The Case of the Daring Divorcee (7 page)

Mason glanced at Della Street. "You say this was the Chamber of Commerce?"

"Yes."

"One man or two?"

"It wasn't a man. It was a woman. Not a bad-looking babe."

"Can you describe her?" Mason asked.

The pilot took his eyes from the gauges to look at Mason sharply. "Why?" he asked. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know," Mason said. "I'm just wondering. I'd like a description of this woman."

"Well, let's see. She was about twenty-nine or thirty, somewhere around in there; a pretty good build, not too tall; nice curves but not chunky. She had blue eyes-well, sort of grayish."

"Blonde or brunette?"

"Brunette."

"Weight?"

"Oh, around a hundred and twelve to a hundred and fifteen-nice."

"How did you know she was from the Chamber of Cornmerce? Did she show you a card?"

"No. She told me she was from the Chamber of Commerce. She didn't make any bones about it; came right out and told me that they were trying to collect business statistics. She said they wanted to cover chartered airplanes for a month. They were also getting the number of incoming passengers on the regular planes."

"What about automobiles from California?" Mason asked.

"She didn't say anything about that."

"Well, that's all very interesting," Mason said, glancing back from the copilot's seat to where Della Street was putting away her notebook, after having taken down a de scription of the young woman who had been making the inquiries.

They flew along in silence for some fifteen minutes watching the stars overhead, the dark bowl of the desert beneath broken by the headlights of automobiles on the paved road below.

"When you come to think of it," the pilot said abruptly, "that's just a little strange. The people who come to Las Vegas by plane are just a fraction of the tourists who come pouring in. Where one comes by plane, a thousand come by automobile. Well, two or three hundred anyway."

"Oh well," Mason said casually, "people do funny things when it comes to gathering statistics."

"They do for a fact," the pilot said. "I guess it's all right but somehow you've got me thinking."

They landed at the airport in Los Angeles and Mason put through a call for Paul Drake.

"What do you know, Paul?" he asked.

"You're early," Paul said. "I didn't expect to hear from you before two A.M."

"Oh, we're getting along fine," Mason said. "Making progress. Perhaps we'll let you get some sleep. What do you know?"

"Well," Drake said, "Melina Finch, 625 Cypress Avenue, Las Vegas, is twenty-eight years old, a divorcee, brunette, nice figure. She owns a gift shop in Las Vegas but has a young woman who comes in occasionally on buying trips to pick up merchandise. She seems to live well and has some other source of income, believed to be alimony. Her ex-husband is an eastern millionaire."

Mason said. "What about the other Nevada car?"

"That's owned by Harley C. Drexel of 291 Center Street, Carson City. He's a contractor and builder, fiftyfive years old, makes a business of buying lots, putting houses on them, selling the house at a profit, buying other lots. Sometimes he has four or five lots and houses going, Sometimes he has only one."

"Okay," Mason said. "We may want more details on the Finch woman. We'll skip Drexel for the time being."

"Anything further?"

"Nothing more tonight," Mason said. "Did you have a good dinner?"

"Did I have a good dinner," Drake said. "Boy, I really lived it up. How about you, Perry?"

Mason laughed. "We had a hamburger on the way to the airport and we were so darned busy I forgot all about dinner. I'll bet Della's starving. I expect to remedy my oversight right now. See you tomorrow, Paul."

Mason hung up the phone and turned to Della Street.

"Gosh," he said, "I forgot all about dinner and-"

"So did I," she said, "but my stomach is now reminding me."

"Steak?" Mason asked.

She shook her head. "Ham and eggs for me."

"That sounds good," Mason said. "Come on, let's go."

Chapter Five

Mason entered his office at ten o'clock in the morning and stood in the door thoughtfully regarding Della Street.

"Della," he said, "when you have been up half the night working, why the devil don't you sleep late in the morning?"

She smiled and said, "Because I can't. I wake up and start thinking of the things that have piled up here at the office and the first thing I know I'm wide awake and up out of bed, taking a shower, cooking breakfast and catching the same old bus."

He grinned and said, "I woke up at the usual time this morning too and started to get up and take a shower, then relaxed and the first thing I knew it was eight-thirty. What's new, Della, anything?"

"Not at the moment. The-"

The phone rang. Della Street picked it up, said, "Yes, Gertie," then after a moment said, "Just a moment. I'll find out.

"Your on-again-off-again client has called the office, asking Gertie if it would be possible to have an appointment with you this morning."

"You mean Adelle Hastings?"

"Yes."

"Let me talk with her," Mason said.

Della Street said, "Just a minute, Gertie. Put her on Mr. Mason's line, will you?"

Mason picked up the phone, said, "Hello?"

Adelle Hastings' voice held a note of urgency.

"Mr. Mason, I simply must see you."

"You're here in Los Angeles?"

"Yes."

"How did you get here?"

"I couldn't get to sleep last night. The more I thought of it the more I began to think your idea might be the right one, and if it is… I want to see you, if possible before… before…"

"Before what?" Mason asked.

"Before anything happens."

"What do you mean, happens?"

