Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece

She looked at her wristwatch and said, with tightlipped determination, “Very well, I’ll see what I can do.”

“One other thing,” Mason said; “I want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“What about?”

“About Edna Hammer’s bedroom door.” Her face showed her surprise. “I happened to have occasion to drop into Edna’s room,” Mason said, “and I noticed there was an expensive spring lock on the door.”

“Well,” she asked, “what about it? Certainly a girl has a right to lock her bedroom door, hasn’t she?”

“Why did she put that lock on there?” Mason asked.

“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.”

“When did she put it on?”

“As nearly as I can remember, about a month ago.”

“Did she give any reason why she was putting it on?”

“No. Does a person have to give a reason for putting a lock on a bedroom door?”

“It’s rather unusual,” Mason pointed out, “for a person to put a spring lock on a bedroom door unless that person is either nervous or has been molested. Do you know whether there were any… well, let us call them unpleasant experiences, which made Edna feel a spring lock was necessary on her door?”

“I know nothing whatever about it. Why don’t you ask Miss Hammer about it?”

“I thought perhaps you could tell me about it.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“I can’t, Mr. Mason.”

Mason inspected the smoke which curled upward from the end of his cigarette. “All right,” he said; “be back here at ten o’clock with that knife.”

“I’m not certain that we can… can duplicate the knife.”

“Do the best you can,” he told her. “I want a knife which looks as though it matched the set.”

“Very well,” she promised. “Understand that I’m doing this for Mr. Kent. I’d do anything for him. He’s been very sweet and very considerate.”

Mason nodded and escorted her to the door. As her heels clicked down the corridor toward the elevator Della Street, her face grave with concern, entered the office. “Did you take notes of the conversation?” Mason asked, switching off the intercommunicating loud speaker.

She indicated the notebook in her hand. “Every word,” she said. Mason grinned. “Chief,” Della Street said, crossing over to him and placing her hand on his arm, “aren’t you putting yourself absolutely in the power of this girl? She’s crazy about this boy she’s going with. The minute it looks as though he was going to get into any trouble, she’ll turn against you like a flash.” Mason got to his feet and started pacing the floor. “Please, Chief,” Della Street pleaded, “your other cases have all been different. You were representing some one who was innocent. In this case you’re representing the man who probably did the killing. The only defense you have is his lack of intent. After all, you know, we may be fooled on this thing.”

Mason paused in his pacing, said, “So what?”

“So why put yourself in their power?”

Mason whirled to face her. “Look here, Della,” he said, “I never tried a case in my life but what I didn’t leave myself wide open to attack. You know that.”

“But why do it?”

“Because that’s the way I play the game.”

“But can’t you see what it means…”

He walked over to her, slipped his arm around her waist, drew her close to him and said tenderly, “Listen, kid, quit worrying. Take me as I am. Don’t try to make me the way I should be, because then you might find I was guilty of that greatest sin of all—being uninteresting. Let me give you my recipe for success—move fast and keep one jump ahead of your opponents.”

“I know, but suppose they catch up with you?”

“That’s no reason I should start looking over my shoulder, is it?”

“What do you mean, Chief?”

“I’m like a football player who has the ball,” he said, “and is in the clear. Behind me are a whole swarm of enemy tacklers. Any one of them can tackle me. If I run the ball across the goal line for a touchdown, the stands go wild and no one stops to think of how I got it there. But if I start looking over my shoulder and wondering which of the tacklers may get me, I slow down enough so they all get me.”

Her laugh was throaty and tender. She looked up at him with misty eyes and said, “Okay, you win. I won’t doubt you any more. Perhaps, after all, I’m too much of a restraining influence. Let’s carry the ball, and forget the ones that are trying to catch us.”

“That’s better,” he said. “Keep moving. One jump ahead of the field and never look back, that’ll be our motto.”

She raised her right hand in a little salute. “Goal posts or bust,” she told him.

With something of solemnity in his manner, he drew her closely to him. Her right arm slipped around his neck. Her half parted lips raised to his eagerly and naturally. It was Della Street who pushed away. “Somebody at the door,” she said.

Mason, becoming conscious of the tapping knuckles on the panels of the corridor door, said, “That damned detective can drop in at the most inopportune times. Let the sonofagun in. And get Edna Hammer on the line and tell her to be here at ninefortyfive on the dot. Tell her to come alone and not let anyone know where she’s going when she leaves the house.”

Della Street’s handkerchief, wrapped around the tip of her forefinger, wiped lipstick from his mouth. She laughed nervously. “Remember, you’re going to be talking with a detective… Comb your hair down in back. I mussed it. Sit over there at the desk and act important. Pull out a lot of papers and look busy as the devil.”

“What the devil,” Mason protested; “it isn’t a crime, you know. He’d be a hell of a detective if he didn’t know a busy executive kissed his secretary once in awhile. Go on, open the door. To hell with all that funny stuff.”

She opened the door, and Drake, standing on the threshold looked at Mason with glassy, protruding eyes. His lips were twisted into the perpetually droll smile which characterized his face when in repose. “Your hair’s mussed up in back, Perry,” he said tonelessly.

“For God’s sake,” Mason exclaimed irritably, “did you come in here to discuss my hair?” He ran his fingers through his hair, roughing it into a tangled mass. “Now it’s all mussed,” he said. “You can quit worrying about it… And, if you could possibly manage to use an equal amount of detective ability on the problems I pay you to solve that you do in affairs which are none of your damned business, I could finish my cases in half the time.”

Drake assumed his favorite position in the leather chair, crossed one long leg over another and drawled, “Then you’d only get half the fee, Perry.”

“What’s it this time?” Mason asked, grinning.

“I’ve been checking the various reports of my men. Thought you might be interested to learn that Maddox and Duncan went to great lengths to cover up their dealings with Doris Kent and her lawyers.”

“Since when?” Mason asked.

“Since they first met in the office. She went out first. Fifteen minutes later Maddox and Duncan went out. They sneaked down the corridor, climbed two flights of stairs, so they wouldn’t be seen taking the elevator at the floor on which Hettley and Hettley have their offices. There’s a barber shop on the ground floor of the building. They both went in there and had shaves, manicures and massages. After they’d killed time for an hour or so, they went out separately. In going out, they stood in the door of the barber shop and waited until quite a crowd of people were leaving the elevator, then they mingled with this crowd. Evidently it was a prearranged plan, carefully thought out.”