Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lucky Legs

Perry Mason turned on her savagely.

"All right," he said, "if I've got to hand it to you, I'll hand it to you. The police would say that you were washing off blood stains; washing blood off your stockings; washing off blood that had spattered on your legs when you stood over Frank Patton."

The girl recoiled as though he had struck her a physical blow.

Perry Mason pulled his big boned frame from the chair, stood towering over the two young women.

"My God!" he said, "have I got to pick on two women in order to get the truth from them? Why weren't there any clothes in the bathroom? What did you do with the clothes you took off? And you, Marjorie Clune, what did you do with the pair of white shoes that you were wearing when you came from the apartment house?"

Marjorie Clune stared at him with eyes that were wide and frightened. Her lips quivered.

"Do… do the police know that?"

"They'll know plenty," he told her. "Now, let's come down to earth. I don't know how much time we've got, but we might just as well face the issue frankly."

Thelma Bell spoke in even, expressionless tones.

"Suppose we were there? What difference does it make? We certainly wouldn't have killed him."

"No?" asked Perry Mason. "You wouldn't have any motive, I suppose?"

He turned back to Marjorie Clune.

"How long had you been here before I arrived?" he asked.

"Just a mmmmminute," she quavered. "I didn't take a ccccab. I came on the street car."

"You were in Frank Patton's apartment, in the bathroom, having hysterics, talking about your lucky legs?"

She shook her head mutely.

"Look here," said Thelma Bell quickly, "will the police know anything about Marjorie being there if the officer who saw her on the street doesn't connect her in some way with the crime?"

"Perhaps not," Perry Mason said. "Why?"

"Because," said Thelma Bell, "I can wear that white coat with the fox fur collar. I can wear the little cap with the red button on it. I'll swear they belong to me."

"That will just put you on the spot," Perry Mason said. "The officer probably didn't remember the face as much as he did the clothes. He'll see the clothes and figure that you were the one he saw. He'll identify you as being the one."

"That's what I want him to do," said Thelma Bell slowly.

"Why?" asked Perry Mason.

"Because," she said, "I wasn't anywhere near the place."

"Can you prove it?" Mason inquired.

"Of course I can prove it," she said savagely. "You don't think I'd put myself in a spot like that unless I could prove it, do you? I want to give Marjorie a break, but I'm not foolish enough to get myself mixed up in a murder rap in order to do it. I'll wear those clothes. The officers can identify me all they want to. The officer on the beat can swear I'm the one he saw coming from the apartment. Then I'll prove to them that I wasn't there."

"Where were you?" Perry Mason asked.

"With a boy friend."

"Why did you go home so early?"

"Because we had a fight."

"What about?"

"Is it any of your business?"

"Yes."

"About Frank Patton."

"What about Frank Patton?"

"He didn't like Frank Patton."

"Why? Was he jealous?"

"No, he knew the way I felt toward Patton. He thought Patton was dragging me down hill."

"In what way?"

"The contacts he was making for me."

"What, for instance?"

"Modeling," she said. "Artists, illustrators, and such stuff."

"Your boy friend didn't like it?"

"No."

"What's his name?" Perry Mason wanted to know.

"George Sanborne is his name."

"Where does he live?"

"In the Gilroy Hotel—room 925."

"Listen," said Perry Mason, "you wouldn't try to kid me?"

"Try to kid my lawyer? Don't be silly."

"I'm not your lawyer," he said. "I'm Marjorie Clune's lawyer. But I want to give you a fair break."

She waved a hand toward the telephone.

"There's the telephone," she said. "Go ring up George Sanborne. The number is Prospect 83945."

Perry Mason strode to the telephone, jerked the receiver from the hook.

"Get me Prospect 83945," he said when the exchange operator in the lobby asked for his number. And, as he spoke, he was aware of swift feminine whispers behind him.

Perry Mason did not turn. He held the receiver against his ear, stood with his feet planted far apart and his chin thrust forward. There was the buzzing of the line, the click of a connection, and a feminine voice said, "Gilroy Hotel."

"Give me Mr. Sanborne in 925," said Perry Mason.

A moment later a masculine voice said, "Hello."

"Thelma Bell," said Perry Mason, "was hurt in an automobile accident about an hour ago. She's at the Emergency Hospital, and we find your name on a card in her purse. Do you know her?"

"What's that again?" asked the masculine voice.

Perry Mason repeated his statement.

"Say, what sort of a fake is this?" the masculine voice answered. "What do you think I am?"

"We thought here at the hospital that perhaps you were a friend who'd be interested," Mason said.

"Hospital hell!" said the man's voice. "I was out with Thelma Bell all the evening. I left her not more than half an hour ago. She wasn't hurt in no automobile accident then."

"Thank you," said Perry Mason, and hung up.

He turned to face Marjorie Clune.

"Look here, Marjorie," he said, "we're not going to do any talking now. You may think Thelma Bell is the closest friend you've got in the world, but there's only one person who's going to hear your real story—that's your lawyer. Do you understand that?"

She nodded her head.

"If you say so," she said.

"I say so."

He turned to Thelma.

"You're a loyal friend," he said, "but you won't misunderstand me. Anything Marjorie Clune tells you can be dragged out of you in front of a grand jury or in a court room. Anything she tells me is a privileged communication, and no power on earth can unseal my lips."

"I understand," said Thelma Bell, standing very erect and very whitefaced.

"Now, you're willing to help Marjorie out on this thing?"

"Yes."

"Get those things on," he said. "Let's see how you look."

She went to the closet and took down the coat. She put it on, fitted the hat into place.

"Good enough," he said. "Got any white shoes?"

"No," she said.

"He probably won't remember the shoes anyway," Perry Mason said. "What I want you to do is to get out of the apartment and walk around on the other side of the street. Some time tonight you'll see a police car drive up here. You can probably tell it by the license. If you can't, you can tell it by the kind of a car it is. It'll either be a car from the homicide squad, and, in that event, three or four broadshouldered men who look like cops in plain clothes will get out of it; or else it'll be a radio car. In that event, it'll be a light roadster or coupe, and there'll be two men in it. One of them will get out and the other one will stay in the car to keep track of the radio calls."

"I think I can spot it all right," she said. "What am I supposed to do then?"

"As soon as you see the men head for this apartment building," Perry Mason said, "you'll come walking across the street as though you had just returned from an errand somewhere. You can say you've been to the drug store for some aspirin, or any other kind of a stall that you want to make. Walk right into the arms of the police. They'll start asking you questions. Don't tell them that you've got an alibi too soon. Pretend that you're all confused. Answer the questions in a way that'll arouse their suspicions. Get angry with them and tell them that you don't have to tell anybody where you were and what you were doing.

"If the officer on the beat saw anything particularly suspicious about the way Margy acted, he'll have turned in her description. The probabilities are it'll be a description not so much of the girl as of the clothes. She saw his uniform and that threw her into a panic. She stopped and turned her back to him, looking in the display windows. It probably registered with him at the time, but he was going on another job with this woman who had pulled him in to see what was happening in the apartment, and he didn't pay too much attention to her. But after he got in Patton's apartment and found those telephone messages in there, with Margy's name and Thelma Bell's name, he's going to start thinking back, trying to see if he remembers seeing any woman who acted as though she'd been mixed up in a murder. He's pretty likely to remember the coat and the hat.