“How very nice of you,” she said, “and what about the problem of my car, which is in the parking lot at the office building?”
“Under the circumstances,” Mason said, “I’m quite sure the Bureau of Internal Revenue will consider that a taxicab will be a perfectly legitimate deductible expense tomorrow morning.”
“And by that time,” Della Street asked, “you’ll know where Maxine spent the night?”
“If Paul Drake’s men are half as clever as they should be, we’ll know from time to time exactly where she is. Moreover, by tomorrow morning we should know something about her past, and by tomorrow afternoon we should have a pretty good line on the terrified Maxine Lindsay.”
“Do you want the key to her apartment?” Della Street asked.
“Heavens, no. Why should I have the key to Maxine’s apartment? It was given to you, Della, and in your possession it is a perfectly innocent case of keeping a canary. In my possession the situation might be a little difficult.”
“I don’t get it,” Della Street said.
“Let us suppose that when Maxine gets on the witness stand, in the event she ever does, some attorney cross-examines her and asks her casually and in parting, ‘Now, you read in the papers about the suit being filed by Otto Olney against Collin Durant?’ And she will say, ‘Yes, I did,’ and the lawyer will say, ‘And on that night did you see Perry Mason, who was present at the time Olney had a press conference?’ and she will say, ‘Yes, I did.’ And the lawyer will smirk and say, ‘And did you know, Miss Lindsay, that from that day on Mr. Perry Mason had a key to your apartment?’ Then he will smirk at the jury, bow and smile and say, ‘Thank you, that’s all, Miss Lindsay. I have no further questions.’ ”
“I see,” Della Street said. “Under the circumstances, I hang onto the key to Maxine’s apartment.”
“Very definitely,” Mason said. “You take a taxi to work in the morning, and now if you have no objection I’ll move my car into the parking place vacated by Maxine Lindsay and I will escort you to your apartment.”
“That,” Della Street announced, “is service. I welcome the suggestion. I would, however, like to know whether this is business or social.”
“It has been business to this point,” Mason said. “The final act of escorting you to your door is social.”
“And as such?” she asked.
“I believe,” Mason observed, “there is an almost universal custom of collecting a good-night kiss from a date, isn’t there?”
“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Mason,” Della said demurely.
Chapter Seven
Mason left the elevator the next morning, stopped in at the office of the Drake Detective Agency, said to the switchboard operator, “Paul in?”
She nodded, said, “He’s busy on the phone.”
“I’ll go on down,” Mason said. “Anybody with him?”
She shook her head. “He’s alone. Just getting phone calls right and left.”
Mason smiled. “I guess I’m responsible for that. I’ll go down and listen to him gripe.”
The lawyer walked on down the narrow passageway, past the doors of the cubbyhole offices, to Paul Drake’s office.
Mason opened the door.
Drake was talking on the phone. “Okay, Bill, stay with it. Get all you can. Keep on the job. Now, is there any chance you’ll need a relief up there?... I see... Well, it sounds a little naïve, but— Okay, if she’s preoccupied, that’s it.”
Drake hung up the phone, said, “Hi, Perry,” reached for a cigarette, said, “I’ve been up all night.”
“Glad to hear it,” Mason said. “You wouldn’t want to draw your money without doing something to earn it, would you?”
“Well, I’m going to draw a lot on this one,” Drake said. “I hope your client is well heeled.”
“The client right at the moment,” Mason said, “is Mr. Perry Mason. I’m doing this on my own.”
“You are!” Paul Drake exclaimed, pausing with a match halfway to the cigarette.
“That’s right,” Mason said. “I’m just taking out a little insurance to see that I’m not being played for a sucker. What do you know about Maxine?”
“Maxine,” Drake said, “is leaving a trail a mile broad. I had four operatives on the job.”
“I saw you had quite a gang,” Mason said.
“Were they obvious?”
“If you were looking for them, they were. But I had the impression Maxine was pretty much disturbed over something and wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings.”
“Well, your impression was right, unless the girl is a consummate actress,” Drake said. “She’s headed for someplace up north and just doesn’t seem to give a hang about anything except getting there. She pulled out last night right after she talked with you, drove to an all-night drug store, parked, purchased some creams, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, comb, and a pair of pajamas. Then she stopped at a filling station, got her car filled to the brim with gasoline and took off. She got as far as Bakersfield, went to a motel, got six hours’ sleep, then was on the road again and is at this moment in Merced.”
“Stopping there?” Mason asked.
“Grabbing a bit of breakfast, getting the car filled up, and ready to be on her way again,” Drake said.
“How many men have you got on the job?” Mason asked.
“Only two at the moment,” Drake said, “because that’s all that’s needed. I told the others to come on back home. I have one man keeping ahead of her, one man staying behind. They swap positions once in a while so that she doesn’t feel she’s wearing a tail, but frankly I don’t think she’s thinking about it at all.”
“What have you found out about her background?” Mason asked.
“She worked as a model in New York, she came on to Hollywood thinking she might crash the portals here, did some modeling work, started getting a little heavy, turned to a technique of photo portrait painting, and that seems to be about it.”
“Boy friends?” Mason asked.
“Haven’t found any yet that she’s taken any particular interest in. She seems to be pretty much in love with her work. That is, she’s ambitious and keeps on plugging away at her work.
“An art dealer named Lattimer Rankin has been throwing some work her way and may have a little personal interest there. She knows a few of the models, a few of the artists, is well liked, and that’s about it so far. I’m working on it. She’s probably had a few affairs.”
“What about Durant?”
“Durant,” Drake said, “is a phoney. He has some kind of a medical discharge out of the army. He dabbled around in an art appreciation course, became a self-styled art dealer, started putting on a series of lectures; talks learnedly, knows very little, is rather resourceful, likes to ride around in fancy cars which he gets second or third hand and has had a couple of them repossessed when he couldn’t meet the payments. He’s two months behind in the rent on his apartment and I don’t think he stayed in his apartment last night. If he did, he’s sleeping late this morning.
“I have a man on the job who can get in after the maids get on duty but couldn’t get in last night. However, his best guess is Durant is out somewhere. His car isn’t in the apartment garage. He—”
The phone rang. Drake took the cigarette out of his mouth, picked up the phone, said, “Drake talking.”
The detective listened for a moment, said, “Okay. That’s the way I had it figured. Stay on the job until I give you instructions to the contrary.”
Drake hung up and said, “That’s the operative out at the apartment house. Durant wasn’t in last night. The bed hasn’t been slept in.”