The Case of the Lucky Legs (18 page)

She nodded.

"I won't be over ten minutes," he said. "Perhaps not that long."

The plane swung in a slight curve, straightened, dropped, and the wheels skimmed lightly along the paved runway. The pilot throttled the motor into speed as the tail-skid dropped to the ground, and taxied up to the hangars.

"Is that all?" he asked when the motor had been stopped.

Perry Mason nodded, took his wallet from his pocket, passed the pilot a bill, nodded to Marjorie Clune.

"You get in the taxi," he said. "I'll join you in a few minutes."

He walked to the telephone booth and called his office. Della Street's voice came over the wire to his ears.

"Are you alone, Della?" asked Perry Mason. "Can you talk, or is there some one in the office who can hear you?"

"Just a moment," she said, "I'll see what's wrong with the connection. You say it's in the law library? Very well, it must be a receiver up."

She added in a low voice, "Hold the line, please."

Perry Mason waited.

After a moment, he heard her voice again.

"I'm in the law library now, chief. There were two detectives in the outer office, and Bradbury is waiting."

"There's no one in the law library?"

"No one."

"All right," he told her, "let's get this thing cleaned up. Have you heard anything from College City?"

"There's a telegram simply saying, 'Am at College City Hotel.' It's signed by the initials T.B."

"Anything else?"

"That's all, except that the detectives are hanging around here. They've been in a couple of times."

"What does Bradbury want?" asked Perry Mason.

"I don't know," she said. "He's worked up about something. He's lost that air of cordial affability, and he's hard – hard as nails."

"I'm pretty hard myself," Mason said. "That is, I can be if the going gets rough."

"Something seems to tell me the going will be rough," she said. "How about things? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Paul Drake," she said, "is acting very mysteriously. He's called a couple of times. He seems to think that you're in an awful jam somewhere along the line, and he doesn't want to get mixed into it."

"Anything else?" he asked.

"That seems to be about all."

"All right, Della," he said, "perhaps you'd better make a note of this: Telephone Thelma Bell at the College City Hotel. You can't put the call in from the office; you'll have to either get an extension or go out to a telephone booth. Tell her who you are. Tell her that I'm very anxious to know if Marjorie Clune had a telephone call at her apartment after I left her apartment on the night of the murder. Tell her that it's very important that I know."

"Then what?" she asked.

"If she had such a telephone call," he said, "take the Code of Civil Procedure and put it on the desk by your telephone switchboard. If she didn't have such a conversation, put your ink stand by the switchboard. If there's nothing there, I'll know that for some reason you haven't been able to talk with Thelma Bell and get an answer to the question."

Della Street's voice was troubled.

"Chief," she said, "you haven't spirited Thelma Bell away, have you? You haven't been mixed up in that?"

"We'll talk that over later," he told her.

"But, chief, the police are -"

"We'll talk all that over later, Della."

"Okay, chief."

"You can put Bradbury," he said, "in the law library. Put him in there to wait. You can tell him in confidence that I may see him within an hour."

"Okay."

"Now, about the detectives," Mason said, "have they been there steadily?"

"They've been in two or three times. They are trying to find out if you intend to come to the office sometime today. They kept asking if I've heard from you."

"Are they the same detectives that were in the other night?" he asked. "I think their names were Riker and Johnson."

"The same ones."

"You don't think they'll stay?"

"I don't think so. They come in, stick around for a few minutes, ask questions, and then go out. This is the third time they've been in today."

"Do you know if any detectives are watching the building?"

"No, but I think some one followed me when I went out to lunch."

"You don't think you're being followed as you move around the building?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Take twenty dollars out of the cash drawer," he said, "take the elevator to the basement. Tell Frank, the janitor, that I'm working on a hot case and that there are some private detectives trying to shadow me. Be sure and tell him they're private detectives. Tell him I want to get to my office without any one knowing it. Tell him to keep a watch on the door of the furnace room. When I drive up in a taxicab, he can open the door of the furnace room and have one of the elevators drop down to the basement to pick me up. Tell him to fix it with the elevator starter and operator, so the elevator will shoot me right up to the sixth floor."

"All right," she said. "Is there anything else?"

"I think that's all," he said. "I'll be -"

The voice of J.R. Bradbury came booming over the wire with firm insistence.

"Counselor, I insist upon seeing you right away!"

"Who's talking?" asked Perry Mason.

"Bradbury."

"Where are you talking from?"

"From your private office."

"How the hell did you get on the line?"

"I put myself on the line," Bradbury said, "if you want to know, and don't swear at me."

Perry Mason could hear a quick, gasping intake of breath.

"Are you on the line, Della?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes, chief," she said.

"Talking from the law library?"

"Yes."

"How did you know who was calling, Bradbury?" Mason asked.

"I'm not a fool," Bradbury said. "I've tried to convince you of that on two separate occasions."

"What do you want?" Mason inquired.

"I want Dr. Doray to plead guilty and take a life sentence."

"Listen," Perry Mason told him, "I can't talk with you over the telephone. I'm going to come to the office. You wait for me in the law library, and, Bradbury, you keep your hands out of things. Do you understand? I don't like the idea of you manipulating my switchboard, and I'm perfectly capable of running my own office. I don't need you to prowl around in my private office, and I don't need you to interfere with my telephone calls."

