“I’ve told you.”

  Holcomb said, “I’ll have a radio car there in two minutes. I’ll be there myself in fifteen minutes.”

  “We’ll wait for you,” Mason said. “The room’s locked.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “I had a key.”

  “The hell you did!”

  “That’s right.”

  “Whose room is it?”

  “The room is registered in the name of Gerald Boswell.”

  “You know him?”

  “As far as I know,” Mason said, “I’ve never seen him in my life.”

  “Then how did you have the key?”

  “It was given to me.”

  “You wait right there,” Holcomb said.

  Mason hung up the phone, said to Paul Drake, “Well, we may as well wait.”

  The lawyer seated himself in one of the overstuffed, leather chairs.

  Drake, after a moment, eased himself into an adjoining chair. He was obviously unhappy.

  The clerk behind the desk eyed them thoughtfully.

  Mason took a cigarette case from his pocket, extracted a cigarette, tapped the end, held flame to the end of the cigarette and inhaled a deep drag.

  “What the devil am I going to tell them?” Drake asked.

  “I’ll do the talking,” Mason told him.

  They had waited less than a minute when the door opened, and a uniformed police officer hurried in. He went to the desk, talked briefly to the clerk.

  The startled clerk pointed to Mason and Paul Drake. The officer came over to them.

  “Are you the men who reported a body?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” Mason told him.

  “Where is it?”

  “Room 729,” Mason said. “Do you want a key?”

  The lawyer took the room key from his pocket, and handed it to the officer.

  “Homicide says for you to wait here. I’m to seal up the room until they can get here.”

  “Okay,” Mason told him. “We’re waiting.”

  “You’re Perry Mason?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Paul Drake, private detective.”

  “How’d you happen to discover the body?”

  “We opened the door and walked in,” Mason said. And then added, “Are you supposed to get our story now, or get up and see no one is in the room tampering with evidence?”

  The officer said curtly, “Don’t go away!” He grabbed the key and hurried to the elevator.

  The excited clerk was conferring with the girl at the hotel switchboard. A moment later she started making frantic calls.

  Mason pinched out his cigarette in an ash tray.

  “They’ll make us tell the whole story,” Drake said.

  “Everything we know,” Mason said. “We’re not supposed to do any guessing for the police, only give them the evidence we have.”

  “And the name of our client?”

  “Not our client,” Mason said sharply. “My client. He’s nothing to you. I’m your client.”

  Mason walked over to the hotel desk, took an envelope from the rack, addressed it to himself at his office, put a stamp on the envelope, moved over to the mailbox.

  Drake came to stand beside him.

  Mason took Conway’s check for a thousand dollars from his pocket, pushed it in the envelope, sealed the envelope, and dropped it in the mailbox.

  “What’s that for?” Drake asked.

  “Someone might book me for something and search me,” Mason said. “Even Sgt. Holcomb would connect up a thousand-dollar retainer with our visit to the Redfern Hotel.”

  “I don’t like this,” Drake said.

  “Who does?” Mason asked.

  “Are we in the clear withholding Conway’s name?”

  “Why not? Conway didn’t commit any murder.”

  “How do you know he didn’t?”

  “He says he didn’t.”

  “He has the gun.”

  “What gun?”

  “The one with which the murder was committed!”

  “How do you know it’s the gun?” Mason asked.

  “It has to be,” Drake said.

  “I told you,” Mason told him, “we’re not supposed to engage in any surmises or jump to any conclusions as far as the police are concerned. We’re supposed to tell them what we know, provided it isn’t a privileged communication.”

  Drake said, “They’ll sweat it out of us.”

  “Not out of me, they won’t,” Mason told him.

  “They’ll find Conway in my office.”

  Mason shook his head.

  “So that’s it!” Drake said. “That was the first telephone call you made!”

  Mason yawned, reached for his cigarette case, said, “You’re not supposed to deal in surmises when you’re talking with the police, Paul, only facts. That’s all they’re interested in.”

  Drake cracked his knuckles nervously.

  The clerk left the desk and came over to join them. “Did you two report a body in 729?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Mason said, as though surprised at the question.

  “How did it happen you did that?”

  “Because we found a body,” Mason told him. “You’re supposed to report to the police on things like that.”

  “I mean, how did you happen to find the body?”

  “Because she was there.”

  “Dead or passed out?” the clerk asked.

  “She looked dead, but I’m not a doctor.”

  “Mr. Boswell was with you when you found the body?” the clerk asked.

  “Boswell?” Mason asked in surprise.

  The clerk nodded toward Paul Drake.

  “That’s not Boswell,” Mason said.

  “He claimed he was Boswell,” the clerk said accusingly.

  “No, he didn’t,” Mason said. “He asked if there were any messages for Mr. Boswell.”

  “And I asked him to identify himself,” the clerk said indignantly.

