“Now,” Mason said, “we are going to see our client, Susan Fisher.”
Chapter 8
Perry Mason rang the chimes in Susan Fisher’s apartment and received no answer.
He frowned at Delia Street, tried the door. The door was locked. Again he sounded the chimes.
“I can’t understand it,” Mason said. “I told her to stay in her apartment and be where she could be reached instantly on the telephone.”
“What do you suppose has happened?” Della Street asked.
“Whatever it was,” Mason said, “it was something of sufficient importance to cause her to break the promise she made me and... unless, of course, she was confronted with some emergency and called Paul Drake. Let’s see if she left a message there.”
They went back down to the ground floor, found a telephone booth and called Drake.
“Perry Mason,” the lawyer said. “What have you heard from Susan Fisher — anything?”
“She telephoned at six o’clock,” Drake said. “She told me that something had come up which was so exceedingly confidential she didn’t dare breathe a word of it, but that she was going to have to be out for a while. She asked me to relay the message to you.”
“Did you try to pump her to find out what it was?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t get to first base. She was evidently in a breathless hurry. She said to tell you things were going to be all right and for you not to worry.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “I’ll keep in touch with you. She’ll let you know when she gets back.”
The lawyer hung up the telephone, emerged from the booth and shook his head in response to Della Street’s unspoken question. “She’s gone out,” he said. “She left rather a cryptic message for Paul Drake. He said she was in a breathless hurry. Under the circumstances, Della, I guess we go and eat. Everybody seems to be standing us up tonight.”
“Those,” Della Street announced, “are words that ring musical chimes in my brain. Those words tinkle upon my eardrums with the effect of music — we eat.”
Mason said, “Well, we’ll do it on the installment plan, Della. I notice there’s a cocktail lounge a couple of blocks down the street. We’ll go down there, have a cocktail, then get back here in about twenty minutes, check on our client once more and then if she isn’t in we’ll go get a nice dinner.”
Della Street said, “May I offer an amendment?”
“What is it?”
“Long experience with you has taught me that the bird in the hand is far, far better than two in the bush. In place of having a cocktail now and eats later, let’s forget the cocktail and put in the half-hour at the restaurant around the corner. I would much prefer digesting a meat loaf in my stomach than to get through until midnight on the promise of a filet mignon. Meat is more nourishing than words.”
“Okay,” Mason said, laughing, “but I want to be back here within thirty minutes at the outside. There’s something about this case which worries me.”
They went to a little restaurant around the corner where the service was prompt. As Della Street had jokingly surmised, there was meat loaf and gravy ready for immediate service.
Within thirty minutes they were back and Mason had parked his car in front of Sue Fisher’s apartment house.
Mason was escorting Della Street to the door when a slender figure in a long raincoat with a hat pulled low, started to push open the door, then suddenly stopped with a gasp.
“Mr. Mason!” Susan Fisher exclaimed.
Mason looked at the garb — the man’s hat, the sweater, the slacks, the raincoat, the flat shoes — and said, “Now, what are you doing masquerading as a man?”
“I... I don’t know,” Susan Fisher said. “Oh, am I glad to see you! Oh, I... I was hoping that I could get in touch with you.”
Mason said, “You could have been in touch with me if you’d only followed my instructions and remained in your apartment.”
“I know, I know, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?’·’
“Because she telephoned me.”
“Who?”
“Amelia Corning.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted me to do something without anybody knowing about it.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?” he asked.
“I... is it all right to talk here?”
“Probably not,” Mason said. “Let’s go up to your apartment... look, child, you’re shaking.”
“I know I’m shaking. I’m so nervous I feel like I could wilt on the doorstep.”
The lawyer escorted her to the elevator, then down the hallway. Della Street said, “Let me have your key, dear, and I’ll unlock the door.”
After they had entered the apartment Mason said, “All right, Susan, let’s have it.”
Susan seated herself, started twisting her gloves nervously as though wringing water from them.
“Go on,” Mason said encouragingly. And then added, “We may not have much time, you know.”
Susan said, “She telephoned and told me exactly what to do. She told me to take a pencil and write down her instructions in shorthand.”
“What were they?”
“I have them in my notebook but they’re etched in my mind. She told me to go to the office of the drive-yourself car company that is only four blocks away, to rent an automobile, then to go up Mulholland Drive to an intersection she described, then on one and three-tenths miles to a service station. At the service station I was to go on down the road for another two-tenths of a mile. There was a wide place there and I was to park the car. Then I was to walk back to the service station and ask for a one-gallon can of gasoline. She said I was to take the can of gasoline, pay for it, take it down and put it in the car — that anyone driving at night should be equipped for any emergency.”
“And why was all this?” Mason asked.
“She said that she wanted to get me to drive her to Mojave and she didn’t want anyone to know what she was doing. She said she absolutely had to interview a man in Mojave before the banks opened tomorrow.”
“Did she say why?”
“No.”
“Or what name?”
“No.”
“And what about the clothes you’re wearing?”
“She said I was to get a man’s hat that had a good broad brim, that I was to wear slacks, a sweater, and a raincoat, that I must wear flat shoes so I could do quite a bit of walking, if necessary.
“And she told me the nicest things, Mr. Mason. She told me that she had checked very carefully on me, that she appreciated my candor and my straightforward sincerity as well as my loyalty to the company. She told me that she was going to throw Endicott Campbell out and that I was going to be placed in an executive position. She said—”
“Never mind all that,” Mason said. “Tell me exactly what happened. What else did she say about instructions, and what did you do?”
“I did exactly as she told me. I knew that there was a broom closet here where the janitor kept some old clothes and I knew he had this broad-brimmed hat there, so I borrowed it. I had a heavy opaque raincoat. I left so that I got to the designated place on Mulholland Drive a good twenty minutes before the appointed time. I parked the car, went to the gasoline station, got the one-gallon can of gasoline and went back to the place and waited and waited and waited and waited.”
“The man gave you the one-gallon can of gasoline,” Mason asked, “the man at the service station? He didn’t offer to drive you down to where your car was standing?”
“No. Miss Corning told me that if he did that, I wasn’t to encourage him. She said she didn’t think he’d do it, however, because only one man would be on duty.”
“He didn’t offer to drive you?”
“He wanted to, all right, but he said he was there alone. If there had been two of them, he would have driven me down. He even contemplated closing up the station long enough to drive me down there, but I didn’t encourage him and... I guess he was afraid someone would come along and find the station closed and report it.”