The Case of the Lucky Legs (6 page)

Bradbury's excitement burst the bounds of self-control.

"Do about it?" he screamed. "You know what I want you to do about it. Go ahead and represent her. Go ahead and see that nothing happens to her. To hell with Frank Patton. I don't care anything about him, but Margy means everything in the world to me. If she's in a jam, you go ahead and get her out of it. I don't care what it costs. You send the bill to me and I'll foot it."

"Wait a minute," Perry Mason told him. "Keep your shirt on. Don't throw a fit. And, after you hang up the telephone, if Della Street starts asking you questions, don't tell her anything. Tell her that I told you I thought I was going to have some news for you in about an hour, or something of that sort. Stall her along and tell her to wait there. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Bradbury said, but his voice was still high-pitched with excitement.

"You wait right there," Perry Mason said.

"Not here," Bradbury told him, "I'll go to my hotel. You can call me there at my room. You know the number, room 693. Be sure and ask for my room number. I'll be there."

"You'd better wait there in the office."

"No, no, I want to be where I can talk. I've got a lot to tell you, and I want to find out all about what's happening. Will you call me at my room in fifteen minutes, and tell me exactly what's happened?"

"Snap out of it," Perry Mason told him. "I told you not to spill all this information. I'm busy, and I haven't got time to argue with you."

He slammed the receiver savagely on the hook, and strode out of the drug store.

"Go to the St. James Apartments," he told the cab driver. "That's at 962 East Faulkner Street, and drive like the devil."

Almost instantly he heard the quick rustle of motion from the interior of the apartment, then footsteps on the floor, then silence as the person on the other side of the door stood motionless, listening with an ear against the door.

Perry Mason knocked again.

He thought he could hear the sound of quick feminine whispers. Then, after a moment of silence, a voice said, "Who is it?"

Perry Mason said gruffly, "Telegram."

"Who for?" asked the feminine voice, louder and more confident this time.

"Thelma Bell," said Perry Mason.

There was the sound of a bolt clicking back. The door opened a crack and a bare arm thrust out through a loose sleeve that appeared in the crack in the door.

"I'll take it," said the voice.

Perry Mason pushed the door open and entered the apartment.

He heard the swirl of motion, the patter of footsteps. A door slammed shut before he could turn his head in the direction of the noise. There was water running in the bathroom, and Perry Mason could hear the steady churning of the water in the tub.

A woman wearing a kimono which had apparently been thrown hastily about her stood staring at Perry Mason with warm brown eyes which now held a trace of angry defiance as well as a trace of panic.

She was, perhaps, twenty-five years of age, well formed, and poised.

Perry Mason stared at her.

"Are you Thelma Bell?" he asked.

"Who are you?"

Perry Mason let his eyes drift over her, noticing the dampness of the fine hairs of her temples, the bare feet, hurriedly thrust into slippers, the pink coloring of the skin at the ankles.

"Are you Thelma Bell?" he again inquired.

"Yes," she said.

"I want to see Marjorie Clune."

"Who are you?"

"Is Marjorie here?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I haven't seen Margy in ages," she said.

"Who's in there taking a bath?" Mason asked.

"There's no one in there," she said.

Perry Mason stood quietly, staring at the woman. The water in the bathroom had been turned off, and there could plainly be heard the sounds of hurried splashings as some one performed a quick, vigorous scrubbing. Then there was the sound of bare feet thudding to the floor.

Perry Mason let his smiling eyes contradict the girl's statement by calling her attention to the physical proof of her falsehood.

"Who are you?" she demanded again.

"Are you Thelma Bell?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I am Perry Mason, an attorney," he told her. "It's imperative that I get in touch with Marjorie Clune right away."

"Why?" she asked.

"I'll explain that to Miss Clune."

"How did you know she was here?"

"That is something I don't want to tell you right now," Perry Mason said.

"I don't think Miss Clune would wish to see you. I don't think she wants to see any one."

"Listen," Perry Mason said, "I'm all attorney. I'm here to represent Miss Clune. She's in trouble; I'm going to help her out."

