Erle Gardner - The Case of the Runaway

“I’m rather busy at the moment,” Mason said.

Once more a strained note crept into Halder’s voice. “It is very important, Mr. Mason, not only on account of the situation here but because I am cooperating with other law enforcement officers and it’s pretty generally agreed that we want—”

“Certainly, certainly. I understand,” Mason said, laughing again. “You get in a political office and they start putting the pressure on you and then I suppose someone blabs to the newspapers and the first thing you know you’re on a spot. It’s either up to you to get me there for questioning or be subject to a lot of criticism.”

Halder, his voice easy and informal once more, said, “You must be psychic, Mr. Mason, or else you’ve been a district attorney in a relatively small community.”

“Well,” Mason said, “I’m pretty busy, but Miss Street and I can get up there all right. Now, let’s see. I’ll catch a plane to San Francisco and then—”

“Our plane service leaves something to be desired.” Halder said.

“That’s all right,” Mason told him. “I’m too busy to bother with waiting for scheduled planes. Tell you what I’ll do, Halder. I’ll get up to San Francisco or perhaps to Sacramento, then I’ll charter a plane. You have a landing field at Oroville?”

“Oh yes.”

“All right,” Mason said. “I’ll be on that landing field at five-thirty right on the dot.”

“Oh, you don’t need to break your neck trying to get here at a certain specified time,” Halder said. “I want to talk with you, and of course I’d like to talk with you as soon as possible, but—”

“That’s all right,” Mason said. “You’re a busy man. You have things to do. I’m a busy man. I have things to do. We may just as well make a definite appointment so that you’ll know when to expect me and I’ll know that when I arrive there won’t be any time lost in getting together. Will five-thirty be all right?”

“That will be fine,” Halder said, and then added apologetically, “I dislike very much to bother a man who is as busy as you are and whose time is as valuable. After all, it’s probably only relatively a minor matter—that is, I mean you certainly have an explanation, but—well, I’ve been under considerable pressure and—”

“I understand,” Mason said cordially. “Think nothing of it, Halder. I’m glad to do it. Miss Street and I will be there at five-thirty.”

Mason hung up the telephone and grinned at Della Street.

“Chief,” she said, “you certainly gave up without a struggle on that one.”

Mason said, “Let’s be practical, Della.”

“Is that being practical?”

He nodded.

“I don’t get it.”

Mason said, “Things are pretty hot for us at the moment. I’d like to avoid being questioned as long as possible.”

“Well,” she said.

“And,” Mason told her, “that means I don’t want to be available for the local press, the local police or the local district attorney. I want a little time to correlate my thoughts and, above all, I want a little time for some of the seed we have planted to start sprouting. I want to find out what Paul Drake can uncover.”

“And so,” she said, “you walk right into the arms of the district attorney up at Butte County where you certainly don’t dare to answer certain questions without putting your neck in a noose.”

“The more questions I answer right now the more I ‘m apt to get my neck in a noose,” Mason said. “But just stop to think of the practical realities, and the beauty of this situation will occur to you, Della.

“In the first place we can leave immediately and in a rush. We don’t have time to answer questions asked by anybody. We’re hurrying to catch a plane in order to keep an appointment with the district attorney of Butte County. We get a lot of publicity which is bound to be favorable because it means that as soon as we learned the district attorney wanted to question us we dropped everything and dashed up to his county without forcing him to resort to any last desperate measures.

“We fix a definite time of arrival which is such that we can be comfortably hurried. We’re away from the office. We don’t need to let anyone know where we are. They can’t call it flight because we’re on our way to confer with the authorities in Butte County at their request.

“Moreover, Della, because we have a definite time of arrival, and because the Butte County papers are hungry for news, we go up and make news. Since we have fixed a definite time of arrival, the press can be there with photographers.”

“I can see the beauty of all that,” Della Street said. “It’s a wonderful respite for five or six hours. But what happens when we arrive in Butte County?”

“That,” Mason said, “is a question I wish I could answer.”

“Are you going to answer questions as to just what we did in that house in Paradise?”

“Heaven forbid.”

“How are you going to avoid answering them?”

“I wish I knew,” Mason told her. “Come on, Della, get started. I have to take a few minutes to look up some law, and then we’ll be on our way. Get us plane reservations while I do some quick research.”

Chapter 6

The plane they had chartered at Sacramento passed the Marysville buttes on the left and the peculiar, distinctive mountain formation back of Oroville began to show plainly. Table mountains rose nearly a thousand feet above the surrounding country, level as a floor on top. There some huge prehistoric lava flow had covered the whole country, then gradually, as small crevices had offered drainage, the process of interminable erosion had chiseled small cracks into valleys. Now the level of the whole surrounding country had been eroded hundreds of feet, leaving those places where the lava cap had protected the undersoil as veritable table mountains.

Della Street looked at her wrist watch. “We’ll make it right on the nose,” she said.

Mason nodded.

“And we haven’t been very badly hurried at that.”

“And,” Mason pointed out, “we haven’t been interrogated. So far no one has found out just where we are.”

“Will the Los Angeles press intimate that you have run away to avoid questioning?” she asked.

“No. They’ll find out we’re headed for Oroville. They’ll ask the local reporters to cover the story and give it to the wire services. They’ll state that we are presently unavailable but be forced to explain we are co-operating with the officials up north.”

The plane dipped forward and started losing altitude.

“Pretty quick,” Della said, “ you’re going to have to devise a way of avoiding answers.”

Mason nodded.

“How are you going to do it?”

“I can’t tell until I hear the questions.”

“Well,” she said, “you got a little sleep on the plane anyway.”

“How did you do, Della?”

“Pretty fair, but I’m too worried to sleep much.”

Mason said, “Let them interrogate me first. If they should try to interrogate you separately, tell them that because you’re my secretary you feel that all questions should first be answered by me, that you will answer questions covering subjects on which I have answered questions, but that you don’t want to be placed in the position of answering questions on subjects that I may have chosen to consider as privileged. And inasmuch as you’re not an attorney and therefore don’t understand the legal distinctions you prefer to have me make the decisions.”

“How much of what we did, how much of what we know, what we said and what was told us is privileged?” she asked.

Mason made a little gesture with his shoulders, took a notebook from his pocket. “That, of course, is a question.