Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

“What happened with the gun?” asked Paul Drake.

“A guy got shot with it once, right through the heart,” said Perry Mason.

Drake whistled. “Is that in connection with the other stuff I’ve been looking up?”

“I don’t think so,” Mason said, “but the police may. I’ve got to be in a position to protect my client. I want you to get the information, and get it before the police do.”

“Okay,” said Drake. “Where can I call you back?”

“You can’t,” Mason said. “I’ll call you.”

“When?”

“I’ll call you again in an hour.”

“I won’t have it by then,” protested Drake. “I couldn’t.”

“You’ve got to,” Mason insisted, “and I’ll call you anyway. Goodby.” And he hung up the telephone. He then called the number of Harrison Burke’s residence. There was no answer. He calledDella Street’s number, and her sleepy “Hello” came over the line, almost at once.

“This is Perry Mason, Della,” he said. “Wake up and get the sleepy dirt out of your eyes. We’ve got work to do.”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Aroundthree o’clock, or quarter past.”

“Okay,” she said. “What is it?”

“You awake all right?”

“Of course I’m awake. What do you think I’m doing, talking in my sleep?”

“Never mind the cracks,” he told her, “this is serious. Can you get some clothes on and get down to the office right away? I’ll order a taxi to be out at the house by the time you get dressed.”

“I’m dressing right now,” she answered. “Do I take time to make myself pretty, or do I just put on some clothes?”

“Better make yourself pretty,” he answered, “but don’t take too long doing it.”

“Right now,” she said, and hung up on him.

Mason telephoned a taxi company to send a cab out to her apartment. Then he left the all night drug store, from which he had been telephoning, got in his car, and drove rapidly to his office.

He switched on the lights, pulled down the shades, and started pacing the floor.

Back and forth, back and forth he paced, his hands behind his back, his head thrust forward, and slightly bowed. There was something of the appearance of a caged tiger in his manner. He seemed impatient, and yet it was a controlled impatience. A fighter who was cornered, savage, who didn’t dare make a false move.

A key sounded in the door, andDella Street walked in.

“Morning, chief,” she said. “You sure do keep hours!”

He beckoned to her to come in and sit down. “This,” he said, “is the start of a busy day.”

“What is it?” she asked, looking at him with troubled eyes.

“Murder.”

“We’re just representing a client?” she inquired.

“I don’t know. We may be mixed up in it.”

“Mixed up in it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s that woman,” she said savagely.

He shook his head impatiently. “I wish you’d get over those ideas, Della.”

“That’s right just the same,” she persisted. “I knew there was something about her. I knew there was trouble that was going to follow that woman around. I never did trust her.”

“Okay,” Mason said wearily. “Now forget that, and get your instructions. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, and you may have to carry on if anything happens that I can’t keep the ball rolling.”

“What do you mean,” she asked, “that you can’t?”

“Never mind about that.”

“But I do mind,” she said, eyes wide with apprehension. “You’re in danger.”

He ignored the remark. “This woman came to us as Eva Griffin. I tried to follow her, and couldn’t make it stick. Later on, I started a fight with Spicy Bits, and tried to find out who was really back of the sheet. It turned out to be a man named Belter who lived out onElmwood Drive. You’ll read about the place and the chap in the morning papers. I went out to see Belter and found he was a tough customer. While I was there, I ran into his wife. And she was none other than our client. Her real name is Eva Belter.”

“What was she trying to do?” askedDella Street. “Doublecross you?”

“No,” said Mason. “She was in a jam. She’d been places with a man, and her husband was on her back trail. He didn’t know who the woman was. It was the man he was after. But he was exposing the man through the scandal sheet, and eventually the identity of the woman would have come out.”

“Who is this man?” askedDella Street.

“Harrison Burke,” he said, slowly.

She arched her eyebrows and was silent.

Mason lit a cigarette.

“What does Harrison Burke have to say about it?” she asked after a little while.

Perry Mason made a gesture with his hands.

“He was the guy that kicked through with the money in the envelope; the coin that came into the office this afternoon by messenger.”

“Oh.”

There was silence for a minute or two. Both were thinking.

“Well,” she said at length, “go on. What am I going to read about in the papers tomorrow?”

He spoke in a monotone. “I went to bed, and Eva Belter called me sometime aftermidnight. Aroundtwelve thirty, I guess it was. It was raining to beat the band. She wanted me to come out and pick her up at a drug store. She said she was in trouble. I went out, and she told me that some man had been having an argument with her husband and shot him.”

“Did she know the man?”Della Street inquired softly.

“No,” said Mason, “she didn’t. She didn’t see him. She only heard his voice.”

“Did she know the voice?”

“She thought she did.”

“Who did she think it was?”

“Me.”

The girl looked at him steadily, her eyes not changing their expression in the least.

“Was it?”

“No. I was at home, in bed.”

“Can you prove it?” she asked, tonelessly.

“Good Lord,” he said, impatiently. “I don’t take an alibi to bed with me!”

“The lousy little doublecrosser!” More calmly she asked, “Then what happened?”

“We went out there, and found her husband dead. A 32Colt automatic. I got the number of it. One shot, right through the heart. He’d been taking a bath, and somebody shot him.”

Della Street’s eyes widened. “Then she got you out there before she notified the police?”

“Exactly,” said Mason. “The police don’t like that.”

The girl’s face was white. She sucked in her breath to say something, but thought better of it and remained silent.

Perry Mason went on, in his same monotone: “I had a runin with Sergeant Hoffman. There’s a nephew out there that I don’t like. He’s too much of a gentleman. The housekeeper’s concealing something, and I think her daughter is lying. I didn’t get a chance to talk with the other servants. The police held me downstairs while they made the investigation upstairs. But I had a chance to look around a little bit before the police got there.”

“How bad was your trouble with Sergeant Hoffman?” she asked.

“Bad enough,” he said, “the way things are.”

“You mean you have to stick up for your client?” she asked, her eyes suspiciously moist. “What’s going to happen next?”

“I don’t know. I think that the housekeeper is going to crack. They evidently haven’t gone after her very hard yet. But they will. I think she knows something. I don’t know what it is. I’m not even sure that Eva Belter gave me the full facts of the case.”

“If she did,” saidDella Street, savagely, “it’s the first time since she’s been in here that she hasn’t concealed something, and lied about something else. And that business of dragging you into it! Bah! The cat! I could kill her!”