“Now, he may have started for Los Angeles to see Endicott Campbell or he may have started for Los Angeles to see Amelia Corning at the Arthenium Hotel. My best guess is that he went to see Miss Corning. He could have found out she was in town in some way; she might have telephoned him for all we know.
“Miss Corning has disappeared. She had an appointment with me at seven-thirty and didn’t keep it. She’s a stickler for keeping appointments right on the dot. I want you to find out everything you can and I want to find it out fast.”
“Where are you sitting in this thing?” Drake asked.
“More or less in the middle,” Mason said. “I seem to have been playing tag with a murderer somewhere and I’m not sure who the murderer is.”
“But you have a suspicion?”
“I have a suspicion,” Mason said. “I’m going to need proof.
“Now, Amelia Corning’s sister and her South American business agent have moved in at the Arthenium Hotel. Apparently the sister, Sophia Elliott, wears the pants in the family, or tries to. I don’t think that goes too well with Amelia Corning.
“Now, here’s something else that bothers me, Paul. I don’t think that Amelia Corning was too anxious to have her sister and Alfredo Gomez, the business agent, show up. I think they showed up on their own initiative and there may be some friction, some adverse interest somewhere. It’s just a hunch I have.
“I’ve given the police a tip to try and locate Amelia Corning. I told them that she was in danger of being murdered. That will spur them along.”
“Do you think she is in danger?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said. “I just don’t like the way these other people showed up, and I have a hunch Amelia Corning didn’t either. When I talked with her over the phone and she told me that she’d received a wire from them saying they were corning, she didn’t seem too happy about it.”
“If you have the police working on the thing,” Drake said, “there’s not much I can do. The police will run circles around me.”
“That’s right,” Mason said. “But you just might happen to stumble on something. I’ll tell you one thing, Paul, that you can do.”
“What?”
“Be so ostentatious about looking for her and so apprehensive that you build up the background of apprehension on the part of all concerned.”
“All concerned?”
“That’s right,” Mason said, “all concerned.”
“This is going to turn into quite a job,” Drake said.
“It has turned into quite a job,” Mason told him. “Get busy on it.”
The lawyer hung up the telephone, noting as he did so that Della Street, with her wide and unmistakably beautiful eyes, had hypnotized the service station attendant so that he had hardly noticed Mason had had a telephone conversation, let alone trying to eavesdrop on it.
Mason telephoned for a taxicab to come out to the service station, then joined Della Street, after a moment was able to get her off to one side where he could talk without being overheard.
“Della,” he said, “I’m under orders from the police not to leave here. No one thought to give you any such orders. I’ve telephoned for a taxicab. It will wait here. You take my car and beat it.”
“Where do I go?”
Mason said, “Della, this is important. I don’t want the police to get on Sue Fisher’s trail any sooner than they have to. On the other hand, I don’t dare to have her resort to flight because that would be taken as an indication of guilt. Now, just suppose that you were told by me to go out and try and locate Miss Corning? Where would you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“It is quite a question,” Mason said, “but we must bear in mind that she had some very involved mining interests out in the vicinity of Mojave. We must bear in mind that the murder of Ken Lowry has some rather deep significance. Now, if you should stop by Sue Fisher’s apartment and take her with you so that she could brief you on the various things you wanted to know about, and if you should start to Mojave — well, of course you’re rather tired tonight. I shouldn’t ask you to work day and night. You’ve been going at a high rate of speed all day. You two girls could stop somewhere along the road at a motel. Of course you’d have to be careful to use your own names. And then you could go out and look around Mojave tomorrow. There’s just a chance... just a chance, that you could find something.”
“You want delay, is that it?” Della Street asked.
Mason said, “Tut-tut, Della. You mustn’t jump to conclusions. I am merely asking you to get evidence. I think you could get out there in Mojave, skirmish around and do a pretty good job.”
“Do you want me to report to you?”
“From time to time,” Mason said. “There’s no use reporting to me tonight. Do you have plenty of money?”
“Not too much.”
Mason reached for his billfold, took out two one-hundred-dollar bills.
“All right,” he said, “this should keep you going for a while.”
“How will you get along without your car?”
“Oh, I’ll get along,” Mason said. “I’ll rent a car. You just take this and don’t be in a hurry, Della. Telephone me from time to time.”
“And if the police should catch up with us?”
“If the police should catch up with you,” Mason said, “you might tell Sue Fisher that an attorney generally doesn’t want his client to make any statement unless he is present, and he likes to talk with his client and know the facts before she makes any statements to the police.”
“I think I understand,” Della said. “Wish me luck.”
“On your way,” Mason said.
Della Street went to Mason’s car, jumped in with a swirl of skirt and a generous flash of leg.
The service station attendant watched her as she drove away. “Isn’t that girl a picture actress?” he asked.
Mason shook his head.
“She should be,” the attendant said dreamily. “The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life. Gosh, what eyes! And what a figure!”
Mason’s smile was comprehensive. “And what competence,” he said.
“What does she do?” the attendant asked.
“She’s a very, very competent secretary,” Mason told him.
The attendant stood looking down the road for a moment, then with a sigh went back to the interior of the station.
Chapter 9
The taxi meter had nine dollars and eighty cents on it when Tragg somewhat reluctantly gave Perry Mason permission to go on about his business.
“I’m not very happy about this thing, Mason,” Tragg said.
“One shouldn’t ever be happy about a murder,” Mason said.
“That isn’t what I meant,” Tragg said. “I’m not happy about any of them.”
“All right, that’s fine,” Mason said. “You’re not happy about any of them and you’re not happy about this. That figures.”
“Let’s say I’m not happy about your part in this one.”
“I have no part in the murder,” Mason said.
Tragg jerked his thumb. “On your way,” he said. “Personally, I think you’ve worked this professional privilege to death. I’m going to tell you something, Perry Mason. Sooner or later the facts in this case are going to come out. We’re going to know how it happened that you went up there looking around for a body.”
“I tell you, I wasn’t looking around for a body,” Mason said.
“All right, we don’t need to go over it again. On your way.”
Mason climbed in the cab, nodded to the driver. “Back down to Hollywood,” he said.
After they reached Hollywood, Mason gave the driver the address of Susan Fisher’s apartment and said, “There’s a car-rental agency within three or four blocks of that apartment. Do you know where it is?”