Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lucky Legs

"This fellow was in a racket that victimized girls with pretty legs," Mason said. "He would pick out a girl with pretty legs, and work a racket that would leave her holding the sack. It was something he worked in the small towns, picking on the Chamber of Commerce as the big sucker, and incidentally victimizing the girl."

"You mean to say he'd outslick the Chamber of Commerce boys?" asked Johnson.

Perry Mason nodded.

"Sure," he said. "Why not?"

"Aren't they supposed to be pretty wise babies?"

"They think they are," Mason said. "As a matter of fact, there are a whole bunch of rackets that are worked on them. If you ask me, they're pretty easy."

Riker's eyes were shrewd in their appraisal.

"You're pretty highpowered," he said.

"What do you mean?" Mason asked.

"I mean that it costs money to get your services."

"Fortunately," said Perry Mason, grinning, "it does."

"All right. Somebody was interested enough to put up the money to have you prosecute this fellow."

Mason nodded.

"Sure," he said, "that goes without saying."

"All right," Riker said, "who was it?"

Mason shook his head, smiled, and said, "Naughty, naughty."

"What do you mean?" Riker demanded.

"I mean," Mason said, "that you boys are all right. You're working for your living, just the same as I am. You've asked me something that perhaps you'd like to know. If I thought it had anything to do with the murder, I might tell you. But it hasn't got anything to do with the murder, and, therefore, it becomes none of your damned business."

He smiled cheerfully at them.

"It goes to establish a motive," Riker said. "Anybody who would pay you money to put that man in jail would have a good motive for murder."

Mason grinned.

"Not after he'd given me a five thousand dollar retainer to prosecute him," he said. "If he had intended to murder the man, he'd have hung onto his five thousand dollars; he wouldn't have decorated the mahogany with me, and then gone out and killed the man so that I didn't have to do any work in order to earn my fee."

Johnson nodded slowly.

"That's so," he said.

"Just the same," Riker said, "I'd a whole lot rather know who it was that employed you."

"Perhaps you would," Mason said, "but I'd a whole lot rather not tell, and it happens that under the law, this is one of those little things that is known as a professional confidence. You can't make me testify, and therefore you can't make me answer any question. But there are no hard feelings about it."

Riker stared moodily at the toe of his boot.

"I'm not so sure that there ain't," he said.

"Ain't what?" Mason asked.

"Hard feelings about it."

"Don't get off on the wrong foot," Mason told him. "I'm giving you boys a break. I've told you as much as I can without betraying a confidence."

"So he was getting girls on the spot, was he?" Johnson demanded belligerently.

Perry Mason laughed.

"Go ask Manchester about it," he said.

Riker stared moodily at Mason.

"And you're not going to give us a break?"

Mason said slowly: "Riker, I'd like to help you boys out, but I can't tell you the name of the man who employed me. I don't think it would be fair. But I can tell you this much…"

He stopped and drummed with his fingers on the edge of his desk.

"Go on and tell us," Riker said.

Perry Mason heaved a deep sigh.

"There's a girl," he said, "from Cloverdale—his last victim—a girl named Marjorie Clune. She's here in the city somewhere."

"Where?" asked Riker.

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you," Mason said.

"All right, go on," Johnson told him. "What about her?"

"I don't know so much about her," Perry Mason said. "But she's got a sweetheart who came on from Cloverdale—a Mr. Robert Doray. He's staying at the Midwick Hotel; that's out on East Faulkner Street. He's a heck of a nice chap. I'm sure he wouldn't have any murder ideas in his system. But if he had run across Patton, he might have given him an awful beating."

"Now," said Riker, "you're giving us a break."

Mason's expression was wideeyed in its babyfaced innocence.

"Sure I am," he said. "I told you I was willing to give you all the breaks I could. Shucks, you fellows are working for a living, just the same as I am. As a matter of fact, I've got nothing against the police on any of my cases. The police build up the best case they can, and I come into court and try to knock it down. That's business. If you fellows didn't build up your cases so you could make arrests, there wouldn't be any possibility for me to make fees by defending a man. A guy doesn't pay a lawyer fee before he's in trouble."

Riker nodded.

"That's so," he said.

"Can you tell us anything else about this Marjorie Clune?" asked Johnson.

Perry Mason rang for Della Street.

"Della," he said, "bring me that file in the Case of the Lucky Legs, will you?"

The girl nodded, stepped to the files and a moment later returned with a legal jacket.

Perry Mason nodded to her.

"That's all," he said.

She closed the door to the outer office with an indignant bang.

Perry Mason pulled the photograph out of the jacket.

"Well, boys," he said, holding up the photograph, "that photograph is of Marjorie Clune. Think you'd recognize her if you saw her again?"

Riker whistled.

Both men got from their chairs and came closer to look at the photograph.

"A girl with legs like that," Johnson proclaimed, "was just born to cause trouble. I'll bet she's mixed in this murder case."

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

"Can't prove it by me, boys," he said cheerfully. "I got a fee to prosecute Patton. Now he's dead and I don't have to prosecute him. You can check up on all of my statements by getting in touch with Manchester. In the meantime, you'd better make a check on this Dr. Doray. By the time the news gets into the papers, Doray may decide there's nothing to keep him here, and go on back to Cloverdale."

"I thought he came for the girl," Riker said.

Mason raised his eyebrows.

"Did he?" he asked.

"Didn't you say so?"

"I don't think so."

"Somehow I got that impression."

Mason sighed and made an expressive gesture with his hands.

"Boys," he said, "you can't prove anything by me. I've told you all I know about the case that isn't a violation of a professional confidence, and you can talk from now until two o'clock in the morning without getting me to tell you any more."

Riker laughed and got to his feet.

Johnson hesitated a moment, then pushed back his own chair.

"You can go out this way," Mason told them, and opened the exit door into the corridor.

When he heard their steps diminish in volume as they turned the angle of the corridor toward the elevator, Mason slammed the door, made certain that the spring lock was in place, walked to the door which led to the outer office, opened it and smiled down at Della Street.

"What's happened, chief?" she asked, with a throaty catch in her voice.

"Patton was murdered," he told her.

"Before you went out there, or afterwards?"

"Before," he said, "if he had been murdered afterwards, I'd have been mixed up in it."

"Are you mixed up in it now?"

He shook his head, then sat down on the edge of her desk, sighed, and said, "That is, I don't know."

She reached out and dropped her cool, capable fingers over his hand.

"Can't you tell me?" she asked in a low voice.

"Paul Drake telephoned just before you got here," he said. "He gave me Patton's address. It was out in the Holliday Apartments. I busted on out there. Drake was to follow me in five minutes. Just before I went into the place, I saw a goodlooking Jane coming out. She had on a white coat and a white hat with a red button, also white shoes. She had blue eyes. The eyes looked frightened. I noticed her particularly because she seemed to look guilty, and frightened to death. Then, I went on up to the apartment, and knocked at the door. Nothing happened. I tried the buzzer. There was no response. I tried the door knob and it clicked back and the door opened."