The Case of the Lucky Legs (4 page)

"I don't know. If not, you are to wait until I telephone for you to join me, or until I return to the office."

"I want to talk with you," Bradbury said.

"You can talk with me tonight," Mason told him. "Good-by." He pushed the receiver back into position.

Doray's black eyes were glittering as though with a fever.

"Was that Bradbury?" he asked hoarsely.

Perry Mason smiled at him.

"As I was saying, Doctor," he said, "I think we understand each other perfectly. There is nothing that I can tell you. You might, however, leave your address with my secretary."

"I have already done that," Dr. Doray said. "I had to do it before she would announce me. I'm staying at the Midwick Hotel. The telephone number is Grove 36921."

"Thank you," said Perry Mason, arising and indicating the exit door to the outer corridor. "You can go out through that door."

Dr. Doray got to his feet, hesitated a moment, took a quick breath as though about to say something, then changed his mind, turned and walked to the door.

"Good afternoon, Counselor," he said.

"Good afternoon, Doctor."

The door slammed shut. Perry Mason picked up the receiver of his telephone.

"Della," he said, "I want you to be at the office by eight fifteen tonight, perhaps a little bit before that. Have plenty of freshly sharpened pencils and a clean notebook. I may want you to take a statement."

"A confession?" she asked.

"It may amount to that," he told her, and smiled grimly as he dropped the receiver back into position.

"Mapleton Hotel," said a woman's voice.

"I want to talk with Mr. J.R. Bradbury, of Cloverdale," Perry said.

"Just a moment."

There was a moment during which the receiver made singing noises, then the click of a connection, and a woman's voice said, "Yes?"

"I wanted Mr. Bradbury," said Perry Mason.

"Ring room 693," the woman's voice said irritably, and there was the sound of a receiver slamming on the hook at the other end of the line.

At that moment, the door of the outer office opened and closed. Perry Mason looked up. The receiver was still making singing noises. A shadow formed where the ribbon of light came through the bottom of the door of Perry Mason's private office, then the door opened.

Perry Mason dropped the receiver back into place.

"Hello, Bradbury," he said, "I was just calling you."

Bradbury entered the office, smilingly suave.

"Are you going to tell me," he asked, "what you've got?"

"I haven't got anything," Mason said.

"Not yet?" asked Bradbury.

"Not yet."

"I called Paul Drake this evening," said Bradbury. "He told me that you had instructed him to give all of the information he uncovered to you and that you would be responsible to me."

Perry Mason made little drumming motions with the fingers of his right hand on the top of the desk.

"Let's get this straight once and for all, Bradbury," he said. "You hired me to represent your interests. I'm hired as an attorney, not as an employee. I occupy the same position that a surgeon would occupy. If you employed a surgeon to operate on you, you wouldn't try to tell him how to perform the operation."

"I'm not kicking," Bradbury said smilingly. "You know your business. I looked you up thoroughly before I came here. Anything that you say is okay with me."

Perry Mason heaved a sigh.

"That," he said, "simplifies matters."

He took a cigarette from the humidor, turned it toward Bradbury. Bradbury shook his head and reached for his waistcoat pocket.

"No," he said, "I'll smoke one of my cigars."

"You're early," Perry Mason said.

Bradbury indicated a copy of Liberty which he held under his left arm.

"I picked up one of the new Libertys," he said. "They're just on the stand. I don't need to bother you at all; I'll sit in the outer office and read. You go right ahead with whatever work you have in mind."

Perry Mason moved away from the desk and toward the door to the outer office.

"I was just going to suggest that," he said. "I've got some matters that I want to work on without being disturbed. I'll let you know just as soon as I'm ready for you."

Bradbury nodded, his keen gray eyes surveying Perry Mason.

"Do you think," he said, "that you're going to be able to get sufficient facts on which to base a criminal prosecution?"

"I don't think," Perry Mason told him, "until I've got something to work on. You can't build up a case without facts. I haven't got all of the facts yet."

Bradbury walked back into the outer office. The door clicked shut behind him. Perry Mason read a copy of the Advance Decisions of the Supreme Court for ten minutes then softly tiptoed to the door which led to the outer office, opened it and looked out.

