"What happened?"
"There was fortyeight thousand dollars," she said. "He gave it to me, and told me he was sorry he'd been holding out my regular allowance. He said he'd decided to change his mind."
"Had he accused you of being blackmailed before that?"
"No."
"And he gave you this money in cash?"
"Yes."
"You came to him and told him that you needed cash?"
"I told him that I simply had to have some money and have it right away."
"And he didn't say anything about you being blackmailed?"
"No."
"Were you being blackmailed?"
She bit her lip and looked down at the floor.
"Is that any of your business?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes," she said, "I was being blackmailed."
"All right," he said. "Was it by the housekeeper?"
She started, and raised her eyes to his with a look of alarm.
"How did you know?"
"I suspected," he said. "How much did you give her?"
"I gave her all of it," she said. "All except the ten thousand dollars that I gave you."
"Does that mean," he said, "that you haven't any of those thousand dollar bills in your possession?"
"That's right."
"Now listen. Let's not have any misunderstanding about this, and let's get it straight. You're in a jam, and I'm going to get you out, but it's important I know exactly what happened with that money. You haven't any of it in your possession?"
"Not a bit," she said.
Perry Mason took the ten thousand dollars which she had given him from his wallet and fingered the bills.
"You knew," he asked, "that all of these bills were numbered consecutively, and that various banking institutions in this city had been given a list of those numbers?"
"No," she said in a wan, frightened voice.
"Well," he told her, "that's a fact. Thousand dollar bills aren't so numerous but what they attract attention when they're deposited, and it's almost necessary to take them to a bank to change them. Merchants don't ordinarily carry change for a thousand dollars in their tills."
Perry Mason went to the desk, picked up a long envelope of heavy manila paper, sealed the ten thousand dollars in currency in the envelope, unscrewed the cap from a fountain pen, and addressed the envelope to Carl S. Belknap, 3298 15th Street, Denver, Colorado, and jabbed his forefinger on the button on the side of his desk, which summoned his secretary.
When Della Street opened the door, Perry Mason tossed her the envelope with a careless gesture.
"Stamp and mail this," he said. "First Class."
She looked at the address.
"I didn't know we had any correspondence with a Mr. Belknap," she said.
"We have now," he told her. "Send it registered mail."
She nodded, flashed one swiftly appraising glance at Frances Celane, then slipped back through the door to the outer office.
Perry Mason turned to Frances Celane.
"All right," he said. "That envelope will be in the mail for the next few days. Eventually it will come back to me. In the meantime, nobody is going to find that money on me. Now why didn't you tell the police about that in the first place?"
Her eyes suddenly snapped black fire.
"That's my business!" she said. "I hired you as an attorney to represent my interests. Don't think that you can stand there and tell me what I'm going to do, and what I'm not going to do…"
He took a stride toward her and said: "You're either going to control that temper, or you're going to march up the gallows and have a black bag put around your neck. Did you ever think of how you would like to be hung?"
She got to her feet and drew back her hand as though she intended to slap him.
"You've been a spoiled spitfire all your life," Perry Mason told her. "Now you're facing a situation you can't handle by yourself. Just as sure as you're standing there, you're going to be arrested within the next fortyeight hours, and the case that's going to be built up against you is going to be so black that I don't know whether I can get you out of it or not."
Sheer surprise pushed her rage to one side, and showed in her dark eyes.
"Arrested? Me, arrested?"
"Arrested," he told her, "for murder."
"Devoe was arrested for murder," she said. "He's the one that did it."
"Devoe didn't do it," said Perry Mason, "any more than I did. That is, if he did do it, no one is ever going to prove it. He's got an attorney that knows the ropes, and he's going to drag you into this."
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Because he was here in this office less than an hour ago and told me so."
She sank back in the chair and stared at him, all of the temper gone from her eyes, which were now dark and pathetic.
"What did he want?" she asked.
"Money," he said.
Her face showed a trace of relief.
"All right," she said. "We'll give it to him."
"We will not," he said.
"Why?"
"Because," he said, "he'd blackmail you to death. He doesn't know for sure that you are in a bad jam, but he suspects it. He wanted to make sure. If I'd talked terms with him, he'd have been sure. He's heard whispers somewhere. He wanted to verify them. If I'd given in to him on the money end of it, he'd have been sure."
"But," she asked, "what did you do?"
His voice was grim.
"I threw him out of the office," he said.
"How much does he know?" she asked.
"Not much, but he suspects a lot."
"I'm afraid of him," she said, in a voice that was almost a wail.
"You've got a right to be," he said. "Now I want to get at the bottom of this thing. Tell me exactly what happened when your uncle was murdered."
She took a deep breath and said in a low monotone, "I was in the house. I had had a quarrel with him. He had been very bitter, and I lost my temper and said things that hurt."
"You would," said the lawyer dryly.
"I did," she said, without expression.
There was a moment of silence.
"Go on," said the lawyer.
"He took some money from his wallet," she said. "It wasn't all of the money that was in there. There were some bills left. I don't know exactly how many, but he pushed the currency toward me and told me to take it. He said that he had intended to cut down on my allowance to bring me to my senses, but that he'd come to the conclusion I would never come to my senses. He said it was really my money and if I wanted to throw it away, that was my business."
"So you took the money," he told her.
"Yes, of course."
"Then what?"
"Then," she said, "I gave all of it except ten thousand dollars to Mrs. Mayfield."
"Why did you do that?" he asked.
"Because she knew I had been married, and was threatening to tell my uncle about it."
"Was that before Crinston came to the house, or afterwards?"
"You mean when I gave her the money?"
"Yes."
"Afterwards."
"Who saw you give the money to her… anyone?"
"Rob Gleason."
Perry Mason whistled.
"So Gleason was there, eh?" he asked.
"Yes," she said slowly, "Gleason was there. That's why I said I wasn't there."
"All right," he said grimly, "tell me about that."
"You know that we are married," she said. "Rob drove up in his car, a Chevrolet. There's a porch which opens out from my room, and he came to that porch and I let him in. He was worried about Mrs. Mayfield and about what my uncle was going to do. I told him that I'd seen my uncle and I thought things were all right.