“How do you mean?”
“What did you do last night after you got back to the room?”
“Talked about the weather, of course.”
“That’s fine,” he told her. “You had some drinks sent up, and sat and chatted, and then you got sleepy and went to sleep.”
“Who says that?” she asked.
“That’s what I say,” he explained, “and that’s what you’re going to say. You got sleepy and passed out.”
Her eyes were thoughtful. “How do you mean?”
Mason spoke as though he had been a teacher coaching a pupil. “You were tired and you’d been drinking. You got into your pajamas and went to sleep about elevenforty, and you don’t know anything that happened after that. You don’t know when Frank Locke left.”
“What good does it do me if I say I went to sleep?” she inquired.
Mason’s tone was casual. “I think Mrs. Belter would be very much inclined to overlook the matter of the embezzled account if you went to sleep as I mentioned.”
“Well, I didn’t go to sleep.”
“You’d better think it over.”
She stared at him with her big, appraising eyes and said nothing.
Mason crossed to the telephone and gave the number of Paul Drake’s Detective Agency.
“You know who this is, Paul,” he said, when he heard Drake’s voice. “What have you got, anything?”
“Yes,” said Drake, “I’ve got something on the broad.”
“Spill it,” said Mason.
“She won a beauty contest in Savannah,” said Drake. “She was under age at the time. There was another kid living with her in an apartment. A man got the kid in a jam, and then killed her. He tried to cover up the crime and made a bum job of it. He was arrested and tried. This girl switched her testimony at the last minute and gave him a break. He got a hung jury on the first trial, and managed to escape before they tried him again. He’s still a fugitive from justice. His name is Cecil Dawson. I’m looking him up for description and fingerprints, and any more dope I can get. I have an idea that he may be the man you want.”
“Okay,” Mason said, as though he had expected just that. “That comes in pretty handy right now. Stay with it, and I’ll get in touch with you a little later.”
He hung up the telephone and turned back to the girl.
“Well,” he asked, “what is it, yes or no?”
“No,” she said. “I told you that before, and I don’t change my mind.”
He stared at her, steadily. “You know, the funny part of it is,” he said, slowly, “that it goes farther back than just the blackmail. It goes back to the time that you changed your testimony, and gave Dawson an opportunity to get a hung jury. When he’s brought back and tried on that murder charge, the fact that you have been here with him and taking these checks from him will put you in kind of a tough spot on a perjury prosecution.”
Her face lost its color. Her eyes were big, dark and staring. Her mouth sagged open and she breathed heavily through it.
“My God!” she said.
“Exactly,” said Mason. “You were asleep last night.”
She kept her eyes on him and asked, “Would that square it?”
“I don’t know,” Mason told her. “It would square things at this end. I don’t know whether anybody’s going to make a squawk about the Georgia business or not.”
“All right. I was asleep.”
Mason got up and moved toward the door.
“You want to remember that,” he said. “Nobody knows about this except me. If you tell Locke that I was here, or the proposition I made you, I’ll see that you get the works everywhere along the line.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I know when I’ve had enough.”
He walked out and closed the door behind him.
He got in his car and drove to Sol Steinburg’s Pawnshop.
Steinburg was fat, with shrewd, twinkling eyes, a skull cap, and thick, curling lips, which were twisted in a perpetual smile.
He beamed on Perry Mason, and said, “Well, well, well. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, my friend.”
Mason shook hands. “It certainly has, Sol. And now I’m in trouble.”
The pawnbroker nodded and rubbed his hands together.
“Whenever they get in trouble,” he said, “they come to Sol Steinburg’s place. What is your trouble, my friend?”
“Listen,” said Mason, “I want you to do something for me.”
The skull cap nodded in vigorous assent.
“I’d do anything I could for you, y’understand. Of course, business is business. And if it’s a business matter, you’ve got to come to me on a business basis, and take business treatment. But if it ain’t business y’understand, I’d do anything I could.”
Mason’s eyes twinkled. “It’s business for you, Sol,” he said, “because you’re going to make fifty dollars out of it. But you don’t have to invest anything.”
The fat man broke out in laughter.
“That,” he proclaimed, “is the kind of business I like to talk—when I don’t have to invest anything, and make a fifty dollar profit already, I know it’s a good business. What do I do?”
“Let me see the register of revolvers you’ve sold,” Mason told him.
The man fished under a counter and produced a wellthumbed booklet, in which had been registered the style and make of the weapon, the number, the person to whom it was sold, and the signature of the purchaser.
Mason thumbed the pages until he found a 32Colt automatic.
“That’s the one,” he said.
Steinburg leaned over the book, and stared at the registration.
“What about it?”
“I’m coming in here with a man sometime today, or tomorrow,” said Mason, “and, as soon as you look at him, you nod your head vigorously, and say, ‘That’s the man, that’s the man, that’s the man, all right.’ I’ll ask you if you’re sure it’s the man and you get more and more certain. He’ll deny it, and the more he denies it, the more certain you get.”
Sol Steinburg pursed his thick lips. “That might be serious.”
Mason shook his head.
“It would be if you said it in court,” he admitted, “but you’re not going to say it in court. You’re not going to say it to anybody except this man. And you’re not going to say what it was he did. Simply identify him as being the man. Then you go in the back part of the store, and leave me with the firearm register here. Do you understand?”
“Sure, sure,” said Steinburg. “I understand it fine. All except one thing.”
“What’s that?” asked Mason.
“Where the fifty dollars is coming from.”
Mason slapped his pants pocket. “Right here, Sol.” He pulled out a roll of bills from which he took fifty dollars, and handed it to the pawnbroker.
“Anybody you come in with?” he asked. “Is that it?”
“Anybody I come in with,” Mason said. “I won’t come in here unless I’ve got the right man. I may have to dress the act up a little bit, but you follow my lead. Is that okay?”
The pawnbroker’s caressing fingers folded the fifty dollars.
“My friend,” he said, “whatever you do is all right with me. I say whatever I am supposed to say, and I say it loud, y’understand.”
“That’s fine,” said Mason. “Don’t get shaken in your identification.”
The skull cap twisted, as Sol Steinburg shook his head in vigorous negation.
Perry Mason walked out, whistling.
Chapter 14
Frank Locke sat in the editorial office and shred at Perry Mason.
“I understood that they were looking for you,” he said.