"Stick around," Perry Mason told him, "you haven't seen anything yet. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to get me an actress, about twenty-eight years old, about the same build as that woman, and have her at my office just as quick as you can get her there. She's going to make three hundred dollars for doing something, and I'm going to guarantee that it's going to be within the law. I don't want you to be there personally, and don't want you to know anything about it. I simply want you to get the actress and send her to me. I want you to get a girl who will do anything. You understand? Anything."
"How much time have I?" asked Paul Drake.
"You've got less than ten minutes, if you can do it in that time. I know you can't, but you've got to do it just as fast as you can. You've got a list of people that you can call on to do various jobs, and what you've got to do is to check over it, get the right person, and get in touch with her."
"I've got a girl," said Paul Drake slowly, "who might answer the description. She worked as a lure on the vice squad for a while, and knows her way around. She'd do anything."
"Is she light or dark?"
Paul Drake smiled slowly.
"She," he said, "is about the same build and complexion as Mrs. Bessie Forbes. That's the reason I thought of her."
"All right," Mason said, "don't get too damn smart, or it might not be so good. This is a case where you're going to be dumb. The dumber the better. Remember, I'm the one that's giving orders. You're just following them, and you don't know anything yet."
"I'm commencing to suspect a lot," Paul Drake said.
"Suspect all you want to, but don't tell me anything about it, and keep your thoughts to yourself, because you're going to want to forget them later on."
"Okay," said Drake, "You go on up to your office, and I'll get this girl to show up. Her name's Mae Sibley. You don't need to mince words with her."
"Okay," said Mason, "get started - and thanks, Paul."
CHAPTER XIII
MAE SIBLEY was well-built and attractive. Perry Mason stood close to her, looked her over with approval.
"Give me that bottle of perfume, Della," he said.
He took the bottle of perfume, wafted it beneath the young woman's nostrils.
"Any objection to using this?" he asked.
"I'll say not, I could use all of that you wanted to give me."
"All right, put on lots of it."
"Where?"
"On your clothes - anywhere."
"I hate to waste that good perfume."
"That's all right, go ahead and put it on."
Della Street smiled at the young woman, and said, "Perhaps I can help."
She applied perfume liberally to the girl's clothes.
"Now," said Perry Mason, "you're going to go to a certain taxicab and tell the driver that you left a handkerchief in the taxicab. When you had him take you out to 4889 Milpas Drive. Do you suppose you can remember that?"
"Sure. What else do I do - anything?"
"That's all, just take the handkerchief and give the cab driver a sweet smile."
"Then what?"
"He'll give you the handkerchief and ask you for your address. Because, he'll tell you, you've got to let him know where you live so he can report to the Lost and Found Department."
"Very well, then what do I do?"
"Then you give him a phoney name and address, and fade from the picture."
"That's all there is to it?"
"That's all there is to it."
"What name and address do I give him?"
"Give him the name of Agnes Brownlie, and tell him that you live at the Breedmont Hotel, on Ninth and Masonic Streets. Don't give him any room number."
"What do I do with the handkerchief?"
"After you've got the handkerchief, you bring it to me."
"This is on the up and up?" she asked.
"It's within the law," he told her, "if that's what you want to know."
"And I get three hundred dollars for doing it?"
"Three hundred dollars when the job is finished."
"When's the job going to be finished?"
"There may not be anything more to it," he told her, "but you've got to keep in touch with me so that I can reach you at any time. Give me your telephone number and arrange so that I can reach you on short notice any time I want to."
"And how do I find the taxicab driver?"
"In exactly fifteen minutes," Perry Mason told her, "the taxicab driver will come up to the corner of Ninth and Masonic Streets, and telephone in to his office to find out if there are any calls for him. The particular taxi that you want is a Checker cab, number 86-C. You telephone in to the head office of the taxicab company, tell them that you left an article in the cab, and ask them to let you know where the cabbie is as soon as he reports. Leave them a number so they can call you back. They'll call you back in fifteen minutes, when he reports, and tell you that he's at Ninth and Masonic. You tell them that you're right near there, so you'll go and pick him up. Pretend that you recognize him. You can spot him from the number on the cab. Be a little friendly with him."
"Okay," she said, "anything else?"
"Yes," he told her, "you've got to talk in a peculiar tone of voice."
"What sort of tone of voice?"
"High and fast."
"Like this?" she asked, raising her voice, and saying rapidly: "I beg your pardon, but I think I left my handkerchief in your taxicab."
"No," he said, "that's too high and not fast enough. Try it a little lower, and you've got to drag out the ends of the words a little bit more. You're clipping them off too much. Put kind of a little emphasis on the word ends."
