Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

Mason waved his hand, depreciatingly. “Never mind that. I’m in this now.”

“Does Harrison Burke know about this murder business?” she asked.

“I tried to get him on the telephone. He’s out.”

“What a sweet time for him to be out!” she exclaimed.

Mason smiled wearily. “Isn’t it?”

They looked at each other.

Della Street took a quick breath, started speaking impulsively.

“Look here,” she said, “you’re letting this woman get you in a funny position. You had words with this man who was killed. You were fighting his paper, and when you fight, you don’t do it gently. That woman trapped you to get you out there. She wanted you to be there when the police came. She’s getting ready to throw you to the wolves, if it looks as though her precious hands were going to get soiled. Now are you going to let her get away with that?”

“Not if I can help it,” he said, “but I won’t go back on her until I have to.”

Della Street’s face was white, her lips drawn into a thin, firm line. “She’s a…” she said, and stopped.

“She’s a client,” insisted Perry Mason, “and she’s paying well.”

“Paying well for what? To have you represent her in a blackmail case? Or to take a rap for murder?”

There were tears in her eyes.

“Mr. Mason,” she said, “please don’t be so damned bighearted. Keep on the outside of this thing, and let them go ahead and do whatever they want to. You simply act as an attorney and come into the case as a lawyer.”

His voice was patient. “It’s pretty late for that now, isn’t it, Della?”

“No, it isn’t. You keep out of it!”

He smiled patiently. “She’s a client, Della.”

“That’s all right,” she said, “after you get to court. You can sit back and see what happens at the trial.”

He shook his head. “No, Della, the District Attorney doesn’t wait until he gets to court. His representatives are out there right now, talking with the witnesses and putting the words in Carl Griffin’s mouth that will become newspaper headlines tomorrow and damaging testimony by the time the case comes to trial.”

She recognized the futility of further argument.

“You think they’re going to arrest the woman?” she asked.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do,” he said.

“Have they found a motive?”

“No,” he said, “they haven’t found a motive. They started looking for the conventional ones, and they didn’t pan out, so that stopped them. But when they find out about this other business, they’ll have a motive already made to order.”

“Are they going to find out about it?” she asked.

“They’re bound to.”

Della Street’s eyes suddenly widened. “Do you think,” she said, “it was Harrison Burke? The man who was out there when the shot was fired?”

“I’ve tried to get Harrison Burke on the telephone,” he said, “and haven’t been able to. Aside from that I’m not even thinking. Go on out and get on the telephone. Try him again. Keep trying his house at ten minute intervals until you get him, or get somebody.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Also, ring up Paul Drake. He’ll probably be at his office. If he isn’t, try him on that emergency telephone number we’ve got. He’s doing some work for me on this.”

She was once more merely a secretary. “Yes, Mr. Mason,” she said, and went into the other office.

Perry Mason resumed his pacing of the floor.

After a few minutes, his telephone rang.

He picked up the receiver.

“Paul Drake,” saidDella Street’s voice.

Paul Drake’s voice said, “Hello, Perry.”

“Have you got anything?” Mason asked.

“Yes, I got a lucky break on that gun business, and I can give you the dope on it.”

“Your line’s all clear? There’s nobody listening?”

“No,” said Drake, “it’s okay.”

“All right,” Mason said, “hand it to me.”

“I don’t suppose you care anything about where the gun was jobbed or who the dealer was?” asked Drake. “What you want is the name of the purchaser.”

“That’s right.”

“All right, your gun was finally purchased by a man named Pete Mitchell, who gave his address asthirteen twentytwo West Sixtyninth Street.”

“All right,” said Mason, “have you got any dope on the other angle of the case? About Frank Locke?”

“No, I haven’t been able to get a report from our southern agency yet. I’ve traced him back to a southern state,Georgia it was, and the trail seems to go haywire there. It looks as though that’s where he changed his name.”

“That’s fine,” Mason said. “That’s where he had his trouble. How about the rest of it? Do you get anything on him?”

“I’ve got a line on the jane at the Wheelright Hotel,” Drake said. “It’s a girl named Esther Linten. She lives there at the Wheelright, has room ninefortysix, by the month.”

“What does she do?” asked Mason. “Did you find that out?”

“Anybody she can, I guess,” Drake told him. “We can’t get very much of a line on her as yet, but give us a little time, and let me get some sleep. A guy can’t be every place at once, and work without sleep.”

“You’ll get used to it after a while,” Mason told him, grinning, “particularly if you keep working on this case. You stay there in the office for five minutes. I’ll call you back.”

“Okay,” sighed Drake, and hung up.

Perry Mason went out to the outer office.

“Della,” he said, “do you remember when all of the political stuff was going around a couple of years ago? We made a file for some of the letters?”

“Yes,” she said, “there’s a file ‘Political Letters.’ I didn’t know what you saved them for.”

“Connections,” he said. “You’ll find a ‘BurkeforCongressClub’ letter some place in there. Get it for me, and make it snappy.”

She made a dive for the battery of files which lined one side of the office.

Perry Mason sat on the corner of her desk and watched her. Only his eyes showed the whitehot concentration of thought which was covering a dozen different angles of a complicated problem.

She came to him with a letter.

“That’s fine,” he said.

Printed in a column on the right hand margin was a list of vice presidents of the “BurkeforCongressClub.” There were more than a hundred names in fine print.

Mason squinted his eyes and read down the column. Every time he passed over a name, he checked it by moving his thumb nail down in the sheet. The fifteenth name was that of P. J. Mitchell, and the address given at the side of the name wasthirteen twentytwo West Sixtyninth Street.

Mason folded the letter abruptly, and thrust it in his pocket.

“Get me Paul Drake on the phone again,” he said, and walked into his inner office and slammed the door shut behind him.

When Paul Drake came on the line, he said, “Listen Paul, I want you to do something for me.”

“Again?” asked Drake.

“Yes,” said Mason. “You haven’t got started yet.”

“All right, shoot,” said the detective.

“Listen,” Mason said, slowly, “I want you to get in a car and go out tothirteen twentytwo West Sixtyninth Street, and get Pete Mitchell out of bed. Now, you’ve got to handle this carefully so that you don’t get yourself in a jam, and me too. You’ve got to do it along the line of a boob detective who talks too much. Don’t ask Mitchell any questions until you give him all the information, see? Tell him that you’re a detective and that George Belter was murdered in his house tonight, and that you understand the number of the gun that did the job was the same number that was on a gun which was sold to this chap, Mitchell. Tell him that you suppose he still has the gun and that there’s some mistake in the numbers, but that you’d like to know whether or not he can account for his whereabouts at aboutmidnight or a little later. Ask him if he has the gun, or if he remembers what he did with it. But be sure that you tell him everything before you ask him the questions.”