“And recovered a hundred thousand dollars in gems?” Mason asked.
“Recovered a goodly assortment of diamonds,” Irving said. “Let us say, perhaps a third of the value of the smuggled shipment.”
“And the remaining two-thirds?”
Irving shrugged his shoulders.
“And the identification?” Mason asked.
Again Irving shrugged his shoulders.
“And where were these gems found?”
“Where someone had very cleverly planted them. You may remember the little flurry of excitement when an intruder was discovered in the office—the police asked us to check and see if anything had been taken. It never occurred to us to check and see if anything had been planted.”
“Where were the diamonds found?”
“In a package fastened to the back of a desk drawer with adhesive tape.”
“And what does Duane Jefferson have to say about this?”
“What could he say?” Irving asked. “It was all news to him, just as it was to me.”
“You can vouch for these facts?” Mason asked.
“I’ll vouch for them. But I can’t vouch for Duane’s romantic, crazy notions of protecting this girl.”
“She was the same girl who entered the office?”
“I think she was. Duane would have a fit and never speak to me again if he knew I ever entertained such a thought. You have to handle him with kid gloves where women are concerned. But if it comes to a showdown, you’re going to have to drag this girl into it, and Duane Jefferson will cease to co-operate with you as soon as you mention her very existence.”
Mason thought the matter over.
“Well?” Irving asked.
“Make out your check for two thousand dollars,” Mason told him. “That will be on account of a five-thousand dollar fee.”
“What do you mean—a five-thousand-dollar fee?”
“It won’t be more than that.”
“Including detectives?”
“No. You will have to pay expenses. I’m fixing fees.”
“Damn it,” Irving exploded. “If that bunch in the home office hadn’t mentioned a two-thousand-dollar retainer, I could have got you to handle the whole case for two thousand.”
Mason sat quietly facing Irving.
“Well, it’s done now, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” Irving said, taking from his wallet a check already made out to the lawyer. He slid the check across the desk to Perry Mason.
Mason said to Della Street, “Make a receipt, Della, and put on the receipt that this is a retainer on behalf of Duane Jefferson.”
“What’s the idea?” Irving asked.
“Simply to show that I’m not responsible to you or your company but only to my client.”
Irving thought that over.
“Any objections?” Mason asked.
“No. I presume you’re intimating that you’d even turn against me if it suited Duane’s interests for you to do so.”
“I’m more than intimating, I’m telling you.”
Irving grinned. “That’s okay by me. I’ll go further. If at any time things start getting hot, you can count on me to do anything needed to back your play. I’d even consent to play the part of a missing witness.”
Mason shook his head. “Don’t try to call the plays. Let me do that.”
Irving extended his hand. “I just want you to understand my position, Mason.”
“And be sure you understand mine,” Mason said.
Chapter 5
Mason looked at Della Street as Walter Irving left the office.
“Well?” Della Street asked.
Mason said, “I just about had to take the case in self-defense, Della.”
“Why?”
“Otherwise, we’d be sitting on top of information in a murder case, we wouldn’t have any client whom we would be protecting, and the situation could become rather rugged.”
“And as it is now?” she asked.
“Now,” he told her, “we have a client whom we can be protecting. An attorney representing a client in a murder case is under no obligation to go to the police and set forth his surmises, suspicions, and conclusions, particularly if he has reason to believe that such a course would be against the best interests of his client.”
“But how about the positive evidence?” Della Street asked.
“Evidence of what?”
“Evidence that we harbored a young woman who had gone into that office and planted diamonds.”
“We don’t know she planted diamonds.”
“Who had gone into the office then.”
“We don’t know she was the same woman.”
“It’s a reasonable assumption.”
“Suppose she was merely a typist who happened to be in the building. We go to the police with a lot of suspicions, and the police give the story to the newspapers, then she sues for defamation of character.”
“I see,” Della Street said demurely. “I’m afraid it’s hopeless to try and convince you.”
“It is.”
“And now may I ask you a question, Counselor?”
“What?”
“Do you suppose that it was pure coincidence that you are the attorney retained to represent the interests of Duane Jefferson?”
Mason stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“Well?” she prompted.
“I’ve thought of that,” Mason admitted. “Of course, the fact that I am known as a trial attorney, that I have offices on the same floor of the same building would mean that Irving had had a chance to hear about me and, by the same token, a chance to notify his home office that I would be available.”
“But he said he didn’t do that. He said somebody beat him to it and he got the cable to turn over the two thousand dollars to you.”
Mason nodded.
“Well?” Della Street asked.
“No comment,” Mason said.
“So what do we do now?”
“Now,” Mason said, “our position is very, very clear, Della. I suggest that you go down to the camera store, tell them that I want to buy a fingerprint camera, and you also might get a studio camera with a ground-glass focusing arrangement. Pick up some lights and we’ll see if we can get a photograph of those latent fingerprints on the gum.”
