“Evidence of what?” Mason asked.
“Evidence of murder.”
“What sort of evidence?”
“Well, for instance,” Tragg said, “I wouldn’t be too surprised if at one time Ken Lowry hadn’t been in that car and that his fingerprints might have been found in the car if they hadn’t been tampered with. For your information, Counselor, these fingerprint men are rather expert and if a car has been wiped free of fingerprints they can determine that fact — and, of course, since the car is in your possession, and since you would be the one who would have a strong motive to protect your client, the answer is more or less obvious.”
“I would say rather less than more,” Mason said. “Let’s go down and take a look at the car, by all means. Perhaps you’d better come along as a witness, Della, so you can check the mileage.”
“The more the merrier,” Tragg said. “Let’s go.”
Tragg led the way out of the office and escorted Mason and Della Street down the elevator, out through the side entrance of the building and into the parking lot.
Two men were working feverishly over the automobile Mason had parked. Another man with a fingerprint camera was busily engaged in taking photographs.
“Well?” Tragg asked, as they approached the car. “You found that it had been wiped clean?”
One of the men turned to Tragg. His face contained an expression of complete exasperation. “In all of my experience, Lieutenant,” he said, “I’ve never found a car with more fingerprints on it than this. The thing is fairly plastered. They’re just all over the car — front, back, windshield, windows, steering wheel, rearview mirror — the thing is plastered with prints.”
For a moment the smile faded from Lt. Tragg’s face. Then he drew a deep breath and bowed to Perry Mason. “One has no respect for an adversary who is unworthy,” he said. “It’s going to give me a great deal of pleasure to return to the prosecutor and tell him that there was no reason to bring you in for questioning.”
“You expected to find fingerprints on the car?” Mason asked.
“Well,” Tragg said, “I didn’t think that they’d find the car had been wiped free of all fingerprints. I was instructed to tell you that I was certain such would be the case, but somehow I had an idea it wouldn’t be quite that easy. However, I hardly expected to find the car fairly crawling with fingerprints. Would you mind explaining how that happened?”
Mason shrugged his shoulders. “I guess quite a few people must have touched the car,” he said. “Perhaps the police were looking it over before I brought it in.”
“Don’t be silly,” Tragg said.
One of the fingerprint men who had been standing nearby said to Tragg, “It looks as though one of the national political parties had been holding a convention in the damn car. It’s nothing but prints.”
Tragg bowed, raised his hat in a gesture which might have been one of farewell to Della Street or might have been a gesture of respect to Perry Mason. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “there is no reason to interfere with your activities of the day, Counselor. Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Mason said, and taking Della Street’s arm, walked over to check the mileage on the speedometer.
“Seventeen thousand, nine hundred and forty-eight and two-tenths. Is that right, Lieutenant?”
“That’s right,” Tragg said.
“Make a note, Della,” Mason told her.
Della Street made a note.
“Goodbye, Lieutenant.”
“Au revoir,” Lt. Tragg said. “I will doubtless see you later on.”
“Oh, doubtless,” Mason told him, and escorted Della Street back to the office building.
As Mason and Della Street entered the elevator and waited for it to get a load, Paul Drake came hurrying in, signaled the elevator starter to hold the cage, and sprinted to get in just as the door closed.
“Hi, Paul,” Mason said.
The detective jerked to startled attention, whirled towards the back of the cage, saw Mason and Della Street, and said, “Gosh, am I glad to see you.”
“Something?” Mason asked.
“Lots of somethings,” Drake said. “I’ll walk down to your office with you and tell you the news in the corridor...” He glanced significantly at the other passengers in the elevator who were watching and listening with the curiosity of people who lead humdrum lives and obtain a vicarious thrill from time to time by eavesdropping.
Mason nodded and as the cage began to empty at intervening floors, moved over to join Drake so that the three of them left the elevator together and started down the corridor.
“They’ve arrested your client,” Drake said.
“I know that,” Mason told him. “They even had Della Street in custody for a while.”
“Okay,” Drake said, “I’m going to tell you something, Perry. They’ve got some sort of an absolute ironclad bit of evidence that I can’t find out about, but I’ll tell you one thing. This is once you’re defending a guilty client.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m not,” Drake said, “but my informant is. I got a straight tip from Headquarters to tell you to get out from under on this case.”
“I can’t get out from under, Paul. I’m in too deep. What about the rest of it?”
Drake said, “I have Endicott Campbell located. He came home about five o’clock this morning. No one knows where he had been. He drove up in his automobile, entered the driveway to the garage, entered the house, and has been there ever since.”
“What else?”
“Police now have a bulletin on Amelia Corning. She wheeled her chair out of the freight elevator last night and that’s the last anyone has seen of her.”
“This man who operated the freight elevator — do the police know about him and his waiting in the alley?”
“Oh, sure,” Drake said. “Just as soon as they started an official search they inquired of all of the elevator operators and this fellow who runs the freight elevator told them his story.”
“And they have no trace of her?”
“Not a trace.”
“That’s strange,” Mason said. “A partially blind woman in a wheelchair could hardly vanish into thin air.”
“Well, she did,” Drake said. “And remember this is the second time within forty-eight hours. The first person, who was impersonating Amelia Corning, vanished; now Amelia Corning has vanished.”
“One person,” Mason said, “was impersonating Amelia Corning. Therefore it was a very simple matter for her to vanish. All she needed to do was to get up out of the wheelchair, take off the dark blue spectacles and be on her way. But with the real Amelia Corning it’s a gray horse of another color.”
The lawyer unlocked the door of his private office, stood aside for Drake and Della Street to enter, said, “All right, Paul. Now we’ve got to go to work. We’ve got a bunch of fingerprints to check.”
“We’re going to have the deuce of a time,” Drake said.
“How so?”
“Police have a lot of power,” Drake pointed out. “They can go to the man who runs the We Rent M Car Company and tell him they want his fingerprints. They can go to Endicott Campbell and ask if he has any objections to giving them his fingerprints. Then they compare those fingerprints with the ones in the car.
“We’re in a different position. We’ve got a flock of lifts of fingerprints and all we can do is to eliminate certain ones gradually and then guess at the other ones. We don’t have the power the police have.”
“What about the man who took the prints? Do you suppose he will turn in the photographs to the police?”
“He will if he knows the police are looking for them.”