Eric Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Crimson Kiss

Chapter one

Preoccupation with her own happiness prevented Fay Allison from seeing the surge of bitter hatred in Anita’s eyes.

So Fay, wrapped in the warmth of romantic thoughts, went babbling on to her roommate, her tongue loosened by the double cocktail which Anita had prepared before dinner.

“I’d known I loved him for a long time,” she said, “but honestly, Anita, it never occurred to me that Dane was the marrying kind. He’d had that one unfortunate affair, and he’d always seemed so detached and objective about things. Of course, underneath all that reserve he’s romantic and tender. Anita, I’m getting a break I don’t deserve.”

Anita Bonsal, having pushed her dinner plate to one side, toyed with the stem of her empty cocktail glass. Her eyes were pinpricks of black hatred which she was afraid to let Fay Allison see. “You’ve fixed a date?” she asked, concentrating on the rotating base of the glass.

“Just as soon as Aunt Louise can get here. I want her to be with me. I... and, of course, I’ll want you, dear.”

“When will Aunt Louise get here?”

“Tomorrow or the next day, I think. I haven’t heard from her definitely.”

“You’ve written her?”

“Yes. She’ll take the night plane. I mailed her my extra key so she can come right on in whenever she gets here, even if we aren’t here.”

Anita Bonsal was silent, but Fay Allison wanted to talk. “You know how Dane is. He’s always been sort of impersonal. He took you out at first as much as he did me, and then he began to specialize on me. Of course, you’re so popular, you don’t mind. It’s different with me. Anita, I was afraid to acknowledge even to myself how deeply I felt, because I thought it might lead to heartache.”

“All of my congratulations, dear,” Anita said.

“Don’t you think it will work out, Anita? You don’t seem terribly enthusiastic.”

“Of course it will work out. I’m not gushing because I’m a selfish devil and it’s going to make a lot of difference in my personal life — the apartment and all that. Come on, let’s get the dishes done. I’m going out tonight and I presume you’ll be having company.”

“No, Dane’s not coming over. He’s going through a ceremony at his bachelors’ club — one of those silly things that men belong to. He has to pay a forfeit or something, and there’s a lot of horseplay. I’m so excited, I’m just walking on air.”

“Well,” Anita said, “I go away for a three-day weekend and a lot seems to happen around here. I’ll have to start looking for another roommate. This apartment is too big for me to carry by myself.”

“You won’t have any trouble. Just pick the person you want. How about one of the girls at the office?”

Anita shook her head, tight-lipped.

“Well, of course, I’ll pay until the fifteenth and then...”

“Don’t worry about that,” Anita said lightly. “I’m something of a lone wolf at heart. I don’t get along too well with most women, but I’ll find someone. It’ll take a little time for me to look around. Most of the girls in the office are pretty sappy.”

They did the dishes and straightened up the apartment, Fay Allison talking excitedly, laughing with lighthearted merriment, Anita Bonsal moving with the swift efficiency of one who is deft with her hands, saying little.

As soon as the dishes had been finished and put away, Anita slipped into a black evening dress, put on her fur coat, smiled at Fay Allison, and said, “You’d better take some of the sleeping pills tonight, dear. You’re all wound up.”

Fay said somewhat guiltily, “I’m afraid I talked you to death, Anita. I wanted someone to listen while I built air castles. I... I’ll read a book. I’ll be waiting up when you get back.”

“Don’t,” Anita said. “It’ll be late.”

Fay said wistfully, “You’re always so mysterious about things, Anita. I really know very little about your friends. Don’t you ever want to get married and have a home of your own?”

“Not me. I’m too fond of having my own way, and I like life as it is,” Anita said, and slipped out through the door, gently pulling it shut behind her.

She walked down the corridor to the elevator, pressed the button, and when the cage came up to the sixth floor, stepped in and pressed the button for the lobby. She waited until the elevator was halfway down, pressed the stop button, then the button for the seventh floor.

The elevator rattled slowly upward and came to a stop.

Anita calmly opened her purse, took out a key, walked down the long corridor, glanced swiftly back toward the elevator, then fitted the key to apartment 702 and opened the door.

Carver L. Clements looked up from his newspaper, removed the cigar from his mouth, regarded Anita Bonsal with eyes that showed swift approval, but kept his voice detached as he said, “It took you long enough to get here.”

“I had to throw a little wool in the eyes of my roommate and listen to her prattle of happiness. She’s marrying Dane Grover.”

Carver Clements put down the newspaper. “The hell she is!”

“It seems he went overboard in a burst of romance, and his attentions became serious and honorable,” Anita said bitterly. “Fay has written her aunt, Louise Marlow, and as soon as the aunt gets here they’ll be married.”

Carver Clements shifted his position slightly, as though by doing so he could look at the tall brunette from a slightly different angle. “I had it figured out that you were in love with Dane Grover yourself.”

“So that’s been the trouble with you lately!”

“Weren’t you?”

“Heavens, no!”

“You know, my love,” Clements went on, “I’d hate to lose you now.”

Anger blazed in her eyes. “Don’t think you can own me!” she said sharply. “You only rent me.”

“Let’s call it a lease,” he said.

“It’s a tenancy-at-will,” she flared. “And kindly get up when I come into the room. After all, you might as well show some manners.”

Clements arose from the chair. He was a spidery man with long arms and legs, a thick, short body, a head almost bald, but he spent a small fortune on clothes that were skillfully cut to conceal the chunkiness of his body. He smiled and said, “My little spitfire! But I like you for it. Remember, Anita, I’m playing for keeps. As soon as I can get my divorce straightened out—”

“You and your divorce!” she interrupted. “You’ve been pulling that line...”

“It isn’t a line. There are some very intricate property problems. I don’t dare to seem too eager, and the thing can’t be handled abruptly. You know that. You should know that.”

“I know that I’m tired of all this pretense. I’m tired of working. If you’re playing for keeps, take me off the dole and make me a property settlement.”

“And have my wife’s lawyers suddenly drag me into court for another examination of my assets and start tracing the checks...”

“Make it in cash.”

“And have the bank withdrawals checked? Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not going to be. I’m going to be practical. What if I should get dragged into your domestic mess anyway? Look at the chances I’m taking.”

His eyes were somber in their steady appraisal. “I like you, Anita. I can do a lot for you. I like that fire that you have. But I want it in your heart and not in your tongue. My car’s in the parking lot. You go on down, get in the car, and wait. I’ll be down in five minutes.”

She said, “Why don’t you take me out as though you weren’t ashamed of me? As though...”

“And give my wife the opportunity she’s looking for? Then you would have the fat in the fire. The property settlement will be completed and signed within five or six weeks. Thank heavens, I’ll then be free to live my own life in my own way. Until then... until then, my darling, we have to be discreet in our indiscretions.”

She started to say something, checked herself, turned and stalked out of the apartment.

Carver Clements’ automobile was a big luxurious sedan equipped with every possible convenience, but it was cold sitting there, waiting.

Anita waited for several minutes, then, as she felt the chill creeping through her sheer nylons, turned the ignition switch and pulled out the heater button.

It took a minute or two for warmth to generate in the heater. Then a welcome current of warm air swirled caressingly about her legs.

After ten minutes, which seemed twenty, she grew impatient. She flung open the car door, went to the entrance of the apartment house, and angrily pressed the button of 702.

When there was no answer, she assumed that Clements must be on his way down in the elevator, so she walked back into the shadows, to stand there, impatient, feeling a strange desire to smash something. But Clements didn’t appear.

Anita used her key to enter the apartment house. The elevator was on the ground floor. She made no attempt at concealment this time, but pressed the button for the seventh floor, left the elevator, strode down the corridor, stabbed her key into the metal lock of Clements’ apartment, and entered the room.

Carver L. Clements, dressed for the street, was lying sprawled on the floor.

A highball glass lay on its side two feet from his body. It had apparently fallen from his hand, spilling the contents as it rolled along the carpet. Clements’ face was a peculiar hue, and there was a sharp, bitter odor which seemed intensified as she bent toward his froth-flecked lips. Since Anita had last seen him he had quite evidently had a caller. The print of half-parted lips flared in gaudy crimson from the front of his bald head.

With the expertness she had learned from a course in first aid, Anita pressed her finger against the wrist, searching for a pulse. There was none.

She opened her handbag, took out the silver cigarette case and held its smoothly polished surface close to the man’s lips. There was no faintest sign of moisture which would indicate breathing.

Carver L. Clements, wealthy playboy, yachtsman, broker, gambler for high stakes, was quite dead.

In a panic Anita Bonsal looked through the apartment.

There were all too many signs of her surreptitious and intermittent occupancy of that apartment — nightgowns, lingerie, shoes, stockings, hats, even toothbrushes and her favorite toothpaste.

Anita Bonsal turned back toward the door and quietly left the apartment. She paused in the hallway, making certain there was no one in the corridor. This time she didn’t take the elevator, but walked down the fire stairs, as she had done so many times, and returned to her own apartment on the sixth floor.

Fay Allison had been listening to a musical program on the radio. She jumped up with glad surprise as Anita entered.

“Oh, Anita, I’m so glad! I thought — thought you wouldn’t be in until real late. What happened? It hasn’t been any time since you left.”

“I developed a beastly headache,” Anita said. “My escort was a trifle intoxicated, so I slapped his face and came home. I’d like to sit up and have you tell me about your plans, but I do have a headache, and you must get a good night’s sleep tonight. You’ll need to be looking your best tomorrow.”

Fay laughed. “I don’t want to waste time sleeping. While I’m unconscious I can’t revel in my happiness.”

“Nevertheless,” Anita said firmly, “we’re going to get to bed early. Let’s undress, put on pajamas, have some hot chocolate, and then we’ll sit in front of the electric heater and talk for just exactly twenty minutes.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you came back!” Fay said.

“I’ll fix the drink,” Anita told her. “I’m going to make your chocolate sweet tonight. You can start worrying about your figure tomorrow. After all, you’ll be a married woman before this chocolate can put any pounds on you.”

She went to the kitchen, opened her purse, took out a bottle of barbiturate tablets, and emptied a good half of the pills into a cup. After she had carefully ground them she added hot water until they were, for the most part, dissolved.

She placed chocolate on the stove, added milk and melted marshmallows, and called out to Fay, “You undress, dear. I’ll put on my pajamas after we’ve had the chocolate.”

When she returned to the living room, carrying the two steaming cups, frothy with melted marshmallows floating on top, Fay Allison was in her pajamas.

Anita Bonsal raised her cup. “Here’s to happiness, darling.”

“Lots of happiness,” Fay Allison said almost dreamily.

After they had finished the first cup of chocolate, Anita talked Fay into another cup, then let Fay discuss her plans until drowsiness made the words thick, the sentences detached.

“Anita, I’m so sleepy all of a sudden. I guess it’s the reaction from having been so keyed up. I... darling, it’s all right if I... you don’t care if I...”

“Not at all, dear,” Anita said, and helped Fay into bed, tucked her in carefully, and then gave the situation careful consideration.

