Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

“I mean just this,Griffin,” he said, slowly and ominously, “you can’t pull that stuff. You’re trying to protect somebody, or trying to be a gentleman, or something of the sort. It won’t go. You either tell me what you know here and now, or else you go to jail as a material witness.”

Griffin’s face flushed. “I say,” he protested, “isn’t that rather steep?”

“I don’t give a damn how steep it is,” Hoffman said. “This is a murder case, and you’re sitting here trying to play button, button, who’s got the button with me. Now come on, and kick through. What was said at that time, and how did it happen that the will was exhibited to you and to your lawyer?”

Griffin spoke reluctantly. “You understand that I’m telling you this under protest?”

“Sure,” said Hoffman, “go ahead and tell me. What is it?”

“Well,”Griffin said slowly and with evident reluctance, “I’ve intimated that Uncle George and his wife weren’t on the best of terms. Uncle George had an idea that perhaps she was going to bring a suit against him for divorce in the event she could get the sort of evidence she wanted. Uncle George and I had some business dealings together, you know, and one time when Atwood and myself were discussing a business matter with him, he suddenly brought this other thing up. It was embarrassing to me, and I didn’t want to go ahead and discuss it, but Atwood looked at it just the way any lawyer would.”

Carl Griffin turned to Perry Mason. “I think you understand how that is, sir. I understand you’re an attorney.”

Bill Hoffman kept his eyes onGriffin’s face. “Never mind him. Go on. What happened?”

“Well,” said Griffin, “Uncle George made that single crack about him and his wife not being on the best of terms, and he held out a paper which he had in his hands, and which seemed to be all in his handwriting, and asked Mr. Atwood as a lawyer, if a will made entirely in the handwriting of the person who wrote it, was good without witnesses, or whether it needed to be witnessed. He said that he’d made his will, and that he thought there might be a contest because he wasn’t leaving much of his property to his wife. In fact, I believe he mentioned the sum of five thousand dollars, and he said that the bulk of the estate was to go to me.”

“You didn’t read the will?” asked Sergeant Hoffman.

“Well, not exactly. No, not in the way that you’d pick it up and look it through, word for word. I glanced at it, and saw that it was in his handwriting, and heard what he had to say about it. Atwood, I think, read it more carefully.”

“All right,” said Hoffman, “go ahead. Then what?”

“That was all,” saidGriffin.

“No, it wasn’t,” Hoffman insisted. “What else?”

Griffin shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, well,” he said, “he went on to say something else, the way a man will sometimes. I didn’t pay any attention to it.”

“Never mind that line of hooey,” pressed Hoffman. “What was it he said?”

“He said,” blurtedGriffin, his face coloring, “that he wanted it fixed so that if anything happened to him, his wife wouldn’t profit by it. He said that he wouldn’t put it past her to get his fortune by expediting his end, in the event she found she couldn’t get a good slice of it through divorce proceedings. Now you know everything I know. And I don’t think it’s any of your damned business. I’m telling you this under protest, and I don’t like your attitude.”

“Never mind the side comments,” Hoffman said. “I presume that accounts for your comment when you were drunk, and right after you had first heard about the murder. To the effect that…”

Griffin interrupted, holding up his hand.

“Please, Sergeant,” he said, “don’t bring that up. If I said it, I don’t remember it, and I certainly didn’t mean it.”

Perry Mason said, “Maybe you didn’t mean it, but you certainly managed…”

Sergeant Hoffman whirled on him.

“That’ll do from you, Mason!” he said. “I’m running this. You’re here as an audience, and you can keep quiet, or get out!”

“You’re not frightening me a damned bit, Sergeant,” Mason said. “I’m here in the house of Mrs. Eva Belter, as attorney for Mrs. Eva Belter, and I hear a man making statements which are bound to be damaging to her reputation, if not otherwise. I am going to see that those statements are substantiated or withdrawn.”

The look of patience had entirely vanished from Hoffman’s eyes. He stared at Mason moodily.

“Well,” he said, “stick up for your rights if you want to. And I don’t know but what you’ve got some explaining to do at that. It’s a damn funny thing that the police come here and find a murder, with you and a woman sitting here talking things over. And it’s a damn funny thing, that when a woman discovers her husband has been murdered, she goes and rings up her attorney, before she does anything else.”

Mason remarked hotly, “That’s not a fair statement, and you know it. I’m a friend of hers.”

“So it would seem,” said Sergeant Hoffman, dryly.

Mason planted his feet wide apart and squared his shoulders. “Now, let’s get this straight,” he said. “I’m representing Eva Belter. There’s no reason on God’s green earth for throwing any mud at her. George Belter wasn’t worth a damned thing to her dead. He was, to this guy. This guy comes drifting in with an alibi that won’t stand up and starts taking cracks at my client.”

Griffin protested hotly.

Mason kept staring at Sergeant Hoffman. “By God, you can’t convict a woman with a lot of loose talk. It takes a jury to do that. And a jury can’t convict her until she’s proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The big sergeant looked at Perry Mason searchingly.

“And you’re looking for a reasonable doubt, Mason?”

Mason pointed his finger at Carl Griffin.

“Just so you won’t shoot off your face too much, young fellow,” he said, “if my client ever goes before a jury, don’t think I’m dumb enough to overlook the advantage I can get from dragging you and this will into the case.”

“You mean you think he’s guilty of this murder?” asked Sergeant Hoffman, coaxingly.

“I’m not a detective,” said Mason. “I’m a lawyer. I know that the jury can’t convict anybody as long as they’ve got a reasonable doubt. And if you start framing anything on my client, there sits my reasonable doubt right in that chair!”

Hoffman nodded.

“About what I expected,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let you sit in on this thing in the first place. Now you can get out!”

“I’m going,” Mason told him.

It was nearlythree o’clock in the morning when Perry Mason got Paul Drake on the telephone.

“Paul,” he said, “I’ve got another job for you, and it’s a rush job. Have you got any more men you can put on the case?”

Paul’s voice was sleepy.

“Gee, guy,” he said, “ain’t you ever satisfied?”

“Listen,” said Mason, “wake up and snap out of it. I’ve got a job that’s got to be done in a hurry, and you’ve got to beat the police to it.”

“How the devil can I beat the police to it?” asked Paul Drake.

“You can,” Mason told him, “because I happen to know that you’ve got access to certain records. You represented the Merchants Protective Association that kept duplicate records of all firearms sold in the city. Now, I want a Colt32 automatic placed, with number 127337. The police are going to dig into it as a matter of routine, along with a lot of fingerprint stuff, and it’ll probably be some time in the morning before they feed it through the mill. They know it’s important but they don’t figure there’s any great hurry about it. What I want you to do is to get the dope in advance of the police. I’ve simply got to beat them to it.”