"Well, if Garvin doesn't keep that ten o'clock appointment this morning Simley Beason will-Well, it will mean something very serious is wrong."

"Probably he's keeping that appointment right now," Mason said.

"That's just the point," she said. "He hasn't shown up at the office as of two or three minutes ago."

"You mean you've been on the phone talking with Mr. Beason?"

"Yes."

"That might not be too good," Mason said thoughtfully. "Where are you with reference to my office?"

"I'm in the parking lot adjoining the building."

"All right," Mason said, "now here's what I want you to do. Come up here right away but don't go to the entrance office. Now, understand that definitely. Don't go to the entrance office. Go to the door marked PERRY MASON-PRIVATE. Knock on that door and Della Street will let you in."

"I'm not to go through the reception room?"

"No."

"And I'm to come right up?"

"Yes."

"I'll be right up," she promised.

Mason hung up the phone and turned to Della Street. 'This thing bothers me, Della."

Della, who had been monitoring the telephone conversation, nodded.

"Of course," Mason said, "Adelle Hastings could be right about her purse having been stolen."

"And again," Della Street said, as Mason hesitated.

"And again," Mason said, grinning, "she could have come to the office, left her purse and walked away, knowing that someone in the office would find the purse and that the contents would arouse a great deal of interest.

"She had left enough money in the purse so that she could be certain we'd take steps to get in touch with her-even without the gun in the purse we'd have done that."

Della Street waited silently as Mason paused.

"Well?" Mason asked.

She smiled and said, "Go ahead. You're thinking out loud, just using my ears to bounce words off of so you can clarify your own thinking"

Mason might not have heard her. Abruptly he said, "Get Paul Drake on the phone right away, Della. I want to talk with him before Adelle Hastings gets up here."

Della Street's nimble fingers twisted the dial of the telephone with swift efficiency. A moment later she said, "Here's Paul Drake, Chief."

Mason picked up the phone and said, "Paul, this is an emergency matter and I want some fast action."

"You always do," Drake said.

"Hold it," Mason said, "there's no time for kidding. I want you to get as many young women as you can, up to six or seven-no more than that-but six or seven, if possible.

"I want them between twenty-seven to thirty-two. I want them all with good figures, weighing not more than a hundred and seventeen pounds, and not less than a hundred and ten pounds. I want them all to put on heavy dark glasses. You can send one of your operatives down to a drugstore and get a bunch of dark glasses, the biggest and darkest lenses you can find."

"How soon?" Drake asked.

"Right now," Mason told him.

"Have a heart, Perry. I can't-"

"I don't care what you have to pay," Mason said, "I want them. I'm mixed into something that bothers me personally and professionally and I want those women. Probably your receptionist knows some of the girls who are working here in the building who can get away for half an hour or so. Send an operative down to the restaurant. Pick up some of the girls who are having a coffee break. Send someone over to the parking lot. Pick out young women who have parked their cars. Ask them if they want to get twenty dollars for an hour's work. Then give me a ring as soon as you've got them."

"Twenty dollars for an hour's work?" Drake asked.

"Fifty, if you have to," Mason said. "I want results."I'm on the job," Drake said. "I'll start with my receptionist. I have a couple of operatives here that are on the loose, and a young chap who can skip down to the drugstore and get dark glasses. You want them big and dark."

"That's right. Big lenses and very dark," Mason said. "We'll give you a ring as soon as we're ready. Now, get this straight, Paul. You have these girls in your office all ready to go, with dark glasses on.

"At the proper time, Della will ring your office and say, 'Paul, this is Della.' That's all she'll say. The minute she says that, you push those girls out into the corridor and have them walk down to the door of my reception room, but tell them not to go in until I come out of my private office with a young woman of that general description, who will a]so be wearing dark glasses. I'll walk down to the group and we'll all go in together. Got that?"

"Got it," Drake said.

Mason hung up.

Della Street looked at Mason and smiled. "That," she said, "is the advantage of having a detective agency on the same floor of the building in which you have a law office."

Mason nodded thoughtfully.

"The idea is to have something of a line-up?" Della Street asked.

"Exactly," Mason said. "You know Gertie. If I bring Adelle Hastings out into the outer office with dark glasses on and say, 'Gertie, have you ever seen this young woman before?' Gertie will pipe up and say, 'Oh, yes. That's the woman who left her purse here yesterday-Mrs. Hastings. Mr. Mason has your purse in the office, Mrs. Hastings.' "Human nature being what it is, Gertie by this time remembers only the fact that a well-shaped woman, around twenty-seven or thirty, wearing heavy dark glasses, was in the office and left a purse.

"Now, if anything has happened, and Gertie makes that offhand identification, we might be in trouble."

"What do you think has happened?" Della Street asked.

"If someone has stolen Adelle Hastings' bag and fired two shots from the revolver that was in that bag, almost anything could have happened. And if, on the other hand, Adelle Hastings fired two shots from that revolver and then went to all this trouble to set the stage so that I'd be drawn into the case, you can be pretty damn certain that something has happened. She-"