"All right," said Mason; "what is it?"

"It's Vol de Nuit," said Della Street.

Perry Mason got to his feet, started pacing the office, head thrust forward, thumbs hooked in the arm holes of his vest. Abruptly he whirled on Della Street.

"All right," he said, "get this friend of yours, and get a bottle of that perfume. Never mind what it costs. Bust into the store if you have to. Get that just as soon as you can, and then come back to the office and wait until you hear from me."

'You got something in mind, Perry?" asked Paul Drake.

Mason nodded wordlessly.

"I don't want to say anything," said Drake, choosing his words carefully, and speaking with that characteristic drawl which gave the impression of a man to whom all forms of excitement had become a matter of routine, "but it seems to me that you're skating on thin ice. I'd like to know more what the sirens were doing, screaming out toward that Foley residence, before you got mixed into this thing too deep."

Mason studied Drake steadily for several seconds, and then said, "Were you going to tell me how to practice law?"

"I might tell you," said Paul Drake, "how to keep out of jail. I don't know law, but I know thin ice when I see it."

"A lawyer," said Perry Mason slowly, "who wouldn't skate on thin ice for a client ain't worth a damn."

"Suppose you break through?" Drake asked.

"Listen," Mason told him, "I know what I'm doing." He walked to the desk, took his forefinger and drew it along the blotter.

"There's the line of the law," he said. "I'm going to come so damn close to that line that I'm going to rub elbows with it, but I'm not going to go across it. That's why I want witnesses to everything I do."

"What are you going to do?" asked Drake.

"Plenty," said Perry Mason. "Get your hat; we're going to go places."

"Such as?" Drake wanted to know.

"The Breedmont Hotel," said Perry Mason.

Chapter 12

The seventh floor of the Breedmont Hotel was a wide vista of polished doors. The corridor was wide and spacious, well lit with a soft light that came from indirect lighting fixtures. The carpet in the corridor was deep and springy.

"What was the room number?" asked Perry Mason.

"764," Drake told him. "It's around the corner, here."

"Okay," the lawyer said.

"What do you want me to do?" Drake asked.

"Keep everything shut except your eyes and your ears, unless I give you a tip to cut in on the conversation," Mason said.

"I get you," Drake remarked. "Here's your door."

Perry Mason knocked on it.

For several seconds there was no sound from the interior of the room. Mason knocked again, and then there was the rustle of motion, the sound of a bolt clicking, and a highpitched feminine voice, speaking with nervous rapidity, said, "Who is it?" The door opened a bare crack.

"An attorney who wants to see you on a matter of importance," Perry Mason said in a low voice.

"I don't want to see any one," said the highpitched voice, and the door started to close.

Perry Mason's foot blocked the door, just before the latch clicked into position.

"Come on, Paul," he said, and put his shoulder to the door.

A woman gave a high, hysterical scream, struggled for a moment, and then the door abruptly yielded.

The two men walked into the hotel bedroom as a partially clad woman staggered off balance, stared at them in whitefaced panic, and abruptly snatched a silk kimono from the back of a chair.

"How dare you!" she blazed.

"Close the door, Paul," said Perry Mason.

The woman gathered the robe around her, walked determinedly to the telephone.

"I," she said, "am about to telephone to the police."

"Never mind about that," Perry Mason told her. "The police will be here soon enough."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about," Perry Mason said. "You're about at the end of your rope — Mrs. Bessie Forbes."

At the name, the woman stood stiff and erect, staring at them with eyes that were dark with panic.

"Good God!" she said.

"Exactly," said Perry Mason. "Sit down now, and talk sense. We've got just a few minutes to talk, and I've got to tell you a lot. You've got to listen and cut out all this monkey business."

She dropped into a chair, and her excitement was such that the dressing gown fell open and remained unnoticed, disclosing the gleam of a bare shoulder, the luster of a sheer silk stocking.

Perry Mason stood with his feet planted apart, his shoulders squared, and snapped words at the woman, as though they had been missiles.

"I know all about you," he said. "There's no need to make any denial or go for any heroics or hysterics. You were the wife of Clinton Forbes. He left you in Santa Barbara and ran away with Paula Cartright. You tried to follow them. I don't know what your object was. I'm not asking you that, yet. Cartright located Clinton Forbes before you did. Forbes was living on Milpas Drive, under the name of Clinton Foley. Cartright got the house adjoining him, but didn't make his identity known. He was pretty well broken up. He was watching all the time, trying to find out whether Forbes was making his wife happy.

"I don't know just when you found out about it, or just how you found out about it, but it wasn't very long ago that you got wise to the whole situation.

"Now then, here's the funny thing. I'm a lawyer. You may have read of me. I've tried a few murder cases, and I expect to try some more. I specialize on criminal trial work on the big cases. My name's Perry Mason."

"You!" she said, in a tone of breathless interest. "You? You're Perry Mason?"

He nodded.

"Oh!" she breathed. "Oh, I'm so glad."

"Forget all that," he said, "and remember we've got an audience. I'm going to tell you a lot of stuff while I've got a witness here. You're going to listen and do nothing else. Do you get me?"

"Yes," she said, "I guess I understand what you want, all right, but I'm so glad to see you. I wanted…"

"Shut up," he told her, "and listen."

She nodded.

"Cartright," said Perry Mason, "came to my office. He acted strangely. He wanted to make a will. We won't talk about the terms of that will — not yet. But with the will came a letter and a retainer. The letter instructed me to protect the interests of the wife of the man who was living at 4889 Milpas Drive, under the name of Clinton Foley. Now get that, and get it straight. He didn't tell me to protect the woman who was going under the name of Mrs. Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive, but he told me to protect the lawfully wedded wife of the man who was going under the name of Clinton Foley, at that place."

"But did he understand just what he was doing? He wouldn't —"

"Shut up," Mason said. "Time's precious. I've got a witness to listen to what I say to you. I know what that's going to be. But I may not want a witness to what you say to me, because I don't know what you're going to say. Understand? I'm a lawyer, trying to protect you.

"Now Arthur Cartright mailed me a substantial retainer, with instructions to protect you and see that your legal rights were safeguarded. I've got the fee, and I propose to earn it. If you don't want my services, all you've got to do is to say so, and I walk out right now."

"No, no," she said, in a shrill, highpitched voice. "I want your services. I need them. I want…"

"All right," Perry Mason said. "Now, then, can you do what I tell you to?"

"If it isn't too complicated," she said.

"It's going to be hard," he said, "but it isn't going to be complicated."

"Very well," she said. "What is it?"

"If anybody," he told her, "questions you about where you were at any time tonight, or what you were doing, tell them that you can't answer any questions unless your attorney is present, and that I'm your lawyer. Now, can you remember that?"