  “And he put the key to 729 on the counter,” Mason said. “You went and looked up the registration and found it was in the name of Boswell. You felt that was all the identification you needed. You didn’t ask him for a driving license. You didn’t ask him if his name was Boswell. You asked him for identification, and he put the key on the counter.”

  The clerk said indignantly, “I was led to believe I was dealing with Mr. Boswell. The police aren’t going to like this.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Mason said, and then added, “for you.”

  “I asked him for identification as Boswell.”

  “No you didn’t. You asked him for some identification.”

  “That’s a technicality, and you know it.”

  “What’s a technicality?”

  “I meant that I wanted to know who he was. I wanted to see his identification.”

  “Then you should have asked him for it and insisted on seeing it,” Mason said. “Don’t try to hold us responsible for your mistakes.”

  “The room is registered in the name of Gerald Boswell.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mason said.

  “And this is the man who claimed to be Boswell earlier in the evening. He got an envelope from me.”

  “You’re sure?” Mason asked.

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “You weren’t so sure a moment ago.”

  “I was sure.”

  “Then why did you ask him for identification?”

  “I wanted to be certain he was the same man.”

  “Then you weren’t certain.”

  “I’m not going to let you cross-examine me.”

  “That’s what you think,” Mason told him, grinning. “Before you get done, you’ll be on the witness stand. Then I’ll give you a real cross-examination.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The name’s Perry Mason.”

  The clerk was nonplused. “The lawyer?”

  “That’s right.”

  Abruptly the door of the lobby pushed open, and Sgt. Holcomb, followed by two officers in plain clothes, came striding across toward the elevators, saw Mason, Drake and the clerk, and detoured over to them.

  “Good evening, Sergeant,” Mason said cordially.

  Sgt. Holcomb ignored the greeting.

  He glared at Perry Mason. “How does it happen you’re in on this?”

  “In the interests of my client, I went to 729 to look for some evidence,” Mason said.

  “In the interests of whom?”

  “A client.”

  “All right,” Holcomb said, “let’s quit playing ring- around-the-rosy. This is murder. Who was the client?”

  Mason shook his head and said, “That information is confidential.”

  “You can’t withhold that,” Holcomb told him. “You’ll become an accessory, if you try to protect a murderer.”

  “This man wasn’t a murderer,” Mason said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. Furthermore, he’s my client. I don’t have to divulge the names of my clients to anyone.”

  “You can’t withhold evidence.”

  “I’m not withholding any evidence. As soon as I entered the room, I found a body. As soon as I found the body, I notified you.”

  The clerk said, “Excuse me, Sergeant, but this man standing here is the client.”

  Sgt. Holcomb said disdainfully, “Don’t be silly. That guy’s the private detective who does Mason’s investigative work. Mason called him in after he knew there’d been a murder.”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant,” the clerk protested, “but that isn’t true in this case.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That’s the man who got the key to the room in the first place. His secretary registered for him. He’s been in several times asking for messages.”

  Sgt. Holcomb turned to Paul Drake. “Hey! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! What’s all this?”

  Paul Drake said, “The guy’s nuts!”

  “What’s your name?” Holcomb asked the clerk.

  “Bob King.”

  “All right. Now, what’s this about the room?”

  “It was rented about two o’clock. A young woman came to the desk and said she was the secretary of Gerald Boswell, that Boswell wanted to have a suite in the hotel for one day, that he would appear later, and go to the suite, but that she wanted to inspect it and make sure it was okay, that since she had no baggage, she would pay the rent in advance and take the keys. She asked for two keys.”

  “Say,” Holcomb said, “you’re giving out a hell of a lot of valuable information.”

  “Well, you asked for it. What’s valuable about it?”

  Holcomb jerked his head toward Mason. “He’s drinking it in.”

  “Well, you asked me.”

  “All right. Now shut up … . Wait a minute. Tell me about Paul Drake here.”

  “He showed up about six-thirty, asked for a message, gave the name of Boswell, and I went through the file and gave him an envelope.”

  “An envelope containing a key?” Holcomb asked.

  “Perhaps the key was in it, but as I remember it now, and it’s beginning to come back to me, it was a big, heavy manila envelope, thick, and jammed with papers.”

  “And it was Paul Drake here who got the letter?”

  “I think so … . Yes, this was the man.”

  “Then what did he do?”

  “Went up to the suite. I didn’t pay much attention. He seemed quiet and respectable, and the suite was paid for in advance.”

  Holcomb whirled to Paul Drake and said, “What about this?”

  Drake hesitated.

  “I can answer for Paul Drake,” Mason said. “I think there has been a case of mistaken identity.”

  “The hell there has!” Sgt. Holcomb said. “Drake went up there on some kind of job for you! This girl got herself bumped off in his room, and he sent out an SOS for you. He didn’t stay in the suite, did he?” Holcomb asked the clerk.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention. He came back this second time and asked for messages. That was when I had occasion to look at him particularly, because these two gentlemen were together and I asked this man, who you say is Mr. Drake but who gave me the name of Boswell, if I hadn’t already given him a message.”

