Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

The other woman was very much younger, not over twentytwo or three. Her hair was jet black and glossy. Her eyes were a snapping black, and their brightness emphasized the dullness of the deepsunken eyes of the older woman. Her lips were full and very red. Her face had received careful attention with rouge and powder. The eyebrows were thin, black and arched, the eyelashes long.

“You’re Mrs. Veitch?” asked Perry Mason, addressing the older woman.

She nodded in tightlipped silence.

The girl at her side spoke in a rich, throaty voice.

“I’m Norma Veitch, her daughter. What is it you wanted? Mother’s all upset.”

“Yes, I know,” apologized Mason. “I wondered if we could get some coffee. Carl Griffin has just come home, and I think he’s going to need it. And there’s a bunch of men working on the case upstairs who will want some.”

Norma Veitch got to her feet. “Why, I guess so. It’s all right isn’t it, Mother?” she asked.

She glanced at the older woman, and the older woman nodded her head once more.

“I’ll get it, Mother,” said Norma Veitch.

“No,” said the older woman, speaking in a voice that was as dry as the rustling of corn husks. “I’ll get it. You don’t know where things are.”

She pushed back her chair and walked across the kitchen to a cupboard. She slid back a door and took down a huge coffee percolator and a can of coffee. Her face was absolutely expressionless, but she moved as though she were very tired.

She was flatchested and flathipped and walked with springless steps. Her entire manner was that of dejection.

The girl turned to Mason and flashed him a smile from her full red lips.

“You’re a detective?” she asked.

Mason shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’m the man that was here with Mrs. Belter. I’m the one that called the police.”

Norma Veitch said, “Oh, yes. I heard something about you.”

Mason turned to the mother.

“I can make the coffee all right, Mrs. Veitch, if you don’t feel able.”

“No,” she said in that same dry, expressionless voice. “I can make it all right.”

She poured coffee into the container, put water in the percolator, walked over to the gas stove, lit the gas, looked at the percolator for a moment, then walked with her peculiar, flatfooted gait back to the chair, sat down, folded her hands on her lap, and lowered her eyes so that she was staring at the top of the table. She continued to stare there in fixed intensity.

Norma Veitch looked up at Perry Mason. “My,” she said, “it was horrible. Wasn’t it?”

Mason nodded, remarked casually, “You didn’t hear the shot, I presume?”

The girl shook her head.

“No, I was sound asleep. In fact, I didn’t wake up until after the officers came. They got Mother up, and I guess they didn’t know that I was sleeping in the adjoining room. They wanted to look through Mother’s room while she was upstairs, I guess. Anyway, the first thing I knew, I woke up and there was a man standing by the bed looking down at me.”

She lowered her eyes and tittered slightly.

One gathered that she had not found the experience unpleasant.

“What happened?” asked Mason.

“They acted as though they thought they had discovered the nigger in the woodpile,” she said. “They made me put on clothes and wouldn’t even let me out of their sight while I was dressing. They took me upstairs, and gave me what they call a third degree, I guess.”

“What did you tell them?” asked Mason.

“Told them the truth,” she said, “that I went to bed and went to sleep, and woke up to find somebody staring down at me.” She seemed rather pleased as she added, “They didn’t believe me.”

Her mother sat at the table, hands folded on her lap, eyes staring steadily in fixed intensity at the center of the table.

“And you didn’t hear anything, or see anything?” asked Perry Mason.

“Not a thing.”

“Have you any ideas about it?”

She shook her head.

“None that would bear repeating.”

He glanced at her sharply.

“Have you any that wouldn’t bear repeating?” he inquired.

She nodded her head.

“Of course, I’ve only been around here a week or so, but in that time…”

“Norma!” said her mother, in a voice which had suddenly lost its dry huskiness and cracked like the lash of a whip.

The girl lapsed into abrupt silence.

Perry Mason glanced at the older woman. She had not so much as raised her eyes from the table when she spoke.

“Did you hear anything, Mrs. Veitch?” he asked.

“I am a servant. I hear nothing, and I see nothing.”

“Rather commendable for one who is a servant, as far as minor matters are concerned,” he observed, “but I think you will find the law has ideas of its own upon the matter, and that you will be required to see and to hear.”

“No,” she said, without so much as moving a muscle of her head. “I saw nothing.”

“And heard nothing?”

“And heard nothing.”

Perry Mason scowled. Somehow he sensed that the woman was concealing something.

“Did you answer those questions in just that way when you were questioned upstairs?” he asked.

“I think,” she said, “the coffee is about ready to start percolating. You can turn the fire down as soon as it does, so that it doesn’t boil over.”

Mason turned to the coffee. The percolator was specially designed to heat a maximum of water in a small amount of time, and the fire under it was a blue flame of terrific heat. Steam was commencing to rise from the water.

“I’ll watch the coffee,” he said, “but I am interested to know whether or not you answered the questions in exactly that way when you were upstairs.”

“What way?” she countered.

“The way you answered them here.”

“I told them the same thing,” she said, “that I saw nothing and heard nothing.”

Norma Veitch giggled. “That’s her story,” she said, “and she sticks to it.”

The mother snapped, “Norma!”

Mason stared at them both, his thoughtful face apparently absolutely placid. Only his eyes were hard and calculating.

“You know,” he said, “I’m a lawyer. If you have anything to confide in me, now would make an excellent time.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Veitch, tonelessly.

“How’s that?” asked Perry Mason.

“I merely agreed,” she said, “that this would be an excellent time.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Well?” said Mason.

“But I have nothing to confide,” she said, her eyes still fixed on the table top.

At that moment, the percolator commenced to bubble. Mason turned down the fire.

“I’ll get some cups and saucers,” said Norma, jumping to her feet.

Mrs. Veitch said, “Sit down, Norma. I’ll do it.” She pushed back her chair, walked to one of the cupboards, and took down some cups and saucers. “They’ll drink out of these.”

“Mother,” said Norma, “those are the cups and saucers that are kept for the chauffeurs and servants.”

“These are police officers,” said Mrs. Veitch. “They’re just the same.”

“No, they aren’t, Mother,” said Norma.

“I’m doing this,” said Mrs. Veitch. “You know what the master would have said had he been alive. He’d have given them nothing.”

Norma Veitch said, “Well, he isn’t alive. Mrs. Belter is going to be the one that runs things.”

Mrs. Veitch turned and looked steadily at her daughter from those deepset, lackluster eyes.

“Don’t be too sure that she is,” she said.

Perry Mason poured some of the coffee into the cups, and then poured it back through the coffee container in the percolator. When he had poured it through the second time, it was black and steaming.