"About a year ago," Perry Mason said. "He came to my office soliciting business."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him the Drake Detective Bureau did all of my work, but I'd give him a break if there was anything they couldn't handle."
"Okay," the voice said, "I guess you're Mason all right. Here's the latest: Vera Cutter stays in her room at the Monmarte Hotel. It's room 503. From time to time she calls the Drake Detective Bureau. We haven't been able to plug in on the conversations. She doesn't call any one else, but at irregular intervals some man calls and asks for her."
"Is she in her room now?" asked Perry Mason.
"Yes."
"That's all," he said. "I'm going to drop in for a chat with her. Don't have your detectives waste time trailing me when I leave. I'll have a young woman with me."
He hung up the telephone and went to the taxicab where Marjorie Clune was seated, her face held rigidly straight ahead.
"Margy," he said, "would you know Eva Lamont's voice if you heard it?"
"I think so," she said.
Mason nodded to the cab driver.
"Monmarte Hotel," he said.
Mason dropped into the cushions beside the girl.
"What's Eva Lamont doing here?" asked Marjorie Clune.
"If it is Eva Lamont," Perry Mason said, "and I think it is, she's trying her damnedest to get Bob Doray mixed into the murder case."
"Why should she do that?" Marjorie Clune asked.
"There might be two reasons," Mason said, his eyes squinting thoughtfully.
"And what are those?"
He was staring out of the cab window, watching the scenery with speculative, thoughtful eyes.
"No, Margy," he said, "I'm not going to bother you with a lot of things to think about. Just promise me one thing, that is if the police should pick you up, you won't say anything to them."
"I'd made up my mind to that long ago," she told him.
Perry Mason said nothing, continued to stare at the traffic. The cab driver worked his way toward the righthand curb.
"Go right up to the hotel entrance?" he asked.
"Yes," Mason said, "that's as far as we're going."
He paid off the cab, took Marjorie Clune's arm, escorted her to the elevator of the hotel.
"Fifth floor," he told the operator.
As they left the elevator on the fifth floor, Perry Mason bent forward so that his lips were close to Marjorie Clune's ear.
"I'm going in the room," he said. "I'm going to get that woman in an argument of some sort. I'll try and get her to raise her voice. You keep your ear close to the door and see if you can recognize her voice. If you can recognize it, okay. If you can't, knock on the door, and I'll open it."
"If it's Eva Lamont she'll recognize me," said Marjorie Clune.
"That's all right," he told her, "that's one of the things we've got to figure on. But I've got to know whether that's Eva Lamont."
He piloted Marjorie Clune around the bend in the corridor.
"Here's the place," he said. "You'd better stand against the wall there. I'll try and get her to talk while the door's open. I'm afraid you aren't going to be able to hear through the door."
Perry Mason knocked at the door.
The door was opened from the inside just a bare crack.
"Who is it?" asked a woman's low voice.
"A man from the Drake Detective Bureau," Mason said.
There was not another word. The door swung wide open. A woman attired in street costume smiled invitingly at him.
Perry Mason entered the room.
"Well," he said, "it looks as though you were getting ready to leave us."
The woman stared at Perry Mason, then followed his gaze to the wardrobe trunk which stood by the side of the bed partially filled with clothes, to the open suitcase on the bed, and the closed suitcase on the chair.
She looked back at the open door, then wordlessly crossed to the door, closed it and locked it.
"What was it," she asked, "that you wanted?"
"I wanted to find out," Perry Mason said, "why it was that you registered under the name of Vera Cutter, and yet your baggage has the initials E.L. on it."
"That's simple," she said. "My sister's name is Edith Loring."
"And you're from Cloverdale?" asked Perry Mason.
"I'm from Detroit."
Perry Mason walked over to the wardrobe trunk. He picked up a skirt which hung on a wooden hanger and turned the wooden hanger so that it showed the imprint:
CLOVERDALE
Cleaning and Dyeing Works
The dark eyes regarded him with glittering malevolence.
"My sister," she said, "lives in Cloverdale."
"But you're from Detroit?" he asked.
"Say, who are you?" she asked in a voice that was suddenly hard. "You aren't from the Drake Detective Bureau."
Perry Mason smiled.
"That," he said, "was just an excuse to get in and talk with you. What I really wanted to ask you was…"
She recoiled from him and stood staring, with her face white, her eyes glittering and cautious, one hand gripping the post on the foot of the brass bedstead.
"What I wanted particularly to know," said Perry Mason, "is where you were when Frank Patton was killed."
For more than ten seconds she stared at him without making any motion or saying any word. Perry Mason met her eyes accusingly.
"Are you an officer?" she asked at length in a low, throaty voice.
"Suppose you answer the question first," Perry Mason told her, "and then I'll answer your questions."
"I'm going to refer you," she said, "to my attorney."
"Oh, then you have an attorney?"
"Certainly I have an attorney," she said. "Don't think that I'd let any cheap heel come in here and start browbeating me about a thing like that. I don't know anything at all about the murder of Frank Patton, except what I've read in the newspapers. But if you think you're going to come in here and pull a fast one on me, you're going to get fooled."
"And you can't tell me where you were when Frank Patton was killed?"
"I won't tell you where I was."
"Suppose," Perry Mason said, "I should take you down to police headquarters, then what would you do?"
By way of answer she crossed to the telephone, took down the receiver and called the number of Perry Mason's office. There was a moment's silence, then the receiver made a squawking noise and the woman said in a cold, haughty voice, "Is Mr. Mason in? I would like to speak with Mr. Perry Mason. You may tell him this is Vera Cutter."
The receiver made more noise.
Perry Mason, studying the expression on the woman's face, was unable to detect any slightest change in it. After a moment she said cooingly, "Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Mason. This is Miss Vera Cutter again. You told me to get in touch with you if any one questioned me concerning my reason for being here in the city. There's a man in the hotel who claims to be an officer, and… what's that?"
The receiver made more noise.
Vera Cutter's face broke into a smile.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Mason. You say that if he is an officer he is to come to your office, and if he is not, I am to notify police headquarters and have him arrested for impersonating an officer? Thank you so much, Mr. Mason, I was sorry to have bothered you again, but those were your instructions—to call you if any one questioned me. Oh, thank you so much."
She hung up the telephone and turned to Perry Mason with triumphant countenance.
"I guess you know my lawyer," she said, "Perry Mason, just about the biggest lawyer in the city. He's representing my interests while I'm here, and he says that if you're not an officer, he's going to see that you're arrested for the crime of impersonating an officer. If you are an officer, you may go to his office and talk with him personally."
"Were you talking with Perry Mason personally?" asked the lawyer.