“Yes. Sit down. Mr. Mason wants to say something. I thought he’d better talk with you, since you’re handling the case.”
“What I have to say,” Mason said, taking the cigarette from his mouth and staring at the smoke which spiraled upward, “has to do with the Second Fidelity Savings & Loan.”
“Indeed!” Dimmick said, raising his bushy eyebrows.
“You’re attorneys for that institution,” Mason said. “Walter Prescott kept an account there. I can’t find out what’s in that account, when the deposits were made, nor in what form they were made. In fact, I can’t get a damn bit of information out of the bank.”
Dimmick made clucking noises with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I asked you if you wanted to cooperate,” he said at length. “You told me you didn’t.”
Cuff said, “Most embarrassing.”
“It’s going to be embarrassing for someone,” Mason warned.
“Let’s see,” Cuff inquired, “has Mrs. Prescott been appointed administratrix?”
“She’s filed a petition.”
“Evidently she won’t be charged with being an accessory,” Cuff observed.
Mason said, “You’re advising the bank. I want to know the facts about that account. I’m satisfied they’re being withheld from me on the advice of counsel.”
Dimmick started to get to his feet, fell back in his chair with a groan, said, “Now, Rodney, remember what the doctor said about my getting excited. Don’t let me get excited!”
Cuff said, “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions, Mr. Mason?”
“I think not,” Mason told him, without taking his eyes from Dimmick.
“Well, after all,” Dimmick said, “I haven’t taken the time to look it up, but as I remember the law, until some person is actually appointed as executor or administrator, the bank doesn’t have to answer questions.”
“I’m not talking about what the law says right now,” Mason said, “I’m telling you what I want.”
“Of course,” Dimmick pointed out, “we have to take the law into consideration in advising the bank.”
Mason got to his feet. “You know my position,” he said. “I’ll expect to hear from the bank within an hour.”
Dimmick pounded the floor with his cane. “You can’t get anything from us until Mrs. Prescott has been vindicated or until she’s been appointed by the court as administratrix—”
Mason crossed the room to stand by the comer of the older man’s desk, looking down at him. “Dimmick,” he said slowly, “you live in an academic atmosphere of legal abstraction. Your idea of rights and liabilities come from reading the statutes. Now then, you’ve been dealt cards in another sort of game entirely. You’re not playing auction bridge now, you’re playing no-limit poker. Now, you can co-operate with me, or not, just as you damn please. If you don’t co-operate with me on this matter, I’m going to raise hell. I’ll expect to hear from you within an hour.”
Dimmick struggled to his feet. “You look here,” he shouted, “you can’t bulldoze us! You’re not doing business with some cheap firm of shysters! Dimmick, Gray & Peabody represent the—”
Mason said, “Don’t forget what the doctor told you, Mr. Dimmick. You mustn’t get excited.”
He strode toward the exit door, opened it, turned to Cuff and said, “How about the wallet you took from Packard’s coat pocket, Cuff?”
“The wallet!” Cuff said, his eyes widening.
Mason nodded.
“There wasn’t any wallet.”
“There isn’t any,” Mason said. “That’s no sign there wasn’t any.”
“But I don’t understand you,” Cuff said. “You—”
“I understand him,” Dimmick said. “He’s going to claim that you wrongfully removed a wallet from Packard’s pocket.”
Mason said, “I’m not going to claim anything of the sort, gentlemen. I am going to point out to the press that it’s most unusual for a man to be driving a car without a driving license. When Dr. Wallace treated Packard at the hospital, Packard had a driving license showing his name and his Altaville residence. That driving license was in a wallet. The wallet and the driving license were returned to him. What became of them?”
“How should I know?” Cuff asked.
“What were you doing, going through the man’s pockets?”
“I was trying to identify him.”
Mason nodded and said, “That’s what you say. You’re representing James Driscoll. Don’t forget Prescott was killed with Driscoll’s gun. Don’t forget Carl Packard saw something in the window of Prescott’s house just about the time Prescott was being killed. Don’t forget that Packard was murdered to keep him from talking, and don’t forget that James Driscoll knew that the body was that of Packard just as soon as the wreck was found. Perhaps the ultra-respectable firm of Dimmick, Gray & Peabody will have some embarrassing questions to answer before I get finished.”
Cuff came striding toward Mason, his face indignant. “You can’t pull that stuff,” he said. “That’s—”
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Mason said, stepping into the corridor. “You have half an hour.” He slammed the door shut behind him.
Chapter fourteen
Perry Mason, his thumbs pushed through the armholes of his vest, head dropped forward in thought, paced the floor of his office with rhythmic regularity. From time to time he flung remarks over his shoulder to Della Street; his eyes, however, kept staring straight ahead in fixed focus.
“—Can’t understand the thing — like reaching in the dark for a light globe that’s dangling from a string. It hits your fingers, bounces away. You grope for it, can’t find it,then bump into it again... What the devil could Packard have seen in that window?... And Packard was murdered, don’t forget that. Personally, I’m inclined to think he was unconscious when somebody ran the car over the bank. In the first place, it was a stolen car. Now, why the devil should Packard steal a car? In the second place, there wasn’t a single finger-print on the steering wheel, but Packard wasn’t wearing gloves. Someone stole that car, wiped all prints from the steering wheel. Packard was unconscious. They ran the car up the mountain road, then someone who wore gloves stood on the runningboard, pushed down the hand throttle, kicked in the clutch, ran it to the edge of the cliff, and let ’er go.”
Della Street tapped with her pencil on the polished surface of her desk. “Now listen, Chief,” she said. “Don’t forget our ship sails tomorrow. And, while I think of it, here’s the ticket for you to sign.”
She unfolded a sheet of paper filled with fine printing. Mason paused in his stride, whipped a fountain pen from his pocket, bent over the desk, and affixed his signature with a flourish.
“If a client did that you’d jump all over him,” she said.
“Did what?”
“Sign a printed form without reading it.”
He grinned. “After they get in trouble,” he said, “and bring a printed document in to me, bearing their signature, I always tell them they shouldn’t have signed it without reading it. And they shouldn’t. Not that one. But if a business man stopped to read over the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand fine print regulations they put on the backs of tickets, bills of lading, telegraph blanks, and things of that sort, he’d be blind before he was fifty.”
“Perry Mason, you’re avoiding the question. Are you or are you not going to start getting your trunks packed?”