The Case of the Lucky Legs
fifteen, and I want you to have those newspapers with you."
    "Can I see you before that?" asked Bradbury.
    "No," said Perry Mason, "I'm busy. I'll see you tonight."
    "Will you be there when I arrive?"
    "I don't know. If not, you are to wait until I telephone for you to join me, or until I return to the office."
    "I want to talk with you," Bradbury said.
    "You can talk with me tonight," Mason told him. "Good-by." He pushed the receiver back into position.
    Doray's black eyes were glittering as though with a fever.
    "Was that Bradbury?" he asked hoarsely.
    Perry Mason smiled at him.
    "As I was saying, Doctor," he said, "I think we understand each other perfectly. There is nothing that I can tell you. You might, however, leave your address with my secretary."
    "I have already done that," Dr. Doray said. "I had to do it before she would announce me. I'm staying at the Midwick Hotel. The telephone number is Grove 36921."
    "Thank you," said Perry Mason, arising and indicating the exit door to the outer corridor. "You can go out through that door."
    Dr. Doray got to his feet, hesitated a moment, took a quick breath as though about to say something, then changed his mind, turned and walked to the door.
    "Good afternoon, Counselor," he said.
    "Good afternoon, Doctor."
    The door slammed shut. Perry Mason picked up the receiver of his telephone.
    "Della," he said, "I want you to be at the office by eight fifteen tonight, perhaps a little bit before that. Have plenty of freshly sharpened pencils and a clean notebook. I may want you to take a statement."
    "A confession?" she asked.
    "It may amount to that," he told her, and smiled grimly as he dropped the receiver back into position.

CHAPTER IV
    PERRY MASON latch-keyed the outer door of his office and switched on the lights. He looked at his wristwatch. The time was precisely seven fifty. He pushed off the latch of his office door, crossed the outer office, opened the door of his private office and pushed on the light. He sat on the edge of the desk and picked up the telephone receiver. A buzzing sound announced that Della Street had left the instrument plugged in on the outer line through the switchboard in the other office. Perry Mason dialed the telephone number which he had seen on Della Street's memorandum in the file of the case of the girl with the lucky legs. His memory for telephone numbers was almost photographic, and his fingers moved swiftly and unhesitatingly.
    "Mapleton Hotel," said a woman's voice.
    "I want to talk with Mr. J.R. Bradbury, of Cloverdale," Perry said.
    "Just a moment."
    There was a moment during which the receiver made singing noises, then the click of a connection, and a woman's voice said, "Yes?"
    "I wanted Mr. Bradbury," said Perry Mason.
    "Ring room 693," the woman's voice said irritably, and there was the sound of a receiver slamming on the hook at the other end of the line.
    At that moment, the door of the outer office opened and closed. Perry Mason looked up. The receiver was still making singing noises. A shadow formed where the ribbon of light came through the bottom of the door of Perry Mason's private office, then the door opened.
    Perry Mason dropped the receiver back into place.
    "Hello, Bradbury," he said, "I was just calling you."
    Bradbury entered the office, smilingly suave.
    "Are you going to tell me," he asked, "what you've got?"
    "I haven't got anything," Mason said.
    "Not yet?" asked Bradbury.
    "Not yet."
    "I called Paul Drake this evening," said Bradbury. "He told me that you had instructed him to give all of the information he uncovered to you and that you would be responsible to me."
    Perry Mason made little drumming motions with the fingers of his right hand on the top of the desk.
    "Let's get this straight once and for all, Bradbury," he said. "You hired me to represent your interests. I'm hired as an attorney, not as an employee. I occupy the same position that a surgeon would occupy. If you employed a surgeon to operate on you,
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