Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

“No,” she said, “he went out early in the evening. In fact, I don’t think he was there for dinner. It seems to me that he went out to the golf club and played golf this afternoon. When did it start to rain?”

“Around six o’clock, I think,” said Mason. “Why?”

“Yes,” she said, “that’s the way I remember it. It was pleasant this afternoon, and Carl was playing golf. Then I think George said that he had telephoned he was going to stay out at the golf club for dinner and wouldn’t be in until late.”

“You’re sure he hadn’t come in?” asked Mason.

“Certain.”

“You’re sure that it wasn’t his voice that you heard up there in the room?”

She hesitated for a moment.

“No,” she said, “it was yours.”

Mason muttered an exclamation of annoyance.

“That is,” she said hastily, “it sounded like yours. It was a man who talked just like you. He had that same quiet way of dominating a conversation. He could raise his voice, and yet make it seem quiet and controlled, just like you, but I’ll never mention that to any one, never in the world! They could torture me, but I wouldn’t mention your name.”

She widened her blue eyes by an effort, and stared full into his face with that look of studied innocence.

Perry Mason stared at her, then shrugged his shoulders. “All right,” he said, “we’ll talk about that later. In the meantime you’ve got to get yourself together. Now were your husband and this other man quarreling about you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know!” she said. “Can’t you understand that I don’t know what they were talking about? I only know that I must go back there. What will happen if somebody else should discover the body and I should be gone?”

Mason said, “That’s all right, but you’ve waited this long, and a minute or two isn’t going to make any great difference now. There’s one thing I want to know before we go.”

“What is it?”

He reached over and took her face and turned it until the light from the globe in the top of the car was shining full on her face. Then he said, slowly, “Was it Harrison Burke that was up in the room with him when that shot was fired?”

She gasped. “My God, no!”

“Was Harrison Burke out there tonight?”

“No.”

“Did he call you up tonight or this afternoon?”

“No,” she said, “I don’t know anything about Harrison Burke. I haven’t seen him or heard from him since that night at the Beechwood Inn, and I don’t want to. He has done nothing but bring trouble into my life.”

Mason said, grimly: “Then, how did it happen that you knew that I had told him of your husband’s connection with Spicy Bits?”

She dropped her eyes from his, tried to shake her head free of his hands.

“Go on,” he said, remorselessly, “answer the question. Did he tell you that when he was out there tonight?”

“No,” she muttered in a subdued voice. “He told me that when he telephoned me this afternoon.”

“Then he did call up this afternoon, eh?”

“Yes.”

“How soon after I had been at his office, do you know?”

“I think it was right after.”

“Before he had sent me some money by messenger?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before? Why did you say that you hadn’t heard from him?”

“I forgot,” she said. “I did tell you earlier that he’d called up. If I had wanted to lie to you, I wouldn’t have told you at first that I’d heard from him.”

“Oh, yes, you would,” said Mason. “You told me then because you didn’t think there was any possibility that I would suspect him of having been in that room with your husband when the shot was fired.”

“That’s not so,” she said.

He nodded his head slowly.

“You’re just a little liar,” he said, judicially and dispassionately. “You can’t tell the truth. You don’t play fair with anybody, not even yourself. You’re lying to me right now. You know who that man was that was in the room.”

She shook her head. “No, no, no, no,” she said. “Won’t you understand, I don’t know who it was? I think it was you! That was why I didn’t call you from the house. I ran down to this drug store to call you. It’s almost a mile.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because,” she said, “I wanted to give you time to get home. Don’t you see? I wanted to be able to say that I called you and found you at your apartment, if I should be asked. It would have been awful to have called and found that you were out, after I recognized your voice.”

“You didn’t recognize my voice,” he said quietly.

“I thought I did,” she said demurely.

Mason said, “There’s no thinking about it. I’ve been in bed for the last two or three hours, but I couldn’t prove any alibi. If the police thought I’d been to the house I’d have the devil of a time trying to square myself. You’ve figured that all out.”

She looked up at him and suddenly flung her arms around his neck.

“Oh, Perry,” she said, “please don’t look at me that way. Of course, I’m not going to tell on you. You’re in this thing just as deep as I am. You did what you did to save me. We’re in it together. I’m going to stand by you, and you’re going to stand by me.”

He pushed her away and put his fingers on her wet arm, until she had released her hold. Then he turned her face once more until he could look in her eyes.

“We’re not in this thing a damned bit,” he said. “You’re my client, and I’m sticking by you. That’s all. You understand that?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Whose coat is that you’re wearing?”

“Carl’s. I found it in the corridor. I started out first in the rain, and then realized I would get soaking wet. There was a coat in the hallway, and I put it on.”

“Okay. You be thinking that over while I’m driving up to the place. I don’t know whether the police will be there or not. Do you know if any one else heard the shot?”

“No, I don’t think they did.”

“All right,” he said, “if we’ve got an opportunity to go over this thing before the police get there, you forget this business about running down to the drug store and putting in the telephone call. Tell them that you called me from the house, and then you ran down the hill to meet me. And that was why you were wet. You couldn’t stay in the house. You were afraid. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” she said, meekly.

Perry Mason switched out the dome light in the car and snapped back the gear lever, eased in the clutch, and started the machine boring through the rain.

She came over and cuddled closely to him, her left arm around his neck, her right arm resting on his leg.

“Oh,” she wailed, “I’m so afraid, and I feel so alone.”

“Shut up,” he said, “and think!”

He drove the car at a savage pace up the long grade, turned onElmwood Drive, and went into second as he climbed the knoll on which the big house was situated. He turned in at the driveway and parked the car directly in front of the porch.

“Now listen,” he said to her in a low voice, as he helped her out, “the house seems to be quiet. Nobody else heard the shot. The police aren’t here yet. You’ve got to use your head. If you’ve been lying to me, it will mean that you’re going to get into serious difficulties.”

“I haven’t been lying,” she said. “I told you the truth—honest to God.”

“Okay,” he said, and they sprinted across the porch.

“The door’s unlocked. I left it unlocked,” she said, “you can go right in.” And she hung back, in order to let him be the first to enter the house.

Perry Mason tried the door.