The fact that Carver Clements maintained a secret apartment in that building was known only to a few of his cronies. These people knew of Clements’ domestic difficulties and knew why he maintained this apartment. Fortunately, however, they had never seen Anita. That was a big thing in her favor. Anita was quite certain it hadn’t been a heart attack. It had been poison, some quick-acting, deadly poison. There was no use worrying herself, trying to figure out how it had been administered, or why. Carver Clements was a man who had many powerful friends and many powerful enemies.

The police would search for the woman.

It wouldn’t do for Anita merely to remove her things from that apartment, and, besides, that wouldn’t be artistic enough. Anita had been in love with Dane Grover. If it hadn’t been for that dismal entanglement with Carver Clements... However, that was all past now, and Fay Allison, with her big blue eyes, her sweet, trusting disposition, had turned Dane Grover from a disillusioned wolf into an ardent suitor. Well, it was a world where the smart ones got by. Anita had washed the dishes. Fay Allison had dried them. Her fingerprints would be on glasses and on dishes. The management of the apartment house very considerately furnished dishes identical in pattern — and it only needed a little careful work on her part. She would, of course, put on gloves. The police would find Fay Allison’s nightgowns in Carver Clements’ secret apartment. They would find glasses that had Fay’s fingerprints on them. And when they went to question Fay Allison, they would find she had taken the easy way out, an overdose of sleeping pills.

Anita would furnish the testimony that would make it all check into a composite, sordid pattern. A girl who had been the mistress of a rich playboy, then had met a younger and more attractive man who had offered her marriage. She had gone to Carver Clements and wanted to check out, but with Carver Clements one didn’t simply check out. Things weren’t as easy as that. So Fay had slipped the fatal poison into his drink and then had realized she was trapped when Anita returned home unexpectedly and there had been no chance for Fay to make surreptitious removal of her wearing apparel from the upstairs apartment. Anita would let the police do the figuring. Anita would be horrified, simply stunned, but, of course, cooperative.

Anita Bonsal deliberately waited three hours until things began to quiet down in the apartment house, then she took a suitcase and quietly went to work, moving with the smooth efficiency of a woman who has been accustomed to thinking out every smallest detail.

When she had finished, she carefully polished the key to apartment 702 so as to remove any possible fingerprints, and dropped it in Fay Allison’s purse. She ground up all but six of the remaining sleeping tablets and mixed the powder with the chocolate which was left in the canister.

Then she donned pajamas, took the remaining six tablets, washed off the label with hot water, and tossed the empty bottle out of the back window of the apartment. Then she snuggled down into her own bed and switched off the lights.

Over in the other twin bed, Fay Allison lay motionless, except for a slight chest motion as her shallow breathing raised and lowered the coverlet.

The maid was due to come at eight the next morning to clean up the apartment. She would find two still figures, one dead, one in a drugged stupor.

Two of the tablets constituted the heaviest prescribed dose. The six tablets Anita had taken began to suck at her consciousness. For a moment there was swift panic. Perhaps she had really taken too many. Could it be that... that... perhaps...

It was too late now. The soothing influence of the drug warmed her consciousness into acquiescence.

She wondered if she could call a drugstore and find out if... a moment later she was asleep.

Chapter two

Louise Marlow, tired from the long airplane ride, her ears still ringing with the sound of muffled motors, paid off the taxicab in front of the apartment house.

The cab driver surveyed her solicitously. “Want me to wait until you see if your party’s home?”

“I have a key,” Louise Marlow said.

“How about your bags?”

“Don’t worry about them. I’ll get them up all right.”

He helped her with her bags to the entrance door. Louise Marlow inserted the key which Fay Allison had sent her, smiled her thanks to the cab driver, and picked up her bags.

Sixty-five years old, white-headed, steely-eyed, square of shoulder and broad of beam, she had experienced many and varied vicissitudes in life, and from them had extracted a salty philosophy of her own. Her love was big enough to encompass those who were dear to her with a protecting umbrella. Her hatred was bitter enough to goad her enemies into confused retreat.

With casual disregard for the fact that it was now one o’clock in the morning, she marched calmly down the corridor to the elevator, banged her suitcase and overnight bag into the corner of the cage, and punched the button for the sixth floor.

The elevator moved slowly upward, then shuddered to a stop. The door slid slowly open and Aunt Louise, picking up her bags, walked down the half darkened corridor, peering over the tops of her glasses for numbers over the doors.

At length she found the apartment she wanted, inserted her key, opened the door, and groped for a light switch.

She found the light switch, clicked it on, and called, “It’s me, Fay!”

There was no answer.

Aunt Louise dragged her bags in, pushed the door shut, called out cheerfully, “Don’t shoot,” and then added by way of explanation, “I picked up a cancellation on an earlier plane, Fay.”

The continued silence bothered her. She moved over to the bedroom.

“Wake up, Fay. It’s your Aunt Louise!”

She clicked on the bedroom light, smiled down at the two sleepers, then said, “Well, if you’re going to sleep right through everything, I’ll make up a bed on the davenport and say hello to you in the morning.”

Then something in the color of Fay Allison’s face caused the keen eyes to lose their twinkle of friendly humor and become hard with steely concentration.

“Fay!” she said.

The figures slumbered on in complete oblivion.

Aunt Louise went over and shook Fay Allison, then turned to Anita Bonsal and started shaking her.

The motion finally brought Anita back to semiconsciousness from drugged slumber.

“Who is it?” she asked thickly.

“I’m Fay Allison’s Aunt Louise. I got here ahead of time. What’s happened?”

Anita Bonsal knew in a drowsy manner that this was a complicating circumstance that she had not foreseen, and despite the numbing effect of the drug on her senses, managed to mouth the excuse which was to be her first waking alibi.

“Something happened,” she said thickly. “The chocolate... we drank chocolate and it felt like... I can’t remember... can’t remember... I want to go to sleep.”

She let her head swing over on a limp neck and became a dead weight in Louise Marlow’s arms.

Aunt Louise put her back on the bed, snatched up a telephone directory, and thumbed through the pages until she found the name — Perry Mason, Attorney at Law.

There was a night number — Westfield 6-5943.

Louise Marlow dialed the number.

The night operator on duty at the switchboard of the Drake Detective Agency, recognizing from the peculiar sound of the buzzing that the ringing phone was that of Mason’s night number, picked up the receiver and said, “Night number of Mr. Perry Mason. Who is this talking, please?”

Louise Marlow said in a firm, steady voice, “This is Louise Marlow. I haven’t met Perry Mason, but I know his secretary, Della Street. I want you to get in touch with her and tell her that I’m at Keystone nine-seven-six-oh-oh. I’m in a mess and I want her to call me back here just as quick as she can. Yes, that’s right! I know her personally. You tell her it’s Louise Marlow talking and she’ll get busy. I think I may need Mr. Mason before I get through, but I certainly want to talk with Della Street right now.”

Louise Marlow hung up and waited.

Within less than a minute she heard the phone ring, and Della Street’s voice came over the line as Aunt Louise picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

“Why, Louise Marlow, whatever are you doing in town?”

“I came in to attend the wedding of my niece, Fay Allison,” Aunt Louise said. “Now listen, Della. I’m at Fay’s apartment. She’s been drugged and I can’t wake her up. Her roommate, Anita Bonsal, has also been drugged and I managed to get her awake, but she keeps going back to sleep. Someone’s tried to poison them!

“I want to get a doctor who’s good and who can keep his damned trap shut. I don’t know what’s back of all this, but Fay’s getting married tomorrow. Someone’s tried to put her under sod, and I propose to find out what’s behind it. If anything should get into the newspapers about this, I’ll wring someone’s neck. The whole business looks fishy to me. I’m at the Mandrake Arms, apartment six-oh-four. Rush a doctor up here and then you’d better get hold of Perry Mason and...”

Della Street said, “I’ll send a good doctor up to you right away, Mrs. Marlow. I just got in. Perry Mason, Paul Drake, the detective who handles his investigations, and I have been out nightclubbing with a client. Mr. Mason brought me home just a few minutes ago and I can catch him at his apartment. You sit tight. I’m getting busy.”

Chapter three

When Aunt Louise answered the buzzer, Della Street said, “Mrs. Marlow, this is Perry Mason. This is ‘Aunt Louise,’ chief. She’s an old friend from my home town.”

Louise Marlow gave the famous lawyer her hand and a smile. She kissed Della and said, “You haven’t changed a bit, Della. Come on in. There’s a mess here. I can’t afford to have a word get in the newspapers. We had to get this sawbones. Now, how do we keep him from blabbing?”

“What does the doctor say?” Mason asked.

“He’s working like a house afire. Anita is conscious. Fay is going to pull through all right. Another hour and it would have been too late for her.”

“What happened?” Mason asked.

“Someone dumped sleeping medicine in the powdered chocolate, or else in the sugar.”

“Any suspicions?” Mason asked.

“Fay was marrying Dane Grover. I gather from her letters he’s a wealthy but shy young man who had one bad experience with a jane years ago and had turned bitter and disillusioned, or thought he had. A cynic at twenty-six! Baloney!”

Mason smiled.

“I got here around one o’clock, I guess. Fay had sent me a key. The place was closed tight as a miser’s purse. I used the key. As soon as I switched on the light and looked at Fay’s face, I knew that something was wrong, the color of it and the way she was breathing. I tried to wake her up and couldn’t. I finally shook some sense into Anita. She said the chocolate did it. Then I called Della. That’s just about all I know about it.”

“The cups they drank the chocolate from?” Mason asked. “Where are they?”

“On the kitchen sink — unwashed.”

“We may need them for evidence,” Mason said.

“Evidence, my eye!” Louise Marlow snorted. “I don’t want the police in on this. You can imagine what’ll happen if some sob sister spills a lot of printer’s ink about a bride-to-be trying to kill herself on the eve of the wedding.”

“Let’s take a look around,” Mason said.

The lawyer moved about the apartment, trying to reconstruct what had happened.

Louise Marlow followed, acting as guide, and Della Street from time to time gave the benefit of a feminine suggestion.

Mason nodded, paused as he came to street coats thrown over the back of a chair, then again as he looked at the two purses.

“Which one is Fay Allison’s?” he asked.

“Heavens, I don’t know. We’ll have to find out,” Aunt Louise said.

Mason said, “I’ll let you two take the lead. Go through them carefully. See if you can find anything that would indicate whether anyone might have been in the apartment shortly before they started drinking the chocolate. Perhaps there’s a letter that will give us a clue, or a card or a note.”

The doctor, emerging from the bedroom, said, “I want to boil some water for another hypo.”

“How are they coming?” Mason asked, as Mrs. Marlow went to the kitchen.

“The brunette is all right,” the doctor said, “and I think the blonde will make it all right.”

“When can I question one of them in detail?”

The doctor shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it. Not that it will hurt anything, but you might get thrown off the track. They are still groggy, and there’s some evidence that the brunette is rambling and contradictory in her statements. Give her another hour and you can get some facts. Right now she’s running around in circles.”

