It was ten minutes before five when Perry Mason called Pete Dorcas on the telephone.
"Perry Mason talking, Pete. How do I stand with you?"
"Not very high," said Dorcas, but there was a trace of humor in his rasping, querulous voice. "You're too damned belligerent. Any time a fellow tries to do you a favor, he gets into trouble. You get too enthusiastic over your clients."
"I wasn't enthusiastic," said Mason; "I simply claimed the man wasn't crazy."
Dorcas laughed.
"Well," he said, "you're sure right on that. The man wasn't crazy. He played things pretty foxy."
"What are you doing about it; anything?"
"No. Foley came in here all steamed up. He wanted to get warrants issued right and left; wanted to turn the universe upside down, and then he wasn't so certain that he wanted the publicity. He asked me to wait until he communicated with me again."
"Well, did you hear from him later?"
"Yes, about ten minutes ago."
"What did he say?"
"Said that his wife had sent him a telegram from some little town down the state — Midwick, I think it was, begging him not to do anything that would bring about a lot of newspaper publicity. She said it wouldn't do him any good, and would do them all a lot of harm."
"What did you do?"
"Oh, the usual thing. I pigeonholed it. It's nothing except a man's wife running off with somebody else. They're free, white and twentyone, and know what they're doing. Of course, if they set up a meretricious relationship, openly and defiantly in some community, that will be a problem for that community to handle, but we can't spend a lot of time and money bringing some fellow's wife back to him when she doesn't want to come.
"Of course, he's got a good civil action against your client, Cartright, and the way Foley was talking this morning, he was going to file actions for alienation of affections, and everything else he could think of, but I have an idea he's changing his mind on that."
"Well," Mason told him, "I just wanted you to know the way I felt about it. I gave you a fair deal right from the start. I gave you a chance to have a doctor there to look Cartright over."
"Well, the man isn't crazy, that's a cinch," Dorcas said. "I'll buy you a cigar the next time I see you."
"No, I'm going to buy you the cigars," Mason told him. "In fact, I'm having a box sent over right now. How long you going to be at the office?"
"About fifteen minutes."
"Stick around," said Mason, "the cigars will be there."
He hung up the telephone, went to the door of his outer office and said to Della Street: "Ring up the cigar stand across the street from the Hall of Justice. Tell them to take a box of fiftycent cigars up to Pete Dorcas, and charge them to me. I think he's got them coming."
"Yes, sir," she said. "Mr. Drake telephoned while you were talking on the line to Dorcas. He says he's got something for you, and I told him to come up, that you'd be anxious to see him."
"Where was he, down in his office?"
"Yes."
"All right," said Mason, "when he comes, send him right in."
He walked back to his desk and had no sooner sat down than the door opened, and Paul Drake walked into the room with that same ungainly stride which masked such efficiency of motion as to make his advance seem unhurried, yet he was seated in a chair across from the lawyer, with a cigarette going, before the door check had closed the door.
"Well," said Mason, "what have you found out?"
"Lots of stuff."
"All right, go ahead and tell me."
Drake pulled a notebook from his pocket.
"Is it so much you can't tell me without a notebook?" asked Mason.
"It sure is, and it's cost you a lot of money."
"I don't care about that, I wanted the information."
"Well, we got it. We had to burn up the wires and get a couple of affiliated agencies working on the case."
"Never mind that; give me the dope."
"She isn't his wife," said Paul Drake.
"Who isn't?"
"The woman who lived with Foley at 4889 Milpas Drive, and went under the name of Evelyn Foley."
"Well," said Mason, "that's no great shock to me. To tell you the truth, Paul, that's one of the reasons I wanted you to work on the case. I had an idea that she wasn't."
"How did you get that idea? From something Cartright told you?" asked the detective.
"You tell me what you know first," said Mason.
"Well," said Drake, "the woman's name wasn't Evelyn. That's her middle name. Her first name was Paula. Her full name is Paula Evelyn Cartright. She's the wife of your client, Arthur Cartright."
Perry Mason slowly nodded.
"You haven't surprised me yet, Paul," he said.
