Perry Mason sat in his automobile, and lit a cigarette from the butt of the one he had just smoked. His face was set in lines of patient concentration, his eyes glittered. He seemed like some pugilist seated in his corner, waiting for the gong to ring. Yet there was no expression of nervousness upon his face. The only thing which indicated strain was the fact that he had been lighting cigarettes, one after the other, for more than an hour.
Directly across the street was the building in which Spicy Bits had its editorial offices.
Mason was half way through the last cigarette in the package, when Frank Locke came out of the building.
Locke walked with a furtive manner, glancing about him mechanically, with eyes that didn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular, but were peering, purely as a matter of habit. His appearance was that of a fox who has been prowling until after daylight and is caught slinking back to his lair by the rays of the early sun.
Perry Mason flipped away the cigarette and pressed his foot on the starter. The light coupe slid away from the curb and into the stream of traffic.
Locke turned to the right at the corner and hailed a taxicab. Mason trailed the cab closely until traffic thinned slightly, when he dropped farther behind.
Frank Locke got out in the middle of the block, paid off the cab, and went down an areaway where he knocked on the door. A panel slid back; then the door opened. Mason could see a man bow and smile. Locke walked in and the man slammed the door shut.
Perry Mason parked his car half a block away, took out a fresh package of cigarettes, broke the cellophane, and started smoking again.
Frank Locke was in the speakeasy for three quarters of an hour. Then he came out, looked quickly about him, and walked to the corner. The alcohol had given him a certain air of assurance, and caused him to throw his shoulders back slightly.
Perry Mason watched while Locke found a cruising cab, and climbed in. Mason trailed along behind the cab until Locke discharged it in front of a hotel. Then he parked his car, went into the hotel lobby, and looked cautiously around him. There was no sign of Locke.
Mason looked the lobby over. The place was a commercial type of hotel, catering to salesmen and conventions. There was a line of telephone booths, with an operator stationed at a desk. Quite a few people were in the lobby.
Perry Mason moved slowly and cautiously about, looking the people over. Then he walked over to the desk.
“Can you tell me,” he asked the clerk, “whether or not Frank Locke has a room here?”
The clerk ran his finger down the card index system, and said, “We have a John Lock.”
“No,” said Mason, “this is Frank Locke.”
“He’s not with us. Sorry,” said the clerk.
“That’s all right,” said Mason, turning away.
He crossed the lobby to the dining room and looked in there. There were a few people eating at the tables but Locke was not among them. There was a barber shop in the basement, and Mason went down the stairs and peered in through the glass partition.
Locke was in the third chair from the end, his face covered with hot towels. Mason recognized him by the tweed suit, and tan shoes.
Mason nodded and went back up the stairs to the lobby. He crossed to the girl at the telephone desk.
“All the booth calls are handled through you?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Okay. I can show you how to pick up twenty dollars pretty easy.”
She stared at him, and asked, “Are you kidding me?”
Mason shook his head. “Listen,” he said, “I want to get a number, and that’s all.”
“How do you mean?”
“Just this,” he said, “I’m going to put through a call for a man. He probably won’t take the call right away, but will come up here to get it later on. He’s in the barber shop now. After he talks with me, he’s going to call a number. I want to know what that number is.”
“But,” said the girl, “suppose he doesn’t put the call through here?”
“In that case,” Mason told her, “you’ve done the best you can, and you get the twenty bucks anyway.”
“I’m not supposed to give out information about those things,” the girl protested.
“That’s why you’re getting twenty bucks for it,” Mason said smiling. “That, and listening in on the call.”
“Oh, I couldn’t listen in on a call, and tell you what was said.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll tell you what’s said. All I want you to do is check up on it, so as to make sure that the number I get is the number I want.”
She hesitated, looked furtively about her as though fearful that some one might know what they were talking about, merely from a casual inspection.
Perry Mason took outtwo ten dollar bills from his pocket, folded them, and twisted them quietly.
The eyes of the girl dropped to the bills, and remained there. “Okay,” she said, at length.
Mason passed over the twenty dollars.
“The man’s name,” he told her, “is Locke. I’ll call in in about two minutes, and have him paged. Now the conversation will be this. Locke will call a party and ask if it’s all right to pay four hundred dollars for information about the name of a woman. The party will tell him it’s all right.”
The girl nodded her head, slowly.
“Do incoming calls come in through you?” asked Mason.
“No,” she said, “not unless you ask for station thirteen.”
“All right, I’ll ask for station thirteen.”
He grinned at her, and went out.
He found a drug store in the next block which had a public telephone. He called the number of the hotel, and asked for station thirteen.
“Okay,” he said, when he heard the girl’s voice. “I’m calling for Frank Locke. Have him paged and be sure that you tell him to come to your station for the call. He probably won’t come now, but I’ll hold the line. He’s in the barber shop. But don’t tell the bellboy that I said he was. Simply tell him to look in the barber shop.”
“I getcha,” said the girl.
He held the line for some two minutes, and then the girl’s voice said, “He said to leave your number, and he’d call you back.”
“That’s fine,” said Mason, “the number isHarrison 23850. But tell the bellboy to be sure that he goes to your station to get the call.”