"Listen," Bradbury said, "I've got to talk with you before you see any one else any one – do you understand?"

"I'll talk with you," Mason told him, "when I get to the office."

"No, you've got to talk with me now. I've got to tell you what's happened. The police are hot on your trail. They've found your taxicab."

"What taxicab?"

"The taxicab," Bradbury said, "that you took from your office, down to Ninth and Olive, where you met Paul Drake. Then you took the taxicab directly out to the Holliday Apartments, where you went to call on Patton. Then you kept the same taxicab, took it to a drug store, where you telephoned to me, and then took the taxicab right out to the St. James Apartments, where you found Marjorie Clune and tipped her to make her escape. It was a bad blunder, and the police are going to hold you responsible. It makes Marjorie's flight look the more incriminating."

Perry Mason gripped the receiver until perspiration from the palm of his hand slimed the hard rubber.

"You've said that much," he said, "go ahead and say some more."

"I want Marjorie Clune kept out of this," Bradbury said. "No matter what else happens, Marjorie Clune has got to be kept out of it. I've sounded out the district attorney's office through some influential friends. The district attorney feels that Dr. Doray is the guilty person. If Dr. Doray will plead guilty, they'll dismiss the case against Marjorie, if Doray's statement will exonerate her."

"What will they do with Doray?" asked Perry Mason.

"They'll give him a life sentence. He'll escape the death penalty that way. It's really for his best interests to do that."

"I'm the one to determine what his best interests are," Mason said.

"No, you're not," Bradbury told him, "you're working under my orders."

"I'm defending Dr. Doray."

"You're defending him because I employed you."

"I don't give a damn who employed me," Mason said, "the man that I'm representing is the man that is entitled to my best efforts."

Bradbury's voice was coldly insistent.

"You are a man of strong will, Mason," he said. "I am a man of considerable will power, myself. The police are very much interested to learn whom you telephoned to from that drug store, and what you said over the telephone. While you're on your road to the office you might think over the situation in the light of the facts."

"Okay," Perry Mason said, "I'll see you when I get there. Good-by."

"Good-by," said Bradbury.

Perry Mason waited until he heard a click in his ear, then he said in a low voice, "You still on the line, Della?"

"Yes, chief," she said.

"Did you hear what he said?"

"I've got it all down in shorthand," she told him.

"Good girl," Mason said. "Put him in the law library. I'll be there inside of an hour. You keep Bradbury where he can't do any mischief. Tell him I may be in at any moment. Keep him in the law library and watch that telephone. Evidently he knows how to work that switchboard connection. He must have figured what you were doing, plugged himself in on the line and gone into my private office."

"Is it true," she asked, "about the police and the taxicab?"

Perry Mason grinned into the telephone.

"You know just as much about it as I do, Della," he said. "Why don't you talk some more with Bradbury?"

"But that means you're in an awful spot, chief."

"I always get in a spot before I get done," he said, "and I always get out of it. I'll be seeing you, Della. 'By."

He hung up the receiver and dialed the office of the Cooperative Investigating Bureau.

"Mason talking," he said. "Any more reports on Vera Cutter?"

"Just a moment," said the telephone operator.

A man's voice came on the line.

"Who is this talking?" he asked.

"Perry Mason."

"Are you acquainted with Mr. Samuels?" asked the voice.

"Yes."

"What's his first name?"

"Jack."

"When did you first meet him?"

"About a year ago," Perry Mason said. "He came to my office soliciting business."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him the Drake Detective Bureau did all of my work, but I'd give him a break if there was anything they couldn't handle."

"Okay," the voice said, "I guess you're Mason all right. Here's the latest: Vera Cutter stays in her room at the Monmarte Hotel. It's room 503. From time to time she calls the Drake Detective Bureau. We haven't been able to plug in on the conversations. She doesn't call any one else, but at irregular intervals some man calls and asks for her."

"Is she in her room now?" asked Perry Mason.

"Yes."

"That's all," he said. "I'm going to drop in for a chat with her. Don't have your detectives waste time trailing me when I leave. I'll have a young woman with me."

He hung up the telephone and went to the taxicab where Marjorie Clune was seated, her face held rigidly straight ahead.

"Margy," he said, "would you know Eva Lamont's voice if you heard it?"

"I think so," she said.

Mason nodded to the cab driver.

"Monmarte Hotel," he said.

Mason dropped into the cushions beside the girl.

"What's Eva Lamont doing here?" asked Marjorie Clune.

"If it is Eva Lamont," Perry Mason said, "and I think it is, she's trying her damnedest to get Bob Doray mixed into the murder case."

"Why should she do that?" Marjorie Clune asked.

"There might be two reasons," Mason said, his eyes squinting thoughtfully.

"And what are those?"

He was staring out of the cab window, watching the scenery with speculative, thoughtful eyes.

"No, Margy," he said, "I'm not going to bother you with a lot of things to think about. Just promise me one thing, that is if the police should pick you up, you won't say anything to them."