“And then?” she asked.
“Then,” Mason said, “we’ll enlarge the film so that it shows only the fingerprints and not the gum.”
“And then?”
“By that time,” Mason said, “I hope we have managed to locate the girl who made the fingerprints and find out about things for ourselves. While you’re getting the cameras I’ll go down to Paul Drake’s office and have a chat with him.”
“Chief,” Della Street asked somewhat apprehensively, “isn’t this rather risky?”
Mason’s grin was infectious. “Sure it is.”
“Hadn’t you better forget about other things and protect yourself?”
Mason shook his head. “We’re protecting a client, Della. Give me a description of that girl—the best one you can give.”
“Well,” Della Street said, “I’d place her age at twenty-six or twenty-seven, her height at five feet three inches, her weight at about a hundred and sixteen pounds. She had reddish-brown hair and her eyes were also a reddish-brown—about the same color as her hair, very expressive. She was good-looking, trim and well proportioned.”
“Good figure?” Mason asked.
“Perfect.”
“How was she dressed?”
“I can remember that quite well, Chief, because she looked stunning. I remember thinking at the time that she looked more like a client than a gal from an employment agency.
“She wore a beautifully tailored gray flannel suit, navy blue kid shoes. Umm, let me see … yes, I remember now. There was fine white stitching across the toes of the shoes. She carried a matching envelope purse and white gloves. Now let me think. I am quite sure she didn’t wear a hat. As I recal
l, she had a tortoise-shell band on, and there wasn’t a hair out of place.
“She didn’t take her jacket off while she was working, so I can’t be certain, but I think she had on a pale blue cashmere sweater. She opened just the top button of her jacket, so I can’t say for sure about this.”
Mason smiled. “You women never miss a thing about another woman, do you, Della? I would say that was remembering very well. Would you type it out for me—the description? Use a plain sheet of paper, not my letterhead.’
Mason waited until Della Street had finished typing the description, then said, “Okay, Della, go down and get the cameras. Get lots of film, lights, a tripod, and anything we may need. Don’t let on what we want to use them for.”
“The fingerprint camera—isn’t that a giveaway?”
“Tell the proprietor I’m going to have to cross-examine a witness and I want to find out all about how a fingerprint camera works.”
Della Street nodded.
Mason took the typed description and walked down the hall to Paul Drake’s office. He nodded to the girl at the switchboard. “Paul Drake in?”
“Yes, Mr. Mason. Shall I say you’re here?”
“Anybody with him?”
“No.”
“Tell him I’m on my way,” Mason said, opening the gate in the partition and walking down the long glassed-in runway off which there were numerous cubbyhole offices.
He came to the slightly more commodious office marked “Paul Drake, Private,” pushed open the door and entered.
“Hi,” Drake said. “I was waiting to hear from you.” Mason raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t look so innocent,” Drake said. “The officials of the South African Gem Importing and Exploration Company have been checking up on you by long-distance telephone. They called the manager of the building and asked him about you.”
“Did they ask him about me by name,” Mason asked, “or did they ask him to recommend some attorney?”
“No, they had your name. They wanted to know all about you.”
“What did he tell them?”
Drake grinned and said, “Your rent’s paid up, isn’t it?”
“What the devil is this all about, do you know, Paul?”
“All I know is it’s a murder rap,” Drake said, “and the way the police are acting, someone must have caved in with a confession.”
“Sure,” Mason said, “a confession that would pass the buck to someone else and take the heat off the person making the so-called confession.”
“Could be,” Drake said. “What do we do?”
“We get busy.”
“On what?”
“First,” Mason told him, “I want to find a girl.”
“Okay, what do I have to go on?”
Mason handed him Della Street’s typewritten description.
“Fine,” Drake said. “I can go downstairs, stand on the street corner during the lunch hour and pick you out a hundred girls of this description in ten minutes.”
“Take another look,” Mason invited. “She’s a lot better than average.”
“If it was average, I could make it a thousand,” Drake said.
“All right,” Mason said. “We’re going to have to narrow it down.”
“How?”
“This girl,” Mason said, “is an expert typist. She probably holds down a very good secretarial job somewhere.”
“Unless, of course, she was an exceedingly fine secretary and then got married,” Drake said.
Mason nodded, conceding the point without changing his position. “She also has legal experience,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“That’s something I’m not at liberty to tell you.”
“All right, what do I do?”
Mason said, “Paul you’re going to have to open up a dummy office. You’re going to telephone the Association of Legal Secretaries; you’re going to put an ad in the bar journal and the newspapers; you’re going to ask for a young, attractive typist. Now, I don’t know that this girl takes shorthand. Therefore, you’re going to have to state that a knowledge of shorthand is desirable but not necessary. You’re going to offer a salary of two hundred dollars a week—”
“My Lord!” Drake said. “You’ll be deluged, Perry. You might just as well ask the whole city to come trooping into your office.”
