Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

"No, only the boy—Harry McLane—and that, I think, is the number of a pool room."

"It probably would be. See if you can get him on the telephone. Ring the number he gave, and see if they can give any other number where we can reach him right away."

She nodded, made a note on her shorthand notebook and asked, "Was there anything else?"

"Yes," he told her, "ring up the Basset residence. Tell Dick Basset I'm still trying to get in touch with his mother and that it's very important. And, by the way, see if you can…"

The telephone bell rang. She picked up the receiver, said, "Yes, who is it, please?" listened a moment, then cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and stared at Perry Mason with eyes that held a glint of amusement.

"Know where your car was found?" she inquired.

"No. Where?"

"Parked in front of the police station. The traffic department's on the line. They say the car has been in front of a fire plug ever since two o'clock this morning. They're inquiring whether it had been stolen."

Perry Mason winced.

"That," he said, "is once they've got me dead to rights. Tell them no, that the car wasn't stolen, that I must have inadvertently left it parked in front of the fire plug."

She took her hand away from the mouthpiece, passed the information into the telephone, then once more cupped her hand over the mouthpiece.

"And," she said, "it's in a twenty minute parking zone. They've been putting tags on the car at twenty minute intervals ever since nine o'clock this morning."

Mason said. "Give one of the boys a blank check. Send him down to square the thing and pick up the car. Tell him not to do any talking. Can you imagine the crust of the little devil? Taking the car down and parking it directly in front of the police station!"

"Do you think she did it, or do you think the cops picked her up and had her drive down to the station?"

"I don't know."

"If they did," Della Street went on, "it's a great joke on you, because they parked it in front of a fire plug and in a twenty minute parking zone, knowing that you wouldn't dare to claim the car had been stolen—not after you gave the girl permission to drive it away."

He nodded and strode toward his private office.

"It's all right," he said. "Let them laugh. The bird who laughs last is the one who laughs longest… Have you got those eyes?"

"You mean the eyes that Paul Drake had for us?"

"Yes."

She opened a drawer in her desk and took out the box of eyes.

"It sure gave me the willies," she said, "to look at them."

Mason opened the box, picked up a couple of eyes, slipped each into a vest pocket and said, "Put the other four in the safe. Keep them locked up where no one else can find them. These eyes are just a little secret that you and I are going to share between us."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"I don't know. It depends on what Brunold's next move is."

"What should his next move be?"

"Telephone me and ask me to act as his lawyer on the murder charge."

Her forehead showed a pucker of worry.

"How about the way you're getting mixed into this, Chief?" she inquired solicitously. "Will Sergeant Holcomb be back with a warrant?"

"Not unless they identify my fingerprints on the gun, and they can't do that until after they've taken my fingerprints. They haven't any record of them down at headquarters. They'll probably be peeved about Hazel Fenwick disappearing, but they won't have anything to pin a charge on. We've got a new district attorney now, and I think he's inclined to be a squareshooter. He wants to get convictions when he's certain he's prosecuting guilty people, but he doesn't want to convict innocent ones."

"You want me to write up the things Brunold said last night?"

He shook his head as he passed into his inner office.

"No," he called over his shoulder, "let that go. We'll see whom we're representing before we take any definite steps." He dropped into his big swivel chair, picked up the newspaper and was reading the account of Basset's murder when the telephone rang and Della Street said, "I got Harry McLane on the telephone. He was very independent, but I got a number out of him where I could talk with his sister. I talked with her, and she says that she must see you right away. She's bringing her brother with her, if she can get him to come. She said that she'd wait all day in your reception room if she had to, but that she simply had to see you."

"Did she say what about?" he asked.

"No, she didn't say… I've sent one of the boys down to pick up your car. Paul Drake telephoned and wants to see you at your convenience."

"Tell Paul to come on in," Mason said. "Let me know as soon as Bertha McLane gets here. If the police haven't got the Fenwick girl, she'll probably call up sometime today. She may use a phoney name. So if any mysterious woman tries to get in touch with me, be sure that you take the message and get the lowdown on it. You can be tactful but insistent.

"Tell Paul Drake to come directly to my private office. I'll let him in. When I buzz for you, come in and take notes."

He slipped the receiver back into place, read half a column in the newspaper, and then heard a tapping on the door which led to the corridor. He opened it, and Paul Drake, his face set in its fixed expression of droll humor, entered the room.

Mason looked at him shrewdly and said, "You look as though you'd had a good night's sleep last night."

"Well," Paul Drake told him, "I got darn near twenty minutes."

"Where did you get it?" Mason asked, pressing the buzzer summoning Della Street.

"In the barber's chair this morning. I wish you'd get your brainstorms during office hours. You always want your rush stuff put through at night."

"I can't help it," Perry Mason told him, "if murderers insist on claiming their victims after office hours. Did you find out anything?"

"I found out lots," Drake said. "I had twenty operatives working on the thing at one time, chasing down different angles. I hope you've got a client with long purse strings."

"I haven't, but I'm going to have. What's the dirt?"

"It's quite a story," Drake told him; "one of those human interest yarns."

Mason indicated the big overstuffed leather chair.

"Sit down and spill it."

Paul Drake jackknifed his long length into the chair, sliding around and sitting sideways, so that his back rested against one of the arms, while his knees draped over the other arm. Della Street came in, smiled at the detective and sat down.

"It goes back to one of these romantic betrayals of the midVictorian Era."

"Meaning what?"

Drake lit a cigarette, puffed out a cloud of smoke, waved his hand in an inclusive gesture and said, "Picture to yourself a beautiful farming community, prosperous, happy and narrowminded—accent on the narrowminded."

"Why the accent?" Mason inquired.

"Because it was that sort of a community. Everyone knew what everyone else did. If a girl turned out in a new dress, there were a dozen different tongues to wag in speculation on where she got it."

"And a fur coat?" the lawyer asked.

Paul Drake threw up his hands in a gesture of mock dismay and said, "Oh, my God! Why blacken a girl's character that way?"

Mason chuckled and said, "Go on."

"A girl lived there named Sylvia Berkley—rather a pretty girl—trusting, simple, straightforward, cleareyed."

"Why all the niceties of description?" the lawyer asked.

"Because," Drake said seriously, "I'm for that kid in a big way. I've got a description of her. I've even got photographs."

He searched in his pocket, brought out an envelope, took from it a photograph and handed it over to Perry Mason. "If you think it didn't take engineering to dig out that photograph at four o'clock in the morning, you've got another think coming."