The Case of the Lucky Legs (3 page)

"You don't need to be there," Paul Drake told him. "And you can't do any good by being present. I've got all the information that you have, I think."

"You should have," Bradbury told him, and laughed lightly. "You've asked enough questions."

He reached up with his left hand and took the lapel of Perry Mason's coat, pulling him gently away from the cigar counter and lowering his voice confidentially. "There's one thing," he said, "that I want to make certain about."

"What is it?" Mason asked.

"I've learned," said Bradbury, "that Bob Doray is in the city. I want you to understand that the employment you have taken from me precludes you from accepting any employment from him, except with my consent."

"Who's Bob Doray?" asked Perry Mason.

"He's from Cloverdale. He's a young dentist – rather impecunious. I don't like him."

"And what's he doing in the city?"

"He's here because Margy is here."

"A friend of hers?" asked Mason.

"He would like to be."

"And you think he'll offer me employment?"

"Hardly," said Bradbury. "I happen to know that he borrowed two hundred and fifty dollars at his bank just before he came to the city. He had some trouble getting the money."

"But you said," Mason pointed out, "that you didn't want me to accept any employment from him."

"I mean," Bradbury said, "that I want you to under stand the situation. That if he should approach you, I want you to remember that you are employed by me. He might offer you a note, or something."

"I see," Perry Mason said. "In other words, I'm to remember that you're the one who arranged that Miss Clune should have the benefit of my services, and that the credit goes to you exclusively. Is that it?"

A frown of annoyance came to Bradbury's face, which was speedily dissipated by a smile.

"Well," he said, "that's putting it rather directly, but I guess you have the idea."

Mason nodded.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"That's all. I've given Mr. Drake all of the details, a complete mass of details."

Paul Drake nodded to Perry Mason.

"Let's go," he said.

"You can reach me at any time," Bradbury said, "at the Mapleton Hotel. I'm in room 693. Your secretary has a note of the address and the telephone number, Mr. Mason; and Drake also has the information."

Drake nodded.

"Come on, Perry," he said.

The two men turned toward the elevator. Bradbury watched them for a moment, half turned toward the cigar counter, ran his eye over the file of magazines on display; then strode briskly out to the sidewalk.

"I owe you one on that," said Paul Drake to Perry Mason in the elevator.

"Got a good fee?" asked Mason as the cage stopped at his floor.

"Pretty fair. He's rather tight on money matters, but I've worked out a good arrangement with him. The case is a cinch."

"You think so?" Mason asked.

"I know it," said Drake as Mason pushed open the door of his office.

"This man Patton has put on the same kind of a racket other places. It's too well thought out and too smooth to have been tried out just once. I won't bother about the Cloverdale angle. I'll pick out some of the other places… Hello, Miss Street. How are you today?"

Della Street smiled at him.

"I presume," she said, "you came in to look at the photograph."

"What photograph?" asked Paul Drake, trying to look innocent.

She laughed.

"Oh, well," Drake said, "I may as well look at it while I'm here."

"It's in on Mr. Mason's desk," she told him.

Perry Mason led the way to his private office, dropped into the swivel chair and picked up the legal jacket which was on the desk. He passed it over to the detective. The detective looked at the photograph and whistled.

"Plenty of class," he said.

"Yes," Mason said, "that's one thing about Patton, he's a good picker. What was it you wanted to see me about, Paul?"

"I want to know what's going to happen in this case," the detective said.

"Nothing in particular," Mason remarked. "You're going to find Patton; you're going to find Marjorie Clune. We're going to interview them. We're going to get a confession out of him, and the district attorney here is going to prosecute, and the district attorney in Cloverdale is going to prosecute."

"When you say it fast," Paul Drake said, blinking his expressionless eyes, "it sounds easy."

"I believe in working fast," Mason told him.

"I think I can find Frank Patton," Drake said. "I've got a good description of him. He's tall, heavy set, dignified, fifty-two years of age, has gray hair and a close-clipped gray mustache. There's a mole on his right cheek. Bradbury has a file of the Cloverdale Independent in his rooms at the hotel. There are ads in there that will be evidence, and a photograph we can use.

