“Why don’t you know whether the car’s there now or not, Paul?”
“Because my man isn’t up there. He’s at Springfield. He couldn’t possibly have covered all the different roads except by telephone, and he’s been telephoning every auto court asking them to give him a list of the reservations that were made any time during the day.”
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“Right around three hours, Perry.”
“We’re on our way!” Mason told him excitedly. “I’ll drive down and pick you up. Stick a gun in your pocket.”
“Going to take Della?”
“No. The party may be rough.”
“Want my man to go up and wait, keeping them under observation?”
“No. He may tip them off. Tell him to stay on the job in Springfield. We may want to call him for something there.”
“How soon will you be here?”
“Damn near as soon as you can get downstairs,” Mason said, hanging up the phone and grabbing his hat and coat from the chair.
His car was parked in front of the apartment building, fully serviced. Mason made time to the office building where Paul Drake, his thin frame wrapped in a heavy overcoat, climbed protestingly into the car.
“For the love of mike. Perry, have a heart! Don’t scare me to death getting there; and try and keep four wheels on the ground on some of the curves. That road from Springfield up over the mountains is a humdinger. Ever been over it?”
“Three or four times,” Mason said.
“Well, it’s a bad one. You go right straight up. You follow a stream for a ways and then zig-zag the side of a canyon until you hit the plateau country on top. It’s a damn mean road.”
“Then hang on,” Mason said. “I’ll try to get you there in one piece.”
“What’s the hurry?” Drake asked.
Mason said, “I have a hunch there’s more to this than appears on the surface, Paul. I’m not too certain but what Allred isn’t planning to pull a fast one.”
“You mean getting a divorce?”
“It might suit him better to be a widower. I understand he has quite a lot of his wife’s money invested in mining properties.”
“I guess Allred does all right for himself,” Drake said. “He seems to have lots of dough.”
Mason said, “I’ll bet you even money that Allred forged that check for twenty-five hundred bucks that was sent to me.”
“Why?”
“That,” Mason said, grimly, “is one of the things I intend to ask him.”
“You think he’s up there in this Snug-Rest Motel?”
“Uh huh,” Mason said, and then gave his attention to his driving.
9
“Know the numbers of the cabins, Paul?”
“Yes. Cabins number four and five. There’ll be two entrances. Take it easy. We should be almost there.”
A sign flashed up in the headlights, gleaming whitely at them out of a cold drizzle, etching its dazzling message on their tired eyes, “Snug-Rest Auto Court One Mile.”
As Mason eased the speed of the car, the windshield wipers gathered speed, pulsed hysterically. Drake, straightening up in the seat, heaved a sigh of relief. He watched the figures on the speedometer, said, “You’ll have to slow down, Perry. You’ve gone eight-tenths of a mile since that sign. The place may be hard to see... It’s a cinch the cabins have all been rented, the lights turned off, and the people who run the place have gone to bed. Here it is, right ahead, Perry.”
Mason slammed on the brakes. The car started to skid on the wet road, then righted itself, and Mason turned into the unpretentious little tourist court.
“Take it easy,” Drake cautioned. “Cut off your motor as soon as you can locate the numbers. We’ll try to do it as quietly as possible. There it is, Perry. There’s the cabin, the one over there on the right. Thank heavens, it’s off by itself so we won’t have an audience.”
Mason swung his car to a stop in front of the two-cabin unit that had been erected slightly apart from the other cabins, uniform in their somewhat shabby austerity.
The lawyer switched off the ignition, then the headlights.
Drake opened the car door.
Mason got out on his side, and they stood for a moment in front of the car.
The rain was a localized mountain rain, a cold, cloud-shrouded drizzle. In the background somewhere a stream tumbling over rocks made noisy gossip with the night. Aside from these noises there was nothing for the ears. The auto court was wrapped in silence.
“They’ve gone to bed,” Drake said in a low voice.
Mason said, “I guess we’re in time, Paul. That’s a break.” He climbed the steps and knocked on the door.
There was no answer. He knocked again.
Paul Drake, who had made a quick circle around the cabins on a tour of inspection, came to stand beside Mason. “It’s a red herring,” he said.
“What’s the matter?”
“They aren’t here.”
“You mean someone else is...”
“No. I don’t think the cabin’s rented at all. There isn’t any car under the cabin shed.”
Mason tentatively turned the knob on the cabin door. The door was unlocked. The latch clicked and the door swung open, disclosing a dark interior.
Paul Drake said cautiously, “Take it easy, Perry. Someone’s in here. That’s fresh tobacco smoke. The curtains are all drawn.”
“Anyone home?” Mason called.
He was greeted by silence, the dark oblong of the open doorway seeming sinister in its black mystery.
“Someone’s here all right,” Mason said, as warm air came eddying out from the dark interior of the cabin. “A heater of some sort has been on in here, and that certainly is fresh tobacco smoke.”
“Okay, let’s back out,” Drake whispered, “and go to the office. Let’s check the registrations.”
“Anyone home?” Mason called again.
Again there was that wall of black, sinister silence.
Mason groped inside the door, running his fingers along the wall searching for a light switch.
“Don’t, Perry,” Drake begged. “Let’s go to the office first and...”
Mason clicked on the lights.
The room was empty.
“Come on in,” Mason said.
Drake hung back, but finally followed the lawyer into the room.
Mason closed the door. It was a typical tourist cabin in the medium-price range. Mason, looking swiftly around the room, kept up a running fire of comment to Paul Drake.
“Bed has been sat on, but not slept in. Tobacco smoke pretty fresh. Cigarette butts with lipstick on them. Oh, oh, Paul, here’s something.”
“What?”
Mason indicated a couple of glasses, leaned over to smell them.
“They had some drinks in these glasses,” Mason said, “and not very long ago. You can see the ice isn’t entirely melted. There’s still a spot of ice in the bottom of this glass.”
Drake started to reach for the glass. Mason grabbed his wrist, pulled it away, said, “Don’t touch anything right now, Paul, but remember there’s a speck of ice in one of these glasses. You can smell the odor of whisky.”
“There’s another room here,” Drake said in a low voice. “I still think we’re going to run into something, Perry.”
Mason opened a door which disclosed a rather dispirited looking kitchen, with a gas stove, a small electric icebox and a cupboard containing a few dishes, virtually the irreducible minimum of frying pan, coffee pot, stew-pan, four plates, four cups and saucers.
The lawyer opened a door, which led to a bathroom. There was also a door at the other end of the bathroom, which was closed.
“This goes to the other cabin,” Drake said. “Perry, I wish you’d keep out of this until after we’ve...”