She hesitated a moment, looked up and down the corridor, then stepped back from the door and said, "Very well, you may come in, but only for a few minutes."
The apartment was clean and well cared for as though she had just finished a careful housecleaning. Her hair was perfectly groomed. Her nails were well kept. She wore her clothes with the manner of one who is wearing her best.
Drake sat down, relaxing comfortably, as though he intended to stay for hours.
Mason sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair. He looked at the detective and frowned.
"Now this employment may not be exactly the kind of a job you had in mind," Drake said, "but there's no harm talking it over. Would you mind telling me what your rates are by the day?"
"Do you mean for two or three days, or"
"No, just one day."
"Ten dollars," she said crisply.
Drake took a billfold from his pocket. He extracted ten dollars but didn't at once pass it over to the nurse.
"I have one day's employment," he said. "It won't take over an hour, but I'd be willing to pay for a full day."
She wet her lips with the tip of a nervous tongue, glanced swiftly from Mason to Drake. Her voice showed suspicion. "Just what is the nature of this employment?" she asked.
"We wanted you to recall a few facts," Drake said, folding the ten dollar bill about his fingers. "It would take perhaps ten or fifteen minutes for you to give us an outline, and then you could sit down and write out the facts you'd told us."
Her voice was distinctly guarded now.
"Facts about what?"
The detective's glassy eyes watched her in expressionless appraisal. He pushed the ten dollar bill toward her. "We wanted to find out all you knew about Peter Laxter."
She gave a start, staring from face to face in quick alarm, and said, "You're detectives!"
Paul Drake's face registered the expression of a golfer who had just dubbed an approach shot.
"Let's look at it this way," he said. "We're after certain information. We want to get the factswe don't want anything except facts. We're not going to drag you into anything."
She shook her head vehemently. "No," she said. "I was employed by Mr. Laxter as a nurse. It wouldn't be ethical for me to divulge any of his secrets."
Perry Mason leaned forward and took a hand in the conversation. "The house was burned, Miss DeVoe?"
"Yes, the house was burned."
"And you were in it at the time?"
"Yes."
"How did the house burnrather quickly?"
"Quite quickly."
"Have any trouble getting out?"
"I was awake at the time. I smelled smoke and thought at first it was just smoke from an incinerator. Then I decided to investigate. I put on a robe and opened the door. The south end of the house was all in flames then. I screamed, and, after a few minutes Well, I guess perhaps I shouldn't say anything more."
"You knew the house was insured?" Mason asked.
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Do you know whether the insurance has been paid?"
"Why, I think it has. I think it's been paid to Mr. Samuel Laxter. He's the executor, isn't he?"
"Was there someone in that house you didn't like?" Mason asked. "Someone who was particularly obnoxious to you?"
"Why, whatever makes you ask such a question as that?"
"Whenever a fire occurs," Mason said slowly, "which might result in the loss of life and in which a person actually was killed, the authorities usually make an investigation. That investigation isn't always completed at the time of the fire, but when it is made it's always advisable for the witnesses to tell what they know."
She thought that over for several seconds, during which her eyes blinked rapidly.
"You mean that if I shouldn't make a statement I might be under suspicion of having set the fire to trap someone whom I didn't like? Oh, but that's too absurd!"
"I'll put it to you another way," Mason said. "Was there someone in the house whom you did like?"
"Just what do you mean by that?"
"Simply this: You can't be thrown with people for some time under the same roof without forming attachments, certain likes and dislikes. Let's suppose, for example, there was some person whom you didn't like and some person whom you did. We're going to get the facts about that fire. We're going to get them from someone. If we should get them from you, it might be better all around than if we happened to get them from the person whom you didn't like, particularly if that person should try to fasten guilt upon the person you did like."
She seemed to stiffen in the chair. "You mean that Sam Laxter has accused Frank Oafley of setting that fire?"
"Certainly not," Mason said. "I am purposely refraining from making any statement of facts. I'm giving out no information. I came to get it."
He nodded to the detective. "Come on, Paul," he said.
He got to his feet.
Edith DeVoe jumped from her chair, almost ran between Mason and the door.
"Wait a minute, I didn't understand just what you wanted. I'll give you all the information I have."
"We'd want to know quite a few things," Mason said dubiously, as though hesitating about returning to his chair, "not only about the fire, but about the things which preceded it. I guess we'd better get the information somewhere else after all. We'd want to know all about the lives and personal habits of the people who lived in the house, and you, being a nurse I guess perhaps we'd better leave you out of it."