His voice was as cold as that of the other. "I'm not accustomed to having people tell me what I will talk about and what I won't talk about. I'm here representing the rights of Frances Celane, your niece, and my client. I'll say anything I damned please concerning those rights!"

Edward Norton reached out to a button and pressed it with his bony forefinger. The gesture was utterly devoid of emotion.

"I am ringing," he said, "for the butler; who wild show you to the door. So far as I am concerned, the discussion is terminated."

Perry Mason planted his feet wide apart, standing spreadlegged, he said: "You'd better ring for two butlers, and the secretary too. It'll take all of them to put me out of here before I say what I've got to say!

"You're making a mistake, treating this niece of yours as though she were a chattel or a lump of clay. She's a highspirited, highstrung girl. I don't know where you get the idea that she's being blackmailed, but if you have any such idea…"

The door of the private office opened, and a broadshouldered, burly man, with a wooden face, bowed from the hips.

"You rang sir?" he asked.

"Yes," said Edward Norton, "show this gentleman out."

The butler put a firm hand on Perry Mason's arm. The lawyer shook him off, savagely, continued to face Norton.

"Nobody," he said, "is going to show me out, or is going to throw me out until I have had an opportunity to say what I want to say. If that girl is being blackmailed, you'd better act like a human being instead of a cash register, and give her a break…"

There was a rustle of motion, and Frances Celane rushed into the room.

She looked at Mason with black eyes, which gave the effect of being expressionless, with a face that seemed pouting.

"You've done all you can do, Mr. Mason," she said.

Mason continued to glower at the man behind the desk.

"You're more than a treasurer," he said, "or should be. She should be able to look to you for…"

The girl tugged at his arm.

"Please, Mr. Mason," she said, "please. I know you're trying to do me a favor, but it's going to have just the opposite effect. Please don't."

Mason took a deep breath, turned, and stalked rigidly from the room. The butler slammed the door shut behind him. Mason turned to Frances Celane and said: "Of all the obstinate, coldblooded, unsympathetic icebergs I have ever met, that man is the worst!"

She looked up at him and laughed.

"I knew," she said, "that if I tried to explain to you how utterly obstinate my uncle was, you would never believe me. So I welcomed the opportunity to let you find out firsthand. Now you understand the necessity for taking legal steps."

"All right," said Mason, grimly, "we'll take them."

Perry Mason let himself into the office with his key, walked to his desk and picked up the blotter. There was an envelope under it, marked "Confidential." He ripped it open and saw a notation in Frank Everly's handwriting:

The message was signed with the initials of the law clerk.

Perry Mason stared at it for several minutes, then hooked his thumbs in his vest and started pacing the floor of the office.

After a while he swung into the law library, took down a volume of «Cyc» dealing with wills, started reading.

He interrupted his reading to go to the book case and get a volume of the Pacific Reporter. He read the reported cases for some little time, then started taking other case books from the shelves.

He worked in cold, silent concentration, moving efficiently and tirelessly, his eyes hard and steady, his face without expression.

Somewhere a clock struck midnight, but Perry Mason kept on working. The pile of law books on the table grew larger and larger. He prowled around through the library, pulling down various books, turning to cases, studying intently. Once in a while he made a brief note. Frequently he bookmarked cases, and placed them to one side.

About fifteen minutes past one o'clock in the morning the telephone rang.

Mason frowned and paid no attention to it.

The telephone continued to ring insistently, imperatively.

Mason uttered an exclamation, turned to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

"Hello," he said, "you've got the wrong number."

A voice said: "I beg your pardon, sir, but is this Mr. Mason, the lawyer?"

"Yes," said Perry Mason, irritably.

"Just a minute," said the voice.

Mason held the telephone, and heard a swift whisper, then the voice of Frances Celane: "Mr. Mason?"

"Yes."

"You must come at once," she said.

"Come where, and why?" he asked. "What's the trouble?"

"Come out to the house," she told him. "My uncle has just been murdered!"

"Has just what?"

"Has just been murdered!" she said.

"Do they know who did it?" he asked.

"They think they do," she said, in a low, almost surreptitious voice. "Come at once!" and the line went dead as the receiver slipped into place on the other end of the wire.

Perry Mason left the office without pausing to switch out the lights. The night watchman brought up the elevator and Mason pushed his way into it as soon as the door was open.

"Been working rather late, haven't you?" said the watchman.

Mason smiled mechanically.

"No rest for the wicked," he said.

He left the elevator, crossed the lobby of the office building, ran diagonally across the street to a hotel where there was a taxicab stand. He called the address of Norton's residence to the taxi driver. "Keep the throttle down to the floorboards," he said.

"Okay, buddy," said the drivel, and slammed the door.

Mason was slammed back in the cushions, as the car lurched forward. His face was unchanging, though his eyes were squinted in thought. Never once did he glance at the scenery which whizzed past.

Only when the taxi swung off to the driveway which sloped down the hill, did Mason lose his air of abstraction, and begin to take an interest in the surroundings.

The big house was illuminated, every window was a blaze of light. The grounds in front were also illuminated, and more than a dozen automobiles were parked in front of the place.

Mason discharged the taxicab, walked to the house, and saw the bulky form of Arthur Crinston silhouetted against the lights on the porch.

Crinston ran down the three steps to the cement.

"Mason," he said, "I'm glad you came. I want to see you before anybody else does."

He took the lawyer's arm and led him across the cement driveway, over a strip of lawn, and into the shadows of a hedge.

"Listen," he said, "this is a serious business. We don't know yet exactly how serious it is. I want you to promise me that you will stand by Fran. No matter what happens, see that she doesn't get mixed into this thing."

"Is she going to get mixed in it?" asked Mason.

"Not if you stand by her."

"Do you mean she's implicated in any way?" Mason demanded.

"No, no, not at all," Crinston hastened to assure him "but she's a peculiar individual, and she's got the devil's own temper. She's mixed up in it somehow, and I don't know just how. Shortly before his death, Edward Norton telephoned the police station and wanted his niece arrested, or that's what the police claim."

"Arrested?" exclaimed Mason.

"Well, not exactly that," said Crinston, "but he wanted her disciplined in some way. I can't just get the straight of it. You see, she had his Buick sedan out driving it. According to the police, Norton telephoned in that the sedan had been stolen and wanted the police to pick up the car and put the driver in jail. He said it didn't make any difference who was driving it."