“Go ahead and lift them, but be sure you don’t leave any indication prints have been lifted from the car.”
“I don’t see what you’re gaining by this,” Abert said.
Mason said, “Sometimes the police don’t share information with me. If I share information with them, I’ll at least be abreast of the police.”
Abert thought it over, grinned, said, “Okay, I’ve got a fellow corning to assist me. He ought to be here any minute now. I had to get him up out of bed.”
Abert closed the garage door, turned on bright lights, and went to work.
It was breaking daylight when Abert said, “All right, Mr. Mason, there aren’t any bloodstains in the car. There are quite a few smudged fingerprints. There are twenty-three legible fingerprints on the doors, the back of the rearview mirror and the side mirror. I’ve lifted those with Scotch tape. Now what do we do?”
“How are you on comparing fingerprints?” Mason asked.
“Pretty good.”
Mason said, “I want duplicates of those prints.”
“Then I’ll have to photograph the lifted prints.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not too long to make the photographs, but to get them developed and printed is going to be something else.”
“All right,” Mason said. “You want to protect yourself. You take the photographs and give me the original lifts. You can develop the photographs at your leisure. They’ll give you protection.”
Abert thought it over for a while, then said, “That would be worth a little more money, Mr. Mason. It’s a little more work than I’d figured on.”
Mason handed him a twenty-dollar bill.
“Will that cover the added costs?”
“That will cover it.”
“Let’s go,” Mason said.
Abert walked over to a locker, took out a fingerprint camera, put the lifts on a dark surface, fitted the fingerprint camera over the lifts and within a few minutes had all of the prints photographed.
“That’s all there is to it?” Mason asked.
“That’s all.”
“Okay,” the lawyer told him. “I’m on my way.”
“Say, this is a rental car, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“You understand I’ve got to protect myself in this thing,” Abert said. “So far, this is only a private deal. But I’ve got the license of the car and all that and—”
“Sure,” Mason said. “I don’t want you to do anything that’s going to get you in bad. You have a right to do outside work on your own time.”
“Thanks. I just wanted to be sure we had it straight,” Abert said.
“We’ve got it straight,” Mason told him.
Abert looked at his watch and yawned. “Just about two hours’ shut-eye before I have to go to work,” he said.
“You’re fortunate,” Drake told him.
“In what?”
“In getting two hours’ shut-eye,” Drake said.
Mason grinned, opened the door of the car, slid in behind the steering wheel. “Come on, Paul,” he said, “we’re going places.”
“Where?” Drake asked, as they backed out of the garage.
“Bed,” Mason told him.
“Those,” Drake said, “are welcome words.”
“We stop by your office,” Mason told him, “and see if they have anything more on any of the characters involved.”
“Why not phone?”
“All right,” Mason told him, “we’ll phone.”
They stopped at a telephone booth, Drake put through a call, came back and shook his head. “Nothing doing,” he said, “they haven’t found Endicott Campbell yet, there’s no trace of the seven-year-old son or the governess, the police are turning Mojave upside down trying to get some dope on Ken Lowry, and, so far, the police haven’t taken any interest in Amelia Corning. We’re ahead of them on that information.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “It gives us about two hours and a half. We don’t have to get up quite as early as your expert.”
Chapter 10
Perry Mason was up at seven forty-five. He shaved, showered, dressed and, without breakfast, stopped at a supermarket, bought two dozen large, luscious eating apples, drove the rented car down to the front of a junior high school, parked it near the curb, let the air out of the left front tire until the tire was flat, and stood helplessly by the car until a group of students came along chatting and laughing, completely immersed in their own world and their own problems.
“Hey,” Mason asked, “you boys want to make twenty bucks?”
The group paused and looked at him suspiciously.
“Here are the car keys,” Mason said. “I’ve got an appointment and I don’t want to get all mussed up changing a tire. Fact of the matter is, I don’t even know how to go about it. I don’t know where the tools are. Here are the car keys and here’s twenty bucks.”
“What do you know?” one of the boys said.
“Manna from heaven,” another remarked.
“I’m going to go over here to the snack bar and get a cup of coffee,” Mason said. “I’d like to have you do the best you can with it.”
Mason dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the seat of the automobile and walked across the street to the snack bar. “You boys help yourselves to some of those eating apples, if you want.”
Looking back, he saw boys literally swarming all over the car.
By the time the lawyer had finished his coffee and walked back across the street, the tire was changed and one of the boys standing by the car said, “Gee, thanks a lot, Mister. We felt we shouldn’t charge you that much. The boys felt they were sort of taking advantage of you.”
“Not at all,” Mason said. “I’m going to come out all right on this deal myself.”
By that time, a crowd of some fifteen or twenty boys had gathered around the car, those who had not been in on the tire-changing deal looked enviously at those who had.
One of the boys said suddenly, “Say, I’ve seen you before. I’ve seen your picture some place. Aren’t you... my gosh, you’re Perry Mason, the lawyer!”
“That’s right,” Mason grinned, and seating himself behind the steering wheel, left the door on the left-hand side of the car wide open while he visited with the boys for some four or five minutes. Then he closed the door and drove to his office.
He drove the car into the parking lot where he and Della Street kept regular stalls for their cars. Mason jumped out of the car and said to the parking lot attendant, “I’m in the deuce of a hurry. Would you mind parking it in my stall when you get a chance? Thanks a lot.”
Mason smiled his thanks and hurried to the elevators.
He stopped in at Paul Drake’s office. “Paul in yet?” he asked the switchboard operator.
“Not yet,” she said. “He left word that he was working until five o’clock in the morning and he was going to get a little shut-eye.”
“Ask him to come in as soon as he shows up, will you?” Mason asked, and went on down to his own office. He went in through the reception room and told the receptionist, “Della Street probably won’t be in today, Gertie. I’m going to be in my office for a while, but I may have to tell you to cancel all appointments.”
Gertie, always the romanticist, said with awe, “Gee, Mr. Mason, it isn’t another murder case, is it?”
“I’m afraid it is,” Mason told her.
“And you’re mixed up in it?”
Mason grinned. “Let’s say we have a client who may become involved.”
Mason walked back to his private office, seated himself and, picking up the phone, said, “Gertie, I want to get the Presidential Suite at the Arthenium Hotel. I’ll talk with anyone who answers the phone. I’m afraid it’s going to be rather a tough day today. We’re going to have to get along without Della and—”