The waiter brought ham and eggs, coffee, golden brown toast.
“Suppose their testimony should be adverse to your clients?” Drake asked.
“It can’t be if they’re telling the truth. I want to know who they are, anyhow. I don’t want them held in the background where they might show up someday as surprise witnesses, testifying on behalf of the defendant”
The waiter popped his head back into the booth and said apologetically, “Your office is on the line, Mr. Drake. Your secretary said I was to tell you there’d been a reply to that ad in the paper, and that you’d want to know about it while you were breakfasting with Mr. Mason.”
“Have someone bring the reply down here,” Drake said. “Tell my secretary to put a messenger in a taxicab and rush it down here.”
Mason grinned. “Shows what advertising will do, Paul.”
“Shows what money will do,” Drake commented.
“That Finchley boy has a broken hip,” Mason said. “He was planning on graduating from college. I’d sure like to stick the driver of that car.”
Drake sipped coffee, and said wearily, “It probably won’t work out that way, Perry. The driver of the other car was drunk. If you could have nabbed him at the scene of the accident, you could have proved he was drunk. The way it is now, he’ll have a beautiful fairy story about how the Finchley car crashed into him, that he looked back and felt certain there was no damage done...”
“And then I’ll tear into him on a hit-and-run charge,” Mason said.
Drake grinned. “You just think you will. You’ll find that the chap has an influential friend or two who has rung up the district attorney. You’ll find influential people all over town who’ll get busy on the telephone telling what a fine chap he is, good to his family, considerate of his dogs and cats, a person who makes substantial donations to religious causes — and to the right political party.”
“Nevertheless, I’ll tear into him,” Mason said. “I’ll get him on the witness stand and rip him wide open.”
“You won’t even get to do that,” Drake said. “A representative of some insurance company will get around to Bob Finchley and say, ‘Look, if you go to court, even if you recover a big judgment, you’ll have a lot of lawyers’ bills to pay, and by the time you get done, you’ll have all the uncertainty of a lawsuit, you’ll have to fight clean through to the Supreme Court, and the net result to you wouldn’t be half as good as though we took over and paid all the doctor and hospital bills and gave you a little money that you could put into a new car. In fact, by using connections we have, we can get you one of the late models...’”
“Shut up,” Mason interrupted, grinning. “You’re spoiling my breakfast.”
“I was just telling you how it’ll go,” Drake said.
“I know how it’ll go,” Mason told him, “but you let me find out who was driving that black sedan and I’ll give him something to think about, anyway.”
They ate for a while in silence. The waiter appeared once more. “A messenger from your office, Mr. Drake. He said I was to give you this envelope and ask you if he should wait for any instructions.”
“No,” Drake said. “This letter should speak for itself.”
Drake slit open the Manila envelope, which had been sent through the mail addressed to the Drake Detective Agency, said, “There’s something heavy in it, Perry.”
Drake shook the envelope over the table. A key fell out on the tablecloth.
Drake looked at it with surprise.
“Probably the key to the situation,” Mason said.
“Don’t do that so early in the morning!” Drake told him, wincing.
“What’s the letter?” Mason asked.
Leaving the key on the tablecloth, Drake pulled out the letter, typewritten in elite type on a good grade of tinted stationery.
“It’s dated yesterday,” Drake said, “and is addressed to the Drake Detective Agency. Here’s the letter, Perry:
Gentlemen: The party whose aid you are requesting in your ad in this evening’s Blade will never get in touch with you voluntarily. Because I am interested in fair play, I am going to give you the following information. At the time of that accident yesterday afternoon at the intersection of Hickman Avenue and Vermesillo Drive, Lucille Barton and a man, whose name I do not know, had just finished changing a tire on Miss Barton’s automobile, a light tan sedan. This automobile was parked on the south side of Vermesillo Drive immediately east of the intersection with Hickman Avenue. Miss Barton saw the accident and with great presence of mind wrote down the license number of the sedan which was speeding away to the east on Vermesillo Drive.
Later on she told her companion what she had done. The man became panic-stricken, explaining to her that it would ruin him if it should be known he was with her at that time. (I have been unable to find out who this man is, or the reason he is so afraid of having his identity known.) However, I am a very good friend of Lucille’s. I know that this is a matter which is bothering her conscience. Under the circumstances, she cannot give you the information you wish, nor can she ever admit that she was anywhere near the scene of the accident. I have, however, obtained a duplicate key to her apartment which is at 719 South Gondola. (She is living in Apartment 208.) This is a small apartment house with an outer door, the latch of which can be released by tenants of any of the apartments by means of a button. The key to any of the apartments in the house will fit the outer door. If you will use the enclosed key and go to that apartment sometime between the hours of two o’clock and five o’clock in the afternoon of the fifth, you will find no one in the apartment. There is a writing desk in the northeast corner of the sitting room. If you will look in the upper right-hand pigeonhole of that desk you will find a leather-backed notebook. On the next to the last page of that notebook you will find the license number of the automobile that you want. After you have fully satisfied yourself that this is correct and have determined that this automobile is indeed the one you want, I will make arrangements to get in touch with you, redeem the key and will then expect to be reimbursed in the amount of the one hundred dollars which you have offered for a reward.
Very sincerely yours,
Drake looked at Mason, said, “Of all the cockeyed things.”
“Any handwriting at all?” Mason asked.
“Not a bit. The signature is in typewriting, the same as the letter.”
“Let me take a look at it,” Mason said.
Drake passed Mason the letter.
“That’s a ragged job of typing, Paul,” Mason said. “The letters are spaced irregularly, the keys weren’t struck with a uniform touch, there are a couple of strikeovers — altogether, I would say, the work of an amateur typist.”
Drake nodded. “It looks like a two-finger job. Lots of speed though. That’s where the skips and uneven spacing come from. What do you make of it?”
“I’m darned if I know,” Mason told him. “It looks like a trap to me. We’ll let Della Street cast her feminine eye over it and see what she thinks.”
Mason picked up the key, inspected it, saw the number “208” stamped on it, dropped it into his vest pocket and said, “However, it’s a lead we can’t afford to pass up.”