Perry Mason gripped the receiver until perspiration from the palm of his hand slimed the hard rubber.

"You've said that much," he said, "go ahead and say some more."

"I want Marjorie Clune kept out of this," Bradbury said. "No matter what else happens, Marjorie Clune has got to be kept out of it. I've sounded out the district attorney's office through some influential friends. The district attorney feels that Dr. Doray is the guilty person. If Dr. Doray will plead guilty, they'll dismiss the case against Marjorie, if Doray's statement will exonerate her."

"What will they do with Doray?" asked Perry Mason.

"They'll give him a life sentence. He'll escape the death penalty that way. It's really for his best interests to do that."

"I'm the one to determine what his best interests are," Mason said.

"No, you're not," Bradbury told him, "you're working under my orders."

"I'm defending Dr. Doray."

"You're defending him because I employed you."

"I don't give a damn who employed me," Mason said, "the man that I'm representing is the man that is entitled to my best efforts."

Bradbury's voice was coldly insistent.

"You are a man of strong will, Mason," he said. "I am a man of considerable will power, myself. The police are very much interested to learn whom you telephoned to from that drug store, and what you said over the telephone. While you're on your road to the office you might think over the situation in the light of the facts."

"Okay," Perry Mason said, "I'll see you when I get there. Goodby."

"Goodby," said Bradbury.

Perry Mason waited until he heard a click in his ear, then he said in a low voice, "You still on the line, Della?"

"Yes, chief," she said.

"Did you hear what he said?"

"I've got it all down in shorthand," she told him.

"Good girl," Mason said. "Put him in the law library. I'll be there inside of an hour. You keep Bradbury where he can't do any mischief. Tell him I may be in at any moment. Keep him in the law library and watch that telephone. Evidently he knows how to work that switchboard connection. He must have figured what you were doing, plugged himself in on the line and gone into my private office."

"Is it true," she asked, "about the police and the taxicab?"

Perry Mason grinned into the telephone.

"You know just as much about it as I do, Della," he said. "Why don't you talk some more with Bradbury?"

"But that means you're in an awful spot, chief."

"I always get in a spot before I get done," he said, "and I always get out of it. I'll be seeing you, Della. 'By."

He hung up the receiver and dialed the office of the Cooperative Investigating Bureau.

"Mason talking," he said. "Any more reports on Vera Cutter?"

"Just a moment," said the telephone operator.

A man's voice came on the line.

"Who is this talking?" he asked.

"Perry Mason."

"Are you acquainted with Mr. Samuels?" asked the voice.

"Yes."

"What's his first name?"

"Jack."

"When did you first meet him?"

"About a year ago," Perry Mason said. "He came to my office soliciting business."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him the Drake Detective Bureau did all of my work, but I'd give him a break if there was anything they couldn't handle."

"Okay," the voice said, "I guess you're Mason all right. Here's the latest: Vera Cutter stays in her room at the Monmarte Hotel. It's room 503. From time to time she calls the Drake Detective Bureau. We haven't been able to plug in on the conversations. She doesn't call any one else, but at irregular intervals some man calls and asks for her."

"Is she in her room now?" asked Perry Mason.

"Yes."

"That's all," he said. "I'm going to drop in for a chat with her. Don't have your detectives waste time trailing me when I leave. I'll have a young woman with me."

He hung up the telephone and went to the taxicab where Marjorie Clune was seated, her face held rigidly straight ahead.

"Margy," he said, "would you know Eva Lamont's voice if you heard it?"

"I think so," she said.

Mason nodded to the cab driver.

"Monmarte Hotel," he said.

Mason dropped into the cushions beside the girl.

"What's Eva Lamont doing here?" asked Marjorie Clune.

"If it is Eva Lamont," Perry Mason said, "and I think it is, she's trying her damnedest to get Bob Doray mixed into the murder case."

"Why should she do that?" Marjorie Clune asked.

"There might be two reasons," Mason said, his eyes squinting thoughtfully.

"And what are those?"

He was staring out of the cab window, watching the scenery with speculative, thoughtful eyes.

"No, Margy," he said, "I'm not going to bother you with a lot of things to think about. Just promise me one thing, that is if the police should pick you up, you won't say anything to them."

"I'd made up my mind to that long ago," she told him.

Perry Mason said nothing, continued to stare at the traffic. The cab driver worked his way toward the righthand curb.

"Go right up to the hotel entrance?" he asked.

"Yes," Mason said, "that's as far as we're going."

He paid off the cab, took Marjorie Clune's arm, escorted her to the elevator of the hotel.

"Fifth floor," he told the operator.

As they left the elevator on the fifth floor, Perry Mason bent forward so that his lips were close to Marjorie Clune's ear.

"I'm going in the room," he said. "I'm going to get that woman in an argument of some sort. I'll try and get her to raise her voice. You keep your ear close to the door and see if you can recognize her voice. If you can recognize it, okay. If you can't, knock on the door, and I'll open it."

"If it's Eva Lamont she'll recognize me," said Marjorie Clune.

"That's all right," he told her, "that's one of the things we've got to figure on. But I've got to know whether that's Eva Lamont."

He piloted Marjorie Clune around the bend in the corridor.

"Here's the place," he said. "You'd better stand against the wall there. I'll try and get her to talk while the door's open. I'm afraid you aren't going to be able to hear through the door."

Perry Mason knocked at the door.

The door was opened from the inside just a bare crack.

"Who is it?" asked a woman's low voice.

"A man from the Drake Detective Bureau," Mason said.

There was not another word. The door swung wide open. A woman attired in street costume smiled invitingly at him.

Perry Mason entered the room.

"Well," he said, "it looks as though you were getting ready to leave us."

The woman stared at Perry Mason, then followed his gaze to the wardrobe trunk which stood by the side of the bed partially filled with clothes, to the open suitcase on the bed, and the closed suitcase on the chair.

She looked back at the open door, then wordlessly crossed to the door, closed it and locked it.

"What was it," she asked, "that you wanted?"

"I wanted to find out," Perry Mason said, "why it was that you registered under the name of Vera Cutter, and yet your baggage has the initials E.L. on it."

"That's simple," she said. "My sister's name is Edith Loring."

"And you're from Cloverdale?" asked Perry Mason.

"I'm from Detroit."

Perry Mason walked over to the wardrobe trunk. He picked up a skirt which hung on a wooden hanger and turned the wooden hanger so that it showed the imprint:

The dark eyes regarded him with glittering malevolence.

"My sister," she said, "lives in Cloverdale."

"But you're from Detroit?" he asked.

"Say, who are you?" she asked in a voice that was suddenly hard. "You aren't from the Drake Detective Bureau."

Perry Mason smiled.

"That," he said, "was just an excuse to get in and talk with you. What I really wanted to ask you was…"