J.R. Bradbury was seated in one of the chairs to the right of Della Street's desk, immersed in the periodical he was reading. He did not even look up. Perry Mason turned the knob with his fingers as he closed the door, so that the latch slipped silently into place.

He walked back to his desk, tossed the Advance Decisions to one side and smoked in silent contemplation.

The telephone rang.

Mason scooped the receiver to his ear with a hasty motion.

"Mason talking," he said.

Paul Drake's voice came to his ears:

"Okay, Perry," he said. "I've heard from my man who was out at this woman's apartment, waiting for her to come back. He's got all the information."

"Have you located Patton?" Mason asked.

"Yes, we've located him, and we're pretty certain that he's in his apartment. We've got quite a bit of dope on the racket he runs, perhaps enough to make it look as though we could start a criminal prosecution.

"He's living at the Holliday Apartments out on Maple Avenue, 3508 is the number. He's got apartment 302.

"I've looked the place up. It's an apartment house that pretends to have a hotel service, but doesn't have very much. There's an automatic elevator and a desk in the lobby. Sometimes there's some one on duty at the desk, but not very often. I have an idea we won't have any trouble getting up there unannounced. We can give him a third degree, and we can probably get a confession out of him."

"Okay," Mason said. "Where are you now?"

"I'm telephoning from a drug store at Ninth and Olive. I'm ready to start whenever you are. I think you'd better take Della Street along. He'll probably make a statement."

"No," Perry Mason said, "I don't want to take her right now. I don't want her to hear the way we work on him. I'll have her where she can grab a taxi and come out the minute we telephone."

"You'll join me here, then?" asked Paul Drake.

"Yes, you stay there. I'll be with you in ten or fifteen minutes, perhaps less."

Perry Mason dropped the receiver into place, paused for a moment, frowning thoughtfully, then he strode across the office and opened the door which led to the outer office.

Bradbury looked up from his magazine expectantly.

"Will it be much longer before you are ready for me?"

"Not very much longer," Mason said. "Della Street hasn't come in yet, I see."

Bradbury looked over at her vacant desk.

"Was there something I could do?" he asked. "I'm willing to do anything. You know, I -"

He suddenly stared at Perry Mason with his eyes wide, a look of consternation on his face.

"What's the matter?" asked the lawyer.

"Those newspapers!" said Bradbury. "By Gosh! I came away and forgot them!"

Perry Mason nodded his head slowly.

"That's okay," he said. "I wish I had them, but a delay of an hour or so won't make any difference. How long will it take you to get them?"

Bradbury looked at his watch.

"I could get them," he said, "in perhaps thirty minutes. A taxicab would get me to the hotel in about fifteen minutes, and it would take about the same to come back. I can put my hand on them even in the dark. I remember I rolled them up and left them on the bed."

"Any wrapper around them?" asked Mason.

"No, they're just rolled and tied with a string."

Perry Mason shook his head in silent rebuke.

"Don't ever do that," he said. "Whenever you're commencing to put the screws on a crook you want to take care of every bit of evidence you've got. Those newspapers represent evidence, and if Patton should learn that you had them, he'd steal them."

"We could, of course, get the back files of the newspaper," Bradbury said, "but these are complete files that we can introduce as evidence if we have to."

"I don't want to introduce them as evidence," Perry Mason told him, "I want to spread them out on a table in front of that crook and make him realize just what he's up against. You go and get them."

Bradbury dropped his magazine and started for the door. At that moment, the door opened and Della Street smiled at them.

"Am I late?" she asked.

"No," Mason told her. "Every one else is early. I'm just going out, Della."

She glanced meaningly at Bradbury.

"Mr. Bradbury," said the lawyer, "is going to his hotel to get some papers that he forgot. He'll be back with them within half an hour. You'll probably hear from me within half an hour – within an hour, anyway. Wait here until you hear, and have a shorthand book and some pencils ready. Mr. Bradbury will return to the office, and he'll wait for instructions here."

Bradbury's face was eager.

"You think you're going to get somewhere, Mr. Mason?" he asked.

"Perhaps," said Perry Mason.