"My theory is that this racket is too well thought out to have been used in one town. I can find where it's been used in other towns and through some of those other towns I can get a line on Patton."

"All right," Perry Mason said, lighting a cigarette, "go ahead."

"But," the detective inquired, "then what's going to happen?

"How do you mean?"

"Just how far can we go?"

Mason grinned and said, "That's what I've been down to the district attorney's office for. The sky's the limit."

"Should we tell Bradbury that?" asked Paul Drake.

"We should not," Mason told him, speaking with swift emphasis. "We'll tell him nothing of the sort. When we locate Patton, we keep that location to ourselves. We interview him. After we've interviewed him, we tell Bradbury what we have done; we don't tell him what we are going to do, at any stage of the game."

"I'm supposed to make reports to my client," Drake said uneasily.

"That's easy," Mason said. "I'm your client's attorney. You make the reports to me, and I'll take the responsibility."

The detective watched Perry Mason with meditative speculation.

"Can we get away with that?" he asked.

"I can," Mason said.

"And the district attorney doesn't care how we get a confession?"

"Not a bit," Mason said. "You understand, the district attorney's office can't use improper methods; we can use almost any method."

"You mean violence?"

"Not necessarily; there are better ways. We can put him in a spot where he'll have to start talking. Then we'll crowd him into a position where he'll think we're working on a charge of using the mails to defraud in connection with the picture show contract, and get him to make some admissions about the picture business."

"Why didn't the district attorney of Cloverdale go ahead with this?" Drake asked.

"In the first place," Mason said, "he didn't have a case. In the second place, all the big business men in Cloverdale were the suckers. The more moves the district attorney made to clear up the situation, the more he showed the credulity of the small town business man. Naturally, he passed the buck."

"And you're not going to let Bradbury know what we're doing?"

"Not until after it's done."

"In other words," Drake said, "you intend to get rough with him?"

Mason's tone was quietly emphatic.

"You're damn right I intend to get rough with him," he said.

"I got a plea in that knife case," he said. "They reduced it from assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder, to simple assault, and I grabbed at the chance."

"Get any fee?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"That was a charity case," he said. "After all, you couldn't blame the woman; she'd been goaded beyond human endurance. She didn't have any money and she didn't have any friends."

Della Street stared at him in smiling appraisal, her eyes warm.

"You would," she said.

"Anything new?" he asked.

"Paul Drake has been trying to get you on the telephone. He wants you to call just as soon us you come in."

"All right," Perry Mason said, "get him on the line. Anything else?"

"Just a lot of routine," she said, "I've made a memo on your desk. The Drake call is the only one that's important. Bradbury has called a couple of times, but I think he's just trying to find out how the case is going."

"Be sure," Perry Mason said, "that he doesn't get me on the line until after I've talked with Paul Drake."

He walked through to the inner office and had no sooner seated himself at the desk than the telephone rang. He scooped the receiver to his ear and heard Paul Drake's voice:

"I've got the dope on Frank Patton, Perry," said the detective. "That is, I'm going to have it by eight o'clock tonight; perhaps a little before. Can I run in and tell you about it?"

"Okay," Mason said. "Just stay on the line a moment."

He clicked the receiver rest with his finger until he heard Della Street's voice.

"You on the line, Della?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Paul Drake's on the line," he said. "He's going to run in to tell me about this Bradbury matter. He thinks he's got the information that we want. It's important that no one disturbs me until I've finished with Drake. That means, particularly, that I don't want to talk with Bradbury."

"Okay, chief," she said.

"Come right on up," Mason told Drake, and slid the receiver back into place.

Two minutes later, Paul Drake pushed his way through the door to Perry Mason's private office.

"What have you got?" asked the lawyer.

"I think I've got the thing sewed up," Paul Drake said, dropping into the big leather chair and lighting a cigarette. "I've found out that fellow Patton put on the same sort of a racket in Parker City. The peculiar thing is that he didn't use an alias. That is, he pulled the same racket in Parker City and gave his name as Frank Patton. The motion picture company that signed the contract was the same as the one that figured in the Cloverdale contract."

"Who did he hook in Parker City?" asked Perry Mason curiously.