“Wait a minute,” Mason told him. “You don’t have the sketch yet.”
“Well, I certainly hope I don’t!”
“Your ad will provide that the girl must pass a typing test in order to get the job. She must be able to copy rapidly and perfectly and at a very high rate of speed—fix a top rate of words per minute.
“Now, the type of girl we want will already have a job somewhere. We’ve got to get a job that sounds sufficiently attractive so she’ll come in to take a look. Therefore, we can’t expect her in during office hours. So mention that the office will be open noons and until seven o’clock in the evening.”
“And you want me to rent a furnished office?” Drake asked.
“That’s right.”
Drake said lugubriously, “You’d better make arrangements to replace the carpet when you leave. The one that’s there will be worn threadbare by the horde of applicants—How the devil will I know if the right girl comes in?”
“That’s what I’m coming to,” Mason said. “You’re going to start looking these applicants over. You won’t find many that can type at the rate specified. Be absolutely hard-boiled with the qualifications. Have a good secretary sitting there, weeding them out. Don’t pay any attention to anyone who has to reach for an eraser. The girl I want can make that keyboard sound like a machine gun.”
“Okay, then what?”
“When you get girls who qualify on the typing end of the job,” Mason said, “give them a personal interview. Look them over carefully to see how they check with this description and tell them you want to see their driving licenses. A girl like that is bound to have a car. That’s where the catch comes in.”
“How come?”
Mason said, “Sometime this afternoon I’m going to send you over a right thumbprint—that is, a photograph of a thumbprint—perhaps not the best fingerprinting in the world but at least you’ll be able to identify it. When you look at their driving licenses, make it a point to be called into another room for something. Get up and excuse yourself. You can say that there’s another applicant in there that you have to talk to briefly, or that you have to answer a phone or something. Carry the girl’s driving license in there with you, give the thumbprint a quick check. You can eliminate most of them at a glance. Some of them you may have to study a little bit. But if you get the right one, you’ll be able to recognize the thumbprint pretty quickly.”
“What do I do then?”
“Make a note of the name and address on the driving license. In that way, she won’t be able to give you a phony name. And call me at once.”
“Anything else?” Drake asked.
“This is what I think,” Mason said, “but it’s just a hunch. I think the girl’s first name will be Mae. When you find a girl who answers that general description and can type like a house afire, whose first name is Mae, start checking carefully.”
“When will you have that thumbprint?”
“Sometime this afternoon. Her driving license will have the imprint of her right thumb on it.”
“Can you tell me what this is all about?” Drake asked.
Mason grinned and shook his head. “It’s better if you don’t know, Paul.”
“One of those things, eh?” Drake asked, his voice showing a singular lack of enthusiasm.
“No,” Mason told him, “it isn’t. It’s just that I’m taking an ounce of prevention.”
“With you,” Drake told him, “I prefer a pound of prevention. If things go wrong, I know there won’t be more than an ounce of cure.”
Chapter 6
Mason sat in the visitors’ room at the jail and looked
across at Duane Jefferson.
His client was a tall, composed individual who seemed reserved, unexcited, and somehow very British.
Mason tried to jar the man out of his extraordinary complacency.
“You’re charged with murder,” he said.
Duane Jefferson observed him coolly. “I would hardly be here otherwise, would I?”
“What do you know about this thing?”
“Virtually nothing. I knew the man, Baxter, in his lifetime—that is, I assume it was the same one.”
“How did you know him?”
“He represented himself as a big wholesale dealer. He showed up at the South African office and wanted to buy diamonds. It is against the policy of the company to sell diamonds in the rough, unless, of course, they are industrial diamonds.”
“Baxter wanted them in the rough?”
“That’s right.”
“And he was advised he couldn’t have them?”
“Well, of course, we were tactful about it, Mr. Mason. Mr. Baxter gave promise of being an excellent customer, and he was dealing on a cash basis.”
“So what was done?”
“We showed him some diamonds that were cut and polished. He didn’t want those. He said that the deal he was putting across called for buying diamonds in the rough and carrying them through each step of cutting and polishing. He said he wanted to be able to tell his customers he had personally selected the diamonds just as they came from the fields.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“And he wasn’t asked?”
“In a British-managed company,” Jefferson said, “we try to keep personal questions to a minimum We don’t pry, Mr. Mason.”
“So what was done finally?”
“It was arranged that he would select the diamonds, that we would send them to our Paris office, that there they would be cut and polished, and, after they were cut and polished, delivery would be made to Mr. Baxter.”
“What were the diamonds worth?”
“Wholesale or retail?”
“Wholesale.”
“Very much less than their retail price.”
“How much less?”
The Case of the Terrified Typist Page 5
