"Women ordinarily do anything they damned please," he said.
Perry Mason said nothing for a few minutes, but drummed silently with his fingertips on the surface of the desk. Then he looked over at Paul Drake.
"The housekeeper says that Mrs. Foley left there in a taxicab this morning. Now, Cartright left his place last night and didn't come back. He was in very much of a hurry, because he sent an important letter to me by special delivery, but had his housekeeper mail it. Now, if you can find the taxicab that called for Mrs. Foley, and find where she was taken, you're quite likely to find some trace of Cartright at that place. That is, if the housekeeper is telling the truth."
"You think she isn't?"
"I don't know. I want to get all of the facts, then I'll sift them and sort them. I want the most complete reports possible. Put enough men on it to familiarize yourself with every angle of the case. Find out who these people are, where they've been, what they're doing and why."
"Put a tail on Foley?"
"Yes, put a tail on Foley. But don't let him know it. I want him watched wherever he goes."
Paul Drake got to his feet and ambled in a leisurely way toward the door.
"I get you," he said, "I'll get started."
He opened the door, stepped through the outer office and vanished.
Apparently the man moved with a shambling, leisurely stride; yet an ordinary man would have been hard put to keep up with him. Paul Drake's efficiency, both in his work and in his motions, lay in the fact that he never became excited and never wasted time in lost motion.
When the detective had gone, Perry Mason summoned Della Street into his office.
"Della," he said, "cancel every appointment that I've got. Hold everything wide open. Clear the decks for action."
She let her shrewd hazel eyes study him in calm appraisal.
"You know something?" she asked.
"Nothing much," he told her. "It's just a hunch. I think something's going to break."
"You mean in that Cartright case?"
He nodded.
"How about the money? Do you want that put in the bank?"
He nodded again. He arose from his chair and started pacing the office, with the restless stride of a lion pacing a cage.
"What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," he told her, "but things don't click."
"How do you mean they don't click?"
"They don't fit together. They look all right on the surface, except for a loose joint or two, but those loose joints are significant. There's something wrong."
"Have you any idea what it is?"
"Not yet, but I'm going to have."
She walked toward the outer office, paused in the door to flash him a solicitous glance. Her eyes were warm with affection.
He was pacing the floor back and forth, thumbs thrust in the armholes of his vest, head forward, eyes staring intently at the carpet.
Chapter 7
It was ten minutes before five when Perry Mason called Pete Dorcas on the telephone.
"Perry Mason talking, Pete. How do I stand with you?"
"Not very high," said Dorcas, but there was a trace of humor in his rasping, querulous voice. "You're too damned belligerent. Any time a fellow tries to do you a favor, he gets into trouble. You get too enthusiastic over your clients."
"I wasn't enthusiastic," said Mason; "I simply claimed the man wasn't crazy."
Dorcas laughed.
"Well," he said, "you're sure right on that. The man wasn't crazy. He played things pretty foxy."
"What are you doing about it; anything?"
"No. Foley came in here all steamed up. He wanted to get warrants issued right and left; wanted to turn the universe upside down, and then he wasn't so certain that he wanted the publicity. He asked me to wait until he communicated with me again."
"Well, did you hear from him later?"
"Yes, about ten minutes ago."
"What did he say?"
"Said that his wife had sent him a telegram from some little town down the state — Midwick, I think it was, begging him not to do anything that would bring about a lot of newspaper publicity. She said it wouldn't do him any good, and would do them all a lot of harm."
"What did you do?"
"Oh, the usual thing. I pigeonholed it. It's nothing except a man's wife running off with somebody else. They're free, white and twentyone, and know what they're doing. Of course, if they set up a meretricious relationship, openly and defiantly in some community, that will be a problem for that community to handle, but we can't spend a lot of time and money bringing some fellow's wife back to him when she doesn't want to come.
"Of course, he's got a good civil action against your client, Cartright, and the way Foley was talking this morning, he was going to file actions for alienation of affections, and everything else he could think of, but I have an idea he's changing his mind on that."
"Well," Mason told him, "I just wanted you to know the way I felt about it. I gave you a fair deal right from the start. I gave you a chance to have a doctor there to look Cartright over."
"Well, the man isn't crazy, that's a cinch," Dorcas said. "I'll buy you a cigar the next time I see you."
"No, I'm going to buy you the cigars," Mason told him. "In fact, I'm having a box sent over right now. How long you going to be at the office?"
"About fifteen minutes."
"Stick around," said Mason, "the cigars will be there."
He hung up the telephone, went to the door of his outer office and said to Della Street: "Ring up the cigar stand across the street from the Hall of Justice. Tell them to take a box of fiftycent cigars up to Pete Dorcas, and charge them to me. I think he's got them coming."
"Yes, sir," she said. "Mr. Drake telephoned while you were talking on the line to Dorcas. He says he's got something for you, and I told him to come up, that you'd be anxious to see him."
"Where was he, down in his office?"
"Yes."
"All right," said Mason, "when he comes, send him right in."
He walked back to his desk and had no sooner sat down than the door opened, and Paul Drake walked into the room with that same ungainly stride which masked such efficiency of motion as to make his advance seem unhurried, yet he was seated in a chair across from the lawyer, with a cigarette going, before the door check had closed the door.
"Well," said Mason, "what have you found out?"
"Lots of stuff."
"All right, go ahead and tell me."
Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket.
"Is it so much you can't tell me without a notebook?" asked Mason.
"It sure is, and it's cost you a lot of money."
"I don't care about that, I wanted the information."
"Well, we got it. We had to burn up the wires and get a couple of affiliated agencies working on the case."
"Never mind that; give me the dope."
"She isn't his wife," said Paul Drake.
"Who isn't?"
"The woman who lived with Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive, and went under the name of Evelyn Foley."
"Well," said Mason, "that's no great shock to me. To tell you the truth, Paul, that's one of the reasons I wanted you to work on the case. I had an idea that she wasn't."
"How did you get that idea? From something Cartright told you?" asked the detective.
"You tell me what you know first," said Mason.
"Well," said Drake, "the woman's name wasn't Evelyn. That's her middle name. Her first name was Paula. Her full name is Paula Evelyn Cartright. She's the wife of your client, Arthur Cartright."
Perry Mason slowly nodded.
"You haven't surprised me yet, Paul," he said.
"Well, I probably won't surprise you with anything, then," said Drake, thumbing the pages of his notebook. "Here's the dope: Clinton Foley's real name is Clinton Forbes. He and his wife, Bessie Forbes, lived in Santa Barbara. They were friendly with Arthur Cartright and Paula Cartright. The friendship between Forbes and Mrs. Cartright ripened into an intimacy, and they ran away together. Neither Bessie Forbes nor Arthur Cartright knew where the others had gone. It was quite a scandal in Santa Barbara. The people mingled with the better class of society there, and you can imagine what a choice bit of scandal it made. Forbes was independently wealthy, and he translated all of his belongings into cash so that he could carry it with him, without leaving any back trail. They left by automobile, and left no clews as to where they were going.