The doctor boiled water for his hypo and went back to the bedroom. Della Street moved over to Mason’s side and said in a low voice, “Here’s something I don’t understand, chief.”

“What?”

“Notice the keys to the apartment house are stamped with the numbers of the apartments. Both girls have keys to this apartment in their purses. Fay Allison also has a key stamped seven-oh-two. What would she be doing with the key to another apartment?”

Mason’s eyes narrowed for a moment in thoughtful speculation. “What does Aunt Louise say?”

“She doesn’t know. I was the one who searched Fay’s purse. She went through Anita’s.”

“Anything else to give a clue?”

“Not the slightest thing anywhere.”

Mason said, “Okay, I’m going to take a look at seven-oh-two. You’d better come along, Della.”

Mason made excuses to Louise Marlow. “We want to look around awhile on the outside,” he said. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He and Della took the elevator to the seventh floor, walked down to apartment 702, and Mason pushed his thumb against the bell button.

They could hear the sound of the buzzer in the apartment, but there was no sound of answering motion such as would have been caused by sleepers stirring around.

Mason said, “It’s a chance we shouldn’t take, but I’m going to take a peek inside, just for luck.”

He fitted the key to the door, clicked back the lock, and gently opened the door.

The blazing lights of the living room streamed illumination out at them through the open door, showed the sprawled body on the floor, the drinking glass which had rolled from the dead fingers.

The door from an apartment across the hall jerked open. A young woman with disheveled hair, a bathrobe around her, said angrily, “After you’ve pressed a buzzer that long at this time of the night you should have sense enough to—”

“We have,” Mason interrupted, pulling Della Street into the apartment and kicking the door shut behind them with a quick jab of his heel.

Della Street, clinging to Mason’s arm, saw the sprawled figure on the floor, the crimson lipstick on the forehead. She looked at the overturned chair by the table, the glass which had rolled along the carpet, spilling part of its contents, and at the other empty glass standing on the table across from the overturned chair.

Her breathing was heavy and fast, as though she had been running, but she said nothing.

“Careful, Della, we mustn’t touch anything.”

“Who is he?”

“Apparently he’s People’s Exhibit A. Do you suppose the nosy dame in the opposite apartment is out of the hall by this time? We’ll have to take a chance anyway.” He wrapped his hand with his handkerchief, turned the knob on the inside of the door, and pulled it silently open.

The door of the apartment across the hall was closed.

Mason warned Della Street to silence with a gesture. They tiptoed out into the corridor, pulling the door closed behind them.

As the door clicked shut, the elevator came to a stop at the seventh floor. Three men and a woman came hurrying down the corridor directly toward them.

Mason’s voice was low, reassuring. “Perfectly casual, Della. Just friends departing from a late card game.”

They caught the curious glances of the four people, moved slightly to one side, then, after the quartet had passed, Mason took Della Street’s arm and said, “Don’t hurry, Della, take it easy.”

“Well,” Della Street said, “they’ll certainly know us if they ever see us again. The way that woman looked me over...”

“I know,” Mason said, “but we’ll hope that... oh, oh!”

“What is it?”

“They’re going to seven-oh-two!”

The four paused in front of the door. One of the men pressed the buzzer button.

Almost immediately the door of the opposite apartment jerked open. The woman with the bathrobe shrilled, “I’m suffering from insomnia. I’ve been trying to sleep, and this—”

She broke off as she saw the strangers.

The man who had been pressing the button grinned and said in a booming voice which carried well down the corridor, “We’re sorry, ma’am. I only just gave him one short buzz.”

“Well, the other people who went in just before you made enough commotion.”

“Other people in here?” the man asked, hesitated a moment, then went on. “Well, we won’t bother him if he’s got company.”

Mason pulled Della Street into the elevator, pulled the door shut, and pushed the button for the lobby.

“What in the world do we do now?” Della Street asked.

“Now,” Mason said, his voice sharp-edged with disappointment, “we ring police headquarters and report a possible homicide. It’s the only thing we can do. The woman only saw two people she can’t identify going in, but that quartet will eventually identify us as going out.”

There was a phone booth in the lobby. Mason dropped in a coin, dialed police headquarters, and reported that he had found a corpse in apartment 702 under circumstances indicating probable homicide. He had, he said, touched nothing but had backed right out and called the police.

While Mason was in the phone booth, the four people emerged from the elevator. There was a distinct aroma of alcohol as they pushed their way toward the door. The woman, catching sight of Della Street standing beside the phone booth, favored her with a feminine appraisal which swept from head to foot and missed no smallest detail.

Mason called Louise Marlow in apartment 604. “I think you’d better have the doctor take his patients to a sanitarium where they can have complete quiet,” he said.

“He seems to think they’re doing all right here.”

“I distrust doctors who seem to think,” Mason said. “I would suggest a sanitarium immediately, and complete quiet.”

Louise Marlow was silent for a full three seconds.

“Are you there?” Mason asked.

“I’m here,” she said. “I’m just trying to get the sketch.”

“I think the patients should have complete quiet,” Mason said.

“Damn it,” Louise Marlow sputtered. “When you said it the first time I missed it. The second time I got it. You don’t have to let your needle get stuck on the record! I was just trying to figure it out.”

Mason heard her slam up the phone at the other end of the line.

Mason grinned and hung up the phone. Then he took the key to 702 from his pocket, dropped it in an envelope, addressed the envelope to his office, stamped it, and dropped it in the mailbox by the elevator.

Outside, the four people in the car were having something of an argument. Apparently there was some sharp difference of opinion as to what action was to be taken next, but as a siren sounded they reached a sudden unanimity of decision. They were starting the car when the police car pulled in to the curb. The red beam of the police spotlight pilloried them. The siren blasted a peremptory summons.

The driver of the car looked behind him, then stepped on the gas.

The police car shot away in angry pursuit, and three minutes later a chastened quartet swung their car back to a stop in front of the apartment house, the police car following them until the machine was safely parked at the curb. One of the radio officers walked over to the other car, took possession of the ignition keys, and ushered the four people up to the door of the apartment house.

Mason hurried across the lobby to open the locked door.

The officer said, “I’m looking for a man who reported a body.”

“That’s right. I did. My name’s Mason. The body’s in seven-oh-two.”

“A body!” the woman screamed.

“Shut up,” the radio officer said.

“But we know the... why he told you we’d been visiting in seven-oh-two... we...”

“Yeah, you said you’d been visiting a friend in seven-oh-two, name of Carver Clements. How was he when you left him?”

There was an awkward silence, then the woman said, “We really didn’t get in. We just went to the door. The woman across the way said he had company, so we left.”

“Said he had company?”

“That’s right. But I think the company had left. It was these two here.”

“We’ll go take a look,” the officer said. “Come on.”

Chapter four

Lieutenant Tragg, head of the Homicide Squad, finished his examination of the apartment and said wearily to Mason, “I presume by this time you’ve thought up a good story to explain how it all happened.”

Mason said, “As a matter of fact, I don’t know this man from Adam. I had never seen him alive.”

“I know,” Tragg said sarcastically, “you wanted him as a witness to an automobile accident or something, and just happened to drop around in the wee small hours of the morning.”

Mason said nothing.

“But,” Tragg went on, “strange as it may seem, Mason, I’m interested to know how you got in. The woman who has the apartment across the corridor says you stood there and rang the buzzer for as much as two minutes. Then she heard the sound of a clicking bolt just as she opened her door to give you a piece of her mind, thinking you were some drunken bum trying to buzz a girl friend who had cooled off on him.”

Mason nodded gravely.

Tragg said, “Either someone opened that door or the door was open. If it was ajar, I don’t think you’d have buzzed for two minutes without pushing it open. If someone was in there, I want to know who it was. Now who let you in?”

“I had a key.”

“A key! The hell you did!”

Mason nodded.

“Let’s take a look at it.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have it now.”

“Well, now,” Tragg said, “isn’t that interesting! And where did you get the key, Mason?”

“Unfortunately,” Mason said, “that’s something I can’t tell you.”

“Don’t be silly. This is a murder case.”

Mason said, “The key came into my possession in a peculiar manner. I found it.”

“Phooey! A client gave it to you.”

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s a reasonable conjecture.”

Mason smiled. “Come, come, Lieutenant, if you’re going to engage in pure flights of fancy, why not consider the possibility that this client might have taken a sublease on the apartment and wanted me to see that the gentleman lying there on the floor, who was unlawfully withholding possession, was ejected without trouble?”

“So you came to eject him at this time in the morning!”

“Perhaps the sublease didn’t become effective until midnight.”

Tragg’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a nice try, Mason, but you’re not getting anywhere. That key you have is the dead man’s key. When we searched the body we found that stuff on the table there. There’s no key to this apartment on him.”

Mason sparred for time, said, “And did you notice that despite the fact there’s a thermos jar of ice cubes on the table, a bottle of Scotch, and a siphon of soda, the fatal drink didn’t have any ice in it?”

“How do you know?” Tragg asked, interested.

“Because when this glass fell from his hand and the contents spilled over the floor, it left a single small spot of moisture. If there had been ice cubes in the glass, they’d have rolled out for some appreciable distance and then melted, leaving spots of moisture.”

“I see,” Tragg said sarcastically. “And then, having decided to commit suicide, the guy kissed himself on the forehead and...”

He broke off as one of the detectives, walking rapidly down the hallway, said, “We’ve traced that cleaning mark, Lieutenant.”

Tragg glanced significantly toward Mason and said, “I’ll talk with you in a minute when...”

The man handed Tragg a folded slip of paper.

Tragg unfolded the paper. “Well I’ll be damned!” he said.

Mason met Tragg’s searching eyes with calm steadiness.

“And I suppose,” Tragg said, “you’re going to be surprised at this one. Miss Fay Allison, apartment six-oh-four, in this same building, is the person who sent the coat that was in the closet to the dry cleaner. Her mark is on it. I think. Mr. Mason, we’ll have a little talk with Fay Allison, and just to see that you don’t make any false moves until we get there, we’ll take you right along with us. Perhaps you already know the way.”

As Tragg started toward the elevator, a smartly dressed woman in her late thirties or early forties stepped out of the elevator and walked down the corridor, looking at the numbers over the doors.

Tragg stepped forward. “Looking for something?”

She started to sweep past him.

Tragg pulled back his coat, showing her his badge.

“I’m looking for apartment seven-oh-two,” she said.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Mr. Carver Clements, if it’s any of your business.”

“I think it is,” Tragg said. “Who are you and how do you happen to be here?”

“I am Mrs. Carver L. Clements, and I’m here because I was advised over the telephone that my husband was maintaining a surreptitious apartment here.”

“And that was the first you knew of it?”

“Definitely.”

“And what,” Tragg asked, “did you intend to do?”

“I intend to show him that he isn’t getting away with anything,” she said. “If you’re an officer, you may as well accompany me. I feel certain that...”

