Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Fenced-In Woman

“You used to lie?” Mason asked.

“Any girl who tries to be respectable, and isn’t, has to put up a front.”

“You weren’t?” Mason asked.

She laughed. “You want lots of information for your hundred-dollar tip, Perry Mason. I told you I don’t have to lie anymore. Come on, let’s go back to the table. Let’s see how hot you are.”

She led the way back to the same table.

“Give the man a hundred dollars for chips,” she said to Mason.

Mason passed out a hundred dollars.

The lawyer started putting bets around on the various numbers. This time Genevieve didn’t help him, but simply stood there watching.

Time after time the wheel rolled and Mason collected nothing. He won a small bet on red and one on the second twelve, but the numbers eluded him and his pile of chips started shrinking.

Genevieve looked at him and smiled.

A young woman in a skin-tight dress abruptly reached a bare arm across the table, leaned forward to place a bet on a number at the extreme far corner. She stumbled slightly and her soft, pliant form pressed against Mason’s arm.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she said, and looked up and smiled.

“Quite all right,” Mason said.

“Clumsy of me,” she said, “but I just had a hunch on that number... Oh, oh, I didn’t make it after all.”

“Better luck next time,” Mason said.

Her eyes met his. “There’s always a next time,” she said. “Always something new, always tomorrow — and today — tonight,” she said softly.

She placed another bet at the corner of the board so that she pressed against Mason. This time she held the lawyer’s arm.

“Pull for me,” she said. “Wish me luck.”

“ You might give me some luck,” Mason said.

“All right, we’ll give each other luck.”

The young woman’s bet paid off.

“Goody, goody, goody,” she said in an ecstasy of excitement, squeezing the lawyer’s arm to her breast and jumping up and down. “Oh, goody, goody, goody, I made it!”

Mason’s smile was enigmatic.

The lawyer made three more bets, which finished his pile of chips.

He backed away from the table.

“Oh, you’re not quitting,” the young woman said in a tone of incredulity.

“Just for a while,” Mason said. “I’m taking a breather. I’ll be back.”

“Do,” she said, and then added, “please.” Then by way of explanation as though to apologize for any seeming attempt at being forward, “I had good luck with you here. You’re so... Well, you brought me luck.”

She looked wistfully after him as Mason drifted away from the table.

Genevieve Honcutt Hyde was nowhere in sight.

The lawyer went back to the bar, ordered another gin and tonic, sat there sipping and watching.

Fifteen minutes later, he saw Nadine Palmer moving through the crowd.

Mason pushed his glass away, followed Nadine to one of the tables.

Nadine was carrying a purse which was literally bulging with chips. She had evidently been drinking.

She pushed up to a roulette table and started making bets. Her luck was phenomenal. Within a few minutes she had a crowd of people watching her play, trying to ride along on her bets.

Mason felt eyes on his and looked up to see Genevieve Hyde appraising him from the line of spectators.

He looked pointedly at Nadine, then back at Genevieve.

Genevieve’s face had no expression whatever.

Mason stayed in the background watching Nadine until finally Nadine had such a pile of chips in front of her, she seemed to be behind a barricade.

Then Mason leaned forward to put a lone dollar bill on number eleven.

“Cash in and check out,” he said in a low voice to Nadine.

She whirled indignantly, then gasped with surprise.

“Cash in and check out,” Mason said again.

The lawyer made two more bets, then stepped back from the table.

“You heard me,” he said to Nadine.

Five minutes later Nadine, with two bellboys carrying chips, went to the cashier’s window.

People watched her with awed curiosity as she cashed in something over ten thousand dollars.

Perry Mason took her arm as she left the window.

“ What are you doing here?” she asked.

“And what are you doing here?” Mason asked.

“I’m gambling.”

“You were gambling,” Mason said. “You’re quitting.”

“What do you mean I’m quitting? I come over here every so often. I’m perfectly able to run my own life, Mr. Perry Mason, without any advice from you.”

“The advice you’re getting from me is purely gratuitous,” Mason said. “I’m talking to you not as a lawyer but as a friend.”

“You’ve become an intimate friend on rather short notice, it seems.”

“I want to ask you some questions,” Mason said. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, I’ve had enough to drink. I’m going out to my room. You want to come?”

“Is it all right?” Mason asked.

“What do you want me to do, hire a chaperon?” she asked. “Or a baby-sitter?”

“Neither,” Mason said, “I just wondered if it was all right.”

She moved out of the side entrance, down the long line of bungalows, the lawyer at her side.

She fitted a key to a door, let Mason open it and then usher her inside. It was a sumptuous room with a bed, television, several deep easy chairs, wall-to-wall carpeting and an atmosphere of quiet luxury.

When Mason had closed the door, Nadine Palmer seated herself, crossed her knees, showing a generous display of nylon, surveyed Mason appraisingly and said, “This had better be good.”

“It is good,” Mason said.

“For your information,” she went on, “I was hotter than a firecracker when you stopped me.”

“How much had you won?”

“Plenty.”

“I gathered you cashed in for around ten or twelve thousand.”

“That was the second time I’d cashed in,” she said.

“As much as that the first time?”

“More.”

“What time did you get here?”

“I took a taxi to the airport,” she said, “and took the first plane.”

“You didn’t buy a ticket under your own name.”

“Is that a crime?”

“It might be taken into consideration in connection with a crime,” Mason told her, “unless, of course, you had a good reason.”

“I had a good reason.”

Watching her, Mason said, “I have the distinct impression that you’re simply sparring for time.”

She said, “And I have the distinct impression that you’re simply fishing for information.”

“I’m not denying it,” Mason said. “I’m asking for information. Why didn’t you buy a ticket under your own name?”

“Because,” she flared, “I’m tired of being an easy mark for every wolf in the world. Thanks to Loring Carson, my name has become a brand. I’m little Miss Pushover.”

“Bosh and nonsense!” Mason said. “A few people read about what had happened in the newspapers, smiled a little, then turned the page and forgot the whole thing — at least, as far as you’re concerned. I will admit that the situation is somewhat different as far as Vivian Carson is concerned. Loring Carson threw a lot of mud at her and I can see where she has been damaged.”

“Well, save a little sympathy for me while you’re at it,” she said. “Every man I’ve met since that publicity has made passes.”

“And didn’t they all make passes before that?” Mason asked.

“Look,” she said, “I was having a winning streak. You came along with that big-shot, imperative manner of yours and told me I was quitting. You bluffed me into quitting. Now speak your piece, and then I’m going back to the tables. If you don’t speak fast I’m going back anyway.”