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Della Street stared him steadily in theeye.
“That woman,” she said, “spells trouble to me.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“To me, she’s five hundred dollars cash for a retainer. And another fifteen hundred by way of a fee when I get the thing squared up.”
The girl said, with some feeling: “She’s phony, and she’s crooked. She’s one of those well-kept little minxes that would double-cross anybody in order to take care of herself.”
Perry Mason surveyed her appraisingly.
“You don’t find loyalty in wives,” he said, “who pay five hundred dollar retainers. She’s a client.”
Della Street shook her head, and said: “That isn’t what I meant. I meant that there’s something false about her. She’s concealing something from you right now; something that you should know. She’s sending you up against something as a blind proposition when she could make it easy for you if she’d only be frank.”
Perry Mason made a gesture with his shoulders.
“Why should I care if she makes it easy for me?” he asked. “She’s the one that’s paying for my time. Time is all I’m investing.”
Della Street said, slowly: “Are you sure that time is all you’re investing?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “the woman’s dangerous. She is just the kind of a little minx who would get you into some sort of a jam and leave you to take it, right on the button.”
His face didn’t change expression, but his eyes glinted. “That’s one of the chances I have to take,” he told her. “I can’t expect my clients to be loyal to me. They pay me money. That’s all.”
She stared at him with a speculative look that held something of a wistful tenderness. “But you insist on being loyal to your clients, no matter how rotten they are.”
“Of course,” he told her. “That’s my duty.”
“To your profession?”
“No,” he said slowly, “to myself. I’m a paid gladiator. I fight for my clients. Most clients aren’t square shooters. That’s why they’re clients. They’ve got themselves into trouble. It’s up to me to get them out. I have to shoot square with them. I can’t always expect them to shoot square with me.”
“It isn’t fair!” she blazed.
“Of course not,” he smiled. “It’s business.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I told the detective that you wanted her shadowed as soon as she left the office,” she said, abruptly getting back to her duties. “He said he’d be there to pick her up.”
“You talked with Paul Drake himself?”
“Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have told you everything was all right.”
“Okay,” he said, “you can bank three hundred out of that retainer, and give me two hundred to put in my pocket. We’ll find out who she really is, and then we’ll have an ace in the hole.”
Della Street went back to the outer office, returned with two hundred dollars in currency, which she handed to Perry Mason.
He smiled at her.
“You’re a good girl, Della,” he said. “Even if you do get fu
She whirled on him. “I hate her!” she said, “I hate the very ground she walks on! But it isn’t that. It’s something more than the hate. It’s sort of a hunch I’ve got.”
He planted his feet wide apart, thrust his hands in his pockets, and stared at her.
“Why do you hate her?” he asked, with tolerant amusement.
“I hate everything she stands for!” said Della Street. “I’ve had to work for everything I got. I never got a thing in life that I didn’t work for. And lots of times I’ve worked for things and have had nothing in return. That woman is the type that has never worked for anything in her life! She doesn’t give a damned thing in return for what she gets. Not even herself.”
Perry Mason pursed his lips thoughtfully. “And all of this outburst is occasioned just because you gave her the once-over and didn’t like the way she was dressed?” he asked.
“I liked the way she was dressed. She’s dressed like a million dollars. Those clothes she had on cost somebody a lot of money. And you can bet that she wasn’t the one that paid for them. She’s too well-kept, too well-groomed, too baby faced. Did you notice that trick she has of making her eyes wide when she wants to impress you? She’s practiced that baby stare in front of a mirror.”
He watched her with eyes that were suddenly deep and enigmatical. “If all clients had your loyalty, Della, there wouldn’t be any law business. Don’t forget that. You’ve got to take clients as they come. You’re different. Your family was rich. Then they lost their money. You went to work. Lots of women wouldn’t have done that.”
Her eyes were wistful once more.
“What would they have done?” she asked. “What could they have done?”
“They could,” he remarked slowly, “have married a man, and then gone out to the Beechwood I
She turned toward the outer office, keeping her eyes averted from him. Those eyes were glowing. “I started to talk about clients,” she observed, “and you begin to talk about me.” And she pushed her way through the door and into the outer office.
Perry Mason walked to the doorway and stood there while Della Street went over to her desk, sat down at it, and slid a sheet of paper into her typewriter. Mason was still standing there when the door of the outer office opened and a tall man, with drooping shoulders and a head that was thrust forward on a long neck, came into the outer office. He regarded Della Street with protruding glassy eyes that held a perpetual expression of droll humor, smiled at her, turned to Mason and said: “Hello, Perry.”
Mason said: “Come on in, Paul. Did you get anything?”
Drake said: “I got back.”
Mason held the door open, and closed it after the detective had gone into the private office.
“What happened?” he asked.
Paul Drake sat down in the chair which the woman had occupied a few minutes earlier, raised his foot to the other chair and lit a cigarette.
“She’s a wise baby,” he said.
“What makes you think so?” asked Perry Mason. “Did she know you were tailing her?”
“I don’t think so,” said Drake. “I stood by the elevator shaft, where I could see her when she came out of the office. When she came out, I got in the elevator first. She kept watching your office to see if anybody came out of it. I think she thought perhaps you’d send your girl to try and spot her. She seemed relieved when the elevator got down.
“She walked to the corner, and I tagged along behind, keeping a few people between her and me. She ducked into the department store across the street, walked right along as though she knew exactly what she wanted to do, and went into the Women’s Rest Room.
“She looked sort of fu
“Which way did she take?” asked Mason.
“She took the beauty parlor just about fifteen seconds before I covered it. I figured she’d simply used the dressing room stuff as a blind. She knew that a man couldn’t follow her in there, and she’d evidently figured it all out in advance. I found out this much, she had a car parked in front of the beauty parlor street exit, with a chauffeur sitting at the wheel. The car was a big Lincoln, if that’ll help you any.”