Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lucky Legs

She said nothing.

"I didn't have that same confidence in Dr. Doray that I have in you," he told her, "that's the reason I left Dr. Doray in the room to take the rap. I knew that if the police found an empty room, they'd make some effort to search the hotel. If they found Doray and he didn't talk, they might not have known whether you were in the hotel or not. That's the chance I took."

"But," she said, "won't they be watching the hotel when we leave?"

"Exactly," he told her. "That's why I've got to figure out some way of getting us out of it; we're both of us mixed in it now."

He strode to the window; stood once more staring moodily down at the street.

"And you won't tell me," he said, "what changed your mind between the time I saw you and midnight; why it was that you so suddenly decided you were going to marry Bradbury?"

"I've told you," she said, "I knew that was the only way that I could get the money to defend Bob. And I knew that if Bob didn't have firstclass legal defense, he would be convicted of the murder. I got to thinking things over, I knew that Bradbury had retained you to represent me. I thought that Jim would also retain you to clear Bob, if he knew that I would marry him."

Perry Mason's eyes glinted.

"Now," he said, "you've said exactly what I was waiting to hear you say."

"What do you mean?"

"He would put up the money for Doray's defense, if he knew that you would marry him."

She bit her lip and said nothing.

Perry Mason stared at her with moody speculation for a few moments.

"I'm going to play ball with you," he said, "and when I play ball, I play ball all the way."

She watched him with wide anxious eyes.

"Take your clothes off," he told her, "and get into bed."

Her face didn't change expression by so much as the flicker of an eyelash.

"How much must I take off?" she asked.

"I want your skirt hung on a chair," he said. "I want your shoes under the bed. You'd better have your stockings over the foot of the bed. I want you to have your waist off, so all that will show above the covers are shoulder straps."

"Then what?" she asked.

"Then," he said, "I'm going to have a man come in the room, he's going to look at you. You're going to act the part of the kind of a girl he'll think you are."

She searched for the fasteners at the side of her skirt.

"You're playing ball with me," she said, "I'll show you that I've got just as much confidence in you, as you have in me."

"Good girl," he told her. "Have you got any chewing gum?"

"No."

"Can you move your jaws as though you were chewing gum?"

"I guess so. How's this?"

He watched her critically.

"Move the jaw a little bit to one side at the bottom of the chew," he said, "give it something of a circular motion."

"It's going to look frightfully common," she said.

"That's just the way I want it to look."

"How's this?"

"That," he told her, "is better. Go ahead and get your clothes off."

He walked once more to the window and stared down at the street until he heard the creak of the bed springs.

"All right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

He turned and regarded her critically. Her skirt was over the back of a chair, her stockings were hanging on the foot of the bed, her shoes were under the bed.

"Let's see the gumchewing business," he told her.

She moved her jaws regularly.

"Now if this man looks at you," Perry Mason said, "don't lower your eyes. Don't act as though you were ashamed. Look at him with a 'comehither' look. Can you do that?"

"Who is it going to be?" she asked.

"I don't know just yet," he told her, "it'll probably be the porter in the hotel. He won't do anything except look at you, but I want you to look the part."

"I'll do my best," she said.

Perry Mason came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. She met his speculative appraisal with steady blue eyes.

"There was quite a bit of blood on your white shoes?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Did Thelma Bell have any white shoes?"

"I don't know."

"And Thelma took your white shoes to clean them?"

"Yes."

"What was Thelma doing when you got to the apartment?"

"She had just finished taking a bath. She looked at my shoes and told me to get out of them right away, and get out of my clothes, to take a bath and make sure I didn't have any blood on my feet or ankles."

"Did she look at your stockings?"

"No, she told me to make it snappy."

"You took a street car to her apartment?"

"Yes."

"And about the time you were ready to take a bath I called at the apartment?"

"That's right."

"So you don't know what Thelma did with the shoes?"

"No."

Perry Mason slid around on the bed, so that he sat with his left elbow resting on his left knee, his right foot on the floor, his left leg on the bed.

"Margy," he said, "are you telling me the truth?"

"Yes."

"Suppose I should tell you," he went on, "that I made a search of Thelma Bell's apartment; that I found a hat box in the closet; that the hat box was packed with clothes that had been washed and hadn't had a chance to dry; that some of the clothes showed evidences of having been washed to remove blood stains; that there was a pair of white shoes, a pair of stockings and a skirt."

The blue eyes stared at him with fixed intensity Suddenly Marjorie Clune sat bolt upright in bed.

"You mean that the skirt and the stockings had blood stains on them?"

"Yes."

"And they'd been washed?"

"Very hastily washed," Mason said. "And the blood stains were the spattering type of blood stains, such as would have been made from a stab wound."

"Good heavens!" she said.

"Furthermore," Perry Mason told her, "some one was in the bathroom having hysterics about lucky legs. Now one of you girls is lying. Either you were in the bathroom, or it was Thelma."

"It might have been some one else," she said.

"But you don't know any one else it could have been?"

"No."

"I don't think it was any one else," Mason said slowly.

Marjorie Clune blinked her eyes slowly, thoughtfully.

"Now," said Perry Mason, "we're coming to another phase of the situation. Do you know a girl named Eva Lamont?"

"Why, yes, of course."

"Has Eva Lamont got contest legs?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Legs that would win a prize?"

"They didn't," Marjorie Clune said.

"But she had them entered?"

"Yes."

"In other words, she was one of the contestants?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"In Cloverdale."

"Is she," asked Perry Mason, "a young woman with dark hair and snappy black eyes, a woman with a figure something like yours?"

Marjorie Clune nodded.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because," Perry Mason said, "I have every reason to believe that she's in town, registered under the name of Vera Cutter, and that she has taken a most unusual interest in the development of this murder case."

Marjorie Clune's eyes were wide with surprise.

"Now then," Perry Mason said, "tell me where she gets her money."

"She gets it lots of ways," Marjorie Clune said bitterly. "She worked as a waitress for a while. She was working that when Frank Patton came to town with his contest. After that, she did lots of things. She got chances to show her legs and there were lots of people who admired them. She said that whether she won the contest or not, she was going to the city and go into pictures."

"And after you won the contest," Perry Mason said, "then what?"

"Then," she said, "she swore that she was going to come to the city and make a success of her own, which would make mine look sick. She said that I won the contest because I had curried favor with Frank Patton, and that I had an inside track."