"She isn't in any trouble," Thelma Bell said.

"She's going to be," Perry Mason retorted grimly.

Thelma Bell wrapped the kimono more tightly about her, moved to the bathroom door, tapped on the panels.

"Margy," she said.

There was a moment of silence, then a voice said, "What is it, Thelma?"

"There's a lawyer out here," she said, "who wants to see you."

"Not me," said the voice from the other side of the bathroom door. "I don't want any lawyer."

"You come on out," Thelma Bell said.

She turned back to Perry Mason.

"She'll be out in a minute.

"I wish you'd tell me how you knew Margy was here," Thelma Bell said. "There was no one who knew she was here. She came in this afternoon."

Mason frowned, crossed to a chair, dropped into it and lit a cigarette.

"Let's come down to earth," he said. "I know you; you're the young woman who won the leg contest Frank Patton held in Parker City. Patton gave you a fake motion picture contract and brought you here. You were too proud to go back. You've been getting by the best way you could. You met Marjorie Clune through Frank Patton. She was in the same kind of a jam that you were. You wanted to help her out.

"Marjorie Clune was at Frank Patton's apartment tonight. I've got to talk with her about what happened there, and I've got to talk with her before the police do."

"The police?" said Thelma Bell, her eyes widening.

"The police," Perry Mason repeated.

The door of the bathroom opened. A young woman with very blue eyes clasped a flannel bathrobe about her, stared at Perry Mason and then gave a quick little gasp.

"Oh, you recognize me, then," Perry Mason said.

Marjorie Clune said nothing.

"I saw you coming out of the Holliday Apartments," Perry Mason told her.

Thelma Bell's voice was quick and positive.

"You didn't see her coming out of the Holliday Apartments," she said. "She's been with me all the evening, haven't you, Margy?"

Marjorie Clune continued to stare at Perry Mason, her big blue eyes showing a hint of panic. She said nothing.

"The idea," Thelma Bell went on in a louder voice, "of you making such a statement as that! What would she be doing in Frank Patton's apartment? Anyway, she was with me all evening."

Perry Mason stared steadily at Marjorie Clune.

"Listen, Marjorie," he said in a kindly tone, "I'm here to represent you. You're in a jam. If you don't know it now, you will know it pretty soon. I'm a lawyer. I'm retained to represent your interests. I want to do what's best for you. I want to talk with you. Do I talk now, or do you want to wait until you can talk with me alone?"

"No," she said, "I want to talk now."

"Go ahead," Perry Mason told her, "and get some clothes on."

He turned to Thelma Bell.

"You, too," he said.

There was a small dressing-room which opened on one side of a swinging mirror, on the back of which was a wall bed. The girls exchanged glances, then moved swiftly toward the dressing-room.

"Don't take too much time comparing notes," Perry Mason said. "It won't do you any good. We've got to get down to brass tacks. The police may be here any minute. Make it snappy."

The door of the little dressing room slammed.

Perry Mason got up from the chair in which he had been seated. He looked around the apartment. He went to the bathroom and opened the door. Water was draining from the tub. There was a bath mat on the floor with wet stains on it. A wet towel lay in a heap near the bath mat. Perry Mason looked around. There were no clothes in the bathroom. He walked back to the apartment, saw a closet door, walked to the closet and opened the door. There was a long white coat with a fox fur collar hanging close to the door. Perry Mason picked up the bottom of the coat and ran it carefully through his fingers.

There was a puzzled frown on his face as he finished with his examination and let the coat drop back into position on the hanger. He noticed a shelf of shoes, and took down the shoes one at a time. There were no white shoes on the shelf.

He stood for a moment with his legs spread apart, standing with his weight slightly forward, his eyes squinted in thought, staring meditatively at the white coat with the fox fur collar. He was still standing in that position when the door of the dressing-room opened and Marjorie Clune entered the room, tugging her dress into position. A moment later, and Thelma Bell followed.

"Do you want to talk in front of her?" asked Perry Mason, jerking his head toward Thelma Bell.

"Yes," she said. "I haven't any secrets from Thelma Bell."

