Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

"Perhaps," Harry McLane suggested, "the motive of the murder was robbery."

Perry Mason thumped the desk slowly with his fist, giving emphasis to his words.

"Young man," he said slowly, "do you realize that there wasn't anything on God's green earth to have prevented you getting admission to the room where Hartley Basset was working by telling him that you had come to pay off the money, that, when you were once in that room you could have killed Hartley Basset, that you could have taken the key from Basset's key ring, opened the note file on his desk—a file with which you are thoroughly familiar because of your employment with Basset, taken out those forged notes which represented the only evidence against you, placed a fake suicide note in the typewriter, and left the house… No, don't interrupt—and keep looking at me… That the only thing on earth that will prevent you from having to answer questions to the police predicated upon such a theory of what might have happened, is an ability to show exactly where you got the money that you paid Hartley Basset and being able to account for your whereabouts at the exact time the murder was committed?"

"Why!" Bertha McLane exclaimed. "You're accusing Harry of murder! Harry wouldn't ever have done…"

"Shut up," Mason said, without looking at her. "Let's hear Harry's story first."

Harry jumped up from the chair, turned and walked toward the window.

"Aw, nuts," he called over his shoulder. "You know who killed the old buzzard. You ain't going to make me the goat."

"Come back here," Mason said.

"The hell I will!" McLane said, standing with his back to them, looking out of the window. "I don't have to come back and sit in a chair and let you bore our eyes into mine and frame me, so you can get the breaks for some other client of yours."

"Can you," Mason inquired, his face flushing, "show where you got the money that you paid to Hartley Basset?"

"No… Perhaps I could, but I'm not going to."

"You've got to."

"I don't have to."

"I've got to be able to give the police that evidence, Harry, or they're going to arrest you."

"Let them arrest me, then."

"It's more serious than that. If you can't show that you paid this money and secured legitimate possession of those notes, the police are going to think that you secured possession of them illegally."

"To hell with the police."

"It isn't what the police think; it's what a jury's going to think. Remember, young man, that the evidence would show that you were an embezzler. The prosecution would claim Basset was going to send you to jail—you killed him to keep him from doing so."

"Aw, nuts," Harry McLane said again, but kept looking out of the window.

Mason shrugged his shoulders and turned toward Bertha McLane.

"I'm simply telling you," he said.

"Do the police know about those embezzlements?"

"No, but they will."

Harry McLane turned from the window.

"Listen," he said, "don't let this guy kid you, Sis. He knows who killed Basset, or, if he doesn't, he's a damn fool, but he'd like to make a nice fee for himself putting me on the spot. We're finished with this guy right now. The more you let him talk to me the more of a frameup he's going to pull on me."

Mason said slowly, "Listen, Harry, you've pulled that line two or three times. You know it's a lie. But if you've got any sense, you must know that you've got to have the answers to these questions before the police find out about you."

"Don't worry about the police," the boy sneered. "You tend to your knitting and I'll tend to mine."

"You paid Basset in cash?" Mason asked.

"Yes."

"What did he do with the cash?"

"Put it in the pigskin wallet he carries in his coat pocket. You ask his wife about it. She'll tell you he always had the wallet in his pocket."

"It wasn't there when the police found the body, Harry."

"I can't help that. It was there when I paid him the money."

"And you didn't get a receipt?"

"No."

"There was no one present?"

"No, of course not."

"And you can't tell us where you got the money?"

"I can, but I won't."

"Does anyone know that you had that money?"

"That's none of your business."

Perry Mason's telephone rang. He scooped up the receiver. Della Street said, "Paul Drake's on the line. He's got some information that I think you should have."

Mason said, "Yes, Paul. What is it?"

The detective's voice said, "I'm going to talk low, Perry, because I don't want anyone else in the office to hear what I'm telling you, and telephone receivers sometimes play tricks when a chap talks too loud… Now, listen… The police are getting ready to pull a whole bunch of fast ones. They've found out a lot of things. Your man, Brunold, has been spilling information. They've had experts check up on the typewritten note that was in the machine on Basset's desk.

"Now, you know typewriting is just as distinctive as handwriting. The police criminologists say the message on the piece of paper which was in the typewriter on Basset's desk hadn't been written on that typewriter. They've been looking the house over, to find the typewriter that it was written on. They located it, in Mrs. Basset's bedroom. It's a Remington Portable that she used for personal correspondence.

"What's more, the experts can tell, by the even impression the letters made, that the thing was written by someone who used a touch system—a professional stenographer. You remember what I told you about Mrs. Basset having been a secretary."

Perry Mason frowned thoughtfully at the telephone transmitter.

"Have you located her yet, Paul?" he asked.

"Not yet, but I picked up this information from one of the boys who had been in touch with a newspaper man. I thought you should have it."

"Yes," Mason said, "I'm glad you gave it to me. Try and locate her just as quickly as you can."

He dropped the receiver back into place and turned to stare moodily at young McLane.

"Harry," he said, "you told me that someone who was very close to Hartley Basset was going to intercede to keep you from going to jail."

"Oh, forget it!" McLane said.

Mason turned to Bertha McLane and said, "I gave you a paper with my telephone number on it—the number of my apartment, where you could reach me after office hours. What did you do with it?"

Harry McLane took a quick step forward and said, "Don't…"

"Gave it to Harry," she said.

Harry McLane sighed. "You didn't have to tell him that," he said.

Mason turned back to the young man. "What did you do with it, Harry?"

"Kept it in my pocket for a while."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. Why the hell should I remember all those little things? I threw it away, I guess. I didn't have any more need to call you after I paid the old buzzard off. There wasn't any reason why I should carry your telephone number around with me. What did you want me to do, seal it up in a pickle jar so it would keep?"

"That piece of paper," Mason said, "was found in the corridor in front of Mrs. Basset's bedroom."

Sheer surprise twisted young McLane's face into a spasm of expression. "It couldn't have been," he said, then, after a moment, with a look of cunning in his eyes, said, "Well, what if it was?"

"When I went out there," Mason went on, entirely disregarding young McLane's comment, "Mrs. Basset tried to intercede for you."

"Did she?" Harry asked tonelessly.

"Did you know she was going to do that?"

"Of course not. I'm not a mind reader."

"Mrs. Basset likes you, Harry?"

"How do I know?"

"Did you see her last night, before you saw Hartley Basset?"

Harry McLane hesitated and said, "Why?"

"You might as well tell me that," Mason said. "The police certainly can find out that much. The servants were in the house and…"