Mae Sibley watched him closely, her head cocked slightly on one side, in the attitude of a bird listening. She closed her eyes.
"Like this?" she asked: "I beg your pardon, but didn't I leave my handkerchief in your taxicab?"
"That's a little more like it," he said, "but you've got to do it more like this. Now listen: 'I beg your pardon, but didn't I leave my handkerchief in your taxicab?'"
"I think I get you," she said. "It's a trick of talking rapidly until you come to the last word in each phrase, and then you drawl out the end of it."
"Maybe that's it," he said. "Go ahead and try it. Let's see how it works."
She flashed him a sudden smile. "I beg your pardon," she said, "but I think I left my handkerchief in your taxi cab."
"That's it," he told her. "It's not perfect, but it's good enough. Now get started. You haven't got much time. Della, you've got a black fur coat hanging in the closet. Give it to her. Okay, go ahead. Put on your coat, sister, and then grab a taxi and beat it out to the Breedmont Hotel. You can call the cab office from there. They'll have the cab reporting in about ten minutes now. You've just about got time to put through your calls and make it, and make it snappy."
He ushered her to the door, turned to Della Street, and said, "Get Paul Drake on the line, and tell him to come up here right away."
She nodded, and her fingers worked the dial of the telephone.
Perry Mason started pacing back and forth across the office, his face immobile, his stare fixed.
"He'll be right up," she said. "What is it, chief, can you tell me?"
Perry Mason shook his head.
"Not yet, I can't, Della. I'm not certain, myself, just what it is."
"But what's happened?"
"Plenty," he told her, "and the trouble is it doesn't fit together."
"What's bothering you?" she asked.
"I am wondering," he said, "why that dog howled, and why he quit howling. Sometimes I think I know why the dog howled, and then I can't figure why he quit howling. Sometimes I figure that it's all goofy."
"You can't expect things to dovetail together too accurately," she told him, her eyes dark with concern. "You've just come out of one big case, and now you're plunging right in on another."
"I know it," he told her. "It's something of a strain, but I can stand it
all right. That isn't what's bothering me. What's bothering me is why the facts don't fit together. Don't ever fool yourself that facts don't fit, if you get the right explanation. They're just like jigsaw puzzles - when you get them right, they're all going to fit together."
"What doesn't fit in this case?" she asked.
"Nothing fits," he said, then glanced up as there was a knock at the outer door.
"Paul Drake, I guess," he said.
He strode to the door, opened it, and nodded to the tall detective.
"Come in, Paul," he said. "I want you to get the dope on the man that Thelma Benton went out with; the man who drove the Chevrolet coupe, 6M9245."
Paul Drake's smile was slow and good-natured.
"Don't think you're the only one that can put any pep into your work," he said. "I've had my men working on that, and already have the answer for you. The fellow is Carl Trask. He's a young man who's drifted around and has a police record. Right at present he's engaged in doing some small-time gambling."
"Can you find out anything more than that about him?"
"In time, yes. We're getting stuff. In fact, we're getting stuff coming in from all over the country. We've got a lot more reports on the situation in Santa Barbara. I've checked down everybody who was in the household - even including the Chinese cook."
"That's right," Perry Mason said. "I'm interested in that cook. What happened to him?"
"They made some kind of a deal with him, by which he agreed to be deported. I don't know just what it was. I think that Clinton Foley got in touch with the Federal authorities to find out what it was all about; found there was no question but what the boy was in this country illegally. So Foley worked out a deal by which the Chink was to be deported at once, without being held for further examination or trial, and gave him enough money to set himself up in some sort of business in Canton. Our money buys a lot of Chinese money, at the present rate of exchange, and money means a lot more in China."
"Find out anything else about him?" asked Perry Mason. "That is, the cook?"
"I found out that there's something funny about the tipoff that caused the Federal authorities to go out there and round him up."
"What sort of a tip-off was it?"
"I don't know exactly, but, from all I can gather, some man telephoned and said that he understood Ah Wong was in the country without a proper certificate; that he didn't want to disclose his identity or have his name used in any way, but he wanted something done about it."
"Chinese or white man?" asked Perry Mason.
"Apparently a white man, and apparently rather well educated. He talked like an educated man."
"Well," said Mason, "go on."
"That's all there is, definite," said the detective, "but one of the clerks in the immigration office handled that anonymous tip, and also talked with Foley over the telephone. She's got a goofy idea that it was Foley who gave the tip-off."
"Why would Foley do that?" Mason asked.
"Search me," said the detective, "probably there's nothing to it. I'm simply telling you what the clerk told me."
