Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Shapely Shadow

“I don’t know whether she understands or not,” Lt. Sophia said, “but we understand. You’re not in your own bailiwick now, Mr. Mason. You’re in the State of Nevada. You’re not an attorney here and you’re not admitted to practice before the Nevada courts. You just keep out of it.”

The police officer interposed his shoulder between Mason and Janice Wainwright.

“Don’t answer any questions,” Mason said. “Don’t—”

Lt. Sophia’s shoulder pushed into Mason’s chest. The officer grabbed Janice Wainwright’s arm. “Come on, Janice,” he said. “You’re going places.”

Lt. Tragg said, “Sorry, Perry, but that’s the way it is,” and the two officers hurried Janice Wainwright out of the door of the depot and into a waiting police car.

Outside the depot the train rumbled noisily as the pullmans started gathering speed.

Della Street looked at Perry Mason with dismay on her face.

“Well,” Mason said, “now we’ll go down to the casino and break the news to Mrs. Carlotta Theilman.”

“Provided,” Della Street reminded him, “she doesn’t have a good-looking man in tow... Gosh, Chief, what does this mean?”

“It means,” Mason said, “that Janice Wainwright has been put into a virtually indefensible position, unless we can get busy and find some means of corroborating her story.

“I’m going down to the casino. You get on that telephone, call Paul Drake and tell him to find out everything he can about Theilman’s murder — when the body was discovered, where it was discovered and all about it. I’m going down and see what I can find out from Mrs. Carlotta Theilman before the officers know she’s in town.”

Mason left the depot, hurried down the street to the Double Take Casino.

The lawyer opened the door and went in. His ears were assailed by the sound of hundreds of slot machines grinding away, and occasionally a voice saying, “Number seventeen just hit the jackpot! Number seventeen, another jackpot!”

There would be an interlude of a few seconds, then the voice would drone out, “Another jackpot. This one for a hundred and twenty-five dollars on a double. Another jackpot on seventy-four and seventy-five.”

Mason looked around the place and, after covering the slot machines, moved over to the roulette tables, walked around as quietly and as inconspicuously as possible.

After the lawyer had been there some five minutes, Della Street joined him.

“Get Paul all right?” Mason asked.

“Yes. It was news to him. He’s putting out men on the job. They’ve evidently kept it pretty quiet, or else the murder has just been discovered... Where’s Carlotta?”

“I don’t see her,” Mason said. “She’s apparently not in here.”

They walked around, looking the place over. Mason approached a guard, said, “I’m looking for a woman who came in here about ten minutes ago, maybe twenty minutes ago. She’s thirty-five, perhaps, but looks to be about thirty. She—”

The guard said, “All women who are thirty-five look to be about thirty in this joint.”

Mason grinned.

Della Street said, “She was all in red and was carrying a fur scarf over her arm. She had a very good figure — like this.” Della gestured.

The guard said, “Oh, that woman! She came in here, played the nickel slot machine, hit a twenty-dollar jackpot on the third play, was paid off, and then a police officer stepped in, asked her if she’d mind going with him — and that’s it, she went.”

Mason thanked the guard and he and Della Street walked out to the pavement.

“Now what?” Della Street asked.

“As the officer so aptly pointed out,” Mason said, “technically I am not an attorney in the State of Nevada. I have not been admitted to practice here.”

“And so,” Della asked, “we do what?”

“We get a local attorney out of bed,” Mason said, “and get her on the job. I know a woman attorney here who has more on the ball than most of the men I know of. She’s sheer dynamite and she has enough sex appeal so that she can put her stuff across with the police where a man would fall on his face. Let me call her.”

“You certainly do have a wide circle of feminine acquaintances,” Della Street said. “Is this woman hard to describe?”

“This woman,” Mason said, “isn’t hard to describe, Della. She’s beautiful and she’s dynamite.”

Mason vanished into a phone booth, emerged some three minutes later and said, “I’m to call back in ten minutes. She’ll find out what’s what.”

Under those circumstances,” Della Street said, “it might be advisable for us to tempt the goddess of fortune. We certainly wouldn’t want to have it said we came to Las Vegas, Nevada, without staking something on the wheel of chance.”

“Let us stake,” Mason said. “Here’s a silver-dollar machine that looks very hospitable, Della. Let me show you.”

The lawyer put in a dollar, pulled the lever down, and the machine promptly clicked out sixteen silver dollars.

“You see?” Mason said. “It’s that easy.”

“My, my,” Della Street said, “how long has this been going on? To think that I am wasting my time in a law office.”

Mason, holding the silver dollars in his hand, played twice more on a slot machine, then moved over to the roulette table, dropped all but the last of his dollars unsuccessfully, then a bet on number twenty-seven paid off.

As Mason was raking in the money, he looked up to see Della Street looking over his shoulder. “Is this your lucky day?” she asked.

Mason grinned, slipped the silver dollars into his pocket, said, “I’ll tell you in a few seconds, Della.”

The lawyer vanished into the phone booth, came out and shook his head. “This is not our lucky day,” he said.

“You mean she’s talked?”

“I don’t know,” Mason said, “but they’ve played it smart. They got her to sign a waiver of extradition and sirened their way out to the airport. Probably just about this time they’re taking off on an airplane, where Lieutenant Sophia, Lieutenant Tragg and our client are having a nice tete-a-tete.”

“And Carlotta Theilman?” Della Street asked.

“Carlotta,” Mason said, “by this time has undoubtedly told the police everything she knows.”

“Well,” Della Street said, “I guess that means we return to the airport and our chartered plane.”

“We’ve done all the good we can do here,” Mason said. And then, after a moment, added, “And just about all the damage.”

The lawyer hailed a taxicab. “The airport,” he said. Then, feeling his pockets, laughed and said, “Any objection to taking your pay in silver dollars?”

“Up here,” the cabdriver said, “I’ll take my pay in anything except promissory notes. I’d even take your I.O.U. You don’t remember me. I took you from the airport to the depot. You gave me a twenty then. That establishes a good line of credit as far as you’re concerned.”

“Which reminds me you have a fee in your pocket,” Della Street said.

“That’s right,” Mason observed, taking the roll of bills from his coat pocket and unsnapping the elastic. “I believe I should turn this over to the bookkeeping department. It can be entered on the credit side of the ledger along with the one dollar we received for retainer.

“Two hundred and fifty dollars,” Mason counted. “Twelve twenties and a ten.”

Mason put the currency back in his pocket, said to the cabdriver, “Say, do you know where Police Headquarters are here?”

“Sure,” the driver said.

“All right,” Mason said, “never mind the airport, drive down to Police Headquarters. Get a place where you can see the entrance, park the car and wait.”