“Sure, don’t worry about that.”
“All right,” said Mason, “tell him to ask for Mr. Smith at that number.”
“Any initials?”
“No, just Smith, and the number. That’s all.”
“Okay,” she said. “I gotcha.”
Mason hung up.
He waited approximately ten minutes, and then the telephone rang.
He answered it in a highpitched, querulous voice, and heard Locke’s voice speaking cautiously at the other end of the wire.
“Listen,” said Mason, using the highpitched voice, “let’s not have any misunderstanding about this. You’re Frank Locke from Spicy Bits?”
“Yes,” said Locke. “Who are you, and how did you know where to reach me?”
“I got into the office about two minutes after you’d left, and they told me that I could reach you in a speakeasy out onWebster Street, or later on, here in the hotel.”
“How the devil did they know that?” asked Locke.
“I don’t know,” said Mason. “That’s what they told me. That’s all.”
“Well, what was it you wanted?”
“Listen,” said Mason, “I know you don’t want to talk business over the telephone. But this has got to be handled fast. You folks aren’t in business for your health. I know that, the same as everybody else does. And I ain’t in business for my health either.”
“Listen,” Locke’s voice was cautious. “I don’t know who you are, but you’d better come and see me personally. How far are you from the hotel here?”
Mason said, “I’m nowheres near the hotel. Now listen, I can give you something that’s valuable to you. I won’t give it out over the telephone, and, if you don’t want it, I’ve got another market for the information. All I want to know is whether or not you’re interested. Would you like to find out the name of the woman that was with Harrison Burke last night?”
There was silence over the telephone for some four or five seconds.
“We’re a publication that deals with spicy bits of information about prominent people,” said Locke, “and we’re always glad to receive any information that is news.”
“Nix on that hooey,” said Mason. “You know what happened. And I know what happened. A list was made up, and Harrison Burke’s name wasn’t on that list. Neither was the name of the woman who was with him. Now, is it worth a thousand dollars to you to have absolute proof who that woman was?”
“No,” said Locke, firmly and decisively.
“Well, that’s all right,” said Mason hastily. “Is it worth five hundred to you?”
“No.”
“Well,” insisted Mason, putting a whining note in his voice, “I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll let you have it for four hundred dollars. And that’s absolutely bottom price. I’ve got another market that’s offering three hundred and fifty. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble getting you located, and it’s going to take four hundred for you to sit in.”
“Four hundred is a lot of money.”
“The information I’ve got,” said Mason, “is a lot of information.”
“You’d have to give me something besides the information,” said Locke. “I’d want something we could use as proof if we ran into a libel suit.”
“Sure,” said Mason, “you give me the four hundred dollars when I give you the proof.”
Locke was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “Well, I’ll have to think it over a little while. I’ll call you back and let you know.”
“I’ll wait here at this number,” Mason said. “You call me back here,” and hung up.
He sat on a stool at the ice cream counter and drank a glass of plain carbonated water, without haste and without showing any emotion. His eyes were thoughtful, but his manner was calm.
At the end of six or seven minutes the telephone rang again, and Mason answered it. “Smith talking,” he whined.
Locke’s voice came over the wire. “Yes, we’d be willing to pay that price provided we could get the proof.”
“Okay,” said Mason, “you be in your office tomorrow morning, and I’ll get in touch with you there. But don’t back out on me now, because I’m turning down this three hundred and fifty dollar offer.”
“Listen, I’d like to see you tonight and get the thing cleaned up right now.” There was a certain quaver of excitement in Locke’s voice.
“You can’t do that,” Mason told him. “I could give you the information tonight, but I can’t give you the proofs until tomorrow.”
“Well,” insisted Locke, “you could give me the information tonight, and then I’d pay you when you brought in the proofs tomorrow.”
Mason gave a mocking laugh. “Now I’ll tell one,” he said.
Locke said, irritably: “Oh, well, have it your own way.”
Mason chuckled. “Thanks,” he said, “I think I will,” and hung up the receiver.
He walked back to his automobile and sat in it for almost twenty minutes. At the end of that time, Frank Locke came out of the hotel, accompanied by a young woman. He had been shaved and massaged until his skin showed a trace of red under its sallow brown. He had the smugly complacent air of a man of the world, who rather enjoys knowing his way about.
The young woman with him was not over twentyone or two, if one could judge by her face. She had a well curved figure, which was displayed to advantage; a perfectly expressionless face; expensive garments and just the faintest suggestion of too much makeup about her. She was beautiful in a certain full blown manner.
Perry Mason waited until they had taken a taxi, then he went into the hotel, and walked over to the telephone desk.
The girl looked up with anxious eyes, put a surreptitious hand to the front of her waist, and pulled out a piece of paper.
On the piece of paper had been scribbled a telephone number: Freyburg 629803.
Perry Mason nodded to her and slipped the piece of paper in his pocket.
“Was that the conversation—that line about paying for information?” he asked.
“I can’t divulge what went over the line.”
“I know,” said Mason, “but you’d tell me if that wasn’t the conversation, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“All right, then, are you telling me anything?”
“No!”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” he told her, and grinned.