Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Counterfeit Eye

"How did you get it?"

"Oh, I just figured he probably had one somewhere, so I picked his pocket, pried open the back of the watch, took a photograph of the photograph that was in it, and checked it with the police photographs on file in the Rogues, Gallery."

"And Chalmers identified the photograph?"

"Yeah, the one I'd stolen from Basset's watch. I didn't show him the police photographs because I didn't want him to know she had a record."

Mason said slowly, "Look here, Paul; do you suppose you could get Chalmers to let me get him a divorce if it didn't cost him anything?"

"Sure," Drake said. "But that might make him suspicious. He wants to get married again, anyway. Let him give you his note for a hundred bucks. He's a slicker and he'll beat you out of the note."

Mason nodded slowly and said, "All right, send him in. Tell him you can fix it up."

"But," the detective said, "what's the idea in getting the divorce?"

"I'm going to make a buildup," Mason told him.

"Build up to what?"

Mason said slowly, "The hardest thing on earth to describe is a woman. Notice the description of Hazel Fenwick which the police have given to the newspapers—height five feet two, weight one hundred and thirteen, age twentyseven, complexion and eyes dark, last seen wearing a tailored brown suit with brown shoes and stockings."

"Well?" Drake asked.

"Darn few people ever saw this woman. She entered the picture mysteriously. Evidently Dick Basset courted her strictly on the quiet. The description is all anyone has to go by and that description would fit almost any darkhaired woman in the middle twenties."

Drake, watching him narrowly, said, "So what?"

Mason took Della Street's arm, piloted her to a corner, away from the detective, and said, in a whisper, "Go to an employment agency and find a young woman in the middle twenties, about five feet two, with dark hair and eyes, weight about one hundred thirteen, and who is hungry. If she's got a brown tailored suit, brown shoes and stockings, so much the better. If she hasn't, get her that kind of an outfit, and be damn sure she's hungry."

"How hungry?" Della Street asked.

"Hungry enough so she won't argue with cash."

"Will she go to jail?" Della Street, inquired.

"She may, but she won't stay there, and she'll be paid for it if she does. Wait a few minutes before you go, Della I've got a couple of other things."

He walked back to the detective and said, "Paul, you stand pretty well with the newspaper boys, don't you?"

"I think so. Why?"

"Slip one of your newspaper friends fifty bucks," the lawyer said. "Get him to take photographs of everyone in Basset's house. Tell him to say that he wants the pictures for his newspaper. Do you think you can do that?"

"Sure, it would be simple."

"All right, now here's the catch in it. I want those pictures taken at a particular place."

"What place?"

"I want the subjects sitting in the chair that Basset was sitting in when he was killed. I want closeups that will show their facial expressions."

"Why that particular place?" the detective asked.

"That's a secret," Mason told him, grinning.

"It's pretty dark there."

"Not in the early morning," Mason said. "Have those pictures taken between nine and ten o'clock in the morning. Have the subjects facing that east window. Sunlight will be streaming in through that window."

The detective pulled out a notebook. "Okay," he said. "There's Overton, the chauffeur, Colemar, the Brite woman, Dick Basset, and who else?"

"Anyone else who had access to the house on the night of the murder."

"Seated at the desk?"

"Seated at the desk, facing the window."

"You want closeups?"

"Yes."

"Okay," Drake said. "It sounds goofy, but I'll do it." The telephone rang, Della Street picked up the receiver and said, "Hello," and passed it quickly across to Perry Mason, saying in an undertone, "It's Harry McLane on the wire. He wants to talk with you personally."

Mason waved Paul Drake through the door and said into the transmitter, "Yes, this is Mason talking."

Harry McLane's voice was highpitched with excitement.

"Listen," he said. "I've been a damned fool. I was used as a cat'spaw and didn't realize it until just now. Now I know what a fool I've been. I'm going to tell you the whole business and make a clean breast of the entire affair."

"All right," Mason said, "come on in. I'll be waiting for you."

"I can't come," McLane said. "I don't dare to."

"Why not?"

"I'm being watched."

"Who's watching you?"

"That's part of the story I'll have to tell you when I see you."

"Well, when am I going to see you?" Mason asked.

"You'll have to come to me. I don't dare to try and come to your office. I tell you, I'm being watched, and it would be as much as my life was worth to see you. Now, listen. I'm registered at the Maryland Hotel under the name of George Purdey. I'm in Room 904. Don't ask for me at the desk. Come in the hotel, go up the elevator and walk down the corridor. If there's anyone in the corridor, don't hesitate as you walk by my room. Just keep right on going as though you were looking for some other room. If there's no one in the corridor, twist the knob of the door and step in. I'll leave it open for you. Don't knock."

"Listen," Mason said. "Tell me just one thing. Who was the accomplice? Who…?"

"No," McLane said, "I won't tell you a damn thing over the telephone. I've told you too much now. If you want to come, come. If you don't, go to hell."

The receiver made noise at the other end of the line as it was slammed on the hook.

Perry Mason gently slipped the receiver back into position, glanced at Della Street and at Paul Drake.

"I've got to go out," he said.

"Can I reach you," his secretary asked, "if anything important should develop?"

Mason hesitated a moment, then scribbled on a sheet of paper the words, "Maryland Hotel, Room 904, care George Purdey." He folded the paper, put it in an envelope, sealed the envelope and handed it to her.

"If I don't call you within fifteen minutes," he said, "tear open that envelope. You, Paul, will then come for me at that address. And be certain to take a gun with you."

He reached for his hat and started for the door of the office.

Perry Mason slid his car in close to the curb a block and a half away from the Maryland Hotel. He sat at the steering wheel, smoking a cigarette, peering up and down the street for a matter of some fifteen or twenty seconds before he opened the door and got to the sidewalk.

He did not walk directly to the hotel, but swung around the block, and approached the hotel from a side entrance.

A clerk was on duty at the desk. Mason sauntered past him to the cigar counter, picked out a package of cigarettes, contemplated the cover of a magazine, drifted toward the elevators, and stepped into one of the cages just as the operator was on the point of closing the door.

"Eleventh floor," he said.

He got off at the eleventh, walked down two flights of steps to the ninth, and waited to make certain that the corridor was empty before he stepped from the stairway into the corridor. He strode purposefully to the door of 904, turned the knob without knocking, opened the door, stepped into the room, and pushed the door closed behind him.

The shades were down in the room. Drawers had been pulled from the dresser. A suitcase had been opened, and the contents were strewn over the floor. The body of a man lay face down on the bed, the left arm dangling down to the floor, the head lolling at an angle, the right arm doubled up under the chest.

Mason, taking care to touch nothing, tiptoed around the bed, dropped to his knees and leaned forward so that he could look up under the portion of the body which lay over the edge of the bed.