Perry Mason took a package of cigarettes from his pocket, gave one to Della Street, then to Paul Drake. He lit Della's cigarette, then Drake's, and would have lit his own from the same match, but Della Street stopped him.
He smoked in silence for several minutes.
"Well," said Drake at length, "what are we here for?"
Perry Mason said, "I want you to get handwriting specimens from Paula Cartright; from Cartright's housekeeper; and from this woman, Thelma Benton. I'm going to get a sample from Bessie Forbes."
"What's the idea?" asked the detective.
"I'm not ready to talk yet," Mason said. "I want you to wait here for a while, Paul." And he began pacing the floor, restlessly.
The others watched him in silence, respecting the concentration of his thoughts. They finished their cigarettes, pinched out the stubs. Mason still continued his restless pacing.
The telephone rang after some ten or fifteen minutes, and Della Street answered it, then looked up to Perry Mason, holding the receiver in her hand.
"It's Miss Sibley," she said, "and she wants me to tell you that she did exactly as you instructed, and that everything is all right."
"Has she got the handkerchief?" asked Perry Mason.
Della Street nodded. Perry Mason showed excitement.
"Tell her to get a cab and come over to the office right away," he said; "to bring that handkerchief with her, and pay the cab driver to make time. But be sure and tell her not to get that Checker cab. Get another cab."
"What's it all about?" asked Paul Drake.
Perry Mason chuckled.
"You stick around about ten minutes," he said, "and you'll find out. I'm about ready to let the lid off."
Paul Drake settled back in the big leather chair, slid his long legs over the arm of the chair, put a cigarette in his mouth, and scraped a match on the sole of his shoe.
"Well," he said, "I can stick it out if you can. I guess you lawyers never sleep."
"It's not so bad after you get used to it," Mason said, and resumed his pacing of the floor. Once or twice he chuckled, but, for the most part, he paced in silence.
It was following one of those chuckles, that Paul Drake drawled a question.
"Going to let me in on the joke, Perry?"
"I was simply thinking," Perry Mason said, "how delightfully surprised Detective Sergeant Holcomb is going to be."
"Over what?" asked Drake.
"Over the information I'm going to give him," Mason replied, and resumed his steady pacing of the floor.
The knob on the outer door rattled, and there was a gentle knock on the panels.
"See who it is, Della," said the lawyer.
Della Street went swiftly to the door, opened it, and let Mae Sibley into the room.
"Have any trouble?" asked Perry Mason.
"Not a bit," she said. "I just told him what you told me to say, and he took me for granted. He looked me over rather closely, and asked me a few questions. Then he took the handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to me. He was slick enough to smell the handkerchief and then smell my perfume, to make sure they matched."
"Good girl," Mason said, "and you gave him the name of Agnes Brownlie?"
"Yes. And the address, Breedmont Hotel - just like you told me."
"All right," Perry Mason said, "you get one hundred and fifty dollars now, and one hundred and fifty dollars a little later. You understand that you're not to say a word about this."
"Of course."
Perry Mason counted out the money.
"You want a receipt?" she asked.
"No," he told her.
"When do I get the other hundred and fifty?"
"When the job's finished."
"What else have I got to do?"
"Perhaps nothing. Perhaps you'll have to go to court and testify."
"Go to court and testify?" she said. "Over what?"
"Over exactly what happened."
"Not tell any lies?"
"Certainly not."
"How soon will you know?" she asked.
"Probably in a couple of weeks. You've got to keep in touch with me. That's all. You'd better get out of here now, because I don't want you to be seen around the office."
She extended her hand. "Thanks a lot for the work, Mr. Mason," she said. "It's appreciated."
"You don't know how much I appreciate what you've done," he told her.
It was evident that there was a vast change in the lawyer's manner, a relief that was disclosed in his bearing. He turned to Della Street, as the door of the outer office closed on Mae Sibley.
"Get police headquarters," he said, "and get Detective Sergeant Holcomb on the line."
"It's pretty late," she reminded him.
"That's all right. He works nights."
Della Street got the connection through, then looked up at her employer.
"Here's Detective Sergeant
Holcomb on the line," she said.
Perry Mason strode to the telephone. He was smiling as he picked up the receiver.
"Listen, Sergeant," he said; "I've got some information for you. I can't give it all to you, but I can give you some of it... Yes, some of it is professional confidence, and I can't give you that. I think I understand the duties of an attorney and the rights and liabilities of an attorney. An attorney is supposed to guard the confidences of his client, but he's not supposed to compound a crime. He's not supposed to suppress any evidence. He can keep anything that his client tells him to himself, provided it's something that was necessary to a preparation of the case he's handling or related to the advice he's giving a client..."
The Case Of The Howling Dog pm-4 Page 12