"What's the room?" asked Perry Mason.
"The room," the clerk told him smilingly, "is the bridal suite–601."
Perry Mason stared steadily and unsmilingly at the clerk for a matter of a second or two, his eyes calm and patient, boring straight into those of the man behind the counter.
"The hell it is," said Perry Mason, and turned toward the elevator.
He got off at the sixth floor, asked the direction of 601, walked down the corridor, started to pound imperatively upon the panels of the door, then suddenly arrested his hand in midmotion. He unclenched the fist, and tapped gently upon the door with the tips of his fingers, making the knock sound like the timid knock which would have been given by a woman.
There was the sound of quick steps thudding the floor back of the door. A bolt clicked, the door flung open, and Perry Mason gazed into Dr. Doray's eager eyes.
The face ran through a gamut of emotions—disappointment, fear, anger.
Perry Mason pushed his way into the room, kicked the door shut.
Doray took two or three backward steps, his eyes fastened upon Perry Mason's face.
"Bridal suite, eh?" said Perry Mason.
Dr. Doray sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed, as though his knees had refused to carry his weight.
"Well?" said Perry Mason.
The man on the bed said nothing.
Perry Mason's tone was edged with impatience.
"Come on," he said, "start talking."
"About what?" asked Dr. Doray.
"I want the whole story," Perry Mason said.
Dr. Doray took a deep breath, stared up at the lawyer.
"I haven't any story to tell," he said.
"What are you doing here?" Mason asked.
"Just running away. I thought things were getting pretty hot for me. You gave me that message, and so I came here."
"What message?"
"The message that your secretary gave me, telling me to get out and keep under cover."
"And so," said Perry Mason sarcastically, "you took the midnight plane out of the city, came here and registered in the bridal suite."
Doray said stubbornly, "That's right. I registered in the bridal suite."
"Why didn't Marjorie Clune join you?" Perry Mason asked.
Dr. Doray jumped up from the edge of the bed.
"You can't talk that way," he said. "That's an insult to Marjorie. She's not that kind of a girl. She wouldn't think of any such thing."
"Oh," said Perry Mason, "you weren't going to be married then. I though perhaps you were going to be married and spend your honeymoon here."
Dr. Doray blushed.
"I'll tell you I don't know anything about Marjorie Clune. I came down here because I thought things were getting too hot for me. She wasn't going to join me at all."
"I tapped on the door," said Perry Mason slowly, "with the tips of my fingers, making the same kind of a noise a woman might make if she was very certain of who was on the other side of the door. You rushed to the door with an expression of eagerness on your face; saw me, and then acted as though some one had slapped you in the face with a wet towel."
"It was a shock to me," Doray said. "I didn't know any one knew I was here."
Perry Mason hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, thrust his head slightly forward and started pacing the floor.
"I'm telling you," began Dr. Doray, "that you're all wet. You have the wrong idea about —"
"Shut up," said Perry Mason, calmly and without emotion. "I'm thinking. I don't want to be interrupted."
He paced the floor in silence for more than three minutes; then suddenly whirled to face Dr. Doray. He kept his thumbs in the armholes of his vest; his head was thrust forward, the jaw protruding.
"I was a fool to have come here."
"You were?" asked Dr. Doray, startled.
Perry Mason nodded.
"I'm in this thing deep enough already. I came here in the first place because I thought I'd find Marjorie Clune. I wanted to give her a break. God knows she's going to need it. Why didn't she join you on the midnight plane?"
"I tell you I don't know anything at all about her. I haven't seen her and haven't talked with her."
Perry Mason shook his head, almost sadly.
"Let's reason this thing out," he said. "None of her friends heard anything about her. You became alarmed. So did Bradbury. Both of you love her. Bradbury has money; he's an older man. You're nearer Marjorie's age. You've been practicing dentistry for a year or two and haven't very much saved up. You had a lot of equipment to pay for, and you've been building up a practice. You borrowed what money you could and came to the city to find Marjorie. You also wanted to bring Patton to justice.
"You drove your car in from Cloverdale. It's a distinctive car. You got in touch with Marjorie Clune. I don't know how. Through her you learned where Patton was living. You didn't know that when you talked with me. Therefore you must have reached Marjorie Clune after that. You didn't have any way of getting in touch with Patton except through Marjorie. You didn't have any money to hire detectives with. Marjorie Clune had an appointment with Frank Patton. Your car was tagged in front of a fire plug. It's better than an even money bet you drove Marjorie Clune to keep the appointment with Patton.
"Patton was found murdered. The weapon used was a knife. The police have traced that knife. They've found out the hardware store where it was purchased. The man in the hardware store identified your photograph as that of the one who bought the knife."
Doray's face was suddenly white.
"I'm not making any statements," he said.
"You don't have to," Mason told him in a calm, deliberate tone of voice. "I'm the one who's making the statements. I found Marjorie Clune. I got her to go to a hotel and register. She was to wait for me to call her. She wasn't to leave her room. She looked like the type of woman who would keep her promise.
"Something happened so that she didn't keep that promise. She walked out on me. In tracing her movements, I find that she intended to take the midnight plane. I trail the midnight plane and find you were on it. Therefore it's a fair inference that it was through you she violated the promise she had given to me. Now, what argument did you use?"
"I didn't use any," Doray said. "I tell you I don't know anything at all about Marjorie Clune."
"Then she wasn't to join you here?"
"No."
"You didn't talk with her on the telephone?"
"No."
Mason stared down at Dr. Doray with glittering, savage eyes.
"What a fool you are," he said, "a smalltown dentist who's practiced dentistry for three or four years, and you think that fits you to give me a runaround in a murder case, which is my specialty. Young as you are, and dumb as you are, I wouldn't think of arguing with you about how you were going to fill one of my teeth. And yet you have the audacity to sit there and jeopardize the safety of the woman you love by trying to lie to me."
"I'm not lying to you, I tell you," Doray said.
There were beads of perspiration glistening on his forehead and on his nose.
Perry Mason took a deep breath.
"I sized Marjorie Clune up as a sweet kid, a straight shooting kid, a kid who had had the cards stacked against her. I decided to give her all the breaks I could. I didn't sit in my office and wait for the cops to arrest her, and then go into court to help her. I went out on the firing line and risked my own safety in order to give her a break. I wanted to put her in a position where she could cope with the police. I wanted to be where I could go over her story and find out what was wrong with it—what she had to forget, what she should emphasize. I wanted to coach her a little bit on what the police were going to do when they picked her up. I had her where I could do that. You came along and talked her out of it because you wanted her to come down here to Summerville on a weekend petting party."