“Having learned that a young, attractive woman had only that day taken a lease on the apartment opposite, the answer became so obvious it ceased to be a mystery.”

Stewart Linn nodded thoughtfully. “It all fits in,” he said.

Mason picked up his brief-case, smiled to Della Street. “Come on, Della,” he said. “Let’s get Fay Allison and—”

He stopped as he saw Fay Allison’s face. “What’s happened to your lipstick?” he asked.

And then his eyes moved over to take in Dane Grover, who was standing by her, his face smeared diagonally across the mouth with a huge, red smear of lipstick.

Fay Allison had neglected to remove the thick coating of lipstick which she had put on when Mason had asked Benjamin Harlan, the identification expert, to take an imprint of her lips. Now, the heavy mark where her mouth had been pressed against the mouth of Dane Grover gave a note of incongruity to the entire proceedings.

On the lower floors a mob of eagerly curious spectators were baying like hounds upon the track of Anita Bonsal. In the courtroom the long, efficient arm of the law was gathering Shirley Tanner into its grasp, and there, amidst the machinery of tragedy, the romance of Fay Allison and Dane Grover picked up where it had left off. . . .

It was the gavel of Judge Randolph Jordan that brought them back to the grim realities of justice.

“The Court,” announced Judge Jordan, “will dismiss the case against Fay Allison. The Court will order Shirley Tanner into custody, and the Court will suggest to the Prosecutor that a complaint be issued for Anita Bonsal, upon such charge as may seem expedient to the office of the District Attorney. And the Court does hereby extend its most sincere apologies to the defendant, Fay Allison. And the Court, personally wishes to congratulate Mr. Perry Mason upon his brilliant handling of this matter.”

There was a moment during which Judge Jordan’s stern eyes rested upon the lipstick-smeared countenance of Dane Grover. A faint smile twitched at the corners of His Honor’s mouth.

The gavel banged once more.

“The Court,” announced Judge Randolph Jordan, “is adjourned.”

THE ENCHANTED GARDEN

H. F. Heard

Detective: Mr. Mycroft

THE ENGLISH social historian and author of science and mystery fiction Henry Fitzgerald Heard (1889-1971) was born in London, studied at Cambridge University, then turned to writing essays and books on historical, scientific, religious, mystical, cultural, and social subjects, signing them Gerald Heard, the name under which all his nonfiction appeared. He moved to the United States in 1937 to head a commune in California, and later appeared as a character in several Aldous Huxley novels, notably as William Propter, a mystic, in After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (1939).