She raised inquiring eyebrows at Mason, caught his nod, said, “That’ll be fine, Paul. The Chief will be expecting you. I'll be waiting at the door.”
She hung up the telephone and moved over to the exit door to the corridor from Mason’s private office.
“He’s coming right down,” she said.
Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, had offices down the corridor near the elevator, and it was only a matter of seconds until Della Street heard his steps in the corridor. As soon as a dark shadow formed on the ground glass of the exit door, Della Street jerked back the latch and opened the door.
“Service,” Drake said, grinning amiably at them as he shuffled over to the big overstuffed client’s chair and draped himself in his favorite position with his knees propped over one rounded arm of the chair, the other rounded arm furnishing support for his back.
“What’s the pitch?” he drawled, elevating one knee and clasping his fingers around the shinbone as he glanced from Mason to Della Street.
“You’re a hell of a detective,” Mason told him. “You always look as though you were about ready to fall apart.”
“I know,” Drake said. “It’s my disguise. Underneath this thin head of hair, back of these glassy eyes, is a ballbearing brain racing away like mad.”
“Perhaps that’s why it’s so darned hard to get you started in a new direction,” Mason said. “Your brain is just a huge gyroscope.”
“It makes for stability,” Drake told him, “and enables me to hold great quantities of liquor.”
“Liquor doesn’t affect it?” Della Street asked.
“Just makes it go around faster,” Drake assured her. “I’m charging somebody for this time. Did you bring me down here to ask questions about my brains?”
“Heaven forbid,” Mason said. “We want you to find out something about a nice murder case.”
“Murder cases are never nice,” Drake told him, “particularly your murder cases.”
“This is a swell minder case,” Mason said. “It involves a Miss Minerva Danby, evidently a curvaceous exponent of feminine pulchritude, who is supposed to have been drowned by slipping overboard from a yacht…”
“You mean the Alder case?” Drake interrupted.
“You know about it?”
“I remember about it,” Drake said. “I remember because of the large amounts of whitewash that were spilled over everything in sight. The officials all seemed to vie with each other in grabbing Alder, shaking his hand and pouring white paint all over the boy.”
“Remember any of the facts?” Mason asked innocently, glancing surreptitiously at Della Street.
“Well,” Drake said, “this George Alder is quite some pumpkins. He has a big yacht that’s a miniature ocean liner, all fitted out with teakwood, mahogany, brass and polish, telephones all over the boat, a private bar, stewards and all that stuff. He owns a big place down on an island … Hey, wait a minute, that must have been the Alder whose house was burglarized last night”
“What about it?” Mason asked.
“Oh, just a piece in the paper. Some woman put on a dinner gown, mingled with guests, copped fifty thousand bucks in jewelry and made her escape by water. A male accomplice was sitting out there playing it safe, sending the girl in to do the dirty work. When she ran out, he slipped in with the canoe and picked her up, then whisked her out of harm’s way. At that, -they almost caught them by breaking out some motorboats and getting an early start. Eventually, they traced her through a bath towel.”
Mason said, Well, I want to find out all about Alder I want to find out about Minerva Danby’s death, and if you want to let various and sundry people know that that death is being investigated, it’s all right by me.”
“Newspapers?” Drake asked.
“Not too obvious,” Mason said. “Perhaps a veiled reference to the fact that your agency is asking questions around Catalina Island, trying to determine additional facts about the mysterious death of a young woman who was reported to have been swept away by rough seas from the yacht of a multimillionaire … You know, that vague sort of stuff.”
“Papers don’t go so much for that stuff,” Drake said, “but I know a couple of columnists who would like to get a lead. That is, if it’s on the up-and-up.”
“It’s on the up-and-up. Go ahead and start your investigation. Find out anything you can.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Keep an ear to the ground on that jewel burglary. Try and find out if that’s what it really was.”
“Gosh, Perry, you think there’s any chance it could have been…”
“I don’t know,” Mason told him. “Get busy and find out Ask questions put men to work find out everything you can about Alder. I want a complete picture.”
“How many men do I put to work on it?” Drake asked.
“As many as you have to.”
“To get information by what time?”
As soon as you can.”
Drake said, “You’re leaving yourself wide open, Perry.
I have a lot of men I can draw on now. Business isn’t any too good, and…”
“Start ‘em working,” Mason told him. “Just don’t have them falling all over each other, or getting in each other’s way, but have them make inquiries, and really go to town.”
“And we don’t have to make it hush-hush?”
“As far as I’m concerned,” Mason told him, “you can hire a brass band.”
“Okay,” Drake said, “that saves a lot of trouble. It means we won’t have to waste time beating around the bush.”
“Another thing,” Mason said. “I want you to look up the date Minerva Danby died. Then check back on the records at Los Merritos. You’ll find that at that time there was a woman undergoing treatment at that institution. This woman couldn’t give any definite account of herself. She was suffering from some sort of amnesia, and apparently had no relatives.
“Look up Conine Lansing. Get her age, build, color of eyes, and all that. Find out what you can about her disappearance. She’s a half sister of George Alder. Anyway, get all the dope and get it fast.”
“Okay. Anything else, PerryV
“I want a complete job on Alder. I want to know everything I can about him. If he has any weak points I want to find out about them. That is, any weak chinks in his armor.”
Drake slid down out of the chair. “Okay, Perry. I’ll get to work.”
Mason waited until he had gone, then turned to Della Street. “Get hold of the surety company tell them I’ll want them to put up bail within a short time in that Dorothy Fenner case tell them to make any inquiries they want about Dorothy Fenner, but that I’ll stand back of any bail bond that’s issued, and that I want them in a position to issue one fast when the time comes.”
Della Street turned to the telephone.
“You’d better talk with the manager personally,” Mason said. “Tell him that I'll appreciate some prompt action on this.”
“I’ll tell him it’s a personal favor,” she said.
“No cracks,” Mason warned.
“That wasn’t a crack, it was a break.” Della Street started dialing the number.
Chapter 4
JACKSON CLEARED HIS THROAT, DEPOSITED HIS BRIEF CASE ON the table, started methodically taking out papers.
“Did you get the bail fixed?” Mason asked.
Jackson said, “Perhaps I’d better take it up in chronological order and tell you exactly what happened. I … “
“Did you get the bail fixed?”