"The same outfit – the Chamber of Commerce and the merchants."

"No, that isn't what I mean. Who was the girl that got gypped?"

"That's where we're going to get our lead on Patton," the detective said. "She's a girl named Thelma Bell, and she's living here in town. We've got her address and telephone number. She's living at the St. James Apartments, a cheap apartment at 962 East Faulkner Street, and the telephone number is Harcourt 63891. She's got apartment 301, but she's out right now. We've been telephoning and trying to get in touch with her. We've got evidence that leads us to believe she's keeping in touch with Frank Patton."

"When can you get in touch with her?" Mason asked.

"Around eight o'clock some time. She's working somewhere, I don't know just where. She's been in chorus work, and I gather that she may be a bit hard-boiled. She won the leg contest in Parker City and came on here with a picture contract, the same as Marjorie Clune had. When she found out she was stung, she went into chorus work and has done some posing as an artist's model."

"And she's kept in touch with Frank Patton?" asked Perry Mason, frowning.

"Yes, apparently she's the kind of a kid that takes things as they come. She figured that Patton was running a racket and couldn't be blamed for that. She put it up to him to do the best he could for her here in the city. That's the way we figure it out, according to the story we get from the girl's friends."

"And she's going to be in around eight o'clock tonight?" Mason asked.

"Yes, perhaps a little before that."

"And you think she'll give us Frank Patton's address?"

"I'm certain she will. I've got a good man waiting to catch her as soon as she comes in. He can hand her a line about wanting to keep other girls from being lured to the city by false promises and all that sort of stuff."

"Well," Perry Mason said, pulling a Marlboro from the desk humidor, "that's swell."

"Oh, no, it isn't," the detective said. "Not yet."

"How do you mean?"

"I want to know," Paul Drake said, "exactly what you're going to do when we've located Frank Patton."

Perry Mason faced Paul Drake with an expression that was grim as granite.

"When I find that man," he said slowly, "I'm going to break him."

"Just how are you going to break him?"

"I don't know," Perry Mason said. "The element of surprise is going to enter into it in some way. You understand, Paul, that this racket he's pulling may be on the up and up, and again it may not be. It's a question of intent.

"Now, that's where all criminal prosecutions break down. District attorneys get frightened to death to take a case where they've got to prove the element of fraud or an intent to defraud. It's an element of the crime. Therefore it has to be established beyond a reasonable doubt. It's hard enough to establish what's in a man's mind by evidence of others, let alone to establish an intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Therefore what I want out of this man is a confession. I want to force him to betray himself; to admit that the whole thing is a racket; that his intent from start to finish is to defraud the merchants with whom he is doing business and the girl who is given the phony picture contract. In order to do that, we've got to crash in and surprise him. We've got to get him off his guard and rush him off his feet before he gets a chance to figure just how much of our talk is bluff and how much of it we can prove."

"And I take it we don't want Bradbury there?"

Perry Mason stared steadily at Paul Drake.

"Get this, Paul," he said. "We don't even want J.R. Bradbury to know anything about what we're doing."

The telephone on his desk rang.

Perry Mason picked up the receiver.

Della Street's voice said cautiously, "J.R. Bradbury is calling. He says that he's found out you've left the court house for your office and that he's coming over unless he can talk to you on the telephone."

"Tell him," said Perry Mason, "that I am just coming in the door; that I will be occupied for five minutes; that if he will call at the end of five minutes, I will talk with him over the telephone; that he is not to come to the office until I send for him. Have you got that?"

"Yes, chief," she said.

Mason slammed the receiver back into place, looked up at Paul Drake.

"That guy," he said, "could become a first-class nuisance."

"Bradbury?" asked the detective.

"Bradbury," said Perry Mason.

"He seems affable enough," the detective said.

Mason nodded wordlessly.

"Suppose Bradbury should call me?" Paul Drake asked.

"Tell him that you have reported in detail to me and that I have told you not to discuss what you have discovered."

"You mean refuse to tell him anything?"

"Certainly that's what I mean. What did you suppose I meant?"

"He may get sore."

