"That's just the way I want it to look."

"How's this?"

"That," he told her, "is better. Go ahead and get your clothes off."

He walked once more to the window and stared down at the street until he heard the creak of the bed springs.

"All right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

He turned and regarded her critically. Her skirt was over the back of a chair, her stockings were hanging on the foot of the bed, her shoes were under the bed.

"Let's see the gumchewing business," he told her.

She moved her jaws regularly.

"Now if this man looks at you," Perry Mason said, "don't lower your eyes. Don't act as though you were ashamed. Look at him with a 'comehither' look. Can you do that?"

"Who is it going to be?" she asked.

"I don't know just yet," he told her, "it'll probably be the porter in the hotel. He won't do anything except look at you, but I want you to look the part."

"I'll do my best," she said.

Perry Mason came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. She met his speculative appraisal with steady blue eyes.

"There was quite a bit of blood on your white shoes?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Did Thelma Bell have any white shoes?"

"I don't know."

"And Thelma took your white shoes to clean them?"

"Yes."

"What was Thelma doing when you got to the apartment?"

"She had just finished taking a bath. She looked at my shoes and told me to get out of them right away, and get out of my clothes, to take a bath and make sure I didn't have any blood on my feet or ankles."

"Did she look at your stockings?"

"No, she told me to make it snappy."

"You took a street car to her apartment?"

"Yes."

"And about the time you were ready to take a bath I called at the apartment?"

"That's right."

"So you don't know what Thelma did with the shoes?"

"No."

Perry Mason slid around on the bed, so that he sat with his left elbow resting on his left knee, his right foot on the floor, his left leg on the bed.

"Margy," he said, "are you telling me the truth?"

"Yes."

"Suppose I should tell you," he went on, "that I made a search of Thelma Bell's apartment; that I found a hat box in the closet; that the hat box was packed with clothes that had been washed and hadn't had a chance to dry; that some of the clothes showed evidences of having been washed to remove blood stains; that there was a pair of white shoes, a pair of stockings and a skirt."

The blue eyes stared at him with fixed intensity Suddenly Marjorie Clune sat bolt upright in bed.

"You mean that the skirt and the stockings had blood stains on them?"

"Yes."

"And they'd been washed?"

"Very hastily washed," Mason said. "And the blood stains were the spattering type of blood stains, such as would have been made from a stab wound."

"Good heavens!" she said.

"Furthermore," Perry Mason told her, "some one was in the bathroom having hysterics about lucky legs. Now one of you girls is lying. Either you were in the bathroom, or it was Thelma."

"It might have been some one else," she said.

"But you don't know any one else it could have been?"

"No."

"I don't think it was any one else," Mason said slowly.

Marjorie Clune blinked her eyes slowly, thoughtfully.

"Now," said Perry Mason, "we're coming to another phase of the situation. Do you know a girl named Eva Lamont?"

"Why, yes, of course."

"Has Eva Lamont got contest legs?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Legs that would win a prize?"

"They didn't," Marjorie Clune said.

"But she had them entered?"

"Yes."

"In other words, she was one of the contestants?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In Cloverdale."

"Is she," asked Perry Mason, "a young woman with dark hair and snappy black eyes, a woman with a figure something like yours?"

Marjorie Clune nodded.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because," Perry Mason said, "I have every reason to believe that she's in town, registered under the name of Vera Cutter, and that she has taken a most unusual interest in the development of this murder case."

Marjorie Clune's eyes were wide with surprise.

"Now then," Perry Mason said, "tell me where she gets her money."

"She gets it lots of ways," Marjorie Clune said bitterly. "She worked as a waitress for a while. She was working that when Frank Patton came to town with his contest. After that, she did lots of things. She got chances to show her legs and there were lots of people who admired them. She said that whether she won the contest or not, she was going to the city and go into pictures."

"And after you won the contest," Perry Mason said, "then what?"

"Then," she said, "she swore that she was going to come to the city and make a success of her own, which would make mine look sick. She said that I won the contest because I had curried favor with Frank Patton, and that I had an inside track."

"Did you?" asked Perry Mason.

"No."

"You're not telling me very much about Eva Lamont," he said, "and it's important that I know more about her."

"I don't like her."

"That doesn't make any difference, this is a murder case. What do you know about her?"

"I don't know very much about her, but I've heard lots."

"Such as?" asked Perry Mason.

"Oh, lots of things."

"Do you know," Mason asked, "if she looked up Frank Patton after she came here to the city?"

"She would have," Marjorie Clune said slowly, "she's the type that would."

"Has she any reason to be bitter against you, Marjorie?"

Marjorie Clune closed her eyes, slid back into the bed and pulled the covers up around her shoulders.

"She was madly infatuated with Bob Doray," she said.

"And Doray is mad about you?"

"Yes."

Perry Mason took out his package of cigarettes from his pocket, extracted one, had it raised halfway to his lips before he caught himself and extended the package to Marjorie Clune.

"Do you want me to smoke?" she asked.

"Just suit yourself."

"No, I mean when this man comes in. Would it look better if I was smoking?"

"No, it would look better if you were chewing gum, you'd hardly be doing both."

"Then I'll smoke now," she told him.

She took a cigarette. Perry Mason brought an ashtray from the dresser, set it on the bed between them, held a match to Marjorie Clune's cigarette.

"Give me that other pillow, Marjorie," he said.

She handed him the pillow, he propped it against the foot of the bed and settled his back against it.

"I'm going to think," he told her, "and I don't want to be disturbed."

He smoked the cigarette for a few puffs, then held it in front of him and watched the smoke as it curled upward, with eyes that seemed to be filmed with a dreamy abstraction. The cigarette had almost burnt down to his fingers before he nodded slowly, and let his eyes snap into sharp focus on Marjorie Clune.

He ground out the cigarette in the ashtray, jumped to his feet and pulled down his vest.

"All right, Marjorie," he said, in a voice that was kindly, "I think I know the answer."

"The answer to what?"

"The answer to everything," he told her. "And I don't mind telling you, Marjorie, that in some ways I've been a damn fool."

She stared at him and shivered slightly.

"You look perfectly cold, when you look at me that way," she said, "as though you were capable of anything."

"Perhaps," he told her, "I am capable of anything."

He pulled another cigarette from his pocket, walked to the dresser, tore the cigarette in two, picked out a couple of grains of tobacco, pulled out the lower lid of his left eye and dropped the grains into place. Then he pulled out the lower lid of his right eye and dropped a couple of grains of tobacco into that, as well. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.