Mason gently turned the knob and held the door open for Della Street.
“Take the elevator,” he said. “I can beat it going down the stairs. You’ll have to take a cab back to the office.”
The lawyer hurried to the stairway, took the stairs two at a time.
Chapter Eight
It was three-thirty in the afternoon when the taxicab Perry Mason had taken at the Redding Airport deposited him at the Western Union Telegraph office.
Mason, with his most disarming smile, said, “My name is Stigler. I had twenty-five dollars wired to my wife’s sister, Maxine Lindsay, from Eugene with identification waived. I’m wondering if she’s picked up the money yet.”
The clerk hesitated a moment, then consulted files and said, “No, No, Mr. Stigler, she hasn’t.”
“Thank you,” Mason said. “I hoped I could get here ahead of her. She may need more than that. Thanks a lot. I’ll wait outside. She should be here any minute.”
Mason went out to the street, found a phone booth at a service station where he could keep an eye on the telegraph office and put through a call to Paul Drake.
“Hello, Paul,” Mason said. “I’m up in Redding. She hasn’t picked up the wire yet. Do you know where she is?”
“She should be there almost any minute,” Drake said. “My man reported from Chico. She stopped there and had something to eat, had her tires checked, had gas put in the car. She didn’t have the tank filled. She only had enough gas put in to get her through to Redding. She’s evidently right down to her last penny but she should be showing up.”
“Thanks,” Mason said. “I’ll get in touch with her here.”
“What about my operatives?” Drake asked. “Do you want them to keep on after you take over?”
“I’ll have to let you know on that,” Mason said, “but have them stay on the job unless I give you instructions to call them off. And of course they aren’t supposed to give me a tumble in case they recognize me.”
“Hell’s bells,” Drake said disgustedly, “these are professionals. Don’t worry. You may not even be able to spot them.”
Mason hung up the telephone, walked out to stand at the curb. He had been there about twenty minutes when Maxine Lindsay, her eyes slightly bloodshot, her face gray with weariness, drove up and slowed to a crawl as she looked for a parking place.
Eventually she settled on the service station from which Mason had been telephoning. She drove the car in and said, “Can I leave my car here while I go to the telegraph office long enough to get some money? Then I’m going to want my tank filled up.”
“I’ll fill it now, ma’am, and you can pay when you get back,” the attendant said.
“No, I... I prefer it this way. I’m expecting some money at the telegraph office but if I don’t get it I might not be able to pay.”
The attendant looked at her sympathetically and said, “I’ll park it right over here, ma’am. I’m sure you’ll have the money waiting for you.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Maxine told him, giving him a wan smile, and then leaving the car started walking wearily down the sidewalk.
She was so thoroughly tired that she hardly noticed when Mason fell into step beside her.
At length sensing the presence of someone keeping pace with her she glanced up with annoyance. “I beg your pardon, if you—” She gasped, faltered, came to a dead stop.
“I’m sorry I had to do it this way, Maxine,” Mason said, “but we have to talk.”
“I... You... How in the world did you get here?”
“By making good connections at Sacramento with a Pacific Airlines plane,” Mason said. “Are you tired, Maxine?”
“I’m bushed.”
“Hungry?”
“I had something to eat in Chico. I couldn’t go any longer. I’d been living on coffee. It took my last dime.”
“All right,” Mason said, “there’s twenty-five dollars waiting for you at the telegraph office. Shall we go and get that?”
“How... how in the world do you know all these things?”
“It’s my business,” Mason said. “Twenty-five dollars sent to you by Phoebe Stigler from Eugene, Oregon.”
“All right,” Maxine said, “if you know that much I presume you know the rest of it.”
Mason smiled enigmatically. “Let’s go get the money, Maxine, and then we’ll sit down over a cup of coffee and talk.”
“I haven’t got time,” she said. “I’ve got to get on. I’ve just got to keep slogging along that damned road and I’m so tired.”
“Come on,” Mason said, “let’s get the money and then we’ll talk it over. Perhaps you won’t have to keep on hurrying.”
The lawyer walked into the telegraph office, smiled and nodded at the clerk, pushed Maxine forward.
“Do you have a wire for me, Maxine Lindsay?” she asked.
“Yes, we do, Miss Lindsay. Will you sign here, please? You were expecting some money?”
“That’s right.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five dollars.”
“Who from?”
“Phoebe Stigler of Eugene, Oregon.”
“Just sign here, please.”
Maxine signed her name, the clerk handed her two tens and a five and exchanged smiles with Mason.
Mason placed his hand on Maxine’s elbow and said, “Come on, we’ll go get that car filled up and then get a cup of coffee.”
They walked back to the filling station where Maxine left instructions about the car, then went across to a restaurant. Maxine slumped into a seat in a booth and rested her chin on her hand.
“You’ve had quite a drive,” Mason said. “You shouldn’t be going on until you’ve had some sleep.”
“I’ve got to get there. I’ve simply got to get there.”
Mason told the waitress, “Fill up two coffee cups and bring a pitcher with coffee in it.
“Cream, sugar?” he asked Maxine.
She shook her head and said, “No more. It puts on too many inches.”
The waitress looked at Mason inquiringly.
“Just black for me,” Mason said.
The waitress left and in a short time returned with two cups of coffee, then brought two small metal pots.
“We use these for hot water, mostly,” she said, “but I’ve filled them up with coffee.”
“That’s fine,” Mason told her and handed her a five-dollar bill. “Please take care of the check for us,” he said, “and put the rest in your pocket. We don’t want to be disturbed.”
The face of the waitress lit up. She said, “Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Not a thing.”
“If there’s anything you want, just hold up your hand. I’ll be watching.”
Maxine put a spoon in the coffee, stirred it, raised the spoon to her lips, sipped the coffee tentatively to determine the temperature, then again settled back into a dejected attitude.
“Now, you wanted us to look after the canary,” Mason said.
She looked up and barely nodded.
“But,” Mason said, “there wasn’t any canary.”
She had started to raise the coffee cup to her lips, looking at Mason with tired eyes. Suddenly she became alert, holding the coffee cup arrested halfway to her lips.
“There wasn’t what?”
“There wasn’t any canary,” Mason said.
“What are you talking about? Of course there’s a canary! Dickey was there in his cage... He’s the one I was worrying about.”
“There wasn’t any canary,” Mason said.
“But, Mr. Mason... I don’t understand... There had to be. Dickey was there. Dickey, the canary.”
“No canary,” Mason said, “but there was something else.”
“What do you mean, something else?”
“A corpse,” Mason said, “in your shower.”