"
He picked up his desk telephone.
"Della," he said to his secretary, "make a receipt to J.R. Bradbury for one thousand dollars. Get Paul Drake on the line, and then get me Maude Elton, the district attorney's secretary, on the line."
Chapter 2
Maude Elton, the general secretary at the district attorney's office, was reputed to know more about the inside history of criminal matters than any one in the court house. Her complexion was slightly sallow; her features were hardly the kind to get motion picture producers raving over screen tests, but her face showed a quick vitality, an alert watchfulness which made her seem as restless as a canary hopping about in brighteyed scrutiny of a stranger who has approached too close to its cage.
"Hello, Mr. Mason," she said.
Perry Mason grinned at her.
"After seeing some of these dumbbells," he said, "who can't think of anything except getting their powder on smoothly, it's refreshing to look into a pair of eyes like yours."
"I presume," she told him, "that means you're going to try to pump some information out of me that you can't get from any one in the office."
"This is once," he told her, "that your environment has betrayed you."
"Why my environment?"
"Because you always see the seamy side of life. You deal with crooks and with persons who have ulterior motives. My errand today is merely that of a peaceful citizen, a taxpayer if you wish, who comes to the office of a public servant, seeking legitimate information."
She twisted her head slightly to one side as she stared at him.
"I believe you're right, at that," she said.
"I am," he told her.
"You're not kidding?"
"No. On the square."
"Well, I've seen lots of things in my time, but I never expected to see this. What is it you want?"
"I want to find out what deputy was consulted by a man named Bradbury who came here from Cloverdale to see about a racket that was pulled on the Chamber of Commerce in Cloverdale."
She frowned.
"Bradbury?" she said. "Why it was Dr. Doray who was in here about that—Dr. Robert Doray."
"No," he said, "I'm after a Bradbury—that's the name—J.R. Bradbury."
"Wait a minute," she said, "I'll take a look through the appointment book."
She ran her finger down the pages of a daybook, then nodded.
"Yes, he saw Carl Manchester. They both saw Carl Manchester."
"And Dr. Doray," said Perry Mason, "being young, handsome and impressionable, is remembered without consulting the records, whereas Bradbury, being fattish and forty, is relegated to the limbo of forgotten names. Once more psychologists are vindicated in claiming that we remember that which we are interested in, and —"
"Carl Manchester," she said, interrupting him, "is the third door down the corridor on the left. Shall I tell him you're coming? If you start probing the secrets of my heart, I'm going to bang this law book at you, and there's a sadfaced man who was defrauded out of the savings of a lifetime sitting there in the waitingroom, who'll think it's conduct unbecoming a lady and as out of place as an accordion at a funeral."
"Tell him I'm on my way in," Perry Mason said, smiling, and walked through the gate which separated the waitingroom from the long corridor of offices.
Carl Manchester looked up from a law book, a halfsmoked cigarette hanging from his lips, as Perry Mason opened the door.
Manchester gave the impression of being one whose body was always on an angle of fortyfive degrees. He seemed to put in his entire waking time leaning over a law book in rapt concentration, or else looking up at a visitor with the manner of one who trusts that the interruption will not cause him to lose his place in the book he is reading.
"Hello, Perry," he said. "What brings you here?"
"Doing my duty to a client," said Perry Mason.
"Don't tell me you're retained in that hammer murder!" Manchester said. "We've got a good case against that woman, but if you start in —"
"No," Mason said, "I'm working on the same side of the street you are this time."
"How do you mean?"
"Bradbury was in to see you about Frank Patton, who put on a racket in Cloverdale," Mason said.
"So was Dr. Doray," Manchester told him. "Doray's coming back in half an hour."
"Why coming back?"
"I told him I'd look up a little law."
"Have you looked it up?"
"No, but it's going to make him feel better handling it that way."
"In other words, you're washing your hands of the whole affair?"
"Of course. We aren't washing Cloverdale's dirty linen, and there was nothing pulled here. This is where the girl is, that's all."
"The motion picture company's here," Mason said.
"What of it?"
"Nothing, perhaps; again, perhaps quite a bit of it."
"It's Cloverdale's money, and the Cloverdale merchants are the ones to make a squawk," Manchester went on. "We've got enough troubles of our own. What are you going to do, Perry?"
"That depends," Mason said, "on what I can do."
"What are you driving at?"
"If," Perry Mason said, "I could get a confession from Patton, stating that this was the general scheme he had built up to defraud merchants in Cloverdale and elsewhere, it might change the complexion of the situation."
"Listen," Manchester said, "that bird, Patton, is a smooth individual. He knows what he's doing. He isn't going to make any such confession."
"That depends," Perry Mason said.
"Depends on what?"
"Depends on the way he's approached."
Carl Manchester looked shrewdly at Perry Mason, then took the cigarette from his lips and ground out the end in an ashtray.
"Now," he said, "I'm commencing to get your drift."
"I hoped you would," Mason said.
Manchester looked frowningly thoughtful.
"Look here, Mason," he said at length, running his fingers over the corners of the law book, and letting the pages riffle through his fingers, "we're not washing Cloverdale's dirty linen; that doesn't mean that we're sticking up for Patton. The man's a crook; there's no question of that. I've gone into the evidence enough to know it. I don't know whether we can prove anything; I doubt it. The district attorney at Cloverdale passed the buck; that's a bad sign. We don't want to monkey with it. We've got enough stuff to bother us, as it is, without borrowing trouble. But if you want to take this man to pieces, you go ahead."
"How strong can I go?" asked Perry Mason.
"Just as strong as you damn please."
"Suppose he makes a squawk?"
"Get me right on this," Manchester said. "I know the setup. It's one of those legalized rackets. A lawyer has advised Patton just how far he can go and keep out of jail. Perhaps the lawyer was right; perhaps he's wrong.