Эрл Гарднер: The Case of the Buried Clock

“Why not? If they find out we don’t know where she is—”

“I understand, but amateurs shouldn’t try doctoring evidence. We haven’t time to discuss it now. They’re coming over this way. Get the deputy sheriff off to one side and tell him about that shortage.”

Blane’s face showed surprise. “Why, that’s one of the things I wanted you to do — to keep that hushed up, to tell me how I—”

“You can’t keep that hushed up,” Mason interrupted. “Try to cover that up and let them catch you at it, and they’ll blow the lid off.”

“But I don’t want—”

“Right now,” Mason said, “I’m thinking of Milicent and you should be. Get the deputy sheriff off to one side, tell him you’re giving him the information in strict confidence; that you don’t want him to tell a soul.”

“Well — all right — if you say so.”

“Where’s Adele?”

“At home.”

“She know you sent for me?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the nearest telephone?”

“Up the road about three miles there’s a little settlement, a ranger station and—”

“Okay, go talk with the deputy. Here he comes now; then meet me at the Kenvale Hotel as soon as you can get away from here. Try to follow me within fifteen or twenty minutes.”

The deputy sheriff was walking toward them. His manner was that of a man who has made up his mind to do something and wants to get it over with.

Mason said in a low voice, out of the corner of his mouth, as though coaching an actor, “Beat him to the punch. Beat him to the punch, Blane.”

Blane raised his voice. “Oh, Jameson, I want to talk with you for a few minutes — privately, please.”

The deputy glanced at the others, said, “Well, all right.”

Mason turned to Della Street. “Come on, Della. This way.” He led her around toward the back of the house, then along a well-defined trail running down a dry wash, deep enough so that they were invisible from the cabin. After they had gone a hundred yards, they scrambled up out of the wash, swung around to the place where Mason had parked his car.

Mason said, “I don’t want them to hear the sound of the motor, Della. Put it in high, turn on the ignition, push the clutch pedal down. I’ll start pushing it toward that grade. Let the clutch in when I tell you — after the car gets to going at a pretty good rate of speed... Okay now, swing that wheel.”

Mason pushed the car until it began to coast down the grade, then jumped in beside Della Street. When the car was running along at a good rate, he said, “All right, ease in the clutch.”

The engine purred into smooth power.

“Make time up to that settlement,” Mason said. “I want to telephone.”

“I take it we’re not conserving rubber?” Della asked.

“We’re conserving a reputation,” Mason told her.

They made the three miles of mountain road to the telephone in just a little over three and a half minutes. Mason found a telephone booth in the store, called Vincent Blane’s residence in Kenvale, asked for Adele.

A few moments later, he heard a feminine voice on the line saying dubiously, “Yes, what is it, please?”

“This is Perry Mason. Know anything about me?”

“Why... yes.”

“All right. No need to mention details. You knew your father was going to send for me.”

“Yes.”

“Know why?”

“Yes.”

Mason said, “Your father told me about the upstairs bedroom — you understand?”

“The person who’s supposed to be in it?”

“That’s right.”

“I understand.”

Mason said, “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“It’s dangerous. We don’t know what trumps are — yet. I want you to do something.”

“What?”

“Go where you won’t be questioned. Get out, and get out fast. Simply disappear.”

“For how long?”

“Until I tell you to come back.”

“How will you reach me?”

Mason said, “My secretary, Miss Della Street, will be registered at the Kenvale Hotel. Call her about five o’clock tonight. Don’t mention any names over the phone. She won’t mention names. If the coast is clear, she’ll manage to let you know. If she doesn’t let you know, it means the coast isn’t clear. After five, keep calling her every few hours... Got that straight?”

“Yes, Mr. Mason.”

“All right, get started — and don’t tell a soul where you’re going. Fix things so you can’t be traced... And be certain to call Miss Della Street.”

“I have it all straight,” she said. “Good-by.”

Mason hung up the receiver, waited a moment, then called his office in Los Angeles.

When the girl at Mason’s switchboard answered, central said, “Deposit fifty-five cents for three minutes, please, including the Federal tax.”

Mason fumbled in his pockets, opened the door of the telephone booth, called to the man behind the counter. “I’ve got a Los Angeles call in. My party’s on the line. I need fifty-five cents. Can you give me some change?”

Mason waved a dollar bill. The man rang up NO SALE in the cash register, pulled out three twenty-five cent pieces, two dimes and a nickel, and came trotting over to the booth.

Mason thanked him, closed the door of the booth, dropped in the coins and heard the voice of Gertie, the tall, good-natured girl at the switchboard, saying, with her customary breezy informality, “Good Heavens, Mr. Mason, why didn’t you just tell them to reverse the charge? Then you wouldn’t have had to bother about the coins.”

Mason chuckled. “Because, in the course of an investigation that may be made, the officers will wonder why I went tearing up here to put in a telephone call. Then they’ll talk with the storekeeper and know my call was to my office in Los Angeles.”

Gertie hesitated a moment, then said, “I get it, your second call.”

“That’s right. Only it won’t occur to them there were two. Be a good girl, Gertie.”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason. Shall we indulge in the usual comments about the percentage there is in it, or have we talked long enough?”

Mason said, “We’ve talked long enough. You know all the answers anyway,” and hung up.

At the hotel in Kenvale, Mason gave Della Street swift instructions. “Just before we turned off the main road, I noticed a road sign put up by the Auto Club bearing the words, ‘Kern County.’ Look up the exact location of the county line and of that cabin. Then come back here and hold the fort.”

“On my way,” she said. “It shouldn’t take long.”

Mason made himself comfortable in the lobby of the hotel, watching the door, waiting for Vincent Blane. At the end of thirty impatient minutes, he went to a telephone booth and put through a person-to-person call for Paul Drake, head of the Drake Detective Agency in Los Angeles. The call was completed within a few seconds, and when Mason heard Drake’s voice on the line, he said, “Perry Mason, Paul. I’m suspicious of telephones so you’ll have to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

“I’m in Kenvale. About twenty miles from here, in the mountains, a man by the name of Blane has a cabin. Blane’s son-in-law, Jack Hardisty, got himself bumped off in that cabin sometime last night. Jameson, the resident deputy sheriff who’s on the job now, is inclined to be decent. There are replacements coming from Los Angeles who will be hard boiled. I’d like to get everything lined up before they clam up.”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“Time of death, clues, means of death, motives, opportunities, alibis — and locate Milicent Hardisty, the widow of the victim.”