Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

“My God!” he said. “I took a chance when I started in mixing in your business. You’re plain dynamite.”

She smiled seductively at him. “Do you think so?” she said. “I know some men who like women that way.”

He stared moodily at her.

“You’re getting drunk,” he told her. “Lay off that whiskey.”

“My,” she said, “you talk just like a husband.”

He walked over, picked up the whiskey bottle, jammed the cork in, put the bottle in the drawer of the bureau, locked the drawer and put the key in his pocket.

“Was that nice?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

The telephone rang. Mason answered it. The clerk advised him that a messenger had just arrived with a package for him.

Mason said to have a boy bring the package up, and hung up.

When the bellboy knocked at the door, Mason was standing at the knob. He opened the door, handed the boy a tip, and took the envelope. It was the report from the Detective Agency concerning the activities of Frank Locke on the preceding evening.

“What is it?” asked Eva Belter.

He shook his head, walked over to the window, opened the envelope, and started reading the typewritten report.

It was rather simple. Locke had gone to a speakeasy, stayed there half an hour, gone to a barber shop, had a shave and massage, gone to the Wheelright Hotel, gone to room 946, remained there five or ten minutes, and then had gone to dinner with Esther Linten, the tenant of the room.

They had dined and danced until eleven o’clock, and then had gone back to the room in the Wheelright. Bellboys had brought up ginger ale and ice, and Locke had stayed in the room until onethirty in the morning, when he had left.

Mason thrust the reports into his pocket and started drumming with the tips of his fingers on the sash of the window.

“You make me nervous,” said Eva Belter. “I wish you’d tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ve told you what we’re going to do.”

“What were those papers?”

“A business matter.”

“What business?”

He laughed at her. “Do I have to tell you the business of all of my clients just because I happen to be working for you?”

She frowned at him. “I think you’re horrid.”

He shrugged his shoulders and continued drumming upon the sash of the window.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” he called.

The door opened and Della Street walked in. She stiffened as she saw Eva Belter on the bed.

“Okay, Della,” said Mason. “We’ve got to have some papers ready for an emergency that may arise. We’ve got to figure on a petition for letters of administration, on a contest for the probate of a will, and on an application for special letters of administration, an order appointing Mrs. Belter as special administratrix, and a bond all ready to submit for approval and filing. Then we’ve got to have special letters of administration, with copies to be certified and served on interested parties.”

Della Street asked coolly, “Do you wish to dictate them now?”

“Yes, and I want some breakfast.”

He went to the telephone, rang room service, and ordered breakfast sent up.

Della Street stared at Eva Belter. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’ll have to have that table.”

Eva Belter arched her eyebrows and picked up her glass from the table, much with the gesture of a woman gathering her skirts about her when encountering a beggar on the street.

Mason lifted off the ginger ale bottle and the bowl of ice, polished the top of the table with the moist cover which had been on it, and set it down in front of a chair for Della Street.

She pulled up the straightback chair, crossed her knees, put the notebook on the table, and poised her pencil.

Perry Mason dictated rapidly for twenty minutes. At the end of that time breakfast arrived. The three ate heartily and almost in silence. Eva Belter managed to give the impression that she was eating with the servants.

When the breakfast was finished, Mason had the things taken away, and proceeded with his dictation. By ninethirty he had finished.

“Go back to the office and write those up,” he told Della, “and have them all ready for signature. But don’t let anybody see what you’re doing. You’d better keep the outer office door locked. You can use the printed forms for the petitions.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’d like to see you for a moment alone.”

Eva Belter sniffed.

“Don’t mind her,” said Mason, “she’s going.”

“Oh, no, I’m not,” Eva Belter said.

“Yes, you are,” Mason ordered. “You’re going right now. I had to have you here while I was dictating those papers in order to get the information that I needed. You’re going back and put that will back in the house. Then you’re going up to my office this afternoon and sign all of these papers. And, in the meantime, you’re going to keep your own counsel. The newspaper reporters are going to ask you questions. They’ll get in touch with you somewhere along the line. You’re going to use all of your sex appeal and be shocked and crushed by the terrible misfortune you’ve suffered. You’re going to be unable to give out any kind of a coherent interview, and you’re going to sell them on your grief. Every time they stick a camera your way, show lots of leg and turn on the water works. Do you understand?”

“You’re coarse,” she said coldly.

“I’m effective,” he told her. “What the hell’s the use of you trying to slip a lot of stuff over on me when you know it doesn’t go?”

She put on her hat and coat with dignity and marched to the door.

“Just when I get so I really like you,” she told him, “you have to go ahead and spoil it all.”

He silently held the door open for her, bowed her out and then slammed it shut.

He moved over close to Della Street, and said, “What is it, Della?”

She reached down the front of her dress and pulled out an envelope.

“A messenger brought this.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Money.”

He opened the flap of the envelope. There were one hundred dollar traveler checks on the inside. Two books with one thousand dollars in each book. All of the checks were signed “Harrison Burke” and duly countersigned. The name of the payee was left blank.

There was a note attached to the checks, scribbled hurriedly in pencil.

Mason unfolded the note, and read it:

I thought it would be better for me to keep out of the way for a little while. Go ahead and keep me out of this. No matter what happens, keep me out of it.

The note was signed with the initials “H.B.”

Mason handed the books over to Della Street.

“Business,” he said, “is looking up. Be careful where you cash them.”

She nodded her head.

“Tell me, what’s happened? What has she got you into?”

“She hasn’t got me into anything except a couple of good fees. And before she gets done, she’s going to pay more.”

“She has too,” insisted Della. “She’s got you mixed up in that murder case. I heard some of the reporters talking this morning. She got you out there before she notified the police, and she’s framed things so that she can drag you into it at any time. What makes you think she isn’t going to tell the police you were the man who was in the room when the shot was fired?”

Mason made a weary gesture.

“I don’t,” he said. “I have an idea that she’s going to do that sooner or later.”

“Are you going to stand for it?”

The lawyer explained patiently.

“When you’re representing clients, Della,” he said, “you can’t pick and choose them. You’ve got to take them as they come. There’s only one rule in this game, and that is that when you do take them, you’ve got to give them all you’ve got.”