"Look here," Bradbury said, "I'll telephone just as soon as I get to the hotel, so that if you've learned anything you can leave word for me."

Perry Mason turned his head slightly so that the wink of his right eye was visible only to Della Street.

"Okay," he said. "It may be that I'll want you to meet me somewhere."

He turned to Della Street.

"I'm on my way," he said.

"By the way," Bradbury said, "there's one question I wanted to ask you."

Perry Mason turned impatiently at the door.

"Has Dr. Doray called on you?" asked Bradbury.

"Yes," Mason said, "he has. Why?"

"You didn't accept any employment from him?"

"No, certainly not. That was part of the understanding I had with you. I wasn't to represent him under any circumstances."

"That is," Bradbury said, "without my consent."

Mason nodded.

"Why?" he asked.

"I want to warn you," said Bradbury, "that Doray is rather a peculiar character. If you get in touch with Marjorie Clune, bear that in mind, and under no circumstances let Doray know where Patton is, if you locate Patton."

"Why?" Mason asked. "You're afraid that Doray might do something violent?"

"I am quite certain he might," Bradbury said. "I happen to know of some statements he's made."

"Okay," Mason said. "There's no particular hurry, Bradbury. I think you've got half an hour anyway, but I'll keep in touch with the office, and you can do the same."

He pushed his way out into the corridor and slammed the door behind him, leaving Bradbury bending over Della Street's desk, a look of keen interest in his eyes as he offered her a cigarette.

"I'm going to want you for a while. You stick around," he told the driver.

He crossed the street to a drug store and found Paul Drake leaning against the marble slab of the soda fountain, smoking a cigarette.

"You were long enough getting here," the detective said.

"Bradbury was in the office," Mason told him, "and he wanted to tell me a lot of stuff about Doray."

"Yeah?" asked Paul Drake.

"And then," said Perry Mason, "he was offering Della Street a cigarette. He was doing it with something of a manner."

The men looked at each other and laughed.

"Well," Paul Drake said, "I don't know how you feel about it, but as far as I'm concerned, I don't care how impressionable he is. That's what's giving me the butter on my bread. Personally, I'd say he was laboring under the impression he was quite a ladies' man. Did you notice the way he smirked at Mamie down at the cigar counter?"

Perry Mason nodded curtly.

"However," Paul Drake went on, "you can't blame him. He's evidently a bachelor with plenty of money. You notice the way he dolls himself up. His tie must have cost more than five dollars. His tailored suit is a wonderful piece of work. And the particular shade of brown has been chosen with some care. You can tell, because it matches his complexion. And then he wears socks, shoes, tie and shirt all in a general color scheme of -"

Perry Mason made a gesture of disgust.

"Forget it," he said. "Let's get down to brass tacks. What about Patton?"

"I don't know much more than I told you over the telephone, but I want to work out a plan of campaign."

"All right," Perry Mason said, "here's the plan of campaign. You've got your car here?"

"Yes."

"You get in it and go on out to the Holliday Apartments. I've got a taxicab waiting out here. I'll go out in it. You may make a little better time in your car than the cab, so you'd better give me a start of about five minutes. I'll go out there and break the ice. You come busting into the apartment without knocking. I'll try and arrange things so the door is open."

"What do I do after I come in?" Paul Drake inquired.

"You follow my lead," Perry Mason said. "I'm going to start browbeating him. He'll either get frightened or righteously indignant, one of the two. You can tell which it is when you open the door.

"You can pretend you haven't got any connection with me, if you want to. Or you can put up any kind of a stall you want. Bradbury is going to be at my office within half an hour with original newspapers that we can use any way we want to. We can tell him that part of the newspaper subscription list went through the mail, and that therefore he'd used the mails to defraud."

"That'll be a good line," Drake said. "We should have the newspapers with us."

"I know it," Mason said, "but Bradbury forgot them and I didn't want to wait. Della Street is in the office, all ready to grab a taxi and come out as soon as we get him softened up a bit. He'll probably be hard at first, and I don't want Della to hear what goes on.

"Now, remember that I'm to take the general lead, but we can pull almost anything we want to. The district attorney can't use improper methods to get a confession; but we can use almost anything we want to get a confession. And then he can confirm it later on to the district attorney."