Tragg said, “Seven-oh-two is down the corridor, at the comer on the right. I just came from there. You’ll find a detective there in charge of things. Your husband was killed sometime between seven and nine o’clock.”

Dark-brown eyes grew wide with surprise. “You... you’re sure?”

Tragg said, “Dead as a mackerel. Someone slipped him a little cyanide, in his Scotch and soda. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that?”

She said slowly, “If my husband is dead... I can’t believe it. He hated me too much to die. He was trying to force me to make a property settlement, and in order to make me properly submissive, he’d put me through a softening-up process, a period during which I didn’t have money enough even to dress decently. His idea was that that would make the settlement he was prepared to offer look practically irresistible to me.”

“In other words,” Tragg said, “you hated his guts.”

She clamped her lips together. “I didn’t say that!”

Tragg grinned and said, “Come along with us. We’re going down to an apartment on the sixth floor. After that I’m going to take your fingerprints and see if they match up with those on the glass which didn’t contain the poison.”

Chapter five

Louise Marlow answered the buzzer.

She glanced at Tragg, then at Mrs. Clements.

Mason, raising his hat, said with grave politeness and the manner of a total stranger, “We’re sorry to bother you at this hour, but...”

“I’ll do the talking,” Tragg said.

The formality of Mason’s manner was not lost on Aunt Louise. She said, as though she had never seen him before, “Well, this is a great time...”

Tragg pushed his way forward. “Does Fay Allison live here?”

“That’s right,” Louise Marlow beamed at him. “She and another girl, Anita Bonsal, share the apartment. They aren’t here now, though.”

“Where are they?” Tragg asked.

She shook her head. “I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m Louise Marlow, Fay Allison’s aunt.”

“You’re living with them?”

“Heavens, no. I just came up to be here for... for a visit with Fay.”

“How did you get in, if they weren’t here?”

“I had a key, but I didn’t say they weren’t here then.”

“You said, I believe, that they are not here now?”

“That’s right.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“Around one o’clock this morning.”

Tragg said, “Let’s cut out the shadowboxing and get down to brass tacks, Mrs. Marlow. I want to see both of those girls.”

“I’m sorry, but the girls are both sick. They’re in the hospital.”

“Who took them there?”

“A doctor.”

“What’s his name?”

Louise Marlow hesitated a moment, then said, “It’s just a simple case of food poisoning. Only...”

“What’s the doctor’s name?”

“Now you listen to me,” Louise Marlow said. “I tell you, these girls are too sick to be bothered, and—”

Lieutenant Tragg said, “Carver L. Clements, who has an apartment on the floor above here, is dead. It looks like murder. Fay Allison had evidently been living up there in the apartment with him and...”

“What are you talking about?” Louise Marlow exclaimed indignantly. “Why, I... I...”

“Take it easy,” Tragg said. “Her clothes were up there. There’s a laundry mark that has been traced to her.”

“Clothes!” Louise Marlow snorted. “Why, it’s probably some junk she gave away somewhere, or...”

“I’m coming to that,” Lieutenant Tragg said patiently. “I don’t want to do anyone an injustice. I want to play it on the up-and-up. Now then, there are fingerprints in that apartment, the fingerprints of a woman on a drinking glass, on the handle of a toothbrush, on a tube of toothpaste. I’m not going to get tough unless I have to, but I want to get hold of Fay Allison long enough to take a set of rolled fingerprints from her hands. You try holding out on me, and see what the newspapers have to say tomorrow.”

Louise Marlow reached an instant decision. “You’ll find her at the Crestview Sanitarium,” she said, “and if you want to make a little money, I’ll give you odds of a hundred to one, in any amount you want to take, that—”

“I’m not a betting man,” Tragg said dryly. “I’ve been in this game too long.”

He turned to one of the detectives and said, “Keep Perry Mason and his charming secretary under surveillance and away from a telephone until I get a chance at those fingerprints. Okay, boys, let’s go.”

Chapter six

Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency, pulled a sheaf of notes from his pocket as he settled down in the client’s chair in Mason’s office.

It was ten-thirty in the morning, and the detective’s face showed signs of weariness as he assumed his favorite crosswise position in the big leather chair, with his long legs hanging over one overstuffed arm, the small of his back propped against the other.

“It’s a mess, Perry,” he said.

“Let’s have it,” Mason said.

“Fay Allison and Dane Grover were going to get married today. Last night Fay and Anita Bonsal, who shares the apartment with her, settled down in front of the fireplace for a nice gabby little hen party. They made chocolate. Both girls had been watching their figures, but this was a celebration. Fay felt she could really let loose. She had two cups of chocolate, Anita had one. Fay evidently got about twice the dose of barbiturate that Anita did. Both girls passed out.

“Next thing Anita knew, Louise Marlow, Fay’s aunt, was trying to wake her up. Fay Allison didn’t recover consciousness until after she was in the sanitarium.

“The rest of the stuff you know pretty well.

“Anyhow, Tragg went out and took Fay Allison’s fingerprints. They check absolutely with those on the glass. What the police call the murder glass is the one that slipped from Carver Clements’ fingers and rolled around the floor. It had been carefully wiped clean of all fingerprints. Police can’t even find one of Clements’ prints on it. The other glass on the table had Fay’s prints. It’s her toothbrush. The closet was filled with her clothes. She was living there with him. It’s a hell of a stink.

“Dane Grover is standing by her, but I personally don’t think he can stand the gaff much longer. When a man’s engaged to a girl and the newspapers scream the details of her affair with a wealthy playboy all over the front pages, you can’t expect the man to appear exactly nonchalant. The aunt, Louise Marlow, tells me he’s being faced with terrific pressure to repudiate the girl, publicly break the engagement, and take a trip.

“The girls insist it’s all part of some sinister overall plan to frame them, that they were drugged, and all that, but how could anyone have planned it that way? For instance, how could anyone have known they were going to take the chocolate in time to—”

“The chocolate was drugged?” Mason asked.

Drake nodded. “They’d used up most of the chocolate, but the small amount left in the package is pretty well doped with barbiturate.”

Mason began toying with a lead pencil.

“The police theory,” Drake went on, “is that Fay Allison had been playing house with Carver Clements. She wanted to get married. Clements wouldn’t let her go. She slipped him a little poison. She intended to return and get her things out of the apartment when it got late enough so she wouldn’t meet someone in the corridor if she came walking out of seven-oh-two with her arms full of clothes. Anita, who had gone out, unexpectedly returned, and that left Fay Allison trapped. She couldn’t go up and get her things out of the apartment upstairs without disturbing Anita. So she tried to drug Anita and something went wrong.”

“That’s a hell of a theory,” Mason said.

“Try and get one that fits the case any better,” Drake told him. “One thing is certain — Fay Allison was living up there in apartment seven-oh-two. As far as Dane Grover is concerned, that’s the thing that will make him throw everything overboard. He’s a sensitive chap, from a good family. He doesn’t like having his picture in the papers. Neither does his family.”

“What about Clements?”

“Successful businessman, broker, speculator, lots of dough, domestic troubles, a wife who was trying to hook him for a bigger property settlement than Clements wanted to pay. Clements has a big apartment he leases by the year, where he lives officially. This place was a playhouse. Only a few people knew he had it. His wife would have given a lot of money to have found out about it.”

“What’s the wife doing now?”

“Sitting pretty. They don’t know yet whether Clements left a will, but she has her community property rights, and Clements’ books will be open for inspection now. He’d been juggling things around pretty much, and now a lot of stuff is going to come out — safety deposit boxes and things of that sort.”

“How about the four people who met us in the hall?”

“I have all the stuff on them here. The men were Richard P. Nolin, a sort of partner in some of Clements’ business, Manley L. Ogden, an income tax specialist, Don B. Ralston, who acted as dummy for Clements in some business transactions, and Vera Payson, who is someone’s girl friend, but I’m damned if I can find out whose. Anyhow, those people knew of the hideout apartment and would go up there occasionally for a poker game. Last night as soon as the dame across the hall said Clements had company, they knew what that meant and went away. That’s the story. The newspapers are lapping it up. Dane Grover isn’t going to stay put much longer. You can’t blame him. Pressure’s getting pretty strong. All he has is Fay Allison’s tearful denial. Louise Marlow says we have to do something fast.”

Mason said, “Tragg thinks I had Carver Clements’ key.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Where did you get it?”

Mason shook his head.

“Well,” Drake said, “Carver Clements didn’t have a key.” Mason nodded. “That is the only break we have in the case, Paul. We know Clements’ key is missing. No one else does, because Tragg won’t believe me when I tell him Clements hadn’t given me his key.”

Drake said, “It won’t take Tragg long to figure the answer to that one. If Clements didn’t give you the key, there’s only one other person who could have given it to you.”

Mason said, “We won’t speculate too much on that, Paul.”

“I gathered we wouldn’t,” Drake said dryly. “Remember this, Perry, you’re representing a girl who’s going to be faced with a murder rap. You may be able to beat that rap. It’s circumstantial evidence. But in doing it, you’ll have to think up some explanation that will satisfy an embarrassed lover who’s being pitied by his friends, laughed at by his enemies, and ridiculed by the public.”

Mason nodded.

“Whatever explanation you’re going to make has to be made fast,” Drake said. “My best guess is this Grover guy isn’t going to stand the gaff much longer.”

Mason said, “We’ll push things to a quick hearing in court on a preliminary examination. In the meantime, Paul, find out everything you can about Carver Clements’ background. Pay particular attention to Clements’ wife. See if there isn’t a man in her life. If she had known all along about that apartment...”

Drake shook his head dubiously. “I’ll give it a once over, Perry, but if she’d even known about that apartment, that would have been all she needed. If she could have raided that apartment with a photographer and had the deadwood on Carver Clements, she’d have boosted her property settlement another hundred grand and walked out smiling. She wouldn’t have needed to use any poison.”

Mason’s strong, capable fingers were drumming gently on the edge of the desk. “There has to be some explanation, Paul.”

Drake heaved himself wearily to his feet. “That’s right,” he said without enthusiasm, “and Tragg thinks he has it.”

Chapter seven

Della Street, her eyes sparkling, entered Mason’s private office from the door which led from the reception room and said, “He’s here, chief.”

“Who’s here?” Mason asked, frowning.

She laughed. “Don’t be like that. As far as this office is concerned, there is only one he.”

“Dane Grover?”

“That’s right.”

“What sort?”

“Tall, sensitive-looking. Wavy, dark-brown hair, romantic eyes, with something of the poet about him. He’s terribly crushed, of course. You can sec he’s dying ten thousand deaths every time he meets one of his friends. Gertie, at the switchboard, can’t take her eyes off him.”

Mason grinned and said, “Let’s get him in, then, before Gertie either breaks up a romance or dies of unrequited love.”

Della Street went out and returned after a few moments, ushering Dane Grover into the office.

