“No more than they had to. Understand, Perry, this is Saturday noon. I’ve been working on the thing for only a little more than twenty-four hours. Even with the number of men I’ve been able to put on the job, I’ve had to hit the high spots. The ways things are now, you can’t...”
“I know,” Mason interrupted sympathetically, “but I’m working against time myself. Once they get that property pretty well sewed up, they won’t be so gun shy. While they’re getting it sewed up, anyone who can walk in and call the turn can write his own ticket. I want to write my own ticket — on behalf of a woman named Adelaide Kingman who is lying in a San Francisco hospital with a broken leg and the conviction that she hasn’t got a cent in the world.”
“Well,” Drake said, “you can get either Milfield or Van Nuys...”
“I don’t want them,” Mason said. “I want this man who’s back of the whole business, the mysterious somebody who came into his office at ten o’clock yesterday morning, found out that a man by the name of Bickler had taken down the license number of one of his trucks and worked himself into such a dither over that fact that he rang up his attorneys and told them to settle with Bickler no matter what Bickler wanted. He’s the man I can do business with.”
“Can’t you get anything from the license number of the truck?” Drake asked.
Mason laughed. “Fat chance. They gave Bickler back his notebook and his pencil, all right. It was a loose leaf notebook. One of the pages is gone. You can’t prove anything. It’s just one of those things. Okay, they’re working fast, and I’m going to work fast myself.”
“Well,” Drake said, “that’s everything I’ve got to date, Perry. My men are still working on it, but the only leads we can get point to Milfield and Van Nuys, and we can’t actually find either one of them.”
Mason looked at his watch, then drummed his fingertips on the edge of his desk, “They’re paying sheep land prices?” he asked.
“That’s all they’re paying on the record,” Drake said, “but the really smart guys who held out apparently got a spot cash bonus handed to them which doesn’t show on any of the papers. You can’t prove it. You can guess at it. Have a heart, Perry. Give me until Monday afternoon and I’ll have the whole pattern laid out for you and...”
“Monday afternoon may be too late,” Mason said. “I’m going to see Daphne Milfield. What have your men found out about her?”
“Not a damned thing,” Drake said, “except that she’s Fred Milfield’s wife, and that she lives at this apartment house on West Narlian Avenue.”
Mason nodded to Della Street. “Stick around for half an hour,” he said. “It’s probably a wild goose chase, but anyway it’s a chance.”
Chapter 3
The West Narlian Avenue address was an apartment house of the better class. Evidently an attempt had been made to create an atmosphere of exclusive dignity, and the man at the desk in the lobby seemed to be at some pains to impress upon Perry Mason the fact that it was only owing to the labor shortage that the services of the switchboard operator had been discontinued.
“Mr. Fred Milfield,” he repeated after Mason. “And your name, please?”
“Mason.”
“He is expecting you, Mr. Mason?”
“No.”
“Just a moment, please — we’ve, had so much trouble keeping switchboard operators that we’re having to get along as best we can. Excuse me a moment, please.”
He moved over to a secretarial chair in front of the switchboard, plugged in a line and spoke into a shielded mouthpiece so that it was impossible for Mason to hear what he said.
After a few moments he turned back to Mason and said, “Mr. Milfield isn’t in. He isn’t expected until late this evening.”
“Mrs. Milfield there?” Mason asked carelessly.
The man turned once more to the telephone, then, after a brief conversation, turned back again. “She doesn’t place you, Mr. Mason.”
Mason said, “Tell her I called to discuss the Karakul sheep business.”
The clerk seemed mystified, but passed on the message. “She’ll see you. It’s apartment Fourteen B. You may go right up.”
A Negro in blue livery with a touch of gold braid operated the elevator with the unsure manner that indicated that he was a beginner.
The elevator stopped a good three inches short of the floor, then as the boy tried to compensate for that error, he overshot the mark by some five inches, dropped the cage back so that it was in a worse position than when he had started, grinned, brought it up to within a couple of inches of the floor and opened the door.
“Watch your step,” he cautioned.
“You may have something there,” Mason told him, and walked out of the cage and down the corridor while the perplexed lad in the elevator was puzzling over his comment.
Mason pushed on the button at Fourteen B, and a few seconds later the door was opened by a woman somewhere in the thirties. She had watched her figure, she had a well-groomed appearance, and her face showed alert awareness of life, but there was a peculiarly puffy look about the eyes.
“Yes?” she asked, standing in the doorway. “You wanted to ask me something about Karakul fur?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you tell me what it is, please? My husband isn’t here at the moment.”
Mason, once more glanced up and down the corridor.
“I’ll go down to the lobby with you,” Mrs. Milfield said with cool detachment; then hesitated, apparently thinking of something which made her change her mind. “Oh well, perhaps you’d better come in.”
Mason followed her into a well-furnished apartment. Momentarily, she turned so that the light from a south window struck her face, and Mason saw the peculiar appearance of her eyes was due to the fact that she had been crying. The swollen appearance around the lids and underneath the eyes was unmistakable. This had been no sudden burst of tears over some petty annoyance, but had been a long drawn-out crying spell.
She seemed conscious at once of Mason’s deduction, and promptly seated herself with her back to the window. Indicating a chair which faced her, she said to Mason, “Won’t you sit down?”
Mason sat down facing the light. He took a cardcase from his pocket. “I’m an attorney.”
She took the card he handed her. “Oh yes, I’ve heard of you. I thought you handled murder cases.”
“All sorts of trial work,” he told her. “My office, carries on a general practice.”
“And may I ask why you’re interesting yourself in Karakul sheep?”
Mason said. “I have a client who wants money.”
She smiled. “Don’t all clients want money?”
“Most of them do. This one really needs it. I’m going to get it for her.”
“That’s nice of you. Does it concern my husband?”
“It concerns his Karakul sheep business.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“My client’s name is Kingman, Adelaide Kingman.”
“I’m afraid the name means nothing to me. You see I don’t know the details of my husband’s business.”
“It is very important that I see him at once.”
“I’m afraid he won’t be available until the first of the week, Mr. Mason.”
“Can you tell me how I can get in touch with him?”
“No. I’m afraid not.”
“Can you get in touch with him — immediately?”
She thought that over, then said, “Not immediately.”
Mason said. “As soon as you can reach him, tell him that I have a very sensitive nose and that I’ve been smelling around the Skinner Hills district, that what I smell doesn’t smell like karakul fur. Can you remember that?”
“Why — I guess so. What a strange message, Mr. Mason!”