"And you're certain," Burger asked, "that the man who made these statements to you was none other than the defendant, Peter Brunold, who is now sitting here in court?"

"Yes, sir."

Burger smiled triumphantly at Perry Mason.

"Now, Counselor," he said, "you may crossexamine."

Perry Mason nodded, got to his feet, pounded his heels belligerently across the courtroom to the counsel able where the district attorney sat.

"Please let me have that second eye," he said, "which was marked, for identification, People's Exhibit B."

Burger handed him the eye in the stamped envelope, saying, as he did so, "Please be very careful to return the eye to that marked envelope, Counselor."

Perry Mason said, "Certainly. I am no more anxious hen you are to get these eyes confused, although, with the expert testimony you have produced, we should be able to identify them in the event such a confusion takes place."

He advanced to the witness, shook the eye out of he envelope, and said, "Calling your attention to an eye which has been marked, for identification, People's Exhibit B, I will ask you whether this was the counterfeit eye which you sold to Peter Brunold."

Selbey shook his head, and his lips twisted in a triumphant smile.

"No, sir," he said sweetly, "it was not."

"It was not?" Mason demanded triumphantly.

"No, sir. You see, we didn't sell Mr. Brunold any eye. He appeared and said that he wanted such an eye, and explained the reasons why he wanted it. But we refused to make the eye. Doubtless he was able to get some other firm to do so."

Paul Drake came crowding through the spectators as the courtroom buzzed with the activity of a recess. He paused just before the mahogany railing in the courtroom, waited until he had caught Perry Mason's eye, then gave him a significant wink.

Mason moved over to a corner where there was some opportunity for privacy. Paul Drake joined him.

"Well," the detective said, "I ranked the job. Have you seen the newspapers?"

"No," Mason said. "What happened?"

Drake opened a brief case, took out a newspaper still damp from the press, handed it to Perry Mason with a wry face, and said, "That tells the story—not as well as I could tell it, but it's a damn sight easier for me if you read it rather than have me tell it."

Mason didn't look at the newspaper immediately. He folded it under his arm and stared steadily at the detective.

"How'd you get back?" he asked.

"I chartered the fastest plane I could get in Reno and came back here in nothing flat. I think we averaged two hundred miles an hour or something like that."

"Even so," Mason told him, "the telegraph wires are quicker. How does it happen they're just getting out this news?"

"The smart boys in Reno tried to sew it up," Drake told him. "At least, that was the plan they were working on when I left. They wanted a complete confession and weren't going to release the news until they'd got it."

"Did they get it?"

"I don't know."

"Now then," Mason said, "who was going to confess to what?"

"Hazel Fenwick," Drake said, avoiding the lawyer's eyes.

One of the deputies entered the courtroom with half a dozen newspapers under his arm. He rushed over to the district attorney, handed him one, and Burger, frowning irritably, snapped open a paper and started reading.

Mason moved over toward a corner as the deputy vanished in the direction of the Judge's chambers.

"How bad did you rank it, Paul?" he asked.

"Plenty," the detective told him.

"Well, go ahead and tell me about it."

"I'd rather you'd read about it."

"Hell!" Mason exclaimed impatiently. "I can read about the stuff they're handing the public, but what I want to know is how it happened that you slipped up on the job."

"I don't know."

"Well, go ahead and tell me the whole thing and perhaps I'll know when you get done."

"I followed your instructions," Drake said slowly, his eyes remaining downcast, "and took a plane to Reno. I arrived there, went to the telegraph office, called for telegrams, and found the message for me from Della Street telling me where to go to make the service. I stuck the telegram in my coat pocket, went up to a hotel, got a room, took off my coat and washed up. A bell boy came in to ask me if I had all the towels I wanted, and all that sort of stuff—that is, Perry, I thought at the time he was a bell boy."

"Go on," Mason said ominously. "Then what?"

"So far as I knew at the time, nothing," Drake told him, "but afterwards, when I looked through my coat pockets for that telegram, I couldn't find it. But that wasn't until quite a bit later."

"Go on," the lawyer said impatiently; "let's have it."

"Honest to God, Perry, I'd covered my back trail just as well as I could. I didn't figure I was tailed on the plane."

"Plane was crowded?" Mason asked.

"Yes, to capacity."

"Anyone try to talk with you?"

"Yes, a couple of men had a bottle and they tried to get me started. When they didn't click, a baby doll came over. Looking back at it, I can see there was something fishy about it, but right at the time I figured it was a case of a girl making her first trip by plane and being a little frightened."

"What did she do?"

"She sort of smiled at me," Drake said, "and when she was walking past my chair the plane gave a little lurch and she took a fall into my lap… Oh, hell, you know how those things happen."

"Did you talk?" Mason asked.

"Not much on the plane. You can't hear well enough. But I bought her a drink at Sacramento."

"Did you talk then?"

"A little."

"Tell her who you were?"

"I gave her my name."

"Tell her what you were doing?"

"No."

"Didn't tell her your occupation?"

"No."

"Didn't give her a card?"

"No."

"Give her any information at all?"

"Not enough to put in your eye."

"What were you talking about?"

"I don't know, Perry. I was just handing her a line. I'll swear there wasn't anything more to it than that—you know the type of stuff you dish out to a frail who seems to be falling. I pretended I thought she was a motion picture star flying over to Reno for a divorce, kept trying to place her, swore I'd seen her on the screen some place, and knew she was one of the famous actresses, but told her I didn't go to the movies much, so I couldn't be sure which one."

"She seem to fall for that line?" Mason asked.

"She ate it up."

"She was a plant," the lawyer said.

Drake exclaimed, with the irritation of a man who has lost much selfrespect and some sleep, "Of course she was a plant. What the hell! Do you think I'm dumb enough so I don't know she was a plant? But I didn't know it at the time. You wanted to know what happened and I'm telling you."

"Okay, go ahead and tell me what happened then."

"After I'd taken a wash and a drink in the hotel," Drake said, "I went down and caught a cab. I gave the cab driver the address of the apartment house."

"You didn't look at the telegram then?"

"No, I'd read it before and I remembered the address. It was easy to remember."

"Go ahead."

"I found the joint was an apartment house. I gave the apartment a ring and she buzzed the door open without asking any questions over the speaking tube. I took an elevator and went up. It was one of those wheezy automatic elevators. You know the type."

"Yes, I know," Mason said impatiently. "Go on and tell me what happened."

"I walked down the corridor to her apartment. The corridor wasn't very well lighted. I had to use a flashlight to pick up the number easily. I tapped on the door. She opened it.

"I didn't pull the papers out of my pocket right then. I kept my voice low and turned loose the best grin I could get, as though I was some guy who had been told by her sister to look her up."