"And you're going to try to make him admit that his intention was to defraud?" asked the detective.

"That's the gist of the whole business," Perry Mason said. "We keep plugging away at him until we get that admission. After we get it, we don't care what happens."

"All right," Paul Drake said, "let's go. I'll give you five minutes. It'll take you almost twenty minutes to get out there."

"Not much over fifteen," Mason said. "You just give me five minutes' start, and don't worry about the time at the other end."

Paul Drake nodded, motioned to the attendant at the counter.

"A bromo seltzer," he said.

Perry Mason turned and flagged his taxicab from the opposite curb. As the cab swung around to him, he said, "The Holliday Apartments on Maple Avenue; 3508 is the number. Step on it."

He settled back in the cushions of the cab as the vehicle lurched into motion, and lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of his old one. He sat perfectly calm and steady, with no outward indication of tension or nervousness. He gave the impression of a fighter who would jockey his adversary about with the utmost patience until there was an opportunity to end the fight with one terrific punch.

He was just finishing his cigarette when the cab slowed down and pulled toward the curb.

Perry Mason leaned forward and tapped on the glass. As the driver turned and slid the glass partition back, Perry Mason said. "Don't stop right in front of the Holliday Apartments. Better stop half a block this side."

The driver nodded, crossed an intersection and pulled in toward the curb.

"How's this?" he asked.

"This is fine," the lawyer said. "Now, I may be gone an hour – perhaps longer. I may not want you at all, but if I do want you, I'll want you in a hurry. Here's ten dollars. Park right along in here some place and start your motor every five or ten minutes so it'll be warm. I may want you to go places in a hurry."

The cab driver grinned and pocketed the bill. Perry Mason got to the curb and located the illuminated sign which marked the location of the Holliday Apartments. He pounded down the pavement with quick, aggressive, purposeful strides, and was within twenty feet of the entrance when he saw a young woman emerge hastily from the door.

She was in the early twenties. She wore a white coat with a fox fur collar, white shoes and a small white hat with a red button on the top. Her figure was trim and graceful, and there was a certain subtle ease about her stride which made her walk with an effortless glide.

Perry Mason caught a brief glimpse of a very white face with wide blue eyes; then the face was hastily averted, and remained averted as she walked past Perry Mason, her heels clicking on the pavement.

Perry Mason paused to stare at her. There had been something almost of panic in the blue eyes, and the face was held so rigidly averted that she might have been some one who was acquainted with the attorney and trying to keep him from recognizing her.

The coat fitted snugly around the back and hips, and Perry Mason could see the smooth play of her muscles beneath the cloth as she walked.

He watched her until she had crossed the intersection and then pushed his way into the Holliday Apartments.

There was a desk in the lobby but no one was at the desk. Back of the desk was a rack of pigeon-holes over each of which was the number of a room. In some of the pigeon-holes were keys, and in some were bits of paper or envelopes.

Perry Mason looked at number 302 and saw that there was no key in the box. He walked to the elevator, opened the door, entered the smelly cage, pushed the button for the third floor, and rattled slowly upward.

When the elevator came to a jarring stop, Perry Mason opened both doors, walked out into the corridor. He found a right angle turn in the corridor, turned to the left, walked the length of the corridor and came to apartment 302. He started to rap with his knuckles when he noticed a bell button to the right of the door. He pushed his thumb against the bell button and heard the whir of a buzzer on the inside of the apartment.

There was no sound of motion.

Mason waited and pushed his finger on the buzzer once more. When there was no response, he pounded with his knuckles on the panels of the door. He saw light in the apartment and bent to the keyhole.

He waited for a few silent seconds; then, frowning, tried the knob. The knob turned readily, the latch clicked and the door swung open.

Perry Mason stepped into a room which was fitted as a combination sitting and dining-room. There was a small kitchenette on the right. On the left was a closed door. The room was empty. On the table lay a man's felt hat, a cane, a pair of gray gloves and two slips of paper.

Perry Mason walked over to the table and picked up the slips of paper. Both of them were telephone calls which had been received and evidently placed in the pigeon-hole at the desk, to be given to the occupant of apartment 302 when he should call for his key.

