The Case of the Queenly Contestant

“Then,” Mason said, “get out and take that taxicab. Make sure that there is no one following you with an automobile. When you feel that no one is following you, go home by a circuitous route.

“Now, then, tonight when I pick you up, Della Street and I will be out in Hollywood, driving along La Brea. We’ll be driving south. At the corner of Beverly we’ll bring the car into the curb at exactly eight o’clock.

“You be standing there at the curb. We’ll open the door and let you in. Then we’ll make sure that you aren’t being followed, and then we’ll go and see this nurse.”

“But suppose somebody follows you?”

“They won’t,” Mason said. “I’ll take precautions.”

Ellen rose with queenly dignity, put her hand in Perry Mason’s, and said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Mason. Thank you for your confidence and all you have done for me.”

She turned and swept out of the office.

Della Street exchanged glances with Perry Mason. “Well?” she asked.

Mason shook his head. “This is one of those things,” he said. “That woman can have engineered this whole thing so it looks like a convincing case. After all, we have her unsupported word, which is completely contradicted by the testimony of Maxine Edfield. And we may have the somewhat nebulous testimony of a nurse who, even according to our client, has been resorting to blackmail. And that’s it!”

“And there’s better than two million dollars involved,” Della Street said.

“There’s better than two million dollars involved. There are some very shrewd attorneys representing claimants on the other side, a couple of claimants who are viciously hostile, a private detective who is nobody’s fool, and a troubleshooter who is just plain smart.

“If I have to go up against a combination of that sort, I want to be a lot more certain of the integrity of my client than I am of this woman with her somewhat condescending dignity and her air of utter assurance.”

“Where do I meet you?” Della Street asked.

“You don’t meet me,” Mason said. “We go out and have dinner, then pick up our queenly client at La Brea and Beverly on the dot of eight o’clock.”

Chapter Nine

Promptly at eight o’clock Mason pulled his car into the La Brea curb, and immediately Ellen Adair detached herself from the shadows, crossed the sidewalk and jumped into the car.

“You came by cab?” Mason asked.

“That’s right.”

“Were you followed?”

“Absolutely not.”

“All right,” Mason told her; “now where do we go?”

“Keep on down La Brea for a ways, then we turn to the right. I haven’t been to this place for six months, but I think I remember the way.”

“What sort of a place is it?”

“It’s a duplex bungalow. Agnes Burlington has the place on the west. It’s a cute little place with a lawn and a gravel driveway.”

“When were you there last?”

“I guess it’s all of six months ago.”

“How did you happen to go there?”

“I went there to try and buy Agnes Burlington’s silence. At that time I wanted her to keep quiet.”

“You paid her money?”

“I made her a loan.”

“Now,” Mason said, “you want her to start talking. Has it ever occurred to you she may not be receptive to your proposition?”

“You mean that she’ll want more money?”

“Yes.”

“You mean first I pay her not to talk and now I pay her to get her to talk.”

“You don’t pay her,” Mason said. “You can’t afford to.”

“Why not?”

“Because the Other side would claim that was suborning perjury. In a case of this kind, you can’t self in the position of paying a witness to testify.”

“What can we do?”

“If she’s reluctant,” Mason said, “we might decoy her into believing that you still don’t want her to talk and get her to make threats to tell the truth.”

“What good will that do?”

“We’d get her to repeat the threats under such circumstances that there’d be a tape recorder concealed in some advantageous place where we can record the entire conversation.”

“Turn to the right here,” Ellen Adair said. And then, after Mason had made the turn, she added, “That’s really a good idea. I think perhaps we can work that with her — if she’s reluctant. But I think she’ll tell her story. She’ll do quite a bit of talking now.”

Mason drove several blocks, then Ellen said, “Turn to the right again here. Go two blocks, then... No, wait a minute, I’m confused. You go three blocks and then turn to the left, and it’s about midway down the block. Let’s see, it’s — there it is, Mr. Mason. That house over there on the right — the duplex house. Agnes Burlington Is side of the house is the one on the west.”

Mason eased the car into the curb.

“You can drive right on up the driveway,” she said.

Mason said, “That driveway looks soft. You can see where someone has been in there and left deep tracks. The way the lawn is sloped, water from the grass seeps down into the driveway and...”

“But go in there anyway; get the car off the road!”

Mason said, “I think it’s too soft, Ellen. This is a heavy car.”

“It has big tires,” she said.

“But what do we gain?” Mason asked. “We’ll park here at the curb. I don’t like to go into someone’s driveway and park when we’re going to call on a business matter.”