Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

"Where did you get it?"

"From the local paper."

"She made the headlines then?"

"Yes; she disappeared."

"Abducted, or something?"

"No one ever found out. She just disappeared."

The lawyer looked searchingly at the detective and said, "You've got the story behind that disappearance, haven't you?"

"Yes.

"All right, go ahead and tell it to me."

"If I seem to get romantic or poetic or something, it's because I've been up all night," Drake told him.

"Never mind that; get down to brass tacks."

"There was a traveling man who was selling dry goods. His name was Pete Brunold."

"He had one eye?" Mason inquired.

"No, he had two eyes at that time. He picked up his artificial eye later on. That's one of the reasons I'm a little mushy about them."

"Where does it start?" Mason asked.

"I guess it starts with Sylvia Basset's folks. They had ideas. You know, the type that stood so straight they leaned over backwards. Traveling salesmen were slickers from the city. When Brunold started to take the girl out, the folks hit the ceiling.

"There was a little movie house in the burg. You know, there weren't any radios in those days. The movies were just graduating from the galloping cowboy stuff. The town wasn't big enough to get many of the old stock melodramas, and…"

"Forget the community," Mason said impatiently. "Did Brunold marry her?"

Drake, in his slow drawl, said, "I can't forget the community without forgetting the story. No, he didn't marry her, and, brother, this is my yarn and I'm going to stick to it."

The lawyer signed, gave Della Street a half humorous glance and said, "Okay, go ahead with the lecture."

"Well, you know how a highstrung girl does things. The town thought she was going to hell fast. Her folks wanted her to give Brunold the bum's rush. She stuck up for him, and I guess perhaps she had ideas buzzing around in her bonnet—ideas of living her own life. You know, Perry, it was along about that time that girls were just commencing to break away from the kind of stuff that had been drilled into their noodles for generations."

Perry Mason yawned ostentatiously.

"Oh, hell," the detective said, "you're taking all the romance out of my young life—just when I was beginning to think my youth hadn't entirely vanished."

"It isn't youthful romance, it's the mush of senility," Mason said. "For God's sake, get it through your head that I've got a murder case on my hands and I want facts. You give me the facts and I'll hang plenty of romance on them when I dish them out to the jury."

"The hell of it is," Drake said, turning to Della Street, "that when the Chief gets this sketch he's going to feel just the same way about it I do. He's like a bride's biscuit—he puts up a hardboiled exterior, but when you bust through him he's all soft and mushy on the inside."

"Halfbaked is the word you're groping for," Mason told him. "Come on, Paul; let's have the stuff."

"One day," Drake said, "Brunold got a letter from Sylvia. That letter told him they couldn't put off getting married any longer."

The half quizzical smile faded from Perry Mason's face. The impatience left his eyes. His voice showed quick sympathy.

"Like that?" he asked.

"Like that," the detective said.

"What did Brunold do?"

"Brunold got the letter, okay."

"And ducked out?" Mason asked, in cold, hard accents.

"No, he didn't. It was a small burg and he didn't dare to send a telegram because he didn't want the telegraph operator to know anything, but he hopped a train and started for Sylvia. That's where fate took a hand. Those were the days when railroad beds were like you found them. My God, I can remember one time when I took a trip on one of those hick lines that I tossed around in an upper berth like a bunch of popcorn in a corn popper on a hot stove…"

"The train was wrecked," the lawyer interrupted. "I suppose Brunold was hurt."

"Cracked his dome, punctured his eye, and gave him a loss of memory. The doctors took the eye out, put him in a hospital and gave him a nurse. I found the hospital records and was lucky enough to locate the nurse. She remembered the case because when Brunold got his memory back she surmised something of what must have been in the back of his mind.

"He put in a persontoperson call for Sylvia and got a report back that Sylvia had disappeared. Brunold was like a crazy man. He had a relapse and was delirious. He talked in his delirium. The nurse figured it was a professional secret and she wouldn't tell me much, but I think she knew."

"Sylvia?" Mason asked, and there was no longer any banter in his tone.

"Sylvia," the detective said, "had been fed up for months with stories about the city slickers, about the women who paid and paid and paid. It was the age of literature that got fat on putting erring daughters out in snow storms. Sylvia's parents had been good at dishing out this sort of dope. When Brunold didn't show up, Sylvia figured there was just one reason. So she busted her little savings bank and beat it. No one knew how she left town. There was a little junction on another road three miles away. The kid must have hoofed it and got a milk train. She went to the city."

"How do you know?" Mason asked.

"I got a break," Drake told him. "I'd like to make you think it was just highclass detective work, but when she got married, and in connection with the boy's adoption, she gave some data that enabled me to check back."

"She married Basset?" Mason asked.

"That's right. She came to the city and took the name of Sylvia Loring. She worked as a stenographer as long as she could. After the child was born she went back to the office. They'd held the place open for her. She worked there for years. The boy kept getting to be more and more of an expense. He needed an education. She met Hartley Basset. He was a client in the law office. His intentions were honorable. She didn't love him—at least I don't figure it that way. She'd never loved anyone except Brunold. She figured Brunold had taken a walkout powder, so she was off of men."

"And she made Basset adopt the boy?"

"That's right she didn't marry him until he'd legally adopted the boy. The boy took Basset's name and apparently proceeded to hate his stepfather with a bitter hatred, probably because of the way Basset treated Sylvia."

"What was wrong with it?" Mason asked.

"All I know is servants' gossip," Drake said, "but servants' gossip can be pretty reliable at times. Basset was a bachelor. He hadn't been an easy man to work for. His idea of marriage was that a wife was a species of ornament in public and a servant in private."

"And," Mason said slowly, "by reason of the adoption, Dick Basset would have inherited a share of Hartley Basset's property."

Drake nodded his head slowly and said, "That's the way Edith Brite figures it. She's a housekeeper. Only she doesn't figure there was any idea of gain in connection with it. She feels the boy was doing his mother a good turn."

"She thinks Dick killed him?" the lawyer asked.

"That's right. I had to get her crocked, but when she got in vino veritas she babbled a lot. Sylvia had been through hell. The boy knew it. Hartley Basset was just one of those things. She thinks the boy bumped him off."

Della Street said, "Wait a minute, Paul, you haven't finished with the romance. How about Brunold? Did he find her or did she find him?"

"He found her. He'd been searching ever since he left the hospital. He didn't know how to go about such things and for a while Sylvia had kept herself pretty much under cover."

Perry Mason hooked his thumbs through the arm holes of his vest and started pacing the floor.

"Did Dick know Brunold had found his mother and know who Brunold was?" he asked.