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"There are legal proceedings looking to his deportation?" Mason asked.
"Only the proceedings necessary to get him transferred to the border. Mere in Mexico we expedite the process of justice as much as possible."
Mason looked at Dutton, then back at the chief of police. "Zip the lip," he said.
The chief raised his eyebrows. "I'm afraid I didn't understand you."
"Pardon me," Mason said, "it was just a bit of American slang."
"Oh, yes-you Americans. And now, Senor, if you and your so charming secretary will just step this way, please-and I strongly recommend the restaurants here. You will find the service excellent and the food beyond compare. As tourists, we will try to make you happy."
"But not as an attorney?" Mason asked.
The chief shrugged expressive shoulders. "Unfortunately, you are not an attorney in Mexico. If you would reside in Mexico and comply with the requirements, I have no doubt but that you could become a licenciado, but until then…"
There was another expressive shrug of the shoulders.
The police officer held the outer door open.
Mason put his hand on Della Street 's arm, and together they stepped out of the room into the shaded walkway which was filled with the sound of whitewinged doves, the scent of flowers and the beauty of semitropical foliage.
Chapter Nine
As Mason and Della Street walked down the little sidewalk in front of the auto courts, Drake's detective came ru
Mason quickened his step.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I called Drake to report, and he's on the phone. Something he wants to tell you about right away. Says it's terribly important; that I should get you. He's going to hold the line until you can come."
Mason nodded to Della Street, hurried down the walkway under the palms and banana trees, his long legs making the detective trot to keep up, while Della Street made no attempt to match the pace.
In the phone booth, where the receiver was off the hook, Mason closed the door, picked up the receiver, said, "Yes? Hello."
Drake's voice said, "That you, Perry?"
"Right."
"All right," Drake said, "there's a rumble. I don't know how bad it is as far as your client is concerned, but it's pretty bad at this end."
"Murder?" Mason asked.
"Right. How did you know?"
"The officers moved in on Dutton while I was talking with him."
Drake said, "Here's all I know. An early golfer found a body on tee seven at the Barclay Country Club. The man had been shot once."
"Did they find the weapon?" Mason asked.
"I don't know," Drake said. "This much I do know. An attempt had been made to keep the police from identifying the victim and apparently that attempt has succeeded to date.
"Everything in the man's pockets had been taken. There isn't so much as a handkerchief. The labels had been cut from the inside of the coat pocket and on the little hanging strap at the back of the neck.
"The cutting had been skillfully done with a very sharp knife or a razor blade.
"The time of death hasn't been officially determined as yet, but it could be at just about the time our man tailed Dutton out to the golf club-that's within the general over-all time limit that they've mapped out for the murder. After they have a complete autopsy, they may let Dutton off the hook. Right now I understand the tentative time is fixed between nine-thirty last night and two-thirty this morning."
"All right," Mason said. "Now, your man couldn't get into the club because it was a key job?"
"That's right. You have to go in through the clubhouse to get to the course."
"There must be a service road," Mason said.
"There is, somewhere. I haven't looked it up."
Mason said, "At that hour of the night, the murdered man probably let himself in with a key. It's a cinch that Dutton did."
"Dutton's a member of the club," Drake said.
"All right, probably the other man is, too. Get photog'raphs from the newspaper reporters and start covering members who are regular players and-"
"We're way behind on that," Drake said, "the police have five detectives interviewing all the members whose record of greens fees shows that they've been playing regularly. They have photographs of the dead man and they're trying to make an identification."
"Have you seen a photograph?"
"No," Drake said. "I have a general description."
"Shoot."
"A man about fifty-five," Drake said, "with dark hair, powerful broad shoulders, slightly stooped, black eyes, about six feet one inch in height, weight two hundred and five pounds, very hairy hands, big powerful wrists."
"No keys on him?" Mason asked.
"No keys, no coins, no knife, no handkerchiefs, no pens, no pencils-nothing."
Mason said thoughtfully, "Paul, you talked about a man you thought was a process server who was waiting to serve papers on Dutton?"
"That's right, he- By George, Perry, it could be the same man. The description fits."
"You'd recognize the man if you saw him?"
"Sure."
"Stay away from the morgue," Mason said. "Let's see if you can get a look at the police photographs."
"Gosh, Perry," Drake wailed, "if I make the guy, I'll have to go to the police. That's evidence a private detective can't withhold."
"You can't make a positive identification from a newspaper photograph like that," Mason said. "You'd have to see the corpse."
"Well, you were talking about police photographs."
"I was," Mason said. "Now I am talking about newspaper photographs… Della and I are on our way back just as fast as we can get there. I'll leave my car here. I'll get my friend Munoz to fly us to San Diego. You have Pinky waiting at the San Diego airport with a twin-motored job to bring us in to the Tn-City Airport, and sit tight until we get there. Meet us at Tn-City Airport."
"Even if there's a very good resemblance in the newspaper photographs, I'd have to run it down," Drake said. "In a murder case my license wouldn't be worth a thin dime if I held out an identification."
"You and your license," Mason said.
"Me and my living," Drake told him. "I'll have the plane in San Diego by the time you get there."
"We'll get there pretty darn fast," Mason said and hung up.
Chapter Ten
"Pinky" Brier, the famous aviatrix, brought the twinmotored plane in at the Tn-City Airport as gracefully as a bird coming in to a landing.
A worried Paul Drake, who had been anxiously waiting, came out of the late afternoon shadows to meet Perry Mason and Della Street as they disembarked.
"You left your car?" Drake asked.
"Left it down there," Mason said. "We'll get it later on. Right now we're working against time."
"We're working against time and against a condition you aren't going to like," Drake said.
"What's the condition?"
"I've seen the photograph in the papers."
"What about it?"
"Perry, I think that man is the one that I took for a process server-perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't, but in any event, he was hanging around keeping cases on this Dutton apartment."
"But you can't make a positive identification from a newspaper photograph of that sort," Mason said.
"I know I can't, but I've got enough of an identification to tell Lieutenant Tragg that I might be of some assistance and should go down to the morgue and take a look at the body."
"Then, if you identify him," Mason said, "you're going to have to tell Tragg where you saw him and when."
"That's right."
"And that," Mason said, "is going to put our client in a hole."
"Your client is in a hole now," Drake said.
"Well, you'll put him deeper in the hole."