Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

"I'm not going to tell you any more about her. Leave her out of it."

"Had you ever been in her room?"

"Sure, on business."

"Was there a typewriter in her room?"

"I think so."

"A Remington Portable?"

"I guess so."

"Had you ever used it?"

"Sometimes when I was working there and she had social letters to get out she'd dictate them to me."

"Did Hartley Basset suggest that she do that?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do, Harry. Tell us the truth."

"Hartley Basset didn't know anything about it."

"Why did you do it, if it wasn't a part of the duties of your employment?"

"Because she was a good scout and I liked her, and because old Basset was grinding her down."

"So you sympathized with her?"

"Yes."

"And wrote letters for her?"

"Yes, sometimes she'd have neuritis in her right arm."

"Was there a portable typewriter on the desk in front of Hartley Basset when you called on him?"

"Sure. He had his own typewriter there that he makes notes on. Sometimes he dictates stuff and sometimes he pounds it out himself."

"He doesn't have a touch system, does he—just a twofinger huntandpeck system?"

"That's all."

"But you have a touch system?"

"Of course."

"Did you know," Perry Mason asked, staring steadily at Harry McLane, "that the note that was found in the typewriter on Basset's desk, stating that he was going to commit suicide, was not, in fact, written on that typewriter at all, but was written on the typewriter which was in Mrs. Basset's room, and that it was written by a professional typist who used the touch system?"

Harry McLane flung himself toward the exit door.

"Come on, Bertha," he said; "let's get the hell out of here."

She got to her feet, stood staring at Perry Mason, then at her brother.

"Harry," she said, "you know Mr. Mason is trying to help you, and…"

"Aw, nuts, don't be a sucker. I only came here because you wanted me to. He's looking for a fall guy, I tell you."

Bertha McLane turned to Perry Mason and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Mason, that Harry feels that way. I hope you'll accept my apology…"

"Apology, hell!" Harry McLane interrupted. "Don't be a sucker!"

He pushed his way over toward Mason's desk and said, "You've been asking a lot of questions. Now let me ask you some. Are you representing Brunold?"

"Yes," Mason said, "I'm representing him. I presume it amounts to that."

"And Mrs. Basset?"

"She has consulted me."

"And Dick Basset?"

"Not directly."

"But through his mother?"

"Perhaps, yes," Mason said, his eyes narrowed to mere slits as he watched McLane's face.

"There you are," McLane said, turning triumphantly to his sister. "Are you going to sit there and let him make a goat of me? I told you we were foolish to come here in the first place."

"Mr. Mason," she said, "can't you…"

Harry McLane grabbed her by the arm and pushed her toward the door.

"You claim to care something for me," he said, "but you're putting a rope necktie around my neck if you keep on talking to this bird."

Her face showed conflicting emotions.

Mason said slowly, "Harry, you still haven't told me where you got the money that you claim you used to pay off Hartley Basset. You still haven't told me whether anyone knows you were in possession of that money. You still haven't told me where you were when Basset was murdered, and you haven't told me what was to have kept you from killing Basset, opening the file where the notes were kept and taking out those forged notes."

Harry McLane jerked open the door which led to the corridor. He paused in the doorway to say, "I know enough about legal ethics to know that you can't ever tell anyone anything that I've told you. If you tell the cops that I was out at Basset's place I'll have you disbarred and if you keep your mouth shut I won't have to tell anybody anything."

"But Mrs. Basset," Bertha McLane said, "knows, Harry, that you…"

He grabbed her arms and pushed her through the doorway.

"And Colemar knows of that shortage," Mason said, "to say nothing of Mrs. Basset. Don't forget that the police…"

"Aw, nuts to you," McLane said, and kicked the door shut.

Mason sat perfectly still, his eyes thoughtful, his fingers still making drumming noises upon the edge of the desk. The telephone rang three times before he changed his position. Then he swung abruptly about in his swivel chair, picked up the receiver and heard Paul Drake's voice saying, "My men have found her, Perry. She's at the Ambassador Hotel, registered under the name of Sylvia Lorton, and there are three police detectives watching her suite. They tailed her there last night. They've also got one of their operatives on duty at the switchboard so they can listen in on any calls that go through the switchboard."

Perry Mason squinted his eyes thoughtfully.

"I presume," he said, "that if I should go over to see her, the detectives would close in on her and make the arrest right now."

"Sure," Paul Drake said cheerfully. "All they're doing is giving her plenty of rope, hoping that she'll hang herself. They'll try to stampede her into making a break if she keeps sitting tight. But, with her son calling her and spilling information over the telephone, the cops will have her where they want her by midnight."

Perry Mason said slowly, "Paul, I've got to see that woman without the police knowing it."

"Not a chance in a million," Drake told him. "You know the game the police are playing as well as I do."

Perry Mason said slowly, "Have you made a check on the location of the fire escapes, Paul?"

"No, I haven't been out there myself. I'm taking reports from a man who's on the ground. Do you want him to do it?"

"No," Mason said. "Get your hat on, Paul, and meet me at the elevator. We're going out together."

The detective groaned and said over the telephone, "I knew you were going to get me in jail sooner or later."

"Any time I get you in," Perry Mason said grimly, "I'll get you out. Get your hat, Paul."

He slammed the receiver back into place.

Perry Mason, attired in the white uniform of a windowcleaner, a uniform which he had rented at a masquerade costumer's, carried several rubber windowcleaning blades in his right hand. Slightly behind him, Paul Drake, similarly attired, carried a pail of water in each hand.

"I suppose," the detective remarked lugubriously, "you had it all figured out when you arranged for the costumes."

"Had what figured out?" Mason asked.

"That I was to be the assistant, and carry the pails of water."

Mason grinned, but said nothing.

They rode up in the freight elevator to the sixth floor of the Ambassador Hotel. A man, lounging in the corridor, with broad shoulders, squaretoed shoes, and a belligerent jaw, eyed them in silent accusation.

The pair ignored the stare, walked purposefully to the end of the corridor, and opened the fireescape window at the end of the hallway.

"Is he looking?" Perry Mason asked, as he slid a leg out over the window sill.

"Looking in sort of a halfhearted manner," Paul Drake, standing in the corridor, reported. "You've got to work fast."

"Are you," asked Perry Mason, "telling me?"

He took a sponge from the pail, touched the window over the fire escape, and gently worked the rubber blades which cleaned the window.

"All right," he said; "now for the fast stuff."

"You're certain the room's empty?" asked Drake.

"No," Mason said, "I'm not. We've got to take a chance on that. Stand up close to the door with your back toward it. Knock on the lower panels. Don't let him see that you're knocking."

The lawyer finished putting the polish on the window with a dry rag. Drake said, "Okay. I've knocked twice and got no answer."