Mason shook his head. “You can search me, Sergeant. I’m telling you, the last I saw of the woman was when I paid her lunch check at the department store. That must have been about one-fifteen or perhaps one-seventeen, to be exact. I had a one-thirty appointment at my office, and had to get back for it.”
“That still doesn’t explain the blood on the shoe.”
“Well,” Mason said, “she was in an automobile accident, wasn’t she? Her leg was broken.”
“The bone was broken,” Sergeant Tremont said, “but the skin wasn’t. Moreover, you’ll notice the blood on the sole of this shoe... Now then, Mason, your client wouldn’t by any chance have stuck up someone and lifted these sparklers, would she?”
Mason decided it was time to show his impatience. “How the devil do I know?” he asked. “In the first place, she isn’t a client of mine. In the second place, I know nothing whatever about her, and in the third place, I was only trying to accommodate a string-bean girl with pop eyes and a lantern jaw, who has very definite ideas about the conventions.”
Sergeant Tremont grinned. “Well,” he said, “that’s that. We were hoping you could help us.”
“Well, I can’t,” Mason told him shortly, snapping the stub of his cigarette into a cuspidor.
The man at the table said, “Have you any idea when I can go, Sergeant?”
“Pretty quick,” Tremont told him, without shifting his eyes from Mason.
Mason turned to Diggers. “Just how did the accident happen?” he asked.
Sergeant Tremont said, “This man is a lawyer, Diggers. You’ve already made your report. You don’t have to tell anyone anything.”
“I most certainly have nothing to conceal,” Diggers said. “I was driving my car along St. Rupert Boulevard. I was in a thirty-mile zone, and don’t believe I was going more than twenty-five or twenty-six miles an hour. In any event, I was keeping right along with the stream of slow traffic. I was well over on the right, in the right-hand lane. Traffic on the outside whizzing past anywhere from five to twenty miles an hour faster than I was. There was a big blue sedan parked at the curb. That car started out from the curb all of a sudden, and I swerved to the right to keep on the inside because I was going pretty slow. This was just after I’d passed Ninety-First Street. I guess I was about the middle of the block. Well, just as soon as I swung in toward the curb, this woman jumped out right in front of my headlights — just about where the blue sedan had been. When she saw me, she got rattled and flung up her hands. I slammed on the brakes, gave her the horn, and swerved the car. the running-board on the right-hand side struck her leg and broke it below the knee. She fell down and hit her head. This bag was lying on the pavement right near where she fell. I was going to load her in my car and bring her to the emergency hospital, but some people who had stopped told me they’d already telephoned for an ambulance, and I’d better let the ambulance move her... let them take the responsibility.”
“You were driving alone?” Mason asked.
“Yes.”
“How long before you hit this woman did you first see her?”
“Just a second or two. She jumped out from the curb, ran right in front of my headlights, and then seemed incapable of doing anything. She just stood there. A lot of people stopped, and I made them inventory the contents of the bag. You see the fact that there was a gun lying on the...”
“A gun!” Mason exclaimed.
Sergeant Tremont took Diggers by the arm. “Come with me, Diggers,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any necessity for holding you any longer. And I’d just as soon you didn’t answer any more questions.”
Mason made for the door. “I’m going to see Mrs. Breel, Sergeant.”
The sergeant shook his head. “Oh, no, you’re not,” he announced.
“The devil I’m not!”
Sergeant Tremont grinned affably. “In the first place, Mason,” he said, “she’s in the care of a doctor who has prohibited visitors. In the second place, she’s under a police guard. In the third place, you’ve been very emphatic about stating that she wasn’t a client of yours, but merely a casual friend. Under the circumstances, you don’t see her.”
Mason thought for a moment, then reached for his hat. “Under the circumstances, Sergeant,” he admitted with a wry grin, “you win.”
Chapter 4
Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, was tall, thin in stature, and perpetually pessimistic in outlook. His face was florid, his eyes regarded the world from behind a glassy film. But, by some quirk of the facial muscles, the corners of his lips turned up, giving him the appearance of continually smiling at life, whereas his actual outlook was exactly the opposite. Slumped down in the seat of Perry Mason’s automobile, his head drooping, a pendulous cigarette hanging from his lips, he straightened slightly as he saw the lawyer. walk around the car and open the door on the driver’s side. “What is it this time, Perry?” he asked. “Have they finally pinched you as an accessory?”
“Not yet,” Mason told him cheerfully, “but we’re doing some investigating, Paul.”
“What sort of investigating?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said, and then added after an appreciable pause, “yet.”
“When will you know?”
“I’ll know,” Mason said, “as soon as I can get to a telephone book and find out where a man by the name of Austin Cullens lives.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“If he lives on St. Rupert Boulevard between Ninety-First and Ninety-Second Streets,” Mason said, “it’s going to have a hell of a lot to do with it.”
He swung his car in a U-turn, drove rapidly to the corner drug store, where he said to the detective, “Alibi yourself out of any tickets for double parking, Paul. I want to take a look at a telephone directory.” He ran into the store and looked up Austin Cullens. The address was 9158 St. Rupert Boulevard. Mason stepped into the telephone booth, dropped a coin, dialed Della Street’s number. “Sorry to keep bothering you, Della,” he said, when he heard her voice on the line. “Hope I’m not interrupting a heavy date.”
“When I have a heavy date,” she said, “I can’t even hear the telephone. What is it this time?”
“I don’t know,” he told her. “There’s something here I can’t figure. Do we have Mrs. Bedford’s address?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“That’s too bad — better get it,” Mason told her. “Then get in touch with her and put her under cover. Get her where the police can’t find her.”
“Shall I let her know what I’m doing, Chief?” Della Street asked, her voice losing its tone of informal banter and becoming crisply businesslike.
“Not unless you absolutely have to, Della. Make any kind of a stall. Tell her I’ve asked you to come and get her and keep her available for important developments. Or, just try the old personality stuff. Tell her you understand she’s a stranger in the city and how would she like to go out to dinner. In short, tell her anything. But put her where the police can’t find her, — and don’t let her know that’s what you’re doing.”
“Okay, Chief, where will I reach you?”
“Keep in touch with the Drake Detective Agency,” Mason said. “Leave word with whoever’s in charge of the office. Tell them Drake or I may telephone later for the information, and not to let it out to anyone else. Of course, if you can’t locate her, you’ll just have to...”
“Leave it to me, Chief,” Della Street said competently, “I’ll locate her. What’s happened?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mason said. “I’m on my way to find out. Remember, keep in touch with Drake’s office.”
“Okay, Chief,” she said, “I’m starting right now,” and hung up the telephone.