He looked over toward the bed and saw a man's coat, shirt, tie and trousers flung on the bed, apparently without any attempt whatever at order. The coat was wrinkled and one sleeve was pulled up inside of itself; the trousers were flung in a heap. The shirt was at the opposite corner of the bed.
Underneath the bed were shoes and socks. The shoes were tan oxfords, the socks were gray. Mason looked at the necktie. It too was gray. The trousers and coat were gray.
Perry Mason stepped into the room and walked around the corner of the bathroom.
He stood staring at the body which lay on the floor.
The body was that of a man approximately fifty years of age, with gray hair, closecropped, grizzled mustache, and a mole on his right cheek.
The body was attired in underwear, with a silk bathrobe thrown over the shoulders, the right arm through the sleeve, the robe lying loose over the left shoulder, and the left arm bare. One hand was sprawled out with the fingers clutched; the other hand was lying across the chest. The man's body lay on its back, and the eyes were partially open and glazing in death.
There was a stab wound in the man's left breast from which blood had spurted and was still welling in a thick viscid pool which stained the bathrobe and discolored the carpet. A few feet away from the body there lay on the carpet a longbladed knife of the sort that is frequently used for cutting bread. It was a knife that had a blade some three inches wide at the base, and which tapered uniformly to a point. The blade was some nine inches long. The knife was covered with blood, and had evidently been dropped after it had been pulled from the man's body.
Perry Mason carefully avoided the blood, bent down and felt of the man's wrist. There was no pulse. The wrist was still warm.
The lawyer looked about the room at the various windows. One of them—the one by the bed—opened on a fire escape, and the bed was slightly indented, as though a person had either lain on it, or had crawled across it. Mason tried the door which led from the bedroom to the hallway. It was locked and bolted from the inside. He took his handkerchief and carefully wiped off the doorknob where his fingers had touched it. He walked back to the door which led from the sittingroom to the bedroom and polished the knob of that door with his handkerchief. Then he did the same thing to the knob of the door which led from the livingroom to the corridor.
As he was polishing the doorknob, his eye noticed some object lying on the floor near the corner of the room. He walked to it. It was, he saw, a leathercovered billy, or blackjack, with a leather thong on the end to be looped over the wrist.
He bent to examine it, without touching it, and noticed that there was blood on it.
Lying on the floor, near the table on which the hat, gloves and stick reposed, was some brown wrapping paper which had not been crumpled, but had evidently been dropped to the floor and was stiff enough to have retained something of its original shape.
Perry Mason noticed that the wrapping paper was creased as though it might have been wrapped about the knife that he had seen in the other room.
He opened the door to the corridor, taking care to hold his handkerchief over his fingertips as he did so. He started to polish the outer knob of the door, then thought better of it. He stepped into the corridor and pushed the door shut with his right hand, making no effort to keep his fingers from touching the outside knob.
He was just closing the door when he heard the clang of the elevator door and a woman's voice saying, "… you can hear her just as soon as you get opposite the door. She's crying and laughing and saying something about lucky legs."
There were pounding steps in the corridor, and a man's gruff voice said, "Probably just a woman having hysterics over a love affair."
"But I heard something fall, Officer. It sounded like a body. It was a jarring thud…"
Perry Mason looked toward the far end of the corridor. It was a blind corridor with no window. He looked back toward the bend in the corridor, whipped some passkeys from his pocket, selected one and inserted it in the lock of the door. The key worked smoothly. The bolt clicked into place, and Perry Mason was slipping the key back into his pocket as an officer in uniform barged around the bend in the corridor and came to an abrupt stop as he saw Perry Mason in front of the door of apartment 302.
Perry Mason raised his knuckles and pounded upon the panel, keeping his face toward the door.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the officer hold out his left hand and restrain a rather fleshy woman of middle age who had rounded the corner in the corridor just back of the officer.
Perry Mason banged on the panels of the door; then pressed his thumb against the button on the buzzer.
After a moment, he turned away with an air of dejection, raised his eyes and then, apparently for the first time, saw the officer and the woman.
He stared at them.
"Just a minute, buddy," said the officer, moving forward. "I want to talk with you."
Perry Mason stood still.
The officer turned to the woman.
"That the apartment?" he asked.
The woman nodded.
Perry Mason turned to face the woman. She wore a rather wrinkled dress, shoes, and no stockings. Her hair was badly disarranged. There was no makeup on her face.
"Who were you looking for, buddy?" asked the officer.
Perry Mason jerked his head toward the door of apartment 302.
"I wanted to see the man who lives in there," he said.
"Who's the man who lives there?" asked the officer.
"His name is Frank Patton," Perry Mason said, " — that is, I have reason to believe that's his name."
"What did you want to see him about?"
"About a matter of business."
The officer turned to the woman.
"Do you know this man?" he asked.
"No," she said, "I've never seen him before."
Perry Mason frowned irritably.
"You don't need to wonder about who I am," he said.
He pulled a leather card case from his pocket, took out one of his business cards, and handed it to the officer.
The officer read it, and there was a note of respect in his voice as he looked up and said, "Oh, you're Perry Mason, the big lawyer, eh? I've seen you in court. I remember you now."
Mason nodded, smiled affably.
"How long you been trying to get in the apartment?" asked the officer.
"Oh, perhaps a minute, perhaps a little longer," Mason said.
"There's no one home?" the officer inquired.
"I couldn't hear a sound," Mason said, "and it's strange, because I had every reason to believe that Patton was in.