"Gardner, Erle Stanley - Perry Mason 072 - The Case of the Daring Divorcee" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Earle Stanley)

"Let's get at that pile of mail and see how much of it we can get done before Adelle Hastings comes in."
Mason started dictating but after a while his attention began to wander. He glanced from time to time at his wrist watch and there were long periods of silence.
At four o'clock Della Street said, "If you're going to worry about it, why don't we try telephoning?"
"Do that," Mason said. "Telephone Las Vegas. See if there's a telephone in the name of Adelle Hastings at the address given on that driving license."
Della Street put through the call, then after a few moments said, "There's a phone listed. They're ringing and get no answer."
Mason said, "Ring the residence of Garvin Hastings. Don't give any name. Just ask if you can talk to Mrs. Hastings. It may be she went out there to negotiate a settlement on her own. In fact the more I think of it the more I feel that's the explanation. She came in here to see me, then decided to call her husband to tell him what she was doing, and he suggested she come out and talk with him." Mason snapped his fingers. "Why didn't I think of that before? That's the only really logical explanation."
Della Street nodded, looked up the number of the Garyin Hastings residence, put through the call, listened a moment, then gently hung up the telephone.
"What?" Mason asked.
"A tape-recording answering service," she said. "A well-modulated voice on a tape says that Mr. Hastings is not available at the moment, that following the notice on the tape there will be a period of thirty seconds during which the person calling can leave any message. This message will be recorded on tape and brought to the attention of Mr. Hastings on his return."
"Okay," Mason said, "forget it. It's probably all right."
"And what do we do with the purse, the money and the gun?" Della Street asked. "Do we hold them here in the office?"
Mason said, "Between now and five o'clock we'll have a call from Adelle Hastings. She'll suddenly realize where it was she left her bag."
"Want to bet?" Della Street asked.
Mason grinned. "No," he said.


Chapter Two

At five-fifteen Della Street said, "How about it, Chief, do we close up the office? It's five-fifteen."
Mason nodded, said, "I guess there's nothing else to do, Della."
"Are you going to worry about this all night?" she asked.
"I don't know," Mason admitted. "I can't get it out of my mind. I have a hunch we should charter a plane and fly to Las Vegas."
"But she isn't there," Della Street said.
"Her apartment's there," Mason pointed out, "and we probably have a key to it."
"What would be in her apartment?"
"Possibly a clue," Mason said. "Possibly nothing."
"Would you go into her apartment?"
"I don't know," Mason said. "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, and I _would_ like to know what time she gets home."
"You think she's headed back to Las Vegas?"
Mason said, "If she isn't, she's in bad trouble. She left my office. She probably had her car parked. She may have gone to get something out of the car and--"
"How do you deduce all that?" Della Street asked.
"From her purse."
"You mean the things in her purse?"
"The things that are _not_ in her purse," Mason said.
Della Street raised inquiring eyebrows.
Mason said, "She was in Las Vegas. She has a Nevada driving license. She drives an automobile. She probably drove in from Las Vegas. That would mean she drove to my office building. She had to do something with her automobile. There's a parking lot next door. She probably put the car in that parking lot. She was given a parking receipt. She put that in her purse. She came up to my office. She was terribly excited. Regardless of what had caused her excitement, we know that she had probably fired a thirty-eight-caliber revolver at something, firing two shots.
"Then she remembered that there was something in the car that she wanted. She must have taken the receipt out of her purse and gone down to the parking lot.
"When she arrived there something happened to keep her from returning to the office.
"Now then, the question is: Did she leave her purse purposely or accidentally?"
"Why would she leave it purposely?"
"Because," Mason said, "it had that gun in it. She didn't want to be carrying that purse around with her any more than necessary. She intended to come right back. She told Gertie she'd be back within a matter of five minutes.
"If she wanted to get something out of her car, she probably wanted to tip the attendant. She took along probably a fifty-cent piece and the parking receipt, intending to tip the attendant. Then something happened that caused her to change her plans."
Mason was thoughtfully silent, then said, "Della, give Paul Drake a ring. See if he's left his office. If he hasn't, ask him to come down here right away. I've got a job for him."
"How about all this?" Della Street asked, indicating the contents of the purse which had been arranged on Mason's desk.
Mason opened a drawer of his desk. Picking the gun up with his handkerchief, he dropped it into the drawer. The other articles he returned to the purse.
Della rang Paul Drake at the Drake Detective Agency, talked briefly, then hung up and said to Perry Mason, "He was just leaving the office. I caught him at the door. He said he'd be right down."
A moment later Drake's code knock sounded on the exit door of Mason's private office and Della Street opened it.
"That's the worst of having a detective agency on the same floor as your clients," Drake said. "You never get away. . . . Now look, Perry, I hope this isn't a big job. I've got something I want to do tonight."
Drake moved over to the client's big overstuffed chair, draped himself over the rounded leather arm and grinned at the lawyer.
Mason said, "This is a detective job that I want done fast. I should have had it done two or three hours earlier. I hope I'm not too late."