  Sgt. Holcomb said to Drake, “We may not be able to make Mason kick through with the name of a client, but we can sure as hell make a private detective tell what he knows about a murder or bust him wide open.”

  Mason said, “I tell you, Sergeant, it’s a case of mistaken identification.”

  “Phooey!” Holcomb said. “I’m going up and take a look at the place. We’ll have a fingerprint man up there. If we find your prints and—”

  “We were up there,” Mason said. “No one questions that. That’s where we discovered the body.”

  “Drake with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You came in together?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What about the story King tells about Drake going to the desk and asking for messages?”

  “That part of it is true,” Mason said. “We had reason to believe the suite was registered in the name of Boswell, and Drake, acting purely in an investigative capacity, asked if there were any messages for Boswell. He never said he was Boswell.”

  Sgt. Holcomb said, “This thing sounds fishy as hell to me. You two stick around. I’m going up. Remember now, don’t leave. I want to question you further.”

  Holcomb strode toward the elevator.

  Mason turned to Paul Drake, said, “Get on the phone, Paul. Start locating more operatives. I want half a dozen men and a couple of good-looking women, if I can get them.”

  “You can get them,” Drake said, “but, if you don’t mind my asking the question, just what the hell do you intend to do?”

  “Protect my client, of course,” Mason told him.

  “I mean about me,” Drake said.

  “I’m going to get you off the hook,” Mason told him.

  “How?”

  “By letting you tell everything you know.”

  “But I know the name of your client.”

  “I can’t keep him out of it,” Mason said. “He’s walked into a trap. All I can hope to do now is to gain time.”

  “How much time?”

  “A few hours.”

  “What can you do in that time?” Drake asked.

  “I don’t know until I try,” Mason said. “Get on the phone and line up some good operatives. Have them at your office. Come on, Paul. Let’s go!”

  Drake went to the telephone booth.

  Mason lit a cigarette, paced the floor of the lobby thoughtfully.

  A deputy coroner, carrying a black bag, two plain-clothes men, and a police photographer loaded with cameras and flashbulbs entered the hotel.

  Sgt. Holcomb came back down as Drake finished with his telephoning.

  “All right,” Holcomb said. “What do you know about this?”

  “Only what we’ve told you,” Mason said. “We went to that room. We entered it. We found a corpse. We called you.”

  “I know, I know,” Holcomb said. “But how did you happen to go to that room in the first place?”

  “I was acting on behalf of a client.”

  “All right. Who’s the client?”

  “I can’t tell you the name of my client until I get his permission.”

  “Then get his permission.”

  “I will, but I can’t get it now. I’ll get it first thing in the morning.”

  “Well, you can’t hold out on us in a case like this. It’s one thing being an attorney, and another thing to be an accessory.”

  “I’m not trying to hold out,” Mason said. “I can’t betray the confidences of my client. My client will have to speak for himself. I need time to get in touch with him.”

  “Tell me who he is and we’ll let him speak for himself.”

  Mason shook his head. “I can’t give you his name without his permission. I’ll have my client at the district attorney’s office at nine o’clock in the morning. My client will submit to questioning. I’ll be there. I’ll advise him as to his rights. I can tell you this, Sergeant: To the best of my client’s knowledge, there was no corpse in the suite when my client left it. I expected to meet someone there.”

  “Who?”

  “A woman.”

  “This one who was killed?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Look, we want to talk with this guy, whoever he is.”

  “At nine in the morning,” Mason said firmly.

  Holcomb regarded him with smoldering hostility. “I could take you in as a material witness.”

  “To what?” Mason asked. “I’ve told you all I know about the murder. As far as the private affairs of my client are concerned, he’s going to speak for himself. Now, if you want to start getting tough, we’ll both get tough and I’ll withdraw my offer to have my client at the DA.’s office at nine in the morning.”

  Holcomb said angrily, “All right, have it your way. But remember this. We’re not considering this as co-operation. You have your client there at nine o’clock, and he won’t be entitled to one damned bit of consideration.”

  “He’ll be there,” Mason said, “and we’re not asking for consideration. We’re asking for our rights. And I think I know what they are … . Come on, Paul.”

  Mason turned and walked out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was shortly after eight-thirty that evening when Mason and Drake left the elevator and walked down the echoing corridor of the office building.

  The lawyer left Drake at the lighted door in the office of the Drake Detective Agency and kept on down the corridor. He turned at a right angle, walked to the door marked perry mason, attorney at law, private, fitted his latchkey and opened the door.

  Della Street was seated at her secretarial desk reading a newspaper.

  She dropped the paper to the floor, ran toward Mason almost by the time he had the door open.

  “Chief,” she said, “what is it? Is it … a murder?”

  Mason nodded.

  “Who found the body?”

  “We did.”

  “That’s bad!”

  “I know,” Mason said, putting his arm around her shoulder and patting her reassuringly. “We always seem to be finding bodies.”

  “Who was it?”

 

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