"Well, I probably won't surprise you with anything, then," said Drake, thumbing the pages of his notebook. "Here's the dope: Clinton Foley's real name is Clinton Forbes. He and his wife, Bessie Forbes, lived in Santa Barbara. They were friendly with Arthur Cartright and Paula Cartright. The friendship between Forbes and Mrs. Cartright ripened into an intimacy, and they ran away together. Neither Bessie Forbes nor Arthur Cartright knew where the others had gone. It was quite a scandal in Santa Barbara. The people mingled with the better class of society there, and you can imagine what a choice bit of scandal it made. Forbes was independently wealthy, and he translated all of his belongings into cash so that he could carry it with him, without leaving any back trail. They left by automobile, and left no clews as to where they were going.
"Cartright, however, managed to find them. I don't know how he did it. He traced Forbes, and found that Clinton Foley was, in reality, Clinton Forbes, and that the woman who went under the name of Evelyn Foley was, in reality, Paula Cartright, his wife."
"Then," said Perry Mason slowly, "why did Cartright get the adjoining house and spy on Foley, or Forbes, whichever you want to call him?"
"What the devil could he do?" asked Drake. "The woman left of her own free will. She ran away from him. He couldn't have gone over and said: 'Here I am, sweet heart, and have her fall into his arms."
"You haven't got the idea yet," Mason said.
Drake looked at him for a moment, and then said: "You mean he was plotting revenge?"
"Yes," Mason said.
"Well," the detective drawled, "when he finally got around to springing his plan for revenge, it didn't amount to anything more than complaining about the howling of a dog. That's not much of a revenge. You've heard the story about the irate husband who cut holes in the umbrella of a man who was entertaining his wife."
"Wait a minute," Mason said. "I'm not joking; I'm serious."
"Well, all right," Drake remarked. "Suppose you are serious? What does that buy us?"
"The theory of the district attorney's office is that Cartright complained about the howling dog merely in order to get Foley away from home, so Cartright could run off with Foley's wife."
"Well?" asked the detective.
"It doesn't make sense," the lawyer said. "In the first place, why go to all that elaborate trouble in order to get Foley away from home? In the second place, there must have been some previous talks between Cartright and his wife. He must have known where she was, and she must have known where he was. Those talks necessarily took place in the absence of Foley. Having decided that they were going to go back together and patch things up, why the devil didn't Cartright walk over to the place, cuss Foley out and take his wife?"
"Probably because he didn't have the guts," Drake said. "There are people like that."
"All right," Mason agreed patiently, "let's suppose you're right on that. Then he went to the law, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"How much simpler it would have been to go to the law and complain that Foley was living in a meretricious relationship with his wife, and have the law step in. Or, he could have hired me as his attorney, and I'd have gone out there and pulled the woman out of the house damned quick. That is, if she wanted to get away. Or, the woman could simply have walked out. After all, Cartright had all of the legal rights on his side."
Drake shook his head.
"Well," he said, "that's up to you. What you wanted me to do was to get the facts. You were going to put them together."
Mason nodded slowly.
"What do you think happened?" asked Drake.
"I don't know," Mason said, "but I'm telling you that the thing doesn't click. It doesn't fit together and it doesn't make sense, and the farther we go into it, the less sense it makes."
"Now, then Drake said, "who are you representing?"
"I'm not entirely certain," Mason said slowly. "I'm representing Arthur Cartright, and I may be representing his wife, or I may be representing Foley's wife. By the way, what happened to her?"
"You mean Forbes?" asked the detective.
"Foley or Forbes, it's all the same. I know him as Foley; that's the way I first met him, so that's the way I describe him."
"Well," said Drake, "we haven't had any luck on tracing Mrs. Forbes yet. Naturally, she felt quite a bit disgraced and she left Santa Barbara, but we don't know where she went. You know how a woman would feel about those things, particularly when a man didn't give her any warning, but simply disappeared and took a friend's wife with him."
Mason nodded slowly, and reached for his hat.
"I think," he said, "that I'm going out and talk with this Clinton Forbes, alias Clinton Foley."
"Well," Drake told him, "every man to his taste. You may have your hands full. He's got the reputation for being a belligerent customer, and having the devil's own temper. I found that out in checking back on his career in Santa Barbara."
Mason nodded absently.
"That's one thing they can't ever say about you," Drake remarked. "They can't ever say you haven't got guts. You go out of your way in order to get into trouble."
Perry Mason shook his head, paused for a moment, then walked back to his desk, sat down and picked up the telephone.
