“The girls insist it’s all part of some sinister over-all plan to frame them, that they were drugged, and all that, but how could anyone have planned it that way? For instance, how could anyone have known they were going to take the chocolate in time to—?”

“The chocolate was drugged?” Mason asked.

Drake nodded. “They’d used up most of the chocolate, but the small amount left in the package is pretty well doped with barbiturate.

“The police theory,” Drake went on, “is that Fay Allison had been playing house with Carver Clements. She wanted to get married. Clements wouldn’t let her go. She slipped him a little poison. She intended to return and get her things out of the apartment when it got late enough so she wouldn’t meet someone in the corridor if she came walking out of 702 with her arms full of clothes. Anita, who had gone out, unexpectedly returned, and that left Fay Allison trapped. She couldn’t go up and get her things out of the apartment upstairs without disturbing Anita. So she tried to drug Anita and something went wrong.”

“That’s a hell of a theory,” Mason said.

“Try and get one that fits the case any better,” Drake told him. “One thing is certain—Fay Allison was living up there in that Apartment 702. As far as Dane Grover is concerned, that’s the thing that will make him throw everything overboard. He’s a sensitive chap, from a good family. He doesn’t like having his picture in the papers. Neither does his family.”

“What about Clements?”

“Successful businessman, broker, speculator. Also a wife who was trying to hook him for a bigger property settlement than Clements wanted to pay. Clements had a big apartment where he lived officially. This place was a playhouse. Only a few people knew he had it. His wife would have given a lot of money to have found out about it.”

“What’s the wife doing now?”

“Sitting pretty. They don’t know yet whether Clements left a will, but she has her community property rights, and Clements’s books will be open for inspection now. He’d been juggling things around pretty much, and now a lot of stuff is going to come out—safe-deposit boxes and things of that sort.”

“How about the four people who met us in the hall?”

“I have all the stuff on them here,” Drake said. “The men were Richard P. Nolin, a sort of partner in some of Clements’s business; Manley L. Ogden, an income tax specialist; Don B. Ralston, who acted as dummy for Clements in some business transactions; and Vera Payson, who is someone’s girl-friend, but I’m darned if I can find out whose.

“Anyhow, those people knew of the hideout apartment and would go up there occasionally for a poker game. Last night, as soon as the dame across the hall said Clements had company, they knew what that meant, and went away. That’s the story. The newspapers are lapping it up. Dane Grover isn’t going to stay put much longer. You can’t blame him. All he has is Fay Allison’s tearful denial. Louise Marlow says we have to do something fast.”