Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

Sergeant Hoffman opened the front door.

There were four or five police cars parked in the driveway. The car that had just driven up was on the outside of the circle of parked cars. It was a roadster with side curtains up. A vague form at the wheel was staring at the house. The white blur of his face could be seen through the side curtains of the car. He was holding one hand on the horn which kept up a steady, incessant racket.

Sergeant Hoffman stepped out into the light on the porch, and the noise of the horn ceased.

The door of the roadster opened, and a voice called in thick accents:

“Digley. I got… flat tire… can’t change… don’t dare bend over… don’t feel well. You come fixsh car… fixsh tire.”

Perry Mason remarked casually, “That probably will be the nephew, Carl Griffin. We’ll see what he has to say.”

Bill Hoffman grunted. “If I’m any judge at this distance, he won’t be able to say much.”

Together they moved toward the car.

The young man crawled out from behind the steering wheel, felt vaguely with a groping foot for the step of the roadster, and lurched forward. He would have fallen, had it not been for his hand which caught and held one of the supports of the top. He stood there, weaving uncertainly back and forth.

“Got flat tire,” he said. “Want Digley… you’re not Digley. There’s two of you… not either one of you Digley. Who the hell are you? What you want shish time of night? ‘Snot a nicesh time night for men to come pay call.”

Bill Hoffman moved forward.

“You’re drunk,” he said.

The man leered at him with owlish scrutiny.

“Course I’m drunk… wash schpose I shtayed out for? Course I’m drunk.”

Hoffman said patiently: “Are you Carl Griffin?”

“Coursh I’m Carl Griffin.”

“All right,” said Bill Hoffman. “You’d better snap out of it. Your uncle has been murdered.”

There was a moment of silence. The man who held to the top of the roadster shook his head two or three times, as though trying to shake away some mental fog which gripped him.

When he spoke, his voice was more crisp.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Your uncle,” said the Sergeant. “That is, I presume he’s your uncle, George C. Belter. He was murdered an hour or an hour and a half ago.”

The reek of whiskey enveloped the man. He was struggling to get his selfpossession. He took two or three deep breaths, and then said, “You’re drunk.”

Sergeant Hoffman smiled. “No,Griffin, we’re not drunk,” he said, patiently. “You’re the one that’s drunk. You’ve been out going places and doing things. You’d better come in the house and see if you can pull yourself together.”

“Did you say ‘murdered’?” asked the young man.

“That’s what I said—murdered,” repeated Sergeant Hoffman.

The young man started walking toward the house. He was holding his head very erect with his shoulders back.

“If he was murdered,” he said, “it was that damned woman that did it.”

“Who do you mean?” asked Sergeant Hoffman.

“That babyfaced bitch he married,” said the young man.

Hoffman took the young man’s arm and turned back to Perry Mason.

“Mason,” he said, “would you mind switching off the motor on that car and turning off the lights?”

Carl Griffin paused, and turned unsteadily back.

“Change tire, too,” he said, “right front tire—it’s been flat for miles and miles… better change it.”

Perry Mason switched off the motor and lights, slammed the door on the roadster, and walked rapidly to catch up with the pair ahead of him.

He was in time to open the front door for Bill Hoffman and the man on his arm.

Seen under the light in the hallway, Carl Griffin was a rather goodlooking young man with a face which was flushed with drink, marked with dissipation. His eyes were red and bleary, but there was a certain innate dignity about him, a stamp of breeding which made itself manifest in the manner in which he tried to adjust himself to the emergency.

Bill Hoffman faced him, studied him carefully.

“Do you suppose that you could sober up enough to talk with us,Griffin?” he asked.

Griffin nodded. “Just a minute… I’ll be all right.”

He pushed away from Sergeant Hoffman and staggered toward a lavatory which opened off the reception room on the lower floor.

Hoffman looked at Mason.

“He’s pretty drunk,” said Mason.

“Sure he’s drunk,” Hoffman replied, “but it isn’t like an amateur getting drunk. He’s used to it. He drove the car all the way up here with the roads wet, and with a tire flat.”

“Yes,” agreed Mason, “he could drive the car all right.”

“Apparently no love lost between him and Eva Belter,” Sergeant Hoffman pointed out.

“You mean what he said about her?” asked Mason.

“Sure,” said Hoffman. “What else would I mean?”

“He was drunk,” Mason said. “You wouldn’t suspect a woman on account of the thoughtless remark of a drunken man, would you?”

“Sure, he was drunk,” said Hoffman, “and he piloted the car up here, all right. Maybe he could think straight even if he was drunk.”

Perry Mason shrugged his shoulders.

“Have it your own way,” he said, carelessly.

From the bathroom came the sounds of violent retchings.

“I’ll bet you he sobers up,” remarked Sergeant Hoffman, watching Perry Mason with wary eyes, “and says the same thing about the woman when he’s sober.”

“I’ll bet you he’s drunk as a lord, no matter whether he seems to be sober or not,” snapped Mason. “Some of these fellows are pretty deceptive when it comes to carrying their booze. They get so they can act as sober as judges, but they haven’t very much of an idea what they’re doing or saying.”

Bill Hoffman looked at him with a suggestion of a twinkle in his eyes.

“Sort of discounting in advance what ever it may be that he’s going to say, eh, Mason?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Hoffman laughed.

“No,” he said, “you didn’t say it. Not in exactly those words.”

“How about getting him some black coffee?” asked Mason. “I think I can find the kitchen and put some coffee on.”

“The housekeeper should be out there,” Hoffman said. “I don’t want to offend you, Mason, but I really want to talk to this man alone, anyway. I don’t know exactly what your status in this case is. You seem to be a friend of the family and a lawyer both.”

“That’s all right,” Mason agreed readily enough. “I understand your position, Sergeant. I happen to be out here, and I’m sticking around.”

Hoffman nodded. “You’ll find the housekeeper in the kitchen, I think. Mrs. Veitch, her name is. We had her and her daughter upstairs questioning them. Go on out there and see if they can scare up some coffee. Get lots of black coffee. I think that the boys upstairs would like it as well as this chap,Griffin.”

“Okay,” Mason said. He went through the folding doors from the dining room, then pushed through a swinging door into a serving pantry, and from there into the kitchen.

The kitchen was enormous, well lit, and well equipped. Two women were seated at a table. They were in straightbacked chairs, and were sitting close to each other. They had been talking in low tones when Perry Mason stepped into the room, and they ceased their conversation abruptly and looked up.

One of them was a woman in the late forties, with hair that was shot with gray, deepset, lackluster, black eyes that seemed to have been pulled into her face by invisible strings that had worked the eyes so far back into the sockets it was hard to tell their expression. They hid from sight back in the shadowed hollows. She had a long face, a thin, firm mouth, and high cheek bones. She was dressed in black.