Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lucky Legs

He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the knob for one flashing glance at the girl on the bed.

Marjorie Clune was ready for him. She met his eyes with a bold glance of ready invitation.

The porter slipped out into the corridor and closed the door.

"All right," said Perry Mason, "get out of bed and get into your clothes."

Marjorie Clune jumped from the bed and struggled into her dress. Perry Mason pulled the ring of skeleton keys from his pocket, started working on the lock of the trunk.

Marjorie Clune had her dress on, her hair adjusted, and her face powdered before Perry Mason had the trunk open. It was filled with feminine garments, each garment on a hanger, and placarded with a cost tag and catalogue number. Perry Mason pulled the garments from the hangers and tossed them to Marjorie Clune.

"Hang these in the closet," he said, "and then close the closet door."

She took the garments wordlessly, made half a dozen trips to the closet. Perry Mason surveyed the interior of the trunk.

"It isn't going to be pleasant," he told her, "you've got to brace yourself. You'll probably be bruised. The air won't be any too good, but it won't be long."

"You mean I have to get in that?"

"I mean," he said, "you've got to get into that, and like it. You can sit in the bottom if you double your knees up under your chin. I'm going to tell the porter I've got half a case of whiskey in there, to handle the trunk carefully and to keep it right side up. There's a taxicab waiting by the freight entrance. The trunk will be strapped on the side of the taxicab.

"I'll have the cab take me to another hotel. I'll get a room and have the trunk sent right up. I'll bribe everybody to handle it carefully. But you're going to get shaken some, and bruised some, and it isn't going to be pleasant."

"Then what's going to happen?" she asked.

"As soon as I can get you into another hotel, I'll open the trunk," he told her. "You can get out and we'll take a cab to the airport. I've got a fast cabin plane waiting there. We'll take it."

"Take it where?" she asked.

"Back to the city," he told her.

"What will we do in the city?"

"When we get there," he told her, "we're going to bring things to a head."

She put her hand on his arm.

"Those clothes," she said, "those garments of Thelma's that had blood stains on them. Do you know where they are?"

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

"They're where we can get them when we want them, and if we want them we can still tie them up with Thelma Bell."

"It would mean," she said, "a lot to Bob if those garments were discovered. You know Bob was my boy friend. They might figure that he had a motive to kill Patton, but Sanborne was Thelma's boy friend, and he had more motive than Bob Doray could ever have had. You see, Patton was…" Her voice trailed into silence.

"Was what?" asked Perry Mason.

"Nothing," she said. "It doesn't make any difference. I was just wondering about those garments."

Perry Mason gestured toward the trunk.

"Get in," he told her.

As the plane slanted downward toward the landing field, Perry Mason turned to Marjorie Clune, cupped his hands and shouted, "There's a taxi standing over at the north end of the airport. You go directly to the taxi stand. Get in a car and tell the driver to wait for me. I've got some telephoning to do. I want you to keep out of sight as much as possible. Don't be rubbering around. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Understand?"

She nodded.

"I won't be over ten minutes," he said. "Perhaps not that long."

The plane swung in a slight curve, straightened, dropped, and the wheels skimmed lightly along the paved runway. The pilot throttled the motor into speed as the tailskid dropped to the ground, and taxied up to the hangars.

"Is that all?" he asked when the motor had been stopped.

Perry Mason nodded, took his wallet from his pocket, passed the pilot a bill, nodded to Marjorie Clune.

"You get in the taxi," he said. "I'll join you in a few minutes."

He walked to the telephone booth and called his office. Della Street 's voice came over the wire to his ears.

"Are you alone, Della?" asked Perry Mason. "Can you talk, or is there some one in the office who can hear you?"

"Just a moment," she said, "I'll see what's wrong with the connection. You say it's in the law library? Very well, it must be a receiver up."

She added in a low voice, "Hold the line, please."

Perry Mason waited.

After a moment, he heard her voice again.

"I'm in the law library now, chief. There were two detectives in the outer office, and Bradbury is waiting."

"There's no one in the law library?"

"No one."

"All right," he told her, "let's get this thing cleaned up. Have you heard anything from College City?"

"There's a telegram simply saying, 'Am at College City Hotel. It's signed by the initials T.B."

"Anything else?"

"That's all, except that the detectives are hanging around here. They've been in a couple of times."

"What does Bradbury want?" asked Perry Mason.

"I don't know," she said. "He's worked up about something. He's lost that air of cordial affability, and he's hard—hard as nails."

"I'm pretty hard myself," Mason said. "That is, I can be if the going gets rough."

"Something seems to tell me the going will be rough," she said. "How about things? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Paul Drake," she said, "is acting very mysteriously. He's called a couple of times. He seems to think that you're in an awful jam somewhere along the line, and he doesn't want to get mixed into it."

"Anything else?" he asked.

"That seems to be about all."

"All right, Della," he said, "perhaps you'd better make a note of this: Telephone Thelma Bell at the College City Hotel. You can't put the call in from the office; you'll have to either get an extension or go out to a telephone booth. Tell her who you are. Tell her that I'm very anxious to know if Marjorie Clune had a telephone call at her apartment after I left her apartment on the night of the murder. Tell her that it's very important that I know."

"Then what?" she asked.

"If she had such a telephone call," he said, "take the Code of Civil Procedure and put it on the desk by your telephone switchboard. If she didn't have such a conversation, put your ink stand by the switchboard. If there's nothing there, I'll know that for some reason you haven't been able to talk with Thelma Bell and get an answer to the question."

Della Street 's voice was troubled.

"Chief," she said, "you haven't spirited Thelma Bell away, have you? You haven't been mixed up in that?"

"We'll talk that over later," he told her.

"But, chief, the police are —"

"We'll talk all that over later, Della."

"Okay, chief."

"You can put Bradbury," he said, "in the law library. Put him in there to wait. You can tell him in confidence that I may see him within an hour."

"Okay."

"Now, about the detectives," Mason said, "have they been there steadily?"

"They've been in two or three times. They are trying to find out if you intend to come to the office sometime today. They kept asking if I've heard from you."

"Are they the same detectives that were in the other night?" he asked. "I think their names were Riker and Johnson."

"The same ones."

"You don't think they'll stay?"

"I don't think so. They come in, stick around for a few minutes, ask questions, and then go out. This is the third time they've been in today."

"Do you know if any detectives are watching the building?"

"No, but I think some one followed me when I went out to lunch."

"You don't think you're being followed as you move around the building?"