"In what way?" he asked.

"Oh," she said, "questions and things like that. You know, the kind of things that you read about in newspapers, where I'd be crossexamined by lawyers and have my photograph in the paper, and perhaps have my word questioned."

"You wore white shoes," he said. "Where are they?"

"Thelma Bell took them."

"Why did she take them?"

"Because they had blood on them, of course."

"Did you know it at the time?"

"Not at the time. I found it out after I got to the apartment. Thelma saw the blood stains on the shoes."

"How did that happen?"

"I walked in some of the blood and some of it spattered on my shoes."

"There was none on the coat you wore?" he asked.

"No," she said, "none. There wasn't any on my stockings, just on my shoes."

"Are you certain," asked Perry Mason, "that there was none on your stockings?"

"Of course, I'm certain."

"None on your dress?"

"Of course not. How could any blood get on my dress if there wasn't any on my coat?"

Perry Mason nodded slowly.

"That sounds reasonable," he said. "Now tell me some more about how you happened to leave the Bostwick Hotel, instead of staying there the way I told you to."

"I've already explained that," she said. "I left because I wanted to be with Bob."

"When you went to see Patton, you intended to tell him that you were finished with him, that you were going to marry Bob Doray?"

"Yes," she said after a moment's hesitation.

"When I saw you at Thelma Bell's apartment, you felt the same way about it?"

"I was terribly afraid at that time," she said. "As soon as Thelma found the blood on my shoes, she wanted to know what had happened. I told her just what had happened as well as I knew. She was afraid that I was going to get mixed into it."

"She told you that?"

"Yes."

"She had an appointment with Frank Patton that night?"

"She had an appointment, but she didn't keep it. She broke her appointments with Patton lots of times, this time her boy friend wouldn't let her keep the appointment, he was out with her. George Sanborne is the name. She told you all about it. You remember, you called Sanborne and found out that it was true."

"We'll let that go for the moment," Perry Mason said. "What I'm getting at, is that you were still intending to marry Doray when I talked with you there at Thelma's apartment?"

"I guess so. I wasn't thinking much about marriage then, I was frightened, particularly after you came there."

"But as far as matrimony was concerned, you still intended to marry Bob Doray?"

"If I had thought about it, yes."

"Now, sometime before midnight," Perry Mason said, "you had determined you were going to marry Bradbury. Why?"

"Because," she said, "I knew that was the only way I could get money to save Bob Doray."

"You think Bob Doray did it?"

"I'm not thinking anything about it. All I know is that he must have the best legal service he can get."

"When you saw the body," said Perry Mason, "you saw the knife that was lying there by it?"

"Yes."

"You recognized that knife?"

"What do you mean?"

"You knew that Bob Doray had purchased a knife?"

"Yes, I had seen it in his automobile."

"You knew what he intended to do with it?"

"Yes. He had told me."

"That is one of the reasons you were afraid to let him know where Frank Patton lived?"

"Yes."

"Then when you saw the knife on the floor, you must have jumped to the conclusion at once that Bob Doray had killed him."

"What sort of a conclusion would you have reached under the circumstances?" she asked.

"Now let's see," Perry Mason said, "you went to the candy store. You went into the restroom; you stayed there and persuaded Dr. Doray that you had gone out the back door?"

"Yes."

"He left perhaps five minutes before you did."

"Yes."

"How long had Patton been killed before you entered the door? Have you any idea?"

"It couldn't have been long," she said, "just a minute or two… Oh, it was ghastly!"

"Was he still moving?"

"No."

"Was blood flowing from his wound?"

"Lots of it," she said and shuddered.

"Therefore," Perry Mason said, "you immediately concluded that Doray had done the killing. You thought that when you didn't show up, but sent word that you had already gone to keep your appointment with Patton, Doray became enraged."

"Yes."

Perry Mason regarded her thoughtfully.

"Do you know what I'm doing with you?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm risking my entire professional career," he said, "simply on the strength of the impression that you make, plus certain things that I have observed in connection with the case. You're wanted for murder. I'm helping you escape. If I'm caught, that's going to make me technically an accessory after the fact. In other words, I'm going to be guilty of murder as an accessory."

She said nothing.

"I didn't have that same confidence in Dr. Doray that I have in you," he told her, "that's the reason I left Dr. Doray in the room to take the rap. I knew that if the police found an empty room, they'd make some effort to search the hotel. If they found Doray and he didn't talk, they might not have known whether you were in the hotel or not. That's the chance I took."

"But," she said, "won't they be watching the hotel when we leave?"

"Exactly," he told her. "That's why I've got to figure out some way of getting us out of it; we're both of us mixed in it now."

He strode to the window; stood once more staring moodily down at the street.

"And you won't tell me," he said, "what changed your mind between the time I saw you and midnight; why it was that you so suddenly decided you were going to marry Bradbury?"

"I've told you," she said, "I knew that was the only way that I could get the money to defend Bob. And I knew that if Bob didn't have firstclass legal defense, he would be convicted of the murder. I got to thinking things over, I knew that Bradbury had retained you to represent me. I thought that Jim would also retain you to clear Bob, if he knew that I would marry him."

Perry Mason's eyes glinted.

"Now," he said, "you've said exactly what I was waiting to hear you say."

"What do you mean?"

"He would put up the money for Doray's defense, if he knew that you would marry him."

She bit her lip and said nothing.

Perry Mason stared at her with moody speculation for a few moments.

"I'm going to play ball with you," he said, "and when I play ball, I play ball all the way."

She watched him with wide anxious eyes.

"Take your clothes off," he told her, "and get into bed."

Her face didn't change expression by so much as the flicker of an eyelash.

"How much must I take off?" she asked.

"I want your skirt hung on a chair," he said. "I want your shoes under the bed. You'd better have your stockings over the foot of the bed. I want you to have your waist off, so all that will show above the covers are shoulder straps."

"Then what?" she asked.

"Then," he said, "I'm going to have a man come in the room, he's going to look at you. You're going to act the part of the kind of a girl he'll think you are."

She searched for the fasteners at the side of her skirt.

"You're playing ball with me," she said, "I'll show you that I've got just as much confidence in you, as you have in me."

"Good girl," he told her. "Have you got any chewing gum?"

"No."

"Can you move your jaws as though you were chewing gum?"

"I guess so. How's this?"

He watched her critically.

"Move the jaw a little bit to one side at the bottom of the chew," he said, "give it something of a circular motion."

"It's going to look frightfully common," she said.