Mason shook hands, invited Grover to take a seat. Grover glanced dubiously at Della Street. Mason smiled. “She’s my right hand, Grover, keeps notes for me, and her thoughts to herself.”

Grover said, “I suppose I’m unduly sensitive, but I can’t stand it when people patronize me or snub me or pity me.”

Mason nodded.

“I’ve had them do all three ever since the papers came out this morning.”

Again Mason’s answer was merely a nod.

“But,” Grover went on, “I want you to know that I’ll stick.”

Mason thought that over for a moment, then held Grover’s eyes. “For how long?”

“All the way.”

“No matter what the evidence shows?”

Grover said, “The evidence shows the woman I love was living with Carver Clements as his mistress. The evidence simply can’t be right. I love her, and I’m going to stick. I want you to tell her that, and I want you to know that. What you’re going to have to do is going to take money. I want it to take lots of money. I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. I’m here to see that you have what money you need — all you want, in fact.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “Primarily, what I need is a little moral support. I want to be able to tell Fay Allison that you’re sticking, and I want some facts.”

“What facts?”

“How long have you been going with Fay Allison?”

“A matter of three or four months. Before then I was... well, sort of squiring both of the girls around.”

“You mean Anita Bonsal?”

“Yes. I met Anita first. I went with her for a while. Then I went with both. Then I began to gravitate toward Fay Allison. I thought I was just making dates. Actually I was falling in love.”

“And Anita?”

“She’s like a sister to both of us. She’s been simply grand in this whole thing. She’s promised me that she’ll do everything she can do.”

“Could Fay Allison have been living with Carver Clements?”

“She had the physical opportunity, if that’s what you mean.”

“You didn’t see her every night?”

“No.”

“What does Anita say?”

“Anita says the charge is ridiculous, absolutely absurd.”

“Do you know of any place where Fay Allison could have had access to cyanide of potassium?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you about, Mr. Mason.”

“Go ahead.”

“Out at my place the gardener uses it. I don’t know just what for, but... well, out there the other day, when he was showing Fay around the place...”

“Yes, yes,” Mason said impatiently as Grover paused, “go on.”

“Well, I know the gardener was explaining to her something about it. He told her to be very careful not to touch that sack because it contained cyanide, and I remember she asked him a few questions about what he used it for, but I wasn’t paying much attention. It’s the basis of some sort of a spray, and then I believe it’s used for the plants.”

“Who else was present?”

“Just the three of us.”

“Has your gardener read the papers?”

Grover nodded.

“Can you trust him?”

“With my life. He’s very devoted to me. He’s been with us for twenty years.”

“What’s his name?”

“Barney Sheff. My mother took an interest in him and... well, rehabilitated him.”

“He’d been in trouble?”

“Yes.”

“In the pen?”

“That’s right.”

“Then what?”

“Then he was released. He had a chance to get parole if he could get a job. Mother gave him the job. He’s been terribly devoted ever since.”

“You have a hothouse?”

“Yes.”

“I’m wondering if you have fully explored the possibilities of orchid growing.”

“We’re not interested in orchid growing. We can buy them and—”

“I wonder,” Mason said in exactly the same tone and with the same spacing of words, “if you have fully investigated the possibilities of growing orchids.”

“I tell you we...”

“Fully investigated the possibilities of growing orchids,” Mason said again.

“You mean... oh, you mean we should send Barney Sheff to...”

“Fully investigate the possibilities of growing orchids.”

Dane Grover studied Mason silently for a few seconds. Then abruptly he arose from the chair, extended his hand, and said, “I brought you some money. I thought you might need it.”

He carelessly tossed an envelope on the desk.

“How about your mother?” Mason asked.

Grover touched his tongue to dry lips, then clamped his mouth in a straight line. “Mother,” he said, “is naturally embarrassed. I don’t think her feelings need to enter into it.”

And with that he marched out of the office.

Mason reached for the envelope Grover had tossed on his desk. It was well filled with hundred-dollar bills.

Della Street came over to take the money. “When I get so interested in a man,” she said, “that I neglect to count the money, you know I’m becoming incurably romantic. How much, chief?”

“Plenty,” Mason said.

Della Street was counting it when the unlisted telephone on her desk rang stridently.

She picked up the receiver and heard Drake’s voice on the line.

“Hi, Paul,” she said.

“Hi, Della. Perry there?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Drake said wearily, “I’m making a progress report. Tell him Lieutenant Tragg nabbed the Grover gardener, a chap by the name of Sheff. They’re holding him as a material witness, seem to be all worked up about what they’ve discovered. Can’t find out what it is. Think the tip-off to grab him came from Dane’s mother, Caroline Manning Grover.”

Della Street sat motionless at the desk, holding the receiver.

“Hello, hello,” Drake said. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Della said. “I’ll tell him.” She hung up the phone.

Chapter eight

It was after nine o’clock that night when Della Street, signing the register in the elevator, was whisked up to the floor where Perry Mason had his offices.

The offices of the Drake Detective Agency on the same floor, nearer the elevator, were kept open twenty-four hours a day. The innocent-looking entrance door showed merely a single oblong of frosted glass, the illumination back of the glass showing the offices were open, but giving no indication of the unceasing nocturnal activities of the staff which worked in a veritable rabbit warren of offices.

Della Street started to look in on Paul Drake, then changed her mind and kept on walking down the long, dark corridor, the rapid tempo of her heels echoing back at her from the night silence of the door-lined hallway.

She rounded the elbow in the corridor and saw that lights were on in Mason’s office. She fitted her latchkey to the outer door, crossed through the entrance office, and opened the door of Mason’s private office.

The lawyer was pacing the floor, thumbs pushed in the armholes of his vest, head shoved forward, wrapped in such concentration that he did not even notice the opening of the door.

The desk was littered with photographs. There were numerous sheets of the flimsy which Paul Drake used in making reports to clients.

Della stood quietly in the doorway, watching the tall, lean-waisted man pacing back and forth. He was granite-hard of face, broad-shouldered, flat-stomached; the seething action of his restless mind demanded physical outlet in order to preserve some semblance of internal balance, and this restless pacing was but an unconscious reflex.

After almost a minute Della Street said, “Hello, chief. Can I help?”

Mason looked up at her with a start. “What are you doing here?”

“I came up to see if you were working and, if so, if there was anything I could do to help.”

He smiled. “I’m not working. I’m like an animal running around his cage trying to find an outlet.”

“Had any dinner?” she asked.

He glanced at his wristwatch and said, “Not yet.”

“What time is it?” Della Street asked.

He had to look at his wristwatch again in order to tell her. “Nine-forty.”

She laughed. “I knew you didn’t even look the first time you went through the motions. Come on, chief, you’ve got to go get something to eat. The case will still be here when you get back.”

“How do we know it will?” Mason said. “I’ve been talking with Louise Marlow on the phone. She’s been in touch with Dane Grover and she knows Dane Grover’s mother. Dane Grover says he’ll stick. How does he know what he’ll do? He’s exploring uncharted depths in his own mind. He doesn’t know what he’ll find. His friends and relatives are turning the knife in the wound with their sympathy, the silent accusation of their every glance. How the hell does he know what he’s going to do? How can he tell whether he’ll stick?”

“Just the same,” Della Street insisted, “I think he’ll do it. It’s through situations such as this that character is created.”

“You’re just talking to keep your courage up,” Mason said. “I’ve pulled that line with a jury once or twice myself. Soul-seared in a crucible of adversity — the tempering fires of fate — burning away the fat of wealthy complacency as he comes to grips with the fundamentals of life — baloney!”

She smiled faintly.

“The guy’s undergoing the tortures of the damned,” Mason went on. “He can’t help but be influenced by the evidence, by the worldly-wise, cynical skepticism of all his associates. The woman he loves on the night before the wedding having trouble trying to push herself away from the slimy embraces of the man who gave her money and a certain measure of security — until she had an opportunity to trade that security in on a newer and better model.”

“Chief, you simply have to eat.”

Mason walked over to the desk. “Look at ’em,” he said. “Photographs! And Drake had the devil’s own time obtaining them — copies of the police photographs — the body on the floor, glass on the table, an overturned chair, a newspaper half open by a reading chair, an ordinary, mediocre apartment as drab as the sordid affair for which it was used. And somewhere in those photographs I’ve got to find the clue that will establish the innocence of a woman, not only innocence of the crime of murder, but innocence of the crime of betraying the man she loved.”

Mason crossed over to the desk, picked up the magnifying glass which was on his blotter, started once more examining the pictures. “And, hang it, Della,” he said, “I think the thing’s here somewhere. That glass on the table, a little Scotch and soda in the bottom, Fay Allison’s fingerprints all over it. Then there’s the brazen touch of that crimson kiss on the forehead.”

“Indicating a woman was with him just before he died?”

“Not necessarily. That lipstick is a perfect imprint of a pair of lips. There was no lipstick on his lips, just there on the forehead. A shrewd man could well have smeared lipstick on his lips, pressed them against Clements’ forehead after the poison had taken effect, and so directed suspicion away from himself. This could well have happened if the man had known some woman was in the habit of visiting Clements there in that apartment.

“It’s a clue that so obviously indicates a woman that I find myself getting suspicious of it. If there were only something to give me a starting point. If we only had a little more time.”

Della Street walked over to the desk. The cool tips of her fingers slid over Mason’s eyes. She said, “Stop it. Come and get something to eat. Let’s talk it over...”

“Haven’t you had dinner?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I knew you’d be working and that if someone didn’t rescue you, you’d be pacing the floor until two or three o’clock in the morning. What’s Paul Drake found out?”

She picked up the sheets of flimsy, placed them together, folded them, stacked up the photographs, put the flimsy on top of the photographs, and anchored everything in place with a paperweight. “Come on, chief, I’m famished.”

Mason walked over to the coat closet. Della had to stand on tiptoes to help him with his topcoat. The lawyer took his hat, switched out lights, and walked down the corridor with Della Street.

But he didn’t really answer her question until after he had become relaxed in one of the booths in their favorite restaurant. Then he pushed back the plates containing the wreckage of a thick steak, shoestring potatoes, golden-brown toasted and buttered French bread, and a lettuce and tomato salad.

He poured more coffee, then said, “Drake hasn’t found out much, just background.”

“What, for instance?” Della Street asked.

Mason said wearily, “It’s the same old seven and six. The wife, Marline Austin Clements, apparently was swept off her feet by Carver Clements’ determination to get her, by the sheer power of the man.

“She overlooked the fact that after he had her safely listed as one of his legal chattels, with title in good order, he used that same acquisitive, aggressive tenacity of purpose to get other things he wanted. Marline was left pretty much alone. That’s the price one has to pay for marrying men of that type.”

“And so?” Della asked.

“And so,” Mason said, “in the course of time, Carver Clements turned to other interests. Hang it, Della, we have one thing to work on, only one thing, the fact that Clements had no key on his body.

“You remember the four people who met us in the corridor. They had to get in that apartment house some way. Remember the outer door was locked. Any of the tenants could release the latch by pressing the button of an electric release. But if the tenant of some apartment didn’t press the release button, it was necessary for any visitor to have a key in order to get in.

