Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Howling Dog

"Wait a minute," said Mason. "You say she rang the doorbell. How do you know?"

"I saw her bending over by the door. I figured that was what she was doing."

"Couldn't she have been opening the lock with a key?"

"Yes, she could have done that," said Wheeler. "Come to think of it, maybe that's what she was doing. I figured at the time she was ringing the bell, because that's what I expected her to do."

"Is there any chance the woman could have been Thelma Benton?"

"I don't think so. When Thelma Benton left she was wearing a different kind of coat. This woman wore a long black fur coat."

"How long was she in there?" asked the lawyer.

"She was in there fifteen minutes — maybe sixteen minutes. I've got the cab marked as driving away right after she went in. Then the cab came back in twelve minutes, and the woman left at seven fortytwo."

"Did you hear any commotion? Dogs barking, or anything?"

"No, we didn't. But we wouldn't have heard anything anyway. You see, we were a ways down the block. It was the best place we could find to watch. The chief told us that he wanted us to be absolutely certain we weren't spotted. We probably could have come up a little closer after it got dark, but during the daytime we'd have been spotted in a minute if we hung around the place. So we got in this house that was down the street, and used binoculars to see what was going on."

"Go ahead," said Perry Mason. "What happened next?"

"After the woman drove away, nothing happened, until you showed up. You came in a yellow cab, and the cab number was 362. You got in there at eight twentynine, according to my watch, and we don't know what happened after that. We telephoned in to Drake, and Drake told us to get off the job right away and come in to the place here, but as we were driving away, we heard a bunch of sirens, so we wondered if anything had happened."

"All right," Mason told him, "don't wonder. It's not what you're paid to do. You're paid to watch, do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Well, then," Mason said, "here's what I want. I want you to round up that Checker driver, number 86C, and bring him up to the place here. No, wait a minute, don't bring him up to the place. Get him spotted and telephone me here. I'll go talk with him myself."

"Anything else?"

"Not right away," said Perry Mason. He turned to Paul Drake.

"You're moving heaven and earth to get a line on these people I told you about?"

Drake nodded. "I think I've got something for you, Perry," he said, "but let's get rid of these boys first."

"On your way," Mason told them. "Get down to the Checker office. Find out who's running 86C, and get him spotted for me, then telephone the office here just as soon as you've got him spotted. Another thing, it might be a good plan for you boys not to listen to any gossip while you're on the job."

"How do you mean?" Drake asked.

"I mean," Mason said, "that I don't want these boys getting mixed into anything, other than being a couple of private dicks, working for day wages. Do you get me?"

"I think I get you," said Drake. "You boys under stand?"

"We understand," Wheeler said.

"Get started then," said Mason.

He watched the two men as they left the office, his face set and stern, as though carved from granite, his steady eyes containing a smoldering light in their somber depths.

When the door had closed he turned to Paul Drake.

"Paul," he said, "there was a telegram sent from Midwick to Clinton Foley. That telegram purported to have been signed by the woman who had posed as Foley's wife, and asked him not to do anything criminally against Cartright. I want to get a photostatic copy of that telegram. Do you suppose you can work it?"

"It's going to be a job," Drake said.

"Never mind how much of a job it is; I want you to get it."

"I'll do what I can, Perry."

"Get started on that now."

Paul Drake reached for a telephone, paused a moment, then said, "I'd better go in another office and put that call through. Stick around, I've got something to tell you."

"I've got lots to tell you," Perry Mason said, "only I'm not going to tell you right now."

Drake stepped through a communicating door to an other office, closed the door behind him, was gone five minutes, returned and nodded to Mason.

"I think I can fix it," he said.

"All right," Mason said. "Now tell me what you've found out…"

The telephone rang. Paul Drake made a gesture for silence, scooped up the receiver, said, "Hello," then listened.

"Got the address?" he asked at length.

He nodded his head, then turned to Mason.

"Make a note of this, will you, Perry? There's paper over there on the desk, and a pencil."

Mason walked to the desk, picked up a piece of paper, and held a pencil over it.

"Shoot," he said.

Paul Drake said in a slow voice, "Breedmont Hotel — Breedmont Hotel. Ninth and Masonic. Room 764, and the name is Mrs. C. M. Dangerfield, is that right?" He paused for a moment, then nodded to Perry Mason.

"That's it, Perry," he said. "That's all."

He slipped the receiver back on its hook.

"Who's that?" asked Perry Mason.

"That," said Paul Drake, "is the name under which Mrs. Bessie Forbes is registered at a hotel here in the city. Do you want to go see her? The room number is 764."

Perry Mason heaved a sigh of relief, folded the paper and thrust it in his pocket.

"Now," he said, "we're commencing to get some place."

"You want to go see her now?" asked Paul Drake.

"We've got to see that taxi driver first," Mason told him. "We'll have to get him up here now. There's no time for me to go to him."

"Why is the taxi driver so important?"

"I want to see that taxi driver, and see him first," Mason said. "Also I want to get a shorthand reporter to take down the conversation. I have an idea I've got to get Della Street back to the office."

Paul Drake grinned at him.

"You don't need to worry about that girl," he said, "she's back at the office. She telephoned in a little while ago to see if I'd heard anything from you, and I told her you'd sent in an S O S to pull the shadows off the Foley house, and that I thought it was something important, so she said she was coming down to the office and stick around awhile."

Perry Mason nodded his head slowly.

"That," he said, "is the kind of cooperation that counts."

The telephone rang again. Drake picked up the receiver, said, "Hello," listened for a moment, then nodded to Perry Mason.

"The boys have located that cab driver, Perry," he said. "They haven't talked with him yet, but they've found out from the main office where he is. He just checked in with a report."

"Tell the boys to go and hire the cab; to take it to my office and bring the driver up with them. Make some excuse to bring him up. Tell him they've got a trunk or a suitcase to bring down — anything to get him up there. And tell 'em to do it right away."

Drake nodded, transmitted Mason's instructions over the telephone, hung up and looked at Mason.

"What's next?" he asked. "Do we go up to your office and wait?"

Perry Mason nodded.

The cab driver fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair, glanced at Perry Mason, then let his eyes slither away to the faces of the two detectives, then looked at Della Street.

Della Street, perched on the edge of a chair, knees crossed, notebook held open on the desk, smiled reassuringly at him.

"What's the idea?" the driver asked.

"Just want to find out some information from you," said Mason. "We're collecting some evidence in connection with a case."

"What sort of a case?" asked the driver.

Mason nodded to Della Street, and she touched her pen to the notebook, streaming off a series of cabalistic signs from the point of the pen.