“I tell you I didn’t do any such thing!” Rooney exclaimed hotly. “I got that watch at Coontz Cutter, and paid thirteen hundred and fifty dollars for it!”
Mason yawned.
Marjory Trenton became impatient. “Listen,” she said, “are you going to keep stalling around, trying to save your face and get us all in hot water? I don’t want to have to go up before the D.A. and explain how I happened to come by that watch. I’ll have my pictures in the paper and it’ll look like hell.”
“Maybe you think I want my picture in the paper!” Rooney shouted.
“Well,” Mason said, “I’m going to put the whole thing up to the police. God knows, I’ve tried to give you a break. You insist on playing run-around-the-rosy. So I’m all finished.”
“Wait a minute,” Rooney said. “How the devil do we know that this is your watch? Did they identify it, Margie?”
“They described it, all right.”
“Give any numbers or anything of that sort?”
She shook her head.
Rooney became belligerent. “You two heels!” he said. “What are you trying to pull? I know damn well where that watch came from. I tell you, I bought it from Coontz Cutter. You’ve probably seen Margie wearing that watch someplace and tried to pull a fast one!”
Mason said wearily, “Okay, brother, we go to police headquarters.”
“No, we don’t go to police headquarters!” Rooney said. “You two guys get out of here, and get out fast.”
“Or else?” Mason inquired.
Rooney tried to think of an alternative, and the thought took some of the color from his face.
“There’s one thing we can do,” Drake suggested, his manner that of an impartial conciliator. “We can go down to Coontz Cutter’s and take the watch along. You can’t tell. Maybe the thief was slick enough to put up some stall that Coontz Cutter fell for. After all, these big jewelry stores are always willing to pick up a little dough on the deal which looks right.”
“I don’t think I like that idea too much,” Rooney said. “After all, you folks are prying into a lot of my private affairs.”
“I didn’t think you’d like the idea,” Mason said pointedly.
“So you did get it at a pawnshop!” Marjory accused.
Rooney reached for his hat and said, “Get your clothes on, Margie.”
“You watch these two,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” Rooney said grimly. “I’ll watch them.”
“It won’t take me over three minutes,” she told him, dashing for the bedroom, her negligee trailing out behind her.
Rooney nervously consulted his watch. “I’m a busy man,” he said “I’ll have to get back to the office before five o’clock.”
“I’m busy, myself,” Mason told him. “And Drake is busy, too.”
Rooney sat in stiff, awkward silence, his eyes shifting apprehensively to the bedroom door. After a few minutes, Marjory Trenton, attired in a light blue tailored suit, opened the door and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
In the taxicab, the girl tried to make conversation, but Rooney was moody and preoccupied, so she lapsed into a silence, which she broke only when the cab swung in at the curb. “Okay, Big Boy,” she said to Perry Mason, “it’s your party. You pay for the cab.”
Mason grinned and handed the cab-driver a bill. “You win,” he told her. “Let’s go.”
They found Arthur P. Cutter in his office. He spoke with effusive cordiality to Rooney, eyed Marjory Trenton with the approval of one who has learned to appreciate beautiful things, nodded to Drake and Perry Mason.
Mason said, “What we want is to find out whether Mr. Rooney bought a wrist watch from your store.”
Cutter said cautiously, “He has made several purchases. Perhaps...”
“Show him the wrist watch, Margie,” Rooney commanded.
She produced the wrist watch. Cutter looked at it, then glanced at Rooney. “You wish me to answer that question?” he asked.
Rooney nodded.
“Mr. Rooney bought that wrist watch from this store,” Cutter said. “He bought it approximately six weeks ago.”
“What did I pay for it?” Rooney asked.
“I’d have to look it up on our books to tell the exact price,” Cutter said. “I don’t remember those things. I remember the watch and remember the transaction. I think it was between twelve and thirteen hundred dollars.”
Rooney said, “These two men insisted that the watch had been stolen. What have you to say to that?”
Cutter’s eyes fastened in cold appraisal on the lawyer and the detective, then he reached for the telephone and said, “I’ll show you what I have to say to that! Get me police headquarters.”
Rooney grabbed Cutter’s arm. “We don’t want any publicity, ” he said.
“There won’t be,” Cutter told him grimly. “I have an understanding with the bunco department on men of this type. I’ve seen this man’s picture somewhere — probably in a circular sent out... Hello, this is Cutter, of Coontz Cutter. I have a couple here for questioning. Rush a radio car over right away, will you?... Thanks... Yes, looks like a slick game of some sort. I haven’t figured it out yet. You can do the questioning.”
He dropped the receiver back on the hook and said to Mason, “Now you two sit down and stay put. Don’t try to leave the store. Otherwise, our private detective, who’s a regularly deputized officer, will take you into custody.”
Mason dropped into a chair and said to Drake, “May as well sit down, Paul.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been annoyed about this,” Cutter apologized to Rooney, and once more his eyes swept approvingly over Marjory Trenton’s figure.
Marjory Trenton said uneasily, “I knew he was putting on some sort of an act. He tried to be tough and hard-boiled, but it was an act, you could tell it. What I can’t figure is what they thought they were going to gain. You certainly don’t think they were dumb enough to suppose I’d turn over a thirteen-hundred-dollar wrist watch to them on their say-so, do you?”
“You can’t tell,” Cutter said. “Some people are very credulous and some are easily intimidated, particularly under... under certain circumstances.”
“Say, wait a minute,” Rooney said apprehensively. “There isn’t going to be any publicity...”
“You may leave that entirely in my hands,” Cutter assured him. “The police department cooperates with us, and we cooperate with it. The only thing that will be in the paper will be a paragraph to the effect that two men were picked up by the bunco detail, trying to victimize a prominent jewelry company. You people will be kept out of it. This man claimed the watch had been stolen from his wife?”
“That’s right,” Marjory Trenton said.
“That’s all I want to know,” Cutter snapped, “and that’s all the police will want to know.”
He looked out through the glass window in his private office, which commanded a view of the store below, and said, “Here come officers from a radio car now.”
Heavy feet climbed the stairs, and pounded down the corridor. The door pushed open, and two uniformed officers, holstered weapons prominently displayed, crossed over to Cutter’s desk and asked, “What is it?”
Cutter motioned toward Mason and Drake. “These two.”
The officers whirled. One of them, taking a step toward Mason, suddenly stopped. “Wait a minute, this is Perry Mason.”
Mason nodded and said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
The officer turned to Cutter, puzzled. “You’ve heard of Perry Mason, the lawyer?” he asked.
Cutter’s face was cold. “I don’t give a damn who he is, he tried to run a flim-flam on a client of mine.”