"No. He said he'd have to talk with you; that it was a matter of life and death."

"Did he try to find out if his wife had been here yesterday?"

"No."

"How does he seem?"

"Nervous," Della Street said. "He's pale as a ghost. There are dark rings under his eyes. He hasn't shaved this morning, and his collar is wilted at the top, as though he'd been perspiring."

"What kind of a looking chap is he, Della?"

"He's short and smallboned. His clothes are expensive, but he doesn't wear them well. His mouth is weak. I have an idea he may be a year or two younger than she is. He's the sort of man who could be petulant if he wasn't frightened. He hasn't lived enough to be sure of himself or of any one else."

Perry Mason smiled. "Della," he said, "some day I'm going to let you sit beside me when I'm picking a jury. So far you've never failed to call the turn."

"You know about him?" she asked.

"Darn near all about him," the lawyer admitted. "Do you think we can keep him waiting while I finish this newspaper article?"

She shook her head swiftly. "That's why I came in to see you. He's frightfully impatient. I wouldn't be surprised if he left the office if you tried to keep him waiting."

Mason reluctantly folded the paper, thrust it in the drawer of his desk. "Send him in," he said.

Della Street held the door open. "Mr. Mason will see you Mr. Montaine."

A man slightly below medium height entered the office with quick, restless steps, walked to the edge of Perry Mason's desk, and waited for Della Street to close the door before he spoke. Then he spilled words with the rattling speed of a child reciting poetry. "My name is Carl W. Montaine. I'm the son of C. Phillip Montaine, the Chicago multimillionaire. You've probably heard of him."

The lawyer shook his head.

"You've seen the morning papers?" Montaine asked.

"I've looked at the headlines," Mason said. "I haven't had a chance to read the paper thoroughly. Sit down."

Montaine crossed to the big leather chair, sat on the extreme end of it, leaning forward. A mop of hair hung over his forehead. He brushed it back with an impatient gesture of his palm. "Did you read about the murder?"

Perry Mason wrinkled his brow, as though trying to focus some vague recollection in his memory. "Yes, I noticed it in the headlines. Why?"

Montaine came even closer to the edge of the chair, until he seemed almost ready to slide to the floor. "My wife," he said, "is going to be accused of that murder."

"Did she do it?"

"No." Mason studied the young man in silent appraisal. "She couldn't have done it," Montaine said forcefully. "She isn't capable of it. She's mixed up in it some way, though. She knows who did do it. If she doesn't know, she suspects. I think she knows, and she's shielding him. She's been his tool all along. Unless we can save her, this man will get her in such a position that no one can save her. Right now she's trying to shield him. He's hiding behind her skirts. She'll lie to protect him, and then he will gradually get her in deeper and deeper. You've got to save her."

"The murder," Mason reminded him, "was committed around two o'clock in the morning. Wasn't your wife home then?"

"No."

"How do you know?"

"It's a long story. I'd have to begin at the beginning."

Mason's tone was crisply definite. "Begin, then, at the beginning," he commanded. "Sit back in the chair and relax. Tell me the whole thing from the very beginning."

Montaine slid back into the recesses of the leather chair, whipped his hand to his forehead with that quick, nervous gesture of brushing his hair back. His eyes were a reddishbrown. They were fastened on Perry Mason's face, as the eyes of a crippled dog might fasten themselves upon a veterinary.

"Go ahead," Mason said.

"My name is Carl Montaine. I'm the son of C. Phillip Montaine, the Chicago multimillionaire."

"You told me that before," the lawyer said.

"I finished college," Montaine said. "My father wanted me to go into business. I wanted to see something of the world. I traveled for a year. Then I came here. I was very nervous. I had acute appendicitis. It was necessary for me to be operated on immediately. My father was tied up with a very involved financial matter. There were many thousands of dollars involved. He couldn't come here. I went to the Sunnyside Hospital and had the best medical attention that money could buy. My father saw to that. I had a special nurse night and day. The night nurse was named Lorton—Rhoda Lorton." Montaine stopped impressively, as though the words would convey some significance to Perry Mason.

"Go ahead," the lawyer said.

Montaine dug his elbows into the leather arms of the chair, hitched himself farther forward. "I married her," he blurted. His manner was that of a man who has confessed to some crime.

"I see," Mason remarked, as though marrying nurses was the customary procedure of all convalescents.

Montaine hitched forward to the edge of the chair once more and pushed back his hair. "You can imagine how that must have seemed to my father," he said. "I am an only child. The Montaine line must be carried on through me. I had married a nurse."

"What's wrong with marrying a nurse?" the lawyer asked.

"Nothing. You don't understand. I'm trying to explain this from my father's viewpoint."

"Why bother about your father's viewpoint?"

"Because it's important."

"All right, then, go ahead."

"Out of a clear sky, my father gets a telegram announcing that I have married Rhoda Lorton, the nurse who was employed on the case."

"You didn't tell him you intended to marry her?"

"No, I hardly knew, myself. It was one of those impulses."

"Why didn't you become engaged to her and notify him of that?"

"Because he would have objected. He would have made a great deal of trouble. I wanted to marry her more than I had ever wanted anything in the world. I knew that if I gave him any notice of my intentions, I could never carry them out. He would have discontinued my allowance, ordered me to come home, done almost anything."

"Go ahead," Mason said.

"Well, I married her. I wired my father. He was very nice about it. He was still working on the business deal I spoke of and couldn't leave. He wanted us to come to Chicago to visit him. But Rhoda didn't want to go right away. She wanted to wait a little while."

"So you didn't go."

"No, we didn't go."

"Your father didn't like that?"

"I don't think he liked it."

"You wanted to tell me about a murder," Mason prompted.

"Have you a morning paper here in the office?" Mason opened the drawer of his desk, took out the newspaper he had been reading when Della Street had announced Carl Montaine. "Turn to page three, please," Montaine said.

Mason turned to the third page of the newspaper. The photograph of a key, reproduced in its exact size, appeared in the center of the third page. Below the picture appeared the words:

Montaine took a leather key container from his pocket, detached a key, handed it to Perry Mason. "Compare them," he said.

Mason held the key over the photograph, then placed the key on the other side of the paper, made a pencil tracing, slowly nodded his head. "How does it happen," he inquired, "that you have this key? I understood the police were holding it."

Montaine shook his head and said, "Not this key. This is my key. The one that's pictured there is my wife's key. We've got duplicate keys to the garage and to the two automobiles. She dropped her keys when she…" His voice trailed into silence.

He opened the leather key container, spread it on the desk and indicated the keys. "The door keys to the Chevrolet coupe and the Plymouth sedan. My wife usually drives the Chevrolet. I drive the sedan. But sometimes we change off, so, to simplify matters, we each have duplicate keys to the doors and then leave ignition keys right in the locks."