Free The Case of the Lazy Lover by Erle Stanley Gardner

now. I have a force of detectives combing every auto camp and motel looking for them."
    "You think Mother is in some danger?"
    "I'll put it this way. I don't think it was your car that hit Bob Fleetwood. I think things were fixed so it would be easy for you to clip the corner of the hedge. I think that the person who really hit Fleetwood thought he was dead and left the body where you'd get the blame. Now add to that the fact that Bertrand told me your mother had eloped with Fleetwood. Do you get the picture?"
    She watched him with wide, startled eyes. "Do you mean… what I think you mean?"
    Mason nodded.
    She said, "I saw him taking a revolver out of his desk drawer. Mr. Mason, we must do something."
    The lawyer nodded, said, "Sit down, Patricia. We're doing it"
    "You mean there's nothing to do except wait?"
    "That's right I have men covering the country."
    She sat down. "I can't believe Bertrand Allred would… would do a thing like that."
    "So far it's just a guess on my part," Mason said.
    "No, no. It's the truth. A dozen things point to it. I can see it all now."
    Mason said, "Here's my telephone number at my apartment Get your car. Go back to your home. Keep an eye on Mr. Allred. Keep the porch light on. If he starts to take his car out of the garage, switch the porch light off. That's all you have to do. I'll have detectives take over from there."

Chapter 8
    It was seven-thirty in the evening when the unlisted telephone in Mason's apartment began ringing.
    The lawyer, who had been studying the Advance Decisions, closed the printed pamphlet and picked up the telephone.
    Patricia Faxon's voice was sharp with panic. "I've failed, Mr. Mason," she said.
    "In what?"
    "Mr. Allred managed to slip one over on me, somehow."
    "What do you mean?"
    "He's gone. He isn't here. I'm alone in the house. But he hasn't taken his automobile out of the garage. It's still there. I don't know how he could have left."
    "Were there any visitors at the house?" Mason asked.
    "Yes. That is, not right at the house. I think I told you he has an office in the south wing. He was over there during the first part of the evening, and he had at least one visitor."
    "Know who it was?"
    "No, I don't. It was some man, and they talked for a while and then the man drove away. The lights remained on in the office and well, just to check up, I made an excuse to run over to ask him a question, and-- well, I'm there now."
    "But the lights are on?"
    "Yes."
    "Evidently then, he intends to come back soon."
    "I suppose so, but--"
    "If you hadn't been checking up on him," Mason said, "you would have thought he was still there because the lights were on?"
    "Yes."
    "I don't like that."
    "Neither do I. That's why I'm phoning you. It-- it looks as though he might be trying to build an alibi for something."
    Mason said, "Okay, Patricia. Now don't get panic-stricken. If you need anything, call the- Drake Detective Agency. The number is in the book. There'll be someone there all night. If anything happens, call there and tell them who you are."
    "I don't want to stay here, Mr. Mason."
    "Why?"
    "Because, if he should be planning anything… I'm a witness… You see, I know why Mother left. I don't want to be here alone with him. He's capable of anything. I'm afraid of him."
    "He doesn't know about this Las Olitas address of yours?"
    "No. No one does; only Mother."
    "Okay," Mason said. "Go there. Sit tight. Good night now."
    Mason hung up the phone, called the Drake Detective Agency, got Paul Drake on the line, and said, "Paul, something's going on. I don't know just what it is, but I don't like it."
    "What's up, Perry?"
    Swiftly he brought Paul Drake up to date.
    "Allred's probably not out of town," Drake said. "Otherwise he'd have taken his own car."
    "Unless he has one planted somewhere. No news of Mrs. Allred?"
    "No."
    "You're covering auto camps?"
    "All along the road. They could have driven somewhere around three hundred miles since ten o'clock this morning. We're trying