Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Howling Dog

"And I get three hundred dollars for doing it?"

"Three hundred dollars when the job is finished."

"When's the job going to be finished?"

"There may not be anything more to it," he told her, "but you've got to keep in touch with me so that I can reach you at any time. Give me your telephone number and arrange so that I can reach you on short notice any time I want to."

"And how do I find the taxicab driver?"

"In exactly fifteen minutes," Perry Mason told her, "the taxicab driver will come up to the corner of Ninth and Masonic Streets, and telephone in to his office to find out if there are any calls for him. The particular taxi that you want is a Checker cab, number 86C. You telephone in to the head office of the taxicab company, tell them that you left an article in the cab, and ask them to let you know where the cabbie is as soon as he reports. Leave them a number so they can call you back. They'll call you back in fifteen minutes, when he reports, and tell you that he's at Ninth and Masonic. You tell them that you're right near there, so you'll go and pick him up. Pretend that you recognize him. You can spot him from the number on the cab. Be a little friendly with him."

"Okay," she said, "anything else?"

"Yes," he told her, "you've got to talk in a peculiar tone of voice."

"What sort of tone of voice?"

"High and fast."

"Like this?" she asked, raising her voice, and saying rapidly: "I beg your pardon, but I think I left my handkerchief in your taxicab."

"No," he said, "that's too high and not fast enough. Try it a little lower, and you've got to drag out the ends of the words a little bit more. You're clipping them off too much. Put kind of a little emphasis on the word ends."

Mae Sibley watched him closely, her head cocked slightly on one side, in the attitude of a bird listening. She closed her eyes.

"Like this?" she asked: "I beg your pardon, but didn't I leave my handkerchief in your taxicab?"

"That's a little more like it," he said, "but you've got to do it more like this. Now listen: 'I beg your pardon, but didn't I leave my handkerchief in your taxicab? "

"I think I get you," she said. "It's a trick of talking rapidly until you come to the last word in each phrase, and then you drawl out the end of it."

"Maybe that's it," he said. "Go ahead and try it. Let's see how it works."

She flashed him a sudden smile. "I beg your pardon," she said, "but I think I left my handkerchief in your taxi cab."

"That's it," he told her. "It's not perfect, but it's good enough. Now get started. You haven't got much time. Della, you've got a black fur coat hanging in the closet. Give it to her. Okay, go ahead. Put on your coat, sister, and then grab a taxi and beat it out to the Breedmont Hotel. You can call the cab office from there. They'll have the cab reporting in about ten minutes now. You've just about got time to put through your calls and make it, and make it snappy."

He ushered her to the door, turned to Della Street, and said, "Get Paul Drake on the line, and tell him to come up here right away."

She nodded, and her fingers worked the dial of the telephone.

Perry Mason started pacing back and forth across the office, his face immobile, his stare fixed.

"He'll be right up," she said. "What is it, chief, can you tell me?"

Perry Mason shook his head.

"Not yet, I can't, Della. I'm not certain, myself, just what it is."

"But what's happened?"

"Plenty," he told her, "and the trouble is it doesn't fit together."

"What's bothering you?" she asked.

"I am wondering," he said, "why that dog howled, and why he quit howling. Sometimes I think I know why the dog howled, and then I can't figure why he quit howling. Sometimes I figure that it's all goofy."

"You can't expect things to dovetail together too accurately," she told him, her eyes dark with concern. "You've just come out of one big case, and now you're plunging right in on another."

"I know it," he told her. "It's something of a strain, but I can stand it all right. That isn't what's bothering me. What's bothering me is why the facts don't fit together. Don't ever fool yourself that facts don't fit, if you get the right explanation. They're just like jigsaw puzzles — when you get them right, they're all going to fit together."

"What doesn't fit in this case?" she asked.

"Nothing fits," he said, then glanced up as there was a knock at the outer door.

"Paul Drake, I guess," he said.

He strode to the door, opened it, and nodded to the tall detective.

"Come in, Paul," he said. "I want you to get the dope on the man that Thelma Benton went out with; the man who drove the Chevrolet coupe, 6M9245."

Paul Drake's smile was slow and goodnatured.

"Don't think you're the only one that can put any pep into your work," he said. "I've had my men working on that, and already have the answer for you. The fellow is Carl Trask. He's a young man who's drifted around and has a police record. Right at present he's engaged in doing some smalltime gambling."

"Can you find out anything more than that about him?"

"In time, yes. We're getting stuff. In fact, we're getting stuff coming in from all over the country. We've got a lot more reports on the situation in Santa Barbara. I've checked down everybody who was in the household — even including the Chinese cook."

"That's right," Perry Mason said. "I'm interested in that cook. What happened to him?"

"They made some kind of a deal with him, by which he agreed to be deported. I don't know just what it was. I think that Clinton Foley got in touch with the Federal authorities to find out what it was all about; found there was no question but what the boy was in this country illegally. So Foley worked out a deal by which the Chink was to be deported at once, without being held for further examination or trial, and gave him enough money to set himself up in some sort of business in Canton. Our money buys a lot of Chinese money, at the present rate of exchange, and money means a lot more in China."

"Find out anything else about him?" asked Perry Mason. "That is, the cook?"

"I found out that there's something funny about the tipoff that caused the Federal authorities to go out there and round him up."

"What sort of a tipoff was it?"

"I don't know exactly, but, from all I can gather, some man telephoned and said that he understood Ah Wong was in the country without a proper certificate; that he didn't want to disclose his identity or have his name used in any way, but he wanted something done about it."

"Chinese or white man?" asked Perry Mason.

"Apparently a white man, and apparently rather well educated. He talked like an educated man."

"Well," said Mason, "go on."

"That's all there is, definite," said the detective, "but one of the clerks in the immigration office handled that anonymous tip, and also talked with Foley over the telephone. She's got a goofy idea that it was Foley who gave the tipoff."

"Why would Foley do that?" Mason asked.

"Search me," said the detective, "probably there's nothing to it. I'm simply telling you what the clerk told me."

Perry Mason took a package of cigarettes from his pocket, gave one to Della Street, then to Paul Drake. He lit Della's cigarette, then Drake's, and would have lit his own from the same match, but Della Street stopped him.

He smoked in silence for several minutes.

"Well," said Drake at length, "what are we here for?"

Perry Mason said, "I want you to get handwriting specimens from Paula Cartright; from Cartright's housekeeper; and from this woman, Thelma Benton. I'm going to get a sample from Bessie Forbes."

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

"I'm not ready to talk yet," Mason said. "I want you to wait here for a while, Paul." And he began pacing the floor, restlessly.