Chapter 15

Perry Mason was chuckling as Della Street drove the automobile toward his office. "Turn to the left at Fifth Street, Della," he said, "and go straight to the Union Depot."

"The Union Depot?" she asked.

He nodded. "The office is going to be too hot—you know, too many newspaper men, cops, detectives, district attorneys, and what have you. I want to use the telephone, and I'll go down to the depot while you're packing up."

She deftly avoided a jaywalking pedestrian, and gave Mason a sidelong glance. "What do you mean, while I'm packing up?"

"A couple of suitcases," he said, "a light airplane trunk if you have one."

"I have one."

"All of your party clothes. You're going to stay at an exclusive hotel, and I want you to put on a good show—act the part, you know."

"What's going to be my part?"

"A bride."

"The man in the case?" she inquired, as she slid the car to a stop when a traffic signal turned against her.

"He will only appear long enough to be very suddenly called back to town, interfering with his honeymoon most materially."

She was facing him now with calm, steady eyes, in which there was a mischievous light. "And who is the husband going to be?"

He bowed. "Unaccustomed as I am to honeymoons, I shall do my best to act the part of an awkward groom during the few minutes between the time we register and when I am called back to town upon most urgent business."

Her eyes dwelt upon his profile. Ahead of her a traffic light flashed from red to orange, through orange to green and was unheeded. Behind her a chorus of protesting horns sought to call her to her senses. Her voice was vibrant. "You always believe in acting a part perfectly," she said. "Would it be natural for a newlywed husband to interrupt his honeymoon?…"

The growing protest of blaring horns suddenly called her attention to the fact that the traffic on her right was streaming by, while the traffic on the left and directly behind her, being blocked by the car she drove, was expressing its sentiment with all of the impatience which a modern automobile horn is capable of registering.

"Oh, well," she said with whimsical philosophy, as she snapped her eyes back to the road and saw the green light of the traffic signal, "how are those poor fishes behind me going to know I'm a bride just starting on a honeymoon?"

She kicked the gear in, stepped on the throttle, and sent the convertible shooting across the intersection with such speed that she was half way down the block before some of the protesting drivers had fully awakened to the fact that the cause of their protests had departed, and only their own sluggish reactions were holding up the stream of traffic.

Mason lit a cigarette, offered it to her. She took it, and he lit another for himself. "I'm sorry," he said, "to wish this on you, Della, but you're the only one I know whom I can trust."

"On a honeymoon?" she asked dryly.

"On a honeymoon," he answered tonelessly.

She snapped the wheel savagely, making the tires scream as the car slid around to the left and headed toward the Union Depot.

"You don't necessarily need to collect any traffic tickets en route," he observed.

"Shut up," she told him. "I want to collect my thoughts. To hell with the traffic tickets."

She sped down the street, deftly avoiding the vehicles, slid to a stop in front of the Union Depot.

"I meet you here?" she asked.

"Yes," he told her, "with plenty of baggage."

"Okay, Chief."

He left the car, walked around the hood, took off his hat and stood for a moment by the curb. She sat very straight in the seat. Her skirts, well elevated to allow free action of her legs and feet in driving the car, showed her legs to advantage. Her chin was up, her eyes slightly defiant. She smiled into his face. "Anything else?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "you'll have to practice your best honeymoon manners, and quit calling me Chief."

"Okay," she said…"Darling," and, leaning forward, pressed her mouth close to his surprised lips. Then, before he could move, she had shot back the clutch, stepped on the throttle and whizzed away from the curb like a bullet, leaving Perry Mason standing on the curb blinking with surprise, lipstick showing on his lips.

Mason heard a chuckle from a newsboy. He grinned rather sheepishly, wiped the lipstick from his mouth, and strode toward the telephone booth.

He put in a call for Winifred Laxter, heard her voice on the telephone, "It's okay, Winifred," he said. "Your boyfriend came through like the trump that I knew he was."

"You mean… he's in touch with you?"

"He's in jail," Mason said.

She gave a gasp.

"And," Mason promised her grimly, "he won't stay there long. Don't try to get in touch with me. I won't be at my office. I'll call you as soon as there's anything new. Don't give out any statements to the press, in case any reporters should start looking for interviews. Pose for all the pictures they want, back of your waffle counter, or in front of the place. If you play it right, you should get a lot of advertisement for Winnie's Waffles."

"Advertisement!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "I want Douglas. I want to go to him. I want to see him."

"That's the one thing you can't do. If they'd let you in to see him he'd talk to you, and I don't want him to talk. They probably wouldn't let you in anyway. I don't think it's going to be long now until I have the case cleared up."

"You don't think Douglas is guilty, do you?"

Perry Mason laughed lightheartedly. "No boy that came through the way he did is guilty of anything," he said. "The kid's young, and he lost his head. You can't blame him for that. He was confronted with a frameup that would have stampeded an older man."

"Then it was a frameup?"

"Of course, it was a frameup."

"May I quote you as saying that—you know, in case someone…"

"You may not," he told her. "For the next fortyeight hours you may concentrate your attention upon making waffles. Goodby. I'm catching a train," and he hung up before she could protest.

Mason dropped another coin and called Drake's office. Paul Drake, himself, answered the telephone.

"Got a lot for you, Perry," he said. "Do you want it over the telephone?"

"Spill it."

"It's an earful."

"What is it?"

"There was a poker game going on—in the apartment house where Edith DeVoe was murdered. The poker game was on the same floor."

"So what?" Mason inquired.

"So one of the participants in the poker game, reading about the murder, considers it his civic duty to report to the police all about the poker game and about a mysterious gentleman who broke in on the game, saying he was the occupant of an adjoining apartment. That was just about the time the police showed up, and the man had an idea the chap might have been connected with the crime. The police showed him photographs of all the principals in the crime and then, after they checked up on his descriptions, showed him a photograph of you, and he identified it instantly."

"The moral of that story," Mason said, "is: Don't play cards with strangers. What are the cops doing? Are they taking it seriously?"

"I think they are. Sergeant Holcomb is all worked up about it. You sure as hell do get around, don't you, Perry?"

"I can't spend all my time in my office," Mason grinned. "This was after office hours, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. I thought you should know about it. But here's another funny development. The bird identified one of the other pictures—that of Sam Laxter. He said that he'd seen Sam in the corridor about eleven fifteen. They confronted him with Laxter and he made a positive identification."

"What does Sam say?"

"He isn't saying anything. Shuster is doing all the talking. Shuster says the man was drunk; that the illumination in the hallway wasn't good; that Sam wasn't anywhere near the place; that the man's a publicity seeker; and that Sam Laxter and Douglas Keene look very much alike and that Keene was the one the man saw; that the man wasn't wearing glasses, and that he's a liar."