The Case of the Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner Page B

entered the imposing offices of Loftus & Cale. An attractive young woman looked up from a desk on which a brass plaque stamped "Information" had been fastened to a prismatic – shaped bit of wood.
    "Mr. Loftus," Mason said.
    "Your name?"
    "Mason."
    "Oh, yes," she said. "Mr. Loftus is expecting you." 'That's nice," Mason said.
    "Will you wait a few minutes?"
    Mason said, "No."
    She appeared ill at ease. "Just a moment," she said, and, turning in the swivel chair, plugged in a telephone line. "Mr. Mason is here, Mr. Loftus. He says he won't wait."
    There was evidently an argument at the other end of the line. The young woman listened attentively, then said simply, "But he won't wait, Mr. Loftus."
    There followed another moment of silence, then she turned to smile at Perry Mason. "You may go right on in," she said, indicating a gate which led to a hallway. "It's the second door on the left."
    Mason pushed through the gate, marched down the corridor, and opened a door marked "Mr. Loftus, Private."
    The man who sat behind the massive mahogany desk was somewhere in the sixties, with florid complexion, a face which was inclined to jowls, a cold lackluster eye, and thin white hair.
    Mason smiled coldly. "I told you over the phone I wouldn't wait," he said.
    Loftus said, in a rasping, authoritative voice, which was evidently more accustomed to giving orders than asking favors, "Sit down. My attorney is on his way over here."
    "If you'd told me that earlier," Mason said, "I'd have made an appointment which would have suited his convenience."
    Loftus clenched his right fist, extended it in front of him, and gently lowered it to the desk. There was something more impressive in the gesture than would have been the case had he banged the top of the desk with explosive violence. "I don't like criminal lawyers," he said.
    "Neither do I," Mason admitted, seating himself in what appeared to be the most comfortable chair in the office.
    "But you're a criminal lawyer."
    "It depends upon what you mean," Mason observed. "I'm a lawyer. I'm not a criminal."
    "You defend criminals."
    "What is your definition of a criminal?" Mason asked.
    "A man who has committed a crime."
    "And who decides that he has committed a crime?"
    "Why, a jury, I suppose."
    "Exactly," Mason said, with a smile. "So far, I have been very fortunate in having juries agree with me that the persons I represented were not criminals."
    Loftus said, "That isn't conclusive."
    "Judges think it is," Mason said, still smiling.
    "What interest can a man of your ilk possibly have in our business?"
    "I don't like that word ilk," Mason observed. "It may be I won't like your business. In any event, I told you why I was calling on you. If you'd given me the information I asked over the telephone, you might have spared yourself a disagreeable interview."
    "It'll be disagreeable to you," Loftus said, "not to me. I hate to go to the expense of consulting my legal department every time some pettifogging attorney wants to pry into my business… But now I've started, I'm going to see it through."
    "Very commendable," Mason observed, carefully selecting a cigarette from his cigarette case, and lighting it.
    "Well, aren't you going to tell me what you want?"
    "Not until your lawyer gets here," Mason said.
    "But you said you wouldn't wait."
    "I don't like to wait in outer offices," Mason observed, "unless it's necessary, and I don't like to discuss legal points of business with a man I'm going to trim unless his attorney is present… Suppose we talk about baseball or politics."
    Loftus half rose from his chair. His face assumed a slightly purplish tinge. "I'm going to warn you, young man," he said, "that you're due for the surprise of your life. Your rather spectacular courtroom victories have been made possible because you were pitted against underpaid public servants and political appointees. You're going up against the best and highest – priced brains in the legal business now."
    "That's nice,"