"Leave that to me," Mason said. "Now, here's what I want: I want you to be in readiness to make a dash out to Patton's place with me just as soon as we get him located. I want you to be prepared to back my play, but I want to take the lead."

"I'm not worrying so much about that," Drake said, "as I am about the position it puts me in with my client. I've really collected information that I'm refusing to give him."

"You've given it to me," the lawyer told him, "and I'm taking the responsibility."

The telephone rang.

Perry Mason frowned at it, picked up the receiver and said, "What is it this time?"

"I want to come in. May I?" asked Della Street.

"Sure," he told her, and dropped the receiver back into place. He sat motionless, his eyes on the door to the outer office.

The door opened and Della Street slipped into the room.

"Dr. Doray is out there," she said quietly. "He insists that he must see you. I wanted you to know before Bradbury called back."

Perry Mason slitted his eyes in thought, then turned quickly to Paul Drake.

"Anything else, Paul?" he asked.

"That just about covers it," the detective said. "I'll know around eight o'clock tonight. Will you be here in your office?"

Mason nodded.

"You can go out," he said, "by that door which opens into the corridor."

Paul Drake slid his legs from the arm of the leather chair, got to his feet and moved toward the door.

"Bradbury," he said, "is almost certain to call me."

"Tell him what I told you," Mason said, and, turning to Della Street, he jerked his head toward the outer office.

"Tell Dr. Doray to come in," he said.

Paul Drake slipped out through the door into the corridor. Della Street held open the door to the outer office.

"You may come in, Doctor," she said.

Dr. Doray was tall, with dark hair, black eyes, high cheekbones, a mouth which was shapeless and a jaw which was thrust aggressively forward. He seemed oddly uncertain of himself as he stood in the doorway.

"Come in," said Perry Mason.

Dr. Doray entered the room, and Perry Mason indicated the big leather chair.

As Della Street closed the door of the outer office behind her, Perry Mason let his eyes sweep over Dr. Doray in frank appraisal.

"What was it?" he asked.

"You're the attorney who's been engaged to locate Marjorie Clune," said Dr. Doray without preliminaries.

"Who told you?" asked Perry Mason.

"That is something that I can't tell you," Dr. Doray said, fidgeting uneasily.

Perry Mason stared at him.

"Well?" he asked.

"I wanted," said Dr. Doray, "to have you give me some information. I thought that perhaps I could arrange to have you represent Margy – Miss Clune – in the matter. I don't know just what Bradbury has hired you to do."

"Unfortunately," said Perry Mason, "I can't accept any employment from you. I am, however, interested to learn how you knew that I had been employed, and what made you think it was Mr. Bradbury who had employed me."

Dr. Doray smiled with his mouth. His eyes remained black, glittering and unsmiling.

"You're not going to answer the question?" asked Perry Mason.

Dr. Doray shook his head.

"Under those circumstances," said Perry Mason slowly, "I would say that you had purchased a box of candy for Miss Maude Elton, the secretary in the district attorney's office."

Dr. Doray flushed and hastily averted his eyes.

Perry Mason nodded. "I think, Doctor," he said, "we understand each other perfectly."

"I'm not certain that we do," said Dr. Doray. "What I am particularly anxious to find out is -"

"Nothing that I can tell you," Perry Mason said.

The telephone rang twice. Perry Mason picked up the receiver.

"Excuse me a moment," he said to Dr. Doray, and then said into the transmitter, "Hello."

Bradbury's voice came over the wire.

"Have you learned anything?" he asked.

"Yes," said Perry Mason in a guarded voice, "I think that I am going to have some important information for you around eight o'clock tonight. I want you to be at my office by eight fifteen at the latest. I want you to bring with you the file of newspapers that you have."

"Have you located Patton?" asked Bradbury eagerly.

"I have not," Mason said.

"You've talked with Mr. Drake?"

"Yes."

"Has Drake located him?"

"No," said the lawyer. "He reports, however, that he is making progress."

"Can't you tell me anything more than that?"

"That's all. I want you to be at my office by eight fifteen, and I want you to have those newspapers with you."

"Can I see you before that?" asked Bradbury.

"No," said Perry Mason, "I'm busy. I'll see you tonight."

"Will you be there when I arrive?"