Perry Mason slid from the desk, and turned to face the detective, his feet spread apart, his shoulders squared.

"Spill it!" he said.

"Did she?"

"Yes."

The detective nodded. "This," he said, "is service with a capital 'S. That's what comes of maintaining friendly relations with a detective bureau that's in the same office building…"

"Cut the comedy and give me the dope," Mason ordered.

Paul Drake spoke in a husky, expressionless voice. He might have been a radio announcer droning through a list of stock exchange quotations, utterly insensible to the fact that his words spelled financial independence or economic disaster to his listeners.

"I'm coming out of my office on the floor below yours," he said, "when I hear a man's feet coming down the stairs from this floor. He's running fast, until he hits my floor, and then he forgets he's in a hurry. He saunters over to the elevator, lights a cigarette, and keeps his eye on the indicator. When the indicator shows that a cage has stopped at your floor, he pushes the down bell. Naturally, the same cage stops for him. There's only one passenger in it—a woman about twentysix or seven, wearing a brown suit. She's got a trim figure, a fulllipped mouth and snapping black eyes. Her complexion isn't anything to write home about. She's nervous, and her nostrils are expanded a bit, as though she's been running. She looks frightened."

"You must have had binoculars and an Xray machine," Mason interrupted.

"Oh, I didn't get all this in the first glance," the detective told him. "When I heard this guy tearing down the stairs, and then saw him start to saunter as he hit the corridor, I figured it would be a good plan to ride down on the same elevator with him. I thought I might be drumming up a job for myself."

Mason's eyes were hard. Smoke seeped through his nostrils. "Go on," he said.

"The way I figure it," the detective drawled, "was that this guy was a tail. He'd followed the jane to your office and was waiting in the corridor for her to come out. He was probably parked at the head of the stairs, keeping out of sight. When he heard your door open and the jane go out, he gave a quick glance to make sure it was the party he wanted. Then he ran down the stairs to the lower corridor and sauntered along to the elevator, so he could catch the same cage down."

Mason made an impatient gesture. "You don't have to draw me a diagram. Give me the dope."

"I wasn't sure she'd come from your office, Perry," the detective went on. "If I had been, I'd have given it more of a play. The way the thing stacked up, I thought I'd see what it was all about. So when they got to the street, I trailed along for a ways. The guy was tailing her all right. Somehow, I don't figure him for a professional shadow. In the first place, he was too nervous. You know, a good tail trains himself never to show surprise. No matter what happens, he never gets nervous and ducks for cover. Well, about half a block from the building, this woman suddenly turns around. The man that was back of her went into a panic and ducked for a doorway. I kept on walking toward her."

"You think she'd spotted one or the other of you?" Mason asked, his growing interest apparent in his voice.

"No, she didn't know we were living. She'd either thought of something she'd forgotten to ask you, or else she'd changed her mind about something. She didn't even look at me as she went by. She turned around and started back toward me. She didn't even see the chap who was standing in the doorway, trying to make himself look inconspicuous, and making such hard work of it that he stuck out like a sore thumb."

"Then what?" Mason inquired.

"She walked fifteen or twenty steps and then stopped. I figured that she'd acted on impulse when she turned around and started back. While she was walking back, she got to arguing with herself. She acted as though she was afraid of something. She wanted to come back, but she didn't dare to come back, or perhaps it was her pride. I don't know what had happened, but…"

"That's all right," Mason said, "I know all about that. I expected she'd turn and come back before she got to the elevator. But she didn't. I guess she couldn't take it."

Drake nodded. "Well," he remarked, "she fidgeted around for a minute and then she turned around again and started down the street once more. Her shoulders were sagging. She looked as though she'd lost the last friend she had in the world. She went past me a second time without seeing me. I'd stopped to light a cigarette. She didn't see the chap who had been sticking in the doorway; evidently, she didn't expect to be tailed."

"What did he do?" the lawyer asked.

"When she went by, he stepped out of the doorway and took up the trail."

"What did you do?"

"I didn't want to make it look like a procession. I figured that if she came from your office and was being shadowed, you'd like to know it, but I wasn't certain she'd come from your office, in the first place; and I had work to do, so I figured I'd tip you off and let it go at that."

Mason squinted his eyes. "You'd know this chap, of course, if you saw him again—the one who was trailing her?"

"Sure. He's not a bad looking guy—about thirtytwo or thirtythree, light hair, brown eyes, dressed in tweeds. I'd say he was something of a ladies' man, from the way he wore his clothes. His hands were manicured. The nails were freshly polished. He'd been shaved and massaged in a barber shop. He had that barber shop smell about him, and there was powder on his face. A man usually doesn't powder his face when he shaves himself. When he does, he puts the powder on with his hands. A barber pats it on with a towel and doesn't rub it in."

Perry Mason frowned thoughtfully. "In a way she's a client of mine, Paul," he said; "she called to consult me and then got cold feet and didn't. Thanks for the tip. If anything comes of it, I'll let you know."

The detective moved toward the door, paused to grin back over his shoulder. "I wish," he drawled, "you two would quit holding hands in the outer office and looking innocent when the door opens. I might have been a client. What the hell have you got a private office for?"

Chapter 3

Perry Mason stared somberly down into Della Street 's flushed face.

"How did he know," she asked, "that I was holding your hand? I moved it before the door opened, and…"

"Just a shot in the dark," Mason told her, his voice preoccupied. "Something in your facial expression, probably… Della, I'm going to give that girl a break. I'm going to back up. If we accepted a retainer from her we're going to see it through."

"But we can't do it. You don't know what she wanted you to do."

Perry Mason nodded and said grimly, "That's all right; she was in some sort of trouble. I'll get in touch with her, find out what it is and either give her her retainer back or help her. What's her address?"

Della Street took a sheet of yellow paper from the file.

"Her name," she said, "is Helen Crocker. She lives at 496 East Pelton Avenue, and the telephone number is Drenton 68942." Without waiting for comment from Mason, she plugged in a line and spun the dial on the telephone. The receiver made noise, and Della Street frowned. "Drenton sixeightninefourtwo," she said.

Once more, the receiver made squawking noises. There was a moment's pause, then Della Street spoke into the transmitter. "I am looking for a telephone listed under the name of Crocker. The initials I'm not certain about. The former number was Drenton sixeightninefourtwo. That number has been disconnected, but it was listed under her name." The receiver made more sound. Della Street said, "The address is four ninetysix East Pelton Avenue. What have you listed there?… Thanks very much—probably a mistake in the number."