One of the messages simply said, "Mr. Patton: Call Harcourt 63891 and ask for Margy – 6:05 P.M."

The other message read, "Mr. Patton: Tell Thelma Margy will be about twenty minutes late – 8:00 P.M."

Perry Mason stared frowningly at the two slips of paper, dropped them back on the table, picked up the gray hat and looked at the initials on the band. They were F.A.P.

Perry Mason stared toward the closed door on his left.

He let his right hand drop to the edge of the stained table and made little drumming motions with his fingers. Then, reaching a decision, he strode toward the door and opened it.

There were lights burning in the bedroom just as they had been burning in the room he had entered. To the left of the door was the door of the bathroom, which was open. In the opposite corner was a bed and across from the bed was a dresser. The mirror on the dresser showed a reflection of the corner beyond the bathroom which Perry Mason could not see from the door in which he stood.

The reflection in the mirror showed the slippered feet of a man, the toes pointed upward at an angle. Above the slippers was a glimpse of bare leg, and then the fringe of a bathrobe.

Perry Mason stood absolutely motionless for a second or two, his eyes staring at the reflection in the mirror.

He looked over toward the bed and saw a man's coat, shirt, tie and trousers flung on the bed, apparently without any attempt whatever at order. The coat was wrinkled and one sleeve was pulled up inside of itself; the trousers were flung in a heap. The shirt was at the opposite corner of the bed.

Underneath the bed were shoes and socks. The shoes were tan oxfords, the socks were gray. Mason looked at the necktie. It too was gray. The trousers and coat were gray.

Perry Mason stepped into the room and walked around the corner of the bathroom.

He stood staring at the body which lay on the floor.

The body was that of a man approximately fifty years of age, with gray hair, close-cropped, grizzled mustache, and a mole on his right cheek.

The body was attired in underwear, with a silk bathrobe thrown over the shoulders, the right arm through the sleeve, the robe lying loose over the left shoulder, and the left arm bare. One hand was sprawled out with the fingers clutched; the other hand was lying across the chest. The man's body lay on its back, and the eyes were partially open and glazing in death.

There was a stab wound in the man's left breast from which blood had spurted and was still welling in a thick viscid pool which stained the bathrobe and discolored the carpet. A few feet away from the body there lay on the carpet a long-bladed knife of the sort that is frequently used for cutting bread. It was a knife that had a blade some three inches wide at the base, and which tapered uniformly to a point. The blade was some nine inches long. The knife was covered with blood, and had evidently been dropped after it had been pulled from the man's body.

Perry Mason carefully avoided the blood, bent down and felt of the man's wrist. There was no pulse. The wrist was still warm.

The lawyer looked about the room at the various windows. One of them – the one by the bed – opened on a fire escape, and the bed was slightly indented, as though a person had either lain on it, or had crawled across it. Mason tried the door which led from the bedroom to the hallway. It was locked and bolted from the inside. He took his handkerchief and carefully wiped off the doorknob where his fingers had touched it. He walked back to the door which led from the sitting-room to the bedroom and polished the knob of that door with his handkerchief. Then he did the same thing to the knob of the door which led from the living-room to the corridor.

As he was polishing the doorknob, his eye noticed some object lying on the floor near the corner of the room. He walked to it. It was, he saw, a leather-covered billy, or blackjack, with a leather thong on the end to be looped over the wrist.

He bent to examine it, without touching it, and noticed that there was blood on it.

Lying on the floor, near the table on which the hat, gloves and stick reposed, was some brown wrapping paper which had not been crumpled, but had evidently been dropped to the floor and was stiff enough to have retained something of its original shape.

Perry Mason noticed that the wrapping paper was creased as though it might have been wrapped about the knife that he had seen in the other room.

He opened the door to the corridor, taking care to hold his handkerchief over his finger-tips as he did so. He started to polish the outer knob of the door, then thought better of it. He stepped into the corridor and pushed the door shut with his right hand, making no effort to keep his fingers from touching the outside knob.

He was just closing the door when he heard the clang of the elevator door and a woman's voice saying, "… you can hear her just as soon as you get opposite the door. She's crying and laughing and saying something about lucky legs."