"Do you want to talk frankly and tell me everything?"

"Yes."

"I'll tell you first about me," Perry Mason told her. "I'm a lawyer. I've handled some pretty big cases here and I've been fairly successful. J.R. Bradbury is in this city. He's looking for you. He wanted to build up a case against Patton. He wanted to put Patton in jail if he could. He went up to see the district attorney; they told him nothing doing, that they didn't have enough evidence. Then he came to me. I think he wanted me to try and get a confession of some sort out of Patton. I think the district attorney had told him that he'd have to have something like that before we could do anything.

"Anyhow, I got a detective and we started locating Patton. We finally located Thelma Bell. She gave us a lead on Patton."

Perry Mason turned to Thelma Bell.

"You talked with some one from the detective agency tonight," he said.

She nodded.

"I didn't know he was a detective," she said. "I didn't know what he wanted. He wanted some information. I gave it to him. I didn't know what he wanted to use it for."

"Well," Perry Mason said, "that's the story. I was retained to represent you. I was retained to try and bring Patton to justice. I went out to Patton's apartment, when I found out his address from the detective who had been talking with Thelma Bell. I saw you, Marjorie, leaving the apartment."

The two young women exchanged swift glances.

Marjorie Clune took a deep breath, turned to stare steadily at Perry Mason.

"What," she asked, "did you find in Frank Patton's apartment, Mr. Mason?"

"What," asked Perry Mason, "did you leave there, Marjorie?"

"I couldn't get in," she said.

Perry Mason shook his head wordlessly in chiding negation.

"I couldn't!" she flared. "I went up to his apartment and pressed the buzzer. There wasn't any answer. I came back down."

"Did you try the door?" asked Perry Mason.

"No," she said.

"When you left the apartment," he said, "there was -"

"I tell you I wasn't in the apartment!"

"We'll let it go at that," he told her. "When you left the apartment house there was a woman bringing an officer to the apartment. She'd heard quite a bit of commotion in the apartment. She'd heard a girl screaming something about her legs being lucky, and having hysterics. Then she'd heard the sound of something falling, a heavy fall that had jarred the pictures on the wall."

Perry Mason stopped and stared steadily at Marjorie Clune.

"Well?" she asked, and her voice contained just the right amount of polite disinterest.

"Well," said Perry Mason, "what I want to know is whether you met that cop as you walked along."

"Why?"

"Because," he said, "you looked guilty. When you looked at me and saw I was looking at you, you turned your head the other way and acted as though you were afraid I was going to nab you and charge you with the theft of a thousand dollars."

Perry Mason watched her with his eyes slitted in shrewd contemplation.

The girl bit her lip.

"Yes," she said slowly, "I saw the officer."

"How far from the Holliday Apartments?"

"Quite a way; perhaps two or three blocks."

"You were walking?"

"Yes, I was walking. I wanted to…"

She broke off.

"Wanted to what?" asked Perry Mason.

"Wanted to walk," she said.

"Go ahead," he told her.

"That's all there was to it."

"You saw the officer. What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Did he look at you?"

"Yes."

"What did you do? Did you walk rapidly?"

"No," she said.

"Think again," Perry Mason told her. "You were almost running when I saw you. You were walking as though you were trying to win a walking race. Now, are you sure you didn't do that when the officer saw you?"

"Yes."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I wasn't walking at all."

"Oh, you stopped then?"

"Yes."

Perry Mason stared steadily at her and then said slowly and not unkindly, "You mean that when you suddenly saw the officer you turned faint. You stopped, perhaps put your hand to your throat, or something of that sort. Then you turned to look into a store window. Is that it?"

She nodded her head.

Thelma Bell slipped an arm around Marjorie Clune's shoulder.

"Lay off the kid," she said.

"What I'm doing," Perry Mason told Thelma Bell, "is for her own good. You understand that, Marjorie. You must understand that. I'm your friend. I'm here to represent you. There's a possibility that the officers may come here even before I've finished talking with you. Therefore, it's important to know just exactly what happened, and to have you tell me the truth."

"I am telling you the truth."