Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lucky Legs

"This doesn't sound like a confession," Riker said.

Perry Mason fixed him with a cold eye.

"Do you want to listen, or do you want me to keep quiet?" he said.

"Let him go ahead, Riker," Johnson commented.

"I want it understood I am not bound by anything this man says," Bradbury stated.

"Shut up," Johnson told him.

"I won't shut up until I have expressed myself," Bradbury replied. "I know what my rights are."

Riker reached out and caught Bradbury by the knot of the necktie.

"Listen, you," he said, "we're sticking around here to hear a guy confess, not to hear your solo. Sit down and shut up."

He pushed Bradbury back, and into a chair, then turned to Mason.

"Go ahead," he said, "you wanted to talk. Start talking."

"Bradbury came to my office," Perry Mason said. "Before that I had received a telegram signed Eva Lamont. Bradbury said he had sent that telegram. The telegram asked me to hold myself in readiness to act in a certain case involving Marjorie Clune. Bradbury outlined that case. Marjorie Clune had been victimized by Frank Patton. He wanted me to find and prosecute Frank Patton. Through Drake, I located Patton. In locating Patton, we had occasion to interview a young woman named Thelma Bell who lives at the St. James Apartments on East Faulkner Street. Her telephone number was Harcourt 63891. I have always had an uncanny memory for telephone numbers.

"On the evening that Drake located Frank Patton, I was sitting in my office awaiting a telephone call from Drake. We were going out together and try to shake a confession out of Patton. Bradbury came to my office. I told him to wait. I put him in the outer office. Drake's call came through. I told Drake I would meet him. I grabbed a cab and went down to meet Drake. In the meantime, I sent Bradbury back to the hotel to get some newspapers. He is staying at the Mapleton Hotel. He anticipated it would take him half an hour to make the round trip in a taxicab. That's about right. It would have taken just about that time."

"Are you going," asked Bradbury, in a cold, accusing tone, "to confess about entering Patton's apartment in advance of the officers and locking the door behind you as you went out?"

Johnson turned to Bradbury.

"What do you know about that?" he asked.

"I know that's what he did," Bradbury said.

"How do you know?"

"Because," Bradbury remarked with a triumphant leer at Perry Mason, "this man telephoned me here at his office not much after nine o'clock and told me the details of the murder. He told me how the murder had been committed. Even the police didn't know it at that time. I told him to do what he could to protect Marjorie Clune. I referred, of course, to purely legal methods."

Johnson and Riker exchanged glances.

"Was that the telephone call that Perry Mason put through from the drug store?" asked Riker. "We've traced his taxicab from here to Ninth and Olive, from Ninth and Olive out to Patton's apartment, from Patton's apartment down to a drug store where he telephoned, and from the drug store out to the St. James Apartments."

"I was the one he talked to on the telephone," said J.R. Bradbury. "I want to have it definitely understood that I have made this statement before witnesses, and just as soon as I had any knowledge that the things Mason did were at all illegal. I am not going to be involved in any technical illegality."

Riker looked at Della Street.

"You got that down?" he asked.

"Yes," Della Street said.

"Go ahead," Johnson said to Bradbury.

"Let him go ahead," Bradbury remarked, nodding to Mason.

"I went to Patton's apartment," Mason said. "I knocked at the door. No one answered. I opened the door and walked in. The door was unlocked. I found Patton's body. He had been stabbed. I found a blackjack lying in a corner of the livingroom. I started out and heard a police officer coming down the corridor. I didn't want to be seen leaving the apartment, and I didn't want to be seen standing there by the open door. I had a skeleton key in my pocket, and I locked the door and pounded on the panel. I told the officer I had just arrived and was knocking to try and effect my entrance."

Perry Mason stopped talking. There was a silence in the office which enabled those present to hear the scratching of Della Street 's pen on the shorthand notebook, to hear the sobbing intake of her breath.

"You're a hell of a lawyer," said Riker scornfully. "That confession, and Bradbury's corroboration, will put you in jail for the rest of your life."

"On the table," said Perry Mason, without noticing the comment, "in Patton's apartment, were two telephone messages. One of them was to tell Thelma that Marjorie would be late for her appointment. The other one was to call Margy at Harcourt 63891. I saw those two telephone messages. I remembered the telephone number of Thelma Bell. As I mentioned, I have a photographic memory for such things. I surmised at once that Marjorie Clune could be found at Thelma Bell's apartment. I telephoned Bradbury and asked him for instructions. He told me to protect Marjorie Clune regardless of what I had to do, or what means I had to employ."

"That's a lie," Bradbury said. "I employed you as a lawyer. I didn't expect you to do anything illegal. I'm not a party to it."

"Let it pass," said Johnson, "go ahead, Mason."

"I went out to Thelma Bell's apartment," Mason said. "I found Marjorie Clune there. I found her taking a bath. Thelma Bell had just had a bath. Thelma Bell told me that she had an appointment with Frank Patton but hadn't kept it. That she had been out with a boy friend. I telephoned the boy friend for verification. He verified her statement.

"I told Marjorie Clune to go to a hotel; to register under her name, to call my office and let me know where she was, and not to leave the hotel. She promised me that she would. She subsequently telephoned my office that she was at the Bostwick Hotel, in room 408. The telephone number was Exeter 93821. I returned to Bradbury. I told him what had happened, except that I did not tell him about entering Patton's apartment, or locking the door. Bradbury told me I was to represent Dr. Doray as well as Marjorie Clune. I agreed to such representation.

"I met Bradbury at his hotel because he didn't want to remain at the office. He had returned to the office with the newspapers he had been sent to get from the Mapleton Hotel. His return was just about the time that I telephoned. I believe he had just entered the office when I telephoned him from the drug store near Patton's apartment."

"There was also a brief case," Bradbury said.

"Yes," Mason said, "you telephoned Della Street and asked her if you should bring the brief case. She told you it might be a good plan to bring it as well."

"I telephoned from my room in the hotel," Bradbury explained to the officers.

"Subsequently," Mason said, "I telephoned Marjorie Clune. She had left the hotel. Detectives got in touch with Della Street and accused her of telephoning Dr. Doray to get out of the country. As a matter of fact, Della Street did not telephone to him."

"That's what you say," Bradbury commented.

"Shut up, Bradbury," Riker said.

"I learned," Mason went on, "that Marjorie Clune had intended to take the midnight plane. I chartered a plane and followed the schedule of the midnight mail plane. At its first stop in Summerville, I found that Dr. Doray had disembarked. I went to the Riverview Hotel and found Dr. Doray registered in the bridal suite. At first he disclaimed all knowledge of Marjorie Clune, but while we were talking, Marjorie Clune entered the room. She had missed the plane, and had taken the train. Officers showed up at about that time to arrest them. I spirited Marjorie Clune out of the hotel, and brought her back to this city."