“You mean they’re dodging income tax?” Mason asked.
“Sure. The holding company juggles cash around. The Products Refining Company is in on that. I think there’s a lawyer back of the whole business somewhere, but he isn’t coming forward to claim any laurel wreaths, if you get me.”
“I get you,” Mason said with a grin. “Now, then, if Charles Whitmore Dail tries to double-cross me, I’ll bring the income tax people down on him like a ton of bricks.”
“You’ve got to have a lot of dope before you can do that,” Drake said.
“And we’ll get the dope from Rooney,” Mason assured him. “We’ll pin something on Rooney.”
“What do you mean by ‘something’?” Drake asked.
“Hell, Paul, we haven’t time to be particular. We’ll frame him. We’ll begin with the wrist watch and smoke him out into the open.”
“Now wait a minute. Perry,” Drake remonstrated. “This chap, Rooney, is a respectable, influential citizen. If he’s playing around with a blonde, that’s his business. If you’re going to jail all the married men who buy flowers for girlfriends, there won’t be enough citizens outside the jails to pay the taxes.”
“There aren’t anyway,” Mason said, grinning.
“Now listen, Perry, you’re going off half-cocked. That girl may have had that wrist watch from a mother or a sweetheart. Rooney may be just a casual acquaintance... Hell, I’ve given you a button and you’ve sewed a vest on it. I tell you you’re playing with dynamite.”
“Well,” Mason told him, “if engineers didn’t play with dynamite, they’d never build railroads, and, after all, it’s just as true to say that the vest is on the button as that the button is on the vest.”
“There’s no use arguing with him, Paul,” Della Street said. “His mental system is deficient in mystery vitamins, and fighting calories, and he’s out to balance his diet all at once.”
Mason looked at his wrist watch and said to the cab-driver, “Squeeze a little more speed out of it, buddy.”
Drake said dejectedly, “This is a hell of a time to try a murder case in San Francisco, Perry. Baldwin Van Densie had a hung jury the other day which looked suspicious to the district attorney. He started men working on a couple of chaps who held out for acquittal, and it looks as though he’s going to get enough evidence to hook Van Densie on jury bribing, it’s thrown a scare into jurors and you can’t get a juryman to vote not guilty now, even on a tentative first ballot. He’s afraid someone will think he’s been bribed. The district attorney is rushing all of his important cases to trial and getting convictions in one-two-three order.”
“That’ll blow over in a week or so,” Mason said. “It always does.”
“Not this time it won’t,” Drake said. “The Bar Association is after Van Densie. They’re having a clean-up on all criminal lawyers. They’re investigating Van Densie’s hung juries and—”
“They can investigate my juries as much as they damn please,” Mason said. “If I can’t get a client acquitted by using my wits, I’ll let him rot in jail.”
“Van Densie hasn’t any wits to use,” Drake said.
“Has anyone said anything about me?” Mason asked.
“Well,” Drake said, “the district attorney has made some remarks about spectacular methods used by an attorney with a statewide reputation which have turned the administration of justice into a burlesque.”
Mason grinned and said, “In other words, Paul, you’re trying to talk me out of making a fast play on that wrist watch.”
“Well,” Drake said, “I’d hate to see you go to jail as soon as you get off the ship.”
Mason said, “We’re fighting a combination that stacks the cards against us, Paul. Newberry, who was murdered on that ship, is really Carl Moar. His stepdaughter is in love with the son of a millionaire. And in addition to that, she’s a dam nice kid. The newspapers will be on the street with her picture this afternoon. By night, the district attorney will know that her stepfather was C. Waker Moar instead of Carl Newberry. When Rooney finds that out, he’s going to cover up his bookkeeping mistakes by heaping disgrace on a dead man. And if there’s been any juggling of funds in order to avoid income tax they’ll push a lot more dirty linen in Moar’s coffin. I’m going to beat them to the punch.”
Della Street smiled across at the detective. “It’s no use, Paul, unless that chartered airplane falls down and goes boom, Margie Trenton is going to have a disagreeable afternoon.”
Drake groaned and said, “And to think that fifteen minutes ago I was actually glad to see you.”
Chapter 8
Drake slid his car to a stop, regarded the imposing facade of the apartment house and said, “This is the place — 3618 Pinerow Drive.”
“It costs something to keep up these apartments, ” Mason observed. “What have you found out about her past, Paul?”
“Not a darn thing,” Drake said. “She passes for twenty-five, is probably around thirty, wears her clothes well and has plenty of clothes to wear. Somewhere she had some sort of a past, but so far we can’t find it. She popped up here as Marjory Trenton.”
“Jewelry?”
“Quite a bit.”
“And you’re sure about the wrist watch?”
“Yes. My man reports she’s had it just about six weeks.”
“You haven’t been able to find out where it was purchased?”
Drake said, “Hell, no. Perry. You had me telephone my office from the San Francisco airport. That wasn’t over three hours ago. A private detective can’t do the things the police can. In the first place, he hasn’t the organization. In the second place, he hasn’t the authority. In the third place...”
Mason opened the car door and said, “Keep your shirt on, Paul. I know what you’re up against. That’s the problem we have to lick. A person is accused of crime, and immediately the whole law-enforcement machinery gets busy unearthing evidence to prove he’s guilty. When he tries to get evidence to prove he’s innocent, he runs up against a brick wall. The authorities are sullen, indifferent or downright hostile. He has to hire his investigators, and naturally he can’t hire a whole police force, no matter how rich he is. That’s why I have to resort to what it has pleased the district attorney to refer to as ‘spectacular practices which have made a burlesque of justice.’”
Drake said, “As far as that’s concerned, I’m not too happy about going through with these amateur theatricals. You’re certain we’re not going to wind up in jail?”
“Reasonably certain,” Mason replied.
“Well, you know the law,” Drake remarked dubiously.
“It isn’t the law,” Mason told him, “it’s human nature. As far as the law’s concerned, we’re coming out on top. There’s a legal risk, but no practical risk.”
“That’s what you think,” Drake said.
Mason said, “The thing I want to be dead certain of is that we haven’t mistaken the type of girl we’re dealing with.”
“Well,” Drake assured him, as they crossed the curb to the apartment house, “times have changed a bit since a girl could take only flowers, candy and books from a boyfriend, but this girl knows which side of the bread has the butter.”
Mason pushed open the door of the lobby. “She’s in, Paul?”
“Sure,” the detective said, “I’ve had a man covering her ever since she got in this morning, about three-thirty, to be exact. That’s the chap in the roadster across the street. He gave me the ‘go ahead’ sign.”