77 The Case of the Worried Waitress by Erle Stanley Gardner

Author:Erle Stanley Gardner [Gardner, Erle Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

PERRY MASON, Paul Drake and Della Street met in the lawyer’s office at a few minutes after nine o’clock in the morning.

Both Mason and Drake showed evidences of a relatively sleepless night.

“Well, Paul?” Mason asked, when the detective had settled down with a cup of coffee which Della Street poured from the electric percolator.

Drake shook his head. “Absolutely nothing. I’ve checked with the men on the job.”

“They’re still on the job?”

“Not the same men—a new shift went on at five o’clock in the morning. They’ll work until one this afternoon, provided you still want to foot the bill.”

“I want to foot the bill,” Mason said. “1 just can’t understand why nothing happened.”

Mason’s phone rang. Della Street answered it, nodded her head to Drake. “It’s for you, Paul,” she said. “Your office reporting … says it’s important.”

Drake deposited the coffee mug on a newspaper on the corner of Mason’s desk, picked up the telephone, said eagerly, “Yes, what is it?”

He was silent for nearly a minute, then he said, slowly and thoughtfully, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Again there was a moment of silence then he said, “No, nothing. Tell them to stay on the job.”

Drake hung up the telephone and said, “The blind woman is back on the job.”

“Where?”

“At the Gillco Manufacturing Company.”

Mason said, “Then it must be Mrs. Bunion. There’s only one blind woman today. How did you find out, Paul? Your men were shadowing the flat, weren’t they?”

Drake said, “That’s right. Mrs. Bunion came down the front steps from her flat, poking her cane in front of her. A taxicab drove up, the cabdriver jumped out, helped her into the cab, then they drove directly to the Gillco Manufacturing Company.”

Mason said, “She came out of the front door of her own flat?”

“That’s right.”

“She couldn’t have,” Mason said. “You had men watching the place?”

“We had men watching the place all night,” Drake said, “but there’s one way she could have done it.”

“How?”

“Through the back door.”

“But didn’t you have a man in the alley watching the back door?”

“After we got back from our visit 1 put men out,’ Drake

said.

WORRIED WAITRESS-7

“Now there’s no question in my mind but what this blind woman went in her flat, climbed the stairs, walked right on through the flat, went down the backstairs, had someone pick her up and take her out somewhere. Then she came back shortly after we had finished searching the flat but before my second man got on the job watching the alley. She was taken to the back door. She climbed the stairs, went in through the back door, locked it, spent the night in her flat without knowing anything was wrong, and then went out this morning with the taxicab.

“That’s the only way it could have happened, Perry. And I just want to warn you that while I’m billing you at cost prices, you’re running up altogether too big a bill here. Your client can never pay off and “

Mason interrupted to say, “I don’t expect my client to pay off, Paul.

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