“Go ahead and spill it,” Mason said. “Or do you want to be mysterious about that, too?”
“Now, take it easy, Perry,” the detective cautioned. “I’m just trying to be fair all around. You’ll understand my position when—”
“Forget it,” the lawyer interrupted savagely. “Tell me what you can tell me and quit beating around the bush.”
“Well, about Eves,” Drake said. “I think Eves was planning some sort of a big bunco game, and this murder knocked him out of it.”
“Go ahead, ” Mason told him impatiently.
“Well, when I looked up Roger P. Cartman in Honolulu,” Drake said, “I found he’d been injured in an automobile accident, all right, and had suffered a broken neck. But that was three months ago. He was a wealthy visitor from the Mainland who was caught in a skidding car on the Pali, and—”
Mason interrupted, to say to the driver, “For God’s sake, get some speed out of this bus. I’ll pay the fines.”
The driver lurched the car into speed. Drake glanced apprehensively through the rear-view mirror and said, “A car tagging along behind, Perry. It may be a prowl car.”
“I don’t care if it is,” Mason said irritably. “I said I’ll pay the fines. You were talking about Eves and Cartman. What about him?”
“Well,” Drake said, “Cartman had a lot of money. Doctors put a brace on him, which held his head absolutely rigid and he came over to the Mainland—”
“I know that already,” Mason interrupted.
“No, you don’t,” Drake said, “because Cartman came over to the Mainland six weeks ago.”
“He did what!” Mason asked, staring at the detective.
“Came over to the Mainland six weeks ago, and he came over on a clipper plane.”
“Then why did he go back to Honolulu?” Mason asked.
“He swears he didn’t,” Drake said.
“You’ve talked with him?”
“My operative located him in a private sanitarium. He says he’s been in the sanitarium ever since he arrived, and, what’s more, the nurses and doctors all swear he has.”
“Then this wasn’t the real Cartman that Evelyn Whiting brought over?”
“No.”
“Well, what was the idea?” Mason asked.
“Don’t you see,” Drake said, “it was some sort of a bunco game. Put one of those harnesses around a man’s head, put on a large pair of smoked goggles, and it’s just about the same as a mask. Cartman has money. He can’t move around, and he doesn’t care about publicity, so he’s been careful to keep his whereabouts from becoming generally known. His friends, however, his bankers and associates, knew all about his accident and knew he had to wear his head in a brace.
“Eves wasn’t going to the Islands on his honeymoon. He sent Evelyn Whiting over there to pick up this ringer. She was to build up his identity on the ship, and also her identity as his nurse. Then, after they’d arrived on the Mainland, she and Eves were going to put through some major swindle. But the murder on the ship attracted too much attention, and they had decided to lie low until it blew over. Then, as an unfortunate coincidence, it happened that she knew Carl Moar, and he ran into her on deck and told her his troubles. Nothing could have upset her more. It was exactly what she didn’t want. Then when you discovered that she was a witness, traced her to that place of concealment and served that subpoena on her, she knew the jig was up.”
“Then why didn’t she obey the subpoena and be in court this morning?” Mason asked. “she can be fined for contempt of court—”
“Because the swindle has gone so far they didn’t dare show up. Eves may have intended to let her testify in your behalf when he had talked with you yesterday. But after he studied the situation a bit, he realized how suicidal that would be, because it would be brought out in the trial that Evelyn Whiting had been escorting Roger P. Cartman; that Cartman had had his neck broken over on the Islands. The newspapers would mention it. Someone would see it who knew Roger P. Cartman was in a private sanitarium near Glendale. Then the fat would be in the fire. The police would investigate and quietly move in.”
Mason narrowed his eyes, bringing into view a network of fine wrinkles at the corners, as he stared into space. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I see the sketch now. But I want Evelyn Whiting’s testimony. It’s the one thing I need to bust this case wide open.”
“Well,” Drake said, “those are the facts. You can make a showing to the Court if you want to.”
“I’d a lot rather locate Evelyn Whiting and force her to testify, ” Mason said.
“How did you know that the Fell woman would blow up?”
“I’d noticed her in the dining room,” Mason said. “Whenever she wore an evening dress she left off her glasses. I’d noticed her rather particularly, because it seemed to me such an absurd gesture for a woman who had that wall of reserve thrown up around her, and who seemed to be so completely immune to emotion to sacrifice the comfort of her vision to make herself more attractive. I noticed from the way she walked that she seemed rather careful of putting her feet down, and had an idea she depended pretty strongly on her glasses. But she’s one of those opinionated persons who will cheerfully commit perjury rather than admit they’re wrong. And I knew that unless I had a photograph to show her and could definitely prove her custom of not wearing glasses with a dinner gown, she’d swear she had her glasses on that night.”
“Just how much do you suppose she actually did see?”
“She had a bluffed conception of figures struggling. She heard shots but she didn’t see any gun, and she doesn’t know what gun fired the shots,” Mason said. “She’s opinionated, obstinate, and hates to lose an argument. She didn’t take the stand as a witness, but as an adversary. She was just dying to give me a ‘piece of her mind,’ and particularly anxious to show me that no smart lawyer was going to rattle her. We run up against witnesses like that every so often, both men and women, people who will do anything rather than admit the possibility they may have been mistaken... Come on, Paul, tell me where we’re going. Have you found Della, or someone who knows where she is, or what?”
“I’d prefer not to talk about it right now, Perry.”
“She isn’t hurt?”
“No, she’s all right.”
“If she isn’t hurt physically,” Mason said, “something’s wrong with her mentally, Paul.”
Drake, remained silent.
“Isn’t that true, Paul?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mason said irritably, “Well, go ahead and be mysterious, then.”
The lawyer turned from the detective to the driver.
“Won’t this car make any better speed than this?”
“I’m doing fifty right now, Mr. Mason.”
“All right,” Mason told him, “do sixty.”
Drake flashed a glance back through the window and said, “That sure is a prowl car, Perry. They’re dishing out jail sentences for doing sixty.”
“I’ll take the responsibility,” Mason told the driver. “Go ahead and step on it.”
They dashed through Berkeley, came to the outskirts, and the driver swung the car sharply to the left. He braked the car to a stop in front of a long line of cabins in an auto camp. A man jumped to the runningboard. “Okay?” Drake asked.
“Okay,” the man said.
“You show us the way,” Drake said.
“Straight down here. The second cabin on the left.”
The driver moved the car forward, then brought it to a stop in front of the second cabin.
Drake said, “All right. Perry, she’s in that cabin.”
Mason jerked the door open, pushed past the operative, twisted the knob of the cabin door, and banged it open.