Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Velvet Claws

Perry Mason sat in his room at the hotel. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his face was gray with fatigue. The eyes, however, were steady in their calm concentration, dominating the entire face.

Morning sunlight was streaming in through the windows. The bed was littered with newspapers. Headlines streamed across them news of the Belter murder, which had developed enough interesting angles to betray to the newsskilled reporters that a major sensation was due to break.

The Examiner carried headlines which monopolized the front page.

Murder Bares Romance

Underneath in smaller headlines:

Nephew of victim engaged to housekeeper’s daughter…

Secret romance bared by police—will contest filed in Belter Estate…

Disinherited widow claims will forgery—police trace gun to missing man—widow’s chance remark starts search for lawyer…

These headlines appeared over different articles on the front page of the paper. The inside page showed pictures of Eva Belter sitting with her knees crossed, a handkerchief to her eyes. There were headlines with the byline of a wellknown sob sister:

Widow Weeps as Police Question

Reading the newspapers, Mason had kept abreast of the situation. He had learned that the police had traced the gun to one Pete Mitchell, who had mysteriously disappeared immediately after the shooting, but who had a perfect alibi covering the time when the crime had actually been committed. It was the assumption of the police that Mitchell was shielding some one to whom he had given the gun.

No names were mentioned, but Mason was able to realize that the police were getting close to Harrison Burke. He had also read, with increasing interest, about a chance remark which Eva Belter had made which had caused the police to start seeking an attorney who had represented her, and who had mysteriously disappeared from his office. The police were confidently predicting that the mystery would be solved within another twentyfour hours, and the man who fired the fatal shot be behind the bars.

Somebody knocked at the door.

Perry Mason put down the newspaper he was reading, cocked his head on one side, and listened.

The knock was repeated.

Mason shrugged his shoulders, walked to the door, twisted the key, and opened it.

Della Street was in the hall.

She pushed her way into the room, slammed the door behind her, and locked it.

“I told you not to risk it,” Mason told her.

She turned around and looked at him. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot, with dark circles under them, and her face was haggard.

“I don’t care,” she said. “It was all right. I managed to ditch them. I’ve been playing tag with them for an hour.”

“You can’t ever tell about those fellows, Della. They’re clever. Sometimes they let you think you’ve got away in order to find out where you wanted to go.”

“They didn’t slip anything over on me,” she said in a voice that told of raw nerves. “I tell you they don’t know where I am.”

He caught the note of hysteria in her voice. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I was just wondering who I could get to take down some stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Some stuff that’s going to come up.”

She made a gesture toward the newspapers on the bed.

“Chief,” she said, “I told you that she was going to get you into trouble. She came into the office and signed those papers. There were a bunch of reporters hanging around, of course, and they started going after her. Then the detectives took her down to Headquarters for further questioning. You can see what she did.”

Mason nodded. “That’s all right. Don’t get excited, Della.”

“Get excited? Do you know what she did? She made the statement down there that she recognized your voice. That you were the man that was in the room with Belter when the shot was fired. And then she pulled a fainting fit, and a lot of hysterics, and stuff of that sort.”

“That’s all right, Della,” he said soothingly. “I knew she was going to do that.”

Della stared at him with wide eyes.

“You did?” she asked. “I thought I was the one who knew that!”

He nodded. “Sure you did, Della. So did I.”

“She’s a rat and a liar!” Della Street said.

Mason shrugged his shoulders and walked to the telephone. He gave the number of Drake’s Detective Bureau, and got Paul Drake on the line.

“Listen, Paul,” he said, “make sure you’re not tailed, and sneak over to Room 518 in the Hotel Ripley. Better bring a couple of stenographer’s notebooks, and a bunch of pencils along with you. Will you?”

“Right away?” asked the detective.

“Right away,” he said. “It’s eight fortyfive now, and I’m expecting a show to start at nine.”

He hung up the telephone.

Della Street was curious. “What is it, chief?” she asked.

“I’m expecting Eva Belter to be here at nine o’clock,” he said briefly.

“I don’t want to be here when that woman’s here,” Della Street said. “I can’t trust myself around her. She’s doublecrossed you all the way from the start. I want to kill her. She’s such a sleek little gutter rat.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Sit down and take it easy, Della. There’s going to be a showdown.”

There was a sound at the door. The knob turned, the door opened, and Eva Belter walked in.

She looked at Della Street, and said, “Oh, you’re both here.”

“Apparently,” Mason said, “you’ve been doing some talking.” He gestured, as he spoke, toward the newspapers which were piled on the bed.

She walked over to him, ignoring the other woman, placed her hands on his shoulders, looked up in his eyes. “Perry,” she said, “I never felt so rotten about anything in my life. I don’t know how I happened to say it. They got me down at Headquarters and barked questions at me. Everybody shrieked questions. I never saw anything like it. I didn’t dream that it would be anything at all like that. I tried to protect you, but I couldn’t. It slipped out, and just as soon as I made the first slip, they all started piling on me. They made threats, and told me they’d name me as an accessory.”

“What did you tell them?” asked Mason.

She looked in his eyes, then went over to the bed, sat down, took out her handkerchief from her purse, and started to cry.

Della Street moved two swift steps toward her, but Mason caught her arm and pushed her back.

“I’m handling this,” he said.

Eva Belter continued to sob into her handkerchief.

“Go ahead,” said Mason. “What did you tell them?”

She shook her head.

“Never mind that sob stuff,” he said, “it doesn’t go over so big right now. We’re in a jam and you’d better tell me what you said.”

She sobbed. “I just ttttold them that I heard your vvvvoice.”

“Did you say it was my voice? Or some one that sounded like me?”

“I tttold them everything. That it was your voice.”

His tone was hard. “You knew damned well it wasn’t my voice.”

“I didn’t intend to tell them,” she wailed, “but it was the truth. It was your voice.”

“All right. We’ll take it that way,” Mason said.

Della Street started to say something, but stopped when he turned on her and fastened her with levellidded eyes.

There was a silence in the room, broken only by the faint rumble of noises from the street, and the sobs of the woman.

After a minute or two the door opened, and Paul Drake walked in.

“Hello, everybody,” he said, cheerfully. “Made time, didn’t I? I got a break. There was nobody who seemed to have the slightest interest in where I was, or what I was doing.”