"Della," he said, "get me Clinton Foley on the line. His residence is 4889 Milpas Drive. I want to talk with him personally."
"What's the idea?" asked Drake.
"I'm going to make an appointment with him. I'm not going to chase all the way out there, only to find that I've run up a taxi bill."
"If he knows you're coming, he'll have a couple of bouncers waiting to throw you out," the detective warned.
"Not after I get done talking with him, he won't," Mason said grimly.
Paul Drake sighed and lit a cigarette.
"A fool for a fight," he said.
"No, I'm not," Mason told him. "But you overlook the fact that I'm representing my clients. I'm a paid gladiator. I have to go in and fight; that's what they hire me for. Any time I get weak kneed so I don't have guts enough to wade in and fight, I've unfitted myself to carry on my profession, at any rate, the branch of it that I specialize in. I'm a fighter. I'm hired to fight. Everything I got in the world, I got through fighting."
The telephone rang, and Mason scooped up the receiver.
"Mr. Foley on the line," Della Street 's voice said.
"Okay," Mason told her.
There was the click of the connection, and then Foley's voice, vibrant with booming magnetism.
"Yes, hello, hello."
"Mr. Foley," said the lawyer, "this is Perry Mason, the attorney. I want to talk with you."
"I have nothing whatever to discuss with you, Mr. Mason," Foley said.
"I wanted to talk with you about the affairs of a client who lived in Santa Barbara," said Perry Mason.
There was a moment of silence. The buzzing noise of the wire was all that could be heard. Then Foley's voice came, pitched a note lower.
"And what was the name of this client?" he asked.
"Well," Mason told him, "we might agree on a tentative name of Forbes."
"Man or woman?" asked Foley.
"A woman — a married woman. Her husband had run off and left her."
"And what did you want to see me about?" Foley demanded.
"I'll explain that to you when I see you."
"Very well, when will you see me?"
"As soon as convenient."
"Tonight at eightthirty?"
"Can you make it any earlier?"
"No."
"Very well, I will be at your place at nine o'clock tonight," said Mason, and slid the receiver back on the hook.
Paul Drake shook his head lugubriously.
"You do take the damnedest chances," he said. "You'd better have me go out there with you."
"No," Mason told him, "I'm going out there alone."
"All right," the detective said, "let me give you a tip, then. You'd better go prepared for trouble. That man's in a dangerous mood."
"What do you mean prepared for trouble?"
"Carry a gun," the detective said.
Perry Mason shook his head.
"I carry my two fists," he said, "and my wits. I fight with those. Sometimes I carry a gun, but I don't make a practice of it. It's bad training. It teaches one to rely entirely on a gun. Force should only be a last resort."
"Have it your own way," Drake remarked.
"How about the housekeeper?" said Mason. "You haven't told me about her yet."
"The housekeeper didn't change her name."
"You mean she was with Forbes before he became Foley?"
"That's right. Her name is Mrs. Thelma Benton. Her husband was killed in an automobile accident. She was employed as a private secretary to Forbes when he was in Santa Barbara. She accompanied him on his trip. But here's the funny thing: apparently Mrs. Cartright didn't know that Thelma Benton had been employed by Forbes as a secretary. The young woman came with them as a housekeeper, and Mrs. Cartright never knew she'd been Forbes' secretary."
"That's strange, isn't it?"
"Not particularly. You see, Forbes had an office in Santa Barbara where he transacted his business. Naturally he was rather secretive about it, because he was getting his affairs turned into cash. Evidently the secretary suspected a good deal, and he didn't want to leave her behind, or she didn't want to be left behind, I don't know which. She went with them when they left."
"How about the Chinese cook?"
"He's a new addition. They picked him up here."
Perry Mason shrugged his broad shoulders.
"The whole thing sounds goofy," he said. "I'll tell you a lot more about it tonight, however. You'd better be in your office, Paul, so I can call you if I want any information.
"Okay," Drake told him, "and I don't mind telling you that I'm going to have men outside, watching the house. You know, we've got a tail on Foley, and I'm just going to double it, so that if there's any trouble, all you've got to do is to kick out a window, or something, and the men will come in."
Perry Mason shook his head with the impatient gesture of a prizefighter shaking hair from in front of his eyes.
"Hell!" he said. "There isn't going to be any trouble."