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"Want to hear the facts?" Mason asked.
Burger studied Mason for a moment and said, "You know, Perry, I've always had a great deal of respect for you, but I've always known that some day your methods were going to get you in trouble. You can't pull the stuff you do and get by with it. You've been lucky as hell, but there was bound to come a day of reckoning. It looks like this was it. I'm not going to persecute you, and I'm not going to give out any information to the newspapers until I know definitely just where we stand, but I'm inclined to think you've just about finished your professional career, and it's a damned shame.
"You know, I've always had a horror of prosecuting i
"Finished?" Mason asked.
"No, I haven't even started."
"Then let me interrupt," Mason said, "to tell you something."
"Perry," Burger said, "I've fought you in court. A couple of times you've made me seem pretty damned ridiculous. If you had come to me with some of the evidence you had in those cases I'd have co-operated with you. You chose to grandstand in court. That's your privilege. Now I'm called on to prosecute you. I'm going to do my duty. I don't think I hold any malice, in fact I like you personally, but you were bound to get it sooner or later. You're a pitcher that insists on going to the well too often. Therefore, I want you to understand me when I tell you that anything you say can be used against you, and it will be. There's going to be nothing confidential about this interview."
"All right," Mason said. "A couple of smart dicks come snooping into your office with a lot of stuff about me, and you fall for it without even giving me a chance to explain where I stand."
"It happens," Burger said, "that one of those smart dicks, as you call them, had some very tangible and incriminating evidence involving Julia Bra
"All right," Mason said grimly, "here are the facts. You were right when you said I was looking for Janice Seaton, but I didn't find Janice Seaton. I wanted to find her, and I wanted to find out who the two men were who were sticking around waiting for her to show up. They weren't your men, and they weren't mine. I took a chance that they didn't know Janice Seaton, but only had her description. Her outstanding characteristic was a bunch of red hair, so I got Della Street, my secretary, to dye her hair, show up in the Seaton girl's apartment, check out and go to another apartment, where I'd rented a place directly across the hall so I could watch the door. I'd told Della that when anyone came in she was to string them along and find out who they were and what they were after. If the party got rough, she was to blow a whistle.
"All right, Della went to this apartment. This guy Sacks busted in on her. She was going to leave the door open. Sacks locked it. I heard something which didn't sound just right and busted in the door. I was just in time to keep Sacks from murdering Della Street. He was trying to smother her. He pulled a gun on me. I took it away from him and smashed his nose."
Burger's face showed surprise. "And it wasn't Janice Seaton at all?"
"No. It was Della Street."
"Sacks claims to have had plenty of evidence against her to convict her of several felony charges. He claims he was trying to call the police and she jumped on him, that he tried to take her in custody and you busted in."
"He choked her," Mason said, "and was trying to smother her with bedclothes when I busted in the room… Does that mean anything to you?"
The district attorney nodded. "Yes," he said, "it means a lot."
Mason got to his feet. "All right, I just wanted to tell you."
"That," Burger said, "doesn't explain a lot of other things."
"What, for instance?"
"I don't want to give away my case against the Bra
"I haven't got it," Mason said.
"Where is it?"
"I can produce it a little later on," Mason told him. "Have you anything except the word of this man that it really is the key to Julia Bra
"Yes, I have," Burger said. "But when you return the key, if it isn't the right one, I won't have anything except your word that it's the same key you took from Sacks. That's going to put you in rather an embarrassing position, because Sacks swears he went up to call on Julia Bra
"Why did Sacks go there?"
The district attorney said, "That's part of my case. I don't intend to disclose it. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Perry. I'm going to hold a prompt preliminary examination in the Bra
"That's rushing things pretty much," Mason said. Burger shrugged his shoulders. "I could demand more time than that," Mason said. Burger lit another cigarette and said nothing. "Do I understand," Mason said, "that if we don't go into court tomorrow morning you'll order a warrant for my arrest?"
"No," Burger said slowly, "I don't want you to put it that way. I'm not trying to force you. I'm simply telling you that I want to investigate the circumstances thoroughly before a warrant is issued. I'm offering you one way of assisting that investigation. If you don't want to take it, I'll make an independent investigation."
"And order a complaint filed and a warrant issued?" Mason asked.
"That," Burger said, "will depend on the result of the investigation."
Mason stared steadily at the district attorney and then said bitterly, "You're giving me a hell of a break! A couple of private dicks that you don't know anything about show up with a cock-and-bull story, and you swallow it hook, line and sinker. I tell you that they're crooks, that the guy tried to kill Della Street when he thought she was the Seaton girl, and you promise to make an investigation. You're worked up a lot more over my busting the guy's nose than over his trying to kill Della Street."
Burger shook his head and said patiently, "You make it sound pretty bad, Perry, but that's not a fair statement."
"Why isn't it?"
"Because when you assaulted this man you took some of the evidence that I was relying on to help you get a conviction in the Bra