Mason stopped in at Paul Drake’s office.
“You don’t look bad,” Mason said to the detective.
“Why should I?”
“Up all night.”
“We get used to it. You look like hell.”
“I’m not accustomed to it. What are you finding out?”
“Not too much. The police are on the job and that makes things tough.”
“This man Denham,” Perry Mason said. “He had this blonde girl friend.”
“So what?”
“I want her.”
“Who doesn’t? The police want her. The newspaper people want her.”
“What’s the description?” Mason asked.
“The description the police have is a girl about twenty-five to twenty-seven, five feet three, maybe a little on the hefty side, slim-waisted, plenty of hips, and lots of chest.”
“What do they have from the rented car, Paul?”
“No one knows. The police keep that pretty much of a secret. They have some fingerprints.”
“And from the units at the motel?”
“They have fingerprints there, too.”
Mason said, “I’ll give you a tip, Paul. The police are wise that you’re working on the case.”
“It would be a miracle if they weren’t. You can’t try to get information in a case of this sort without leaving a trail that the police can follow. I suppose that means they’ve connected me with you?”
Mason nodded.
“And you with your client?” Drake asked, watching Mason sharply.
“Not yet.”
“Be careful. They will.”
“It’s just a matter of time,” Mason conceded. “I want to find that blonde before they do.”
“Then you’ll have to give me some information that they haven’t got,” Drake said. “Otherwise, things being equal, there isn’t a whisper of a chance, Perry. The police have the organization. They have the authority. They have all the police records. I have nothing.”
“I can give you one tip,” Mason said.
“What’s that?”
“In this business names don’t mean anything,” Mason told him. “But initials do. My client tells me this girl gave the name of Geraldine Corning. She had a new overnight bag and suitcase with her initials stamped in gilt—G.C.”
“You don’t think she gave her right name to this client of yours?”
“I doubt it,” Mason said. “But I have a hunch her initials are probably the same. The last name won’t mean much, but there aren’t too many first names that begin with G. You might try Gloria or Grace, for a start.”
“Blondes with first names of Gloria or Grace are a dime a dozen,” Drake said. “The city’s full of them.”
“I know, but this was a girl who was hanging around with particular people.”
“And you know what happens when you ask questions about girls who are hanging around with people like that?” Drake asked. “You run up against a wall of silence that is based on stark fear. You can open up any source of information and have things going good, and then you can casually mention, ‘Do you know a girl by the name of Grace or Gloria Somebody-or-other who was playing around with this blackmailer Binney Denham?’ Well, you know what happens. They clam up as though you’d pulled a zipper.”
Mason thought that over. “I see your point, Paul. But a lot depends on this. We’ve simply got to get this girl located. She must have had a charge account some place that was paid by her sugar daddy or—”
“You know what would happen if we tried to get a line on all the blondes who have accounts that are paid by sugar daddies? We’d—”
“No, no, now wait a minute!” Mason said. “I’m just trying to narrow the thing down for you, Paul. She must have had an account at a beauty parlor. She must have had contacts, perhaps not with Binney Denham but perhaps with this Harry Elston who had the lock box with Binney. What can you find out about him?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Drake said. “Elston visited the joint-tenancy lock box and faded from the picture. He’s crawled into a hole and pulled the hole in after him.”
“The police want him?”
“Very much.”
Mason said, “Blackmailers and gamblers. Gamblers go to race tracks. Try covering the race tracks. See if you can get a line on this blonde. She had relatively new baggage. It may have been bought for this occasion.
“I’m going out to my apartment and get some shuteye. I’d like to have you stay on with this personally for another couple of hours if you can, Paul. Then you can turn it over to your operatives and get some sleep.”
“Shucks! I’m good for another day and another night,” Drake said.
Mason heaved himself out of his chair. “I’m not Call me whenever you get a lead. I want to find that blonde and interview her before the police do, and I have an idea things are going to get pretty rugged this afternoon. I want to be able to think clearly when the going gets rough.”
“Okay,” Drake said. “I’ll call you. But don’t get to optimistic about that blonde. She’s going to be hard to find, and in blackmailing circles the word will have gone out for everybody to clam up.”