Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lucky Legs

Perry Mason paused to stare at her. There had been something almost of panic in the blue eyes, and the face was held so rigidly averted that she might have been some one who was acquainted with the attorney and trying to keep him from recognizing her.

The coat fitted snugly around the back and hips, and Perry Mason could see the smooth play of her muscles beneath the cloth as she walked.

He watched her until she had crossed the intersection and then pushed his way into the Holliday Apartments.

There was a desk in the lobby but no one was at the desk. Back of the desk was a rack of pigeonholes over each of which was the number of a room. In some of the pigeonholes were keys, and in some were bits of paper or envelopes.

Perry Mason looked at number 302 and saw that there was no key in the box. He walked to the elevator, opened the door, entered the smelly cage, pushed the button for the third floor, and rattled slowly upward.

When the elevator came to a jarring stop, Perry Mason opened both doors, walked out into the corridor. He found a right angle turn in the corridor, turned to the left, walked the length of the corridor and came to apartment 302. He started to rap with his knuckles when he noticed a bell button to the right of the door. He pushed his thumb against the bell button and heard the whir of a buzzer on the inside of the apartment.

There was no sound of motion.

Mason waited and pushed his finger on the buzzer once more. When there was no response, he pounded with his knuckles on the panels of the door. He saw light in the apartment and bent to the keyhole.

He waited for a few silent seconds; then, frowning, tried the knob. The knob turned readily, the latch clicked and the door swung open.

Perry Mason stepped into a room which was fitted as a combination sitting and diningroom. There was a small kitchenette on the right. On the left was a closed door. The room was empty. On the table lay a man's felt hat, a cane, a pair of gray gloves and two slips of paper.

Perry Mason walked over to the table and picked up the slips of paper. Both of them were telephone calls which had been received and evidently placed in the pigeonhole at the desk, to be given to the occupant of apartment 302 when he should call for his key.

One of the messages simply said, "Mr. Patton: Call Harcourt 63891 and ask for Margy–6:05 P.M.»

The other message read, "Mr. Patton: Tell Thelma Margy will be about twenty minutes late–8:00 P.M.»

Perry Mason stared frowningly at the two slips of paper, dropped them back on the table, picked up the gray hat and looked at the initials on the band. They were F.A.P.

Perry Mason stared toward the closed door on his left.

He let his right hand drop to the edge of the stained table and made little drumming motions with his fingers. Then, reaching a decision, he strode toward the door and opened it.

There were lights burning in the bedroom just as they had been burning in the room he had entered. To the left of the door was the door of the bathroom, which was open. In the opposite corner was a bed and across from the bed was a dresser. The mirror on the dresser showed a reflection of the corner beyond the bathroom which Perry Mason could not see from the door in which he stood.

The reflection in the mirror showed the slippered feet of a man, the toes pointed upward at an angle. Above the slippers was a glimpse of bare leg, and then the fringe of a bathrobe.

Perry Mason stood absolutely motionless for a second or two, his eyes staring at the reflection in the mirror.

He looked over toward the bed and saw a man's coat, shirt, tie and trousers flung on the bed, apparently without any attempt whatever at order. The coat was wrinkled and one sleeve was pulled up inside of itself; the trousers were flung in a heap. The shirt was at the opposite corner of the bed.

Underneath the bed were shoes and socks. The shoes were tan oxfords, the socks were gray. Mason looked at the necktie. It too was gray. The trousers and coat were gray.

Perry Mason stepped into the room and walked around the corner of the bathroom.

He stood staring at the body which lay on the floor.

The body was that of a man approximately fifty years of age, with gray hair, closecropped, grizzled mustache, and a mole on his right cheek.

The body was attired in underwear, with a silk bathrobe thrown over the shoulders, the right arm through the sleeve, the robe lying loose over the left shoulder, and the left arm bare. One hand was sprawled out with the fingers clutched; the other hand was lying across the chest. The man's body lay on its back, and the eyes were partially open and glazing in death.

There was a stab wound in the man's left breast from which blood had spurted and was still welling in a thick viscid pool which stained the bathrobe and discolored the carpet. A few feet away from the body there lay on the carpet a longbladed knife of the sort that is frequently used for cutting bread. It was a knife that had a blade some three inches wide at the base, and which tapered uniformly to a point. The blade was some nine inches long. The knife was covered with blood, and had evidently been dropped after it had been pulled from the man's body.

Perry Mason carefully avoided the blood, bent down and felt of the man's wrist. There was no pulse. The wrist was still warm.

The lawyer looked about the room at the various windows. One of them—the one by the bed—opened on a fire escape, and the bed was slightly indented, as though a person had either lain on it, or had crawled across it. Mason tried the door which led from the bedroom to the hallway. It was locked and bolted from the inside. He took his handkerchief and carefully wiped off the doorknob where his fingers had touched it. He walked back to the door which led from the sittingroom to the bedroom and polished the knob of that door with his handkerchief. Then he did the same thing to the knob of the door which led from the livingroom to the corridor.

As he was polishing the doorknob, his eye noticed some object lying on the floor near the corner of the room. He walked to it. It was, he saw, a leathercovered billy, or blackjack, with a leather thong on the end to be looped over the wrist.

He bent to examine it, without touching it, and noticed that there was blood on it.

Lying on the floor, near the table on which the hat, gloves and stick reposed, was some brown wrapping paper which had not been crumpled, but had evidently been dropped to the floor and was stiff enough to have retained something of its original shape.

Perry Mason noticed that the wrapping paper was creased as though it might have been wrapped about the knife that he had seen in the other room.

He opened the door to the corridor, taking care to hold his handkerchief over his fingertips as he did so. He started to polish the outer knob of the door, then thought better of it. He stepped into the corridor and pushed the door shut with his right hand, making no effort to keep his fingers from touching the outside knob.

He was just closing the door when he heard the clang of the elevator door and a woman's voice saying, "… you can hear her just as soon as you get opposite the door. She's crying and laughing and saying something about lucky legs."

There were pounding steps in the corridor, and a man's gruff voice said, "Probably just a woman having hysterics over a love affair."

"But I heard something fall, Officer. It sounded like a body. It was a jarring thud…"

Perry Mason looked toward the far end of the corridor. It was a blind corridor with no window. He looked back toward the bend in the corridor, whipped some passkeys from his pocket, selected one and inserted it in the lock of the door. The key worked smoothly. The bolt clicked into place, and Perry Mason was slipping the key back into his pocket as an officer in uniform barged around the bend in the corridor and came to an abrupt stop as he saw Perry Mason in front of the door of apartment 302.