“Now then, those four people got in. How? They must have had a key. Regardless of what they now say, one of them must have had a key.”

“The missing key?” Della asked.

“That’s what we have to find out.”

“What story did they give the police?”

“I don’t know. The police have them sewed up tight. I’ve got to get one of them on the stand and cross-examine him. Then we’ll at least have something to go on.”

“So we have to try for an immediate hearing and then go it blind?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Was that key in Fay Allison’s purse Carver Clements’ missing key?”

“It could have been. If so, either Fay was playing house or the key was planted. In that case when was it planted, how, and by whom? I’m inclined to think Clements’ key must have been on his body at the time he was murdered. It wasn’t there when the police arrived. That’s the one really significant clue we have to work on.”

Della Street shook her head. “It’s too deep for me. but I guess you’re going to have to wade into it. I can tell you one thing. Louise Marlow is a brick. I’ve known her since I was a child. If there’s anything she can do to help, you can count on her.”

Mason lit a cigarette. “Ordinarily I’d spar for time, but in this case I’m afraid time is our enemy. Della. We’re going to have to walk into court with all the assurance in the world and pull a very large rabbit out of a very small hat.”

She smiled. “Where do we get the rabbit?”

“Back in the office,” he said, “studying those photographs, looking for a clue, and...” Suddenly he snapped to startled attention.

“What is it, chief?”

“I was just thinking. The glass on the table in seven-oh-two, there was a little whiskey and soda in the bottom of it, just a spoonful or two.”

“Well?” she asked.

“What happens when you drink Scotch and soda, Della?”

“Why... you always have a little. It sticks to the side of the glass and then gradually settles back.”

Mason shook his head. His eyes were glowing now. “You leave ice cubes in the glass,” he said, “and then after a while they melt and leave an inch or so of water.”

She matched his excitement. “Then there was no ice in the woman’s glass?”

“And none in Carver Clements’. Yet there was a thermos jar of ice cubes on the table. Come on, Della, we’re going back and really study those photographs!”

Chapter nine

Judge Randolph Jordan ascended the bench and rapped the court to order.

“People versus Fay Allison.”

“Ready for the defendant,” Mason said.

“Ready for the prosecution,” Stewart Linn announced.

Linn, one of the best of the trial deputies in the district attorney’s office, was a thin-faced, steely-eyed, cautious individual who had the mind of an accountant, an encyclopedic knowledge of law, and the cold-blooded mercilessness of a steel trap.

Linn was under no illusions as to the resourcefulness of his adversary, and he had all the caution of a boxer approaching a heavyweight champion.

“Call Dr. Charles Keene,” he said.

Dr. Keene came forward, qualified himself as a physician and surgeon who had had great experience in medical necropsies, particularly in cases of homicide.

“On the tenth of this month did you have occasion to examine a body in apartment seven-oh-two at the Mandrake Arms?”

“I did.”

“What time was it?”

“It was about two o’clock in the morning.”

“What did you find?”

“I found the body of a man of approximately fifty-two years of age, fairly well-fleshed, quite bald, but otherwise very well preserved for a man of his age. The body was lying on the floor, sprawled forward, head toward the door, feet toward the interior of the apartment, the left arm doubled up and lying under him, the right arm flung out, the left side of the face resting on the carpet. The man had been dead for several hours. I fix the time of death as having been during a period between seven o’clock and nine o’clock that evening. I cannot place the time of death any closer than that, but I will swear that it was within those time limits.”

“And did you determine the cause of death?”

“Not at that time. I did later.”

“What was the cause of death?”

“Poisoning caused by the ingestion of cyanide of potassium.”

“Did you notice anything about the physical appearance of the man’s body?”

“You mean with reference to lipstick?”

“Yes.”

“There was a red smear on the upper part of the forehead, apparently caused by lips that had been heavily coated with lipstick and then pressed against the skin in a somewhat puckered condition.”

“You mean the skin was puckered?”

“No,” Dr. Linn said, smiling. “I mean the lips were puckered. It was as though some woman had administered a last kiss. The lipstick was deposited at the upper part of the forehead, where the skin across the scalp was stretched tight and smooth. It would have been above the hairline of an individual who was not bald.”

“Cross-examine,” Linn announced.

“No questions,” Mason said.

“Call Benjamin Harlan,” Linn said.

Benjamin Harlan, a huge, lumbering giant of a man, took the stand with a good-natured smile, promptly proceeded to qualify himself as a fingerprint and identification expert of some twenty years’ experience.

Stewart Linn, by skillful, adroit questions, led him through an account of his activities on the date in question, the finding of the body, the dusting of various things in the apartment, the finding of no latent fingerprints on the glass which the prosecution referred to as the “murder glass,” indicating this glass had been wiped clean of prints, the finding of prints on the glass on the table which the prosecution referred to as the “decoy glass,” on the toothbrush, on the tube of toothpaste, and various other articles. These latent fingerprints had coincided with the rolled fingerprints taken from the hands of Fay Allison, the defendant in the case.

Harlan also identified a whole series of photographs taken by the police showing the position of the body when it was discovered, the furnishings in the apartment, the table, the overturned chair, the so-called murder glass which had rolled along the floor, the so-called decoy glass on the table, which bore unmistakably the fresh fingerprints of Fay Allison, the bottle of Scotch whiskey, the bottle of soda water, the thermos jar containing ice cubes.

“Cross-examine,” Linn said triumphantly.

Mason said, “You have had some twenty years’ experience as a fingerprint expert, Mr. Harlan?”

“That’s right.”

“And an identification expert?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, you have heard Dr. Keene’s testimony about the lipstick on the forehead of the dead man?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that lipstick, I believe, shows in this photograph which I now hand you?”

“Yes, sir. Not only that, but I have a close-up of that lipstick stain which I myself took with one of the cameras I use for close-up photography. I have an enlargement of that negative, in case you’re interested.”

“I’m very much interested,” Mason said. “Will you produce the enlargement, please?”

Harlan produced the photograph from his briefcase, showing a section of the forehead of the dead man, with the stain of lips outlined clearly and in microscopic detail.

“What is the scale of this photograph?” Mason asked.

“Life size,” Harlan said. “I have a standard of distances by which I can take photographs to a scale of exactly life size.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “I’d like to have this photograph received in evidence.”

“No objection,” Linn said.

“And it is, is it not, a matter of fact that the little lines shown in this photograph are fully as distinctive as the ridges and whorls of a fingerprint?”

“Just what do you mean?”

“Isn’t it a fact well known to identification experts that the little wrinkles which form in a person’s lips are fully as individual as the lines of a fingerprint?”

“It’s not a ‘well-known’ fact.”

“But it is a fact?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“So that by measuring the distance between the little lines which are shown on this photograph, indicating the pucker lines of the skin, it would be fully as possible to identify the lips which made this lipstick print as it would be to identify a person who had left a fingerprint upon the scalp of the dead man.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, you have testified to having made rolled imprints of the defendant s fingers and compared those with the fingerprints found on the glass.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you made any attempt to take an imprint of her lips and compare that print with the print of the lipstick on the forehead of the decedent?”

“No, sir,” Harlan said, shifting his position uneasily.

“Why not?”

“Well, in the first place, Mr. Mason, the fact that the pucker lines of lips are so highly individualized is not a generally known fact.”

“But you know it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the more skilled experts in your profession know it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why didn’t you do it then?”

Harlan shifted his position again, crossed his legs, glanced somewhat helplessly at Stewart Linn, the deputy prosecutor.

“Oh, if the Court please,” Linn said, promptly taking his cue from that glance, “this hardly seems to be cross-examination. The inquiry is wandering far afield. I will object to the question on the ground that it’s incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, and not proper cross-examination.”

“Overruled,” Judge Jordan snapped. “Answer the question!”

Harlan cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “I guess I just never thought of it.”

“Think of it now,” Mason said with a gesture that was a flourish. “Go ahead and take the imprint right now and right here. Put on plenty of lipstick, Miss Allison. Let’s see how your lips compare with those on the dead man’s forehead.”

“Oh, if the Court please,” Linn said wearily, “this hardly seems to be cross-examination. If Mr. Mason wants to make Harlan his own witness and call for this test as a part of the defendant’s case, that will be one thing, but this certainly isn’t cross-examination.”

“It may be cross-examination of Harlan’s qualifications as an expert,” Judge Jordan ruled.

With faint sarcasm Linn said, “Isn’t that stretching a technicality rather far?”

“Your objection was highly technical,” Judge Jordan snapped. “It is overruled, and my ruling will stand. Take the impression, Mr. Harlan.”

Fay Allison, with trembling hand, daubed lipstick heavily on her mouth. Then, using the makeup mirror in her purse, smoothed off the lipstick with the tip of her little finger.

“Go ahead,” Mason said to Harlan, “check on her lips.”

Harlan, taking a piece of white paper from his briefcase, moved down to where the defendant was sitting beside Perry Mason and pressed the white paper against her lips. He removed the paper and examined the imprint.

“Go ahead,” Mason said to Harlan, “make your comparison and announce the result to the Court.”

Harlan said, “Of course, I have not the facilities here for making a microscopic comparison, but I can tell from even a superficial examination of the lip lines that these lips did not make that print.”

“Thank you,” Mason said. “That’s all.”

Judge Jordan was interested. “These lines appear in the lips only when the lips are puckered, as in giving a kiss?”

“No, Your Honor, they are in the lips all the time, as an examination will show, but when the lips are puckered, the lines are intensified.”

“And these lip markings are different with each individual?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“So that you are now prepared to state to the Court that despite the fingerprints of the defendant on the glass and other objects, her lips definitely could not have left the imprint on the dead man’s forehead?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“That’s all,” Judge Jordan said.

“Of course,” Linn pointed out, “the fact that the defendant did not leave that kiss imprint on the man’s forehead doesn’t necessarily mean a thing, Your Honor. In fact, he may have met his death because the defendant found that lipstick on his forehead. The evidence of the fingerprints is quite conclusive that the defendant was in that apartment.”

“The Court understands the evidence. Proceed with your case,” Judge Jordan said.

“Furthermore,” Linn went on angrily, “I will now show the Court that there was every possibility the print of that lipstick could have been deliberately planted by none other than the attorney for the defendant and his charming and very efficient secretary. I will proceed to prove that by calling Don B. Ralston to the stand.”

Ralston came forward and took the stand, his manner that of a man who wishes very much he were many miles away.

“Your name is Don B. Ralston? You reside at Two-nine-three-five Creelmore Avenue in this city?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you knew Carver L. Clements in his lifetime?”

“Yes.”

“Were rather intimately associated with him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In a business way?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, on the night, or rather early in the morning, of the tenth of this month, did you have occasion to go to Carver L. Clements’ apartment, being apartment number seven-oh-two in the Mandrake Arms Apartments in this city?”

“I did, yes, sir.”

“What time was it?”

