forties with...”
“No, this is a thin older man about sixty with high cheekbones. He’s wearing a dark-brown suit, black shoes, white shirt and brown tie. He seems to know his way around.”
“I think probably he is local,” Mason said. “What’s a job like that worth, Paul?”
“If he’s local, he’s probably getting forty to fifty dollars a day and expenses,” Drake said. “He was planted in a taxicab outside the building.”
“Well,” Mason said, “I’ve got a problem on my hands, Paul. I’m going to have to employ a decoy.”
“What kind of a decoy?”
“A woman, about thirty-eight years old, quite tall — a little taller than the average — about five feet eight and a half. Light-chestnut hair, if possible. I want her to weigh a hundred and thirty to a hundred and thirty-two pounds. I want her to be quick on the uptake, and she’ll need an apartment. She’ll go under the name of Ellen Smith. She’ll surround herself with an air of mystery, avoid contacts with anyone, and be in a position to follow instructions.
“I’d like to have her in an apartment if possible, but I don’t want her to get an apartment which was leased just a few hours earlier if I can avoid it. I...”
“That end of it is all right,” Drake said. “As part of the operation we keep a dummy, decoy apartment in the name of the switchboard operator, but the rent is handled in such a way that no one could ever trace the apartment to this office.
“It’s going to take me a little while to make all the arrangements you want, but I have a list of female operators and one of them fits your description to a T. I don’t think she’s working now, and I’ll try and get her.
“Now, Perry, there’s one thing you’ve got to watch out for. If anybody has gone to all this trouble to sew you up, you had better be careful with your telephone conversations. With electronic eavesdropping devices it’s not too difficult to bug an office or tap a telephone line.”
Mason said, “That’s why I’m telephoning you from the depot, Paul. I’ll telephone you again shortly. See if your operative is available, and if she is I want her to come to my office in about half an hour. Can do?”
“If she’s available, can do,” Drake said. “You call me back in ten minutes.”
“Right,” Mason said.
The lawyer hung up, left the telephone booth, walked halfway to the entrance of the depot, then suddenly snapped his fingers as though he had forgotten something, whirled on his heel, and started back toward the telephone booths.
He almost collided with a rather thin individual with high cheekbones, a lantern jaw, a brown suit and tie, black shoes, and white shirt. The man was about sixty years of age.
Mason hurried back to the telephone booth, again held his body in such a position that his shoulders shielded the dial of the telephone, and dialed the number Ellen Adair had given Della Street.
A voice at the other end of the line repeated the number Mason had dialed.
“Miss Adair, please,” Mason said.
“Just a moment, please,” the voice said.
A few moments later another voice said, “Miss Adair’s office.”
“Miss Adair, please,” Mason said.
“Who’s calling?”
“Mr. Mason.”
“Just a moment, please.”
A moment later Mason heard Ellen Adair’s voice.
“Listen carefully,” Mason said. “I want to know where I stand. What kind of a game are you playing? Are you mixed up in a criminal case — and, if so, what are the facts?”
“What are you talking about?” Ellen Adair demanded.
“I’m talking about the fact that somebody from Cloverville showed up in my office and said that he was representing The Cloverville Gazette, that the story of what had happened to you was arousing a tremendous amount of local interest, that the paper would be willing to pay a reasonable sum for your story.”