“Around... well, it was between one and two in the morning... I would say somewhere around one-thirty.”

“Were you alone?”

“No, sir.”

“Who was with you?”

“Richard P. Nolin, who is a business associate, or was a business associate of Mr. Clements; Manley L. Ogden, who handled some of Mr. Clements’ income tax work; and a Miss Vera Payson, a friend of — well, a friend of all of us.”

“What happened when you went to that apartment? Did you enter it?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell us just what happened.”

“Well, we left the elevator on the seventh floor, and as we were walking up the corridor, I noticed two people coming down the corridor toward us.”

“Now, when you say ‘down the corridor,’ do you mean from the direction of apartment seven-oh-two?”

“That’s right, yes, sir.”

“And who were these people?”

“Mr. Perry Mason and his secretary, Miss Street.”

“And did you actually enter the apartment of Carver Clements?”

“I did not.”

“Why not?”

“When I got to the door of apartment seven-oh-two, I pushed the doorbell and heard the sound of the buzzer on the inside of the apartment. Almost instantly the door of an apartment across the hall opened, and a woman who seemed to be somewhat irritated complained that she had been unable to sleep because of people ringing the buzzer of that apartment, and stated in effect that other people were in there with Mr. Clements. So we left immediately.”

“Now, then, Your Honor,” Stewart Linn said, “I propose to show that the two people referred to by the person living in the apartment across the hallway were none other than Mr. Mason and Miss Street, who had actually entered that apartment and were closeted in there with the dead man and the evidence for an undetermined length of time.”

“Go ahead and show it,” Judge Jordan said.

“Just a moment,” Mason said. “Before you do that, I want to cross-examine this witness.”

“Cross-examine him, then.”

“When you arrived at the Mandrake Arms, the door to the street was locked, was it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you do?”

“We went up to the seventh floor and—”

“I understand that, but how did you get in? How did you get past the entrance door? You had a key, didn’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“Then how did you get in?”

“Why, you let us in.”

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“Understand,” Mason said, “I am not now referring to the time you came up from the street in the custody of the police. I am now referring to the time when you first entered that apartment house on the morning of the tenth of this month — the first time you went in.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. You let us in.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, because you and your secretary were in Carver Clements’ apartment, and—”

“You, yourself, don’t know we were in there, do you?”

“Well, I surmise it. We met you just after you had left the apartment. You were hurrying down the hall toward the elevator.”

Mason said, “I don’t want your surmises. You don’t even know I had been in that apartment. I want you to tell us how you got past the locked street door. No surmises now. Just how did you get in? Exactly what did you do?”

“We pressed the button of Carver Clements’ apartment, and you — or at any rate someone — answered by pressing the button which released the electric door catch on the outer door. As soon as we heard the sound of buzzing, which indicated the lock was released, we pushed the door open and went in.”

“Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this,” Mason said. “Who was it pushed the button of Carver Clements’ apartment?”

“I did.”

“I’m talking now about the button in front of the outer door of the apartment house.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, having pressed that button, you waited until the buzzer announced the door was being opened?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long?”

“Not over a second or two.”

Mason said to the witness, “One more question: did you go right up after you entered the apartment house?”

“We... no, sir, not right away. We stopped for a few moments there in the lobby to talk about the type of poker we wanted to play. Miss Payson had lost some money on one of these wild poker games where the dealer has the opportunity of calling any kind of game he wants, some of them having the one-eyed jacks wild, and others having seven cards from which five are selected, and things of that sort.”

“How long were you talking?”

“Oh, a couple of minutes, perhaps.”

“And you decided on the type of poker you wanted to play?”

“Yes.”

“And then went right up?”

“Yes.”

“Where was the elevator?”

“The elevator was... now, wait a minute, I don’t remember exactly. It was on one of the upper floors. I remember we pressed the button and it took it a little while to come down to where we were.”

“That’s all,” Mason said.

Della Street’s fingers dug into his arm. “Aren’t you going to ask him about the key?” she whispered.

“Not yet,” Mason said, a light of triumph in his eyes. “I know what happened now, Della. Give us the breaks and we’ve got this case in the bag. First, make him prove we were in that apartment.”

Linn said, “I will now call Miss Shirley Tanner to the stand.”

The young woman who advanced to the stand was very different from the disheveled, sleepless, and nervous individual who had been so angry at the time Mason and Della Street had pressed the button of apartment 702.

“Your name is Shirley Tanner, and you reside in apartment seven-oh-one of the Mandrake Arms Apartments in this city?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have for how long?”

She smiled and said, “Not very long. I put in three weeks apartment hunting and finally secured a sublease on apartment seven-oh-one on the afternoon of the eighth. I moved in on the ninth, which explains why I was tired almost to the point of having hysterics.”

“You had difficulty sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“And on the morning of the tenth did you have any experiences which annoyed you — that is, experiences in connection with the ringing of the buzzer in the apartment next door?”

“I most certainly did, yes, sir.”

“Tell us exactly what happened.”

“I had been taking sleeping medicine from time to time, but for some reason or other this night I was so nervous the sleeping medicine didn’t do me any good. I had been moving and unpacking, and my nerves were all keyed up. I was physically and mentally exhausted. I tried to sleep, but I was too tired. I guess perhaps you know how it is, Your Honor,” she said, turning to the judge with a winsome smile.

The judge regarded the attractive young woman, smiled in a fatherly way, nodded, and said, “We all get overtired at times. Go on with your testimony, Miss Tanner.”

“Well, I think I had just gotten to sleep when I was awakened by a continual sounding of the buzzer over there in the apartment across the hall. It was a low, persistent noise which became exceedingly irritating to a person in my nervous state, who was trying to sleep.”

“Go on,” Linn said. “What did you do?”

“I finally got up and put on a robe and went to the door and flung it open. I was terribly angry at the very idea of people making so much noise at that hour of the morning. You see, those apartments aren’t too soundproof and there is a ventilating system over the doors of the apartments. The one over the door of seven-oh-two was apparently open, and I had left mine open for nighttime ventilation. And then I was angry at myself for getting so upset over the noise. I knew my allowing myself to get so angry would prevent me from sleeping at all, which is why I lay still for what seemed an interminable time before I opened the door.”

Linn smiled. “So you became angry at the people in the hallway and then became angry at yourself for being angry?”

Her laugh was musical. “That’s about the way it happened.”

“And you say you flung open the door?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did you find?”

“Two people across the hall.”

“Did you recognize them?”

“I didn’t know them at the time, but I know them now.”

“Who were they?”

She pointed a dramatic finger at Perry Mason.

“Mr. Perry Mason, the lawyer for the defendant, and the young woman, I believe his secretary, who is sitting there beside him — not the defendant, but the woman on the other side.”

“Miss Della Street,” Mason said with a bow.

“Thank you,” she said.

“And,” Linn went on, “what did you see those people do?” She said, “I saw them enter the apartment.”

“Did you see how they entered the apartment... I mean, how did they get the door open?”

“They must have used a key. Mr. Mason was just pushing the door open and I—”

“No surmises, please,” Linn broke in. “Did you actually see Mr. Mason using a key?”

“Well, I heard him.”

“What do you mean?”

“As I was opening my door I heard metal rasping against metal, the way a key does when it scrapes against a lock. And then when I had my door all the way open, I saw Mr. Mason pushing his way into seven-oh-two.”

“But you only know he must have had a key because you heard the sound of metal rubbing against metal?”

“Well, it stands to reason...”

“But you only heard the sound of metal against metal?”

“Yes, and the click of the lock.”

“Did you say anything to Mr. Mason and Miss Street?”

“I most certainly did, and then I slammed the door and went back to bed. But I was so mad by that time I simply couldn’t close my eyes and keep them closed. I couldn’t understand why, if a person had a key, he would go through all that agony of ringing a doorbell and waking me up. Why didn’t they simply go in there in the first place and—”

“Now, never mind that,” Linn interrupted impatiently, holding up his hand palm outward and moving it back and forth as though patting the words back into her mouth. “Never mind your conclusions, never mind your reasons. Just tell the Court what you saw.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What happened after that?”

“After that, when I was trying to sleep — I would say just a few seconds after that — I heard that buzzer again. And this time I was good and mad.”

“And what did you do?”

“I swung open the door and started to give these people a piece of my mind.”

“People?” Linn prompted.

“There were four people standing there. The Mr. Ralston who has just testified, two other men, and a woman. They were standing there at the doorway, jabbing away at the button, and I told them this was a sweet time to be calling on someone and making a racket and that anyway the gentleman already had company, so if he didn’t answer his door, it was because he didn’t want to.”

“Did you at that time see Mr. Mason and Miss Street walking down the corridor?”

“No, I did not. I had my door open only far enough to show me the door of apartment seven-oh-two across the way. You see, my door opens toward the end of the corridor away from the elevator. My apartment is a corner apartment and seven-oh-two is a corner apartment. So, when my door is open, I can only see just that blind end of the corridor unless I open it all the way.”

“Thank you,” Linn said. “Now you distinctly saw Mr. Mason and Miss Street enter that apartment?”

“Yes.”

“And close the door behind them?”

“Yes.”

“Cross-examine!” Linn said triumphantly.

Mason, taking a notebook from his pocket, walked up to stand beside Shirley Tanner, but his voice was good-natured. “Miss Tanner,” he said, “are you certain that you heard me rub metal against the keyhole of that door?”

“Certain,” she said.

“My back was toward you?”

“It was when I first opened my door, yes. I saw your face, however, just after you went in the door. You turned around and looked at me over your shoulder.”

“Oh, we’ll stipulate,” Linn said with an exaggerated note of weariness in his voice, “that the witness couldn’t see through Mr. Mason’s back. Perhaps learned counsel was carrying the key in his teeth.”

“Thank you,” Mason said, turning toward Linn. Then suddenly stepping forward, he clapped his notebook against Shirley Tanner’s face.

The witness screamed and jumped back.

Linn was on his feet. “What are you trying to do,” he shouted, “intimidate the witness?”

Judge Jordan pounded with his gavel. “Mr. Mason!” he reprimanded. “That is contempt of court!”

Mason said, “Please let me explain, Your Honor. The Prosecution took the lip prints of my client. I feel that I am entitled to take the lip prints of this witness. I will cheerfully admit to being in contempt of court, in the event I am wrong, but I would like to extend this imprint of Shirley Tanner’s lips to Mr. Benjamin Harlan, the identification expert, and ask him whether or not the print made by these lips is not the same as that of the lipstick kiss which was found on the forehead of the deceased, Carver I.. Clements.”

There was a tense, dramatic silence in the courtroom.

Mason stepped forward and handed the notebook to Benjamin Harlan.

From the witness stand came a shrill scream of terror. Shirley Tanner tried to get to her feet, her eyes fastened on Mason, wide, round, and terrified, her face the color of putty beneath the makeup which suddenly showed as dabbed-on bits of orange.

She couldn’t make it. Her knees buckled. She tried to catch herself, then fell to the floor.

Chapter ten

It was when order was restored in the courtroom that Perry Mason exploded his second bombshell.

“Your Honor,” he said, “either Fay Allison is innocent or she is guilty. If she is innocent, someone framed the evidence which would discredit her. And if someone did frame that evidence, there is only one person who could have done it, one person who could have had access to the defendant’s apartment, one person who could have transported glasses, toothbrushes, and toothpaste containing Fay Allison’s fingerprints, one person who could have transported clothes bearing the unmistakable stamp of ownership of the defendant in this case.

“Your Honor, I request that Anita Bonsal be called to the stand.”

There was a moment’s sudden and dramatic silence.

Anita Bonsal, there in the courtroom, felt suddenly as though she had been stripped stark naked by one swift gesture.

One moment she had been sitting there completely lost in the proceedings, trying to adjust her mind to what was happening, attempting to keep pace with the swift rush of developments. The next moment everyone in the courtroom was seeking her out with staring, prying eyes.

It was as though she had been quietly bathing and the side of the building had collapsed and left her naked and exposed to the curious eyes of the multitude.

In that sudden surge of panic, Anita did the worst thing she could possibly have done. She ran.

They were after her then, a throng of humanity, actuated only by the mass instinct to pursue that which ran for cover.

Elevators were too slow for Anita’s frantic feet. Behind her was the bedlam of the crowd, a babble of voices which speedily grew into a roar.

Anita dashed to the stairs, went scrambling down them, and found herself in another hallway in the Hall of Justice. She dashed the length of that hallway, frantically trying to find the stairs. She could not find them.

An elevator offered her welcome haven. It was standing with the doors open, the red light on above it.

“Going down,” the attendant said.

Anita fairly flung herself into the cage.

“What’s the hurry?” the attendant asked.

Shreds of reason were beginning to return to Anita’s fear-racked mind.

“They’re calling my case,” she said. “Let me off at...”

“I know,” the man said, smiling. “Third floor. Domestic Relations Court.”

He slid the cage to a smooth stop at the third floor. “Out to the left,” he said. “Department Twelve.”

Anita’s mind was beginning to work now, functioning smoothly, cunningly.

She smiled her thanks to the elevator attendant, walked rapidly to the left, pushed open the door of Department 12 of the Superior Court, and entered the partially filled courtroom with all the assurance of a witness coming to testify in a case.

She marched down the center aisle, gave an apologetic smile to the young woman who was in the aisle seat, then crossed in front of her and calmly seated herself in the middle seat in the row of benches.

She was now wrapped in anonymity. Only her breathlessness and the pounding of her pulses gave indication that she was the quarry for which the crowd was searching.

Then slowly the triumphant smile faded from her face. The realization of what was bound to be the effect of what she had done stabbed her consciousness. She had admitted her guilt. She could flee now to the farthest corners of the earth, but her guilt would always follow her. She would always be an object of scorn and contempt.

Perry Mason had shown that she had not killed Carver Clements, but he had also shown that she had done something which in the minds of all men would be even worse. She had betrayed her friendship. She had tried to besmirch Fay Allison’s reputation. She had attempted the murder of her own roommate by giving her an overdose of sleeping tablets.

How much would Mason have been able to prove? She had no way of knowing. The man was uncanny with his shrewdness of perception. But there was no need for him to prove now. Her flight had given Mason all the proof he needed.

She must disappear, and that would not be easy. By evening her photograph would be emblazoned upon the pages of every newspaper in the city.

Chapter eleven

Back in the courtroom, all but deserted now except for the county officials who were crowding around Shirley Tanner, Mason was asking questions in a low voice.

There was no more stamina left in Shirley Tanner. She heard her own voice answering the persistent drone of Mason’s searching questions.

“You knew that Clements had this apartment in seven-oh-two? You deliberately made such a high offer that you were able to sublease apartment seven-oh-one? You were suspicious of Clements and wanted to spy on him?”

“Yes,” Shirley said, and her voice was all but inaudible to her own ears, although her eyes told her that the court reporter, standing beside her with his hand moving unobtrusively over his notebook, was taking down all that was said.

“You were furious when you realized that Carver Clements had another mistress, that all his talk to you about waiting until he could get his divorce was merely another bait which you had grabbed.”

Again she said, “Yes.” It seemed the easiest thing to say, the only thing that she could say. There was no strength in her any more to think up lies.

“You made the mistake of loving him,” Mason said. “It wasn’t his money you were after, and you administered the poison. How did you do it, Shirley?”

She said, “I’d poisoned the drink I held in my hand. I knew it made Carver furious when I drank because whiskey makes me lose control of myself, and he never knew what I was going to do when I was drunk.

“I rang his bell, holding that glass in my hand. I leered at him tipsily when he opened the door, and walked on in. I said, ‘Hello, Carver darling. Meet your next-door neighbor,’ and I raised the glass to my lips.

“He reacted just as I knew he would. He was furious. He said, ‘You little devil, what’re you doing here? I’ve told you I’ll do the drinking for both of us.’ He snatched the glass from me and drained it.”

“What happened?” Mason asked.

“For a moment, nothing,” she said. “He went back to the chair and sat down. I leaned over him and pressed that kiss on his head. It was a good-by kiss. He looked at me, frowned, suddenly jumped to his feet, and tried to run to the door. Then he staggered and fell face forward.”

“And what did you do?”

“I took the key to his apartment from his pocket so I could get back in to fix things the way I wanted and get possession of the glass, but I was afraid to be there while he was... retching and twisting... and dying.”

Mason nodded. “You went back to your own apartment and then after you had waited a few minutes and thought it was safe to go back, you couldn’t, because Anita Bonsal was at the door?”

Shirley Tanner nodded and said, “She had a key. She went in. I supposed, of course, she’d call the police and that they’d come at any time. I didn’t dare to go in there then. I tried to sleep and couldn’t. Finally I decided the police weren’t coming after all. It was past midnight then.”

“So then you went back in there? You were in there when Don Ralston rang the bell. You—”

“Yes,” she said. “I went back into that apartment. By that time I had put on a bathrobe and pajamas and ruffled my hair all up. If anyone had said anything to me, if I had been caught, I had a story all prepared to tell them — that I had heard the door open and someone run down the corridor, that I had opened my door and found the door of seven-oh-two ajar, and I had just that minute looked in to see what had happened.”

“All right,” Mason said, “that was your story. What did you do?”

“I went across the hall. I went in and wiped all my fingerprints off that glass on the floor. Then the buzzer sounded from the street door.”

“What did you do?”

“I saw someone had fixed up the evidence just the way I had been going to fix it up. A bottle of Scotch on the table, a bottle of soda, a pail of ice cubes.”

“So what did you do?”

She said, “I pushed the button which released the downstairs door catch and ducked back into my own apartment. I hadn’t any more than got in there than I heard the elevator stop at the seventh floor. I couldn’t understand that, because I knew these people couldn’t possibly have had time enough to get up to the seventh floor in the elevator. I waited, listening, and heard you two come down the corridor. I could barely hear the sound of the buzzer in the other apartment. I opened the door to chase you away and saw you were actually entering the apartment, so I had to make a quick excuse, that the sound of the buzzer had wakened me. Then I jerked the door shut. When the four people came up, I really and truly thought you were still in the apartment, and I was dying of curiosity to see what was happening.”

“How long had you known him?” Mason asked.

She said sadly, “I loved him. I was the one that he wanted to marry when he left his wife. I don’t know how long this other thing had been going on. I became suspicious, and one time when I had an opportunity to go through his pockets, I found a key stamped ‘Mandrake Arms Apartment, Number Seven-oh-two.’ Then I thought I knew, but I wanted to be sure. I found out who had apartment seven-oh-one and made a proposition for a sublease that simply couldn’t be turned down.

“I waited and watched. This brunette walked down the corridor and used her key to open the apartment. I slipped out into the corridor and listened at the door. I heard him give her the same old line he’d given me so many times, and my heart turned to bitter acid. I hated him. I killed him... and I was caught.”

Mason turned to Stewart Linn. “There you are, young man. If you want to be the fearless prosecutor, there’s your murderess, but you’ll probably never be able to get a jury to think it’s anything more than manslaughter.”

A much chastened Linn said, “Would you mind telling me how you figured this out, Mr. Mason?”

Mason said, “Clements’ key was missing. Obviously he must have had it when he entered the apartment. The murderer must have taken it from his pocket. Why? So he or she could come back. And if what Don Ralston said was true, someone must have been in the apartment when he rang the bell from the street, someone who let him in by pressing the buzzer.

“What happened to that someone? I must have been walking down the corridor within a matter of seconds after Ralston had pressed the button on the street door. Yet I saw no one leaving the apartment. There was no one in the corridor. Obviously, then, the person who pressed the buzzer must have had a place to take refuge in another nearby apartment.

“Having reasoned that far, having learned a young, attractive woman had only that very day taken a lease on the apartment opposite, the answer became so obvious it ceased to be a mystery.”

Stewart Linn nodded thoughtfully. “Obvious when you have once pointed it out,” he said.

Mason picked up his briefcase and smiled at Della Street. “Come on, Della,” he said. “Let’s get Fay Allison and...”

He stopped as he saw Fay Allison’s face. “What’s happened to your lipstick?”

And then his eyes moved over to take in Dane Grover, who was standing by her, his mouth streaked diagonally with a huge red smear.

Fay Allison had neglected to remove the thick coating of lipstick which she had put on when Mason had asked Benjamin Harlan, the identification expert, to take an imprint of her lips. Now the heavy mark where her mouth had been pressed against the mouth of Dane Grover gave an oddly jarring note of incongruity to the entire proceedings.

On the lower floors a mob of eager, curious spectators were baying like hounds on the track of Anita Bonsal. In the courtroom the long, efficient arm of the law was gathering Shirley Tanner into its grasp, and there, amidst the machinery of tragedy, the romance of Fay Allison and Dane Grover picked up where it had left off.

It was the gavel of Judge Randolph Jordan that brought them back to the grim realities of justice, transferred the courtroom from the scene of a dramatic confession to a crowded place, filled with chairs, tables, and benches, peopled by puppets who were mechanically doing the bidding of justice.

“The Court,” announced Judge Jordan, “will dismiss the case against Fay Allison. The Court will order Shirley Tanner into custody and the Court will suggest to the Prosecutor that a complaint be issued for Anita Bonsal, upon such charge as may seem expedient to the office of the District Attorney. And the Court does hereby extend its most sincere apologies to the defendant, Fay Allison. And the Court, personally, wishes to congratulate Mr. Perry Mason upon his brilliant handling of this matter.”

There was a moment during which Judge Jordan’s stern eyes rested upon the lipstick-smeared countenance of Dane Grover.

A faint smile twitched at the corners of His Honor’s mouth.

The gavel banged once more.

“Court,” announced Judge Randolph Jordan, “is adjourned.”

Content

Eric Stanley Gardner
The Case of the Crimson Kiss

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven