Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Duplicate Daughter

Mason caught the full impact of the wide blue, curious yet audacious eyes.

Glamis came toward him with hand outstretched, her manner as seductive as an expert striptease artist walking out on the stage. “Why, how do you do?” she said. “Muriell told me she was here with a friend who was interested in woodworking.”

Mason made no comment about Muriell’s statement. He took Glamis’ hand in his own, bowed and said, “It’s a very great pleasure, Miss Barlow.”

Glamis turned to Muriell. “Where’s the other car, Muriell? I came to pick it up. I have to have it.”

“Oh, good heavens, it’s uptown,” Muriell said. “I left it parked up there.”

“You left it parked up there?”

“I accepted a ride out with Mr. Mason,” she said.

Glamis frowned for a moment, then said, “How did you intend to get it?”

“Mr. Mason was going to drive me back uptown. I’ll get it and bring it out here, Glamis.”

“Then where are you going?”

“No place. I’m going to stay here. Mr. Mason is ready to leave and I’ll go with him and—”

“There isn’t time,” Glamis said. “I’m sorry, Muriell, but I have to have the car right away. I’ll ride up with Mr. Mason — just give me the parking ticket... that is, I will if Mr. Mason has no objections.”

Muriell hesitated.

Mason bowed and said, “Perhaps you can both come with me.”

“No,” Glamis said imperiously. “Muriell wants to be home. If she got the car she’d just drive it back. I have places to go.”

Muriell said reluctantly, “Well, I guess that’s probably the only thing to do then... You’re ready to start, Mr. Mason?”

“Right away,” Mason said.

“I saw your car in the garage,” Glamis said. “I thought at first it was our other car, but then I realized it was a strange car. I asked Muriell who was here... You’re going right away, Mr. Mason?”

Muriell said, in a voice that was far from happy, “He’ll have to leave right away. He has an important appointment.”

“All right,” Glamis said, “let’s go.”

She looked around the workshop, said, “Well, for heaven’s sake, somebody’s spilled something on the floor and look at that chair.”

“It must have been tipped over,” Muriell said.

“Heavens, Muriell, it’s broken!”

“Well,” Muriell said, “if you’re in a hurry to get uptown, Glamis—”

“I am,” Glamis interrupted. “And Mr. Mason is, also. Toodle-oo, Muriell. We’ll be seeing you. Come on, Mr. Mason. I’m going to hurry you as much as I can because I really want the car, and Nancy took my sports car to go out on location with her photographic club, so I had to come home in a cab. I thought there’d at least be one car here.”

“I’m sorry,” Muriell said.

“What is there to be sorry about, honey? You’re entitled to the car when you want it just as much as anyone... I’m a little afraid I’m imposing on Mr. Mason, but... I am going to hurry you, Mr. Mason.”

She inserted her hand in Mason’s arm.

Mason picked up the brief case and started walking toward the car.

“Now,” Glamis said, “if you’re going to be polite and make this a social occasion, Mr. Mason, you’ll escort me to the right-hand side of the car and open the door and I’ll flash you a smile of thanks and try to reward you by giving you a quick glimpse of what I’ve been told is a very good-looking leg.

“If, on the other hand, this is strictly business...”

“Let’s make it a social occasion, by all means,” Mason said.

He waved to Muriell, walked around to the right-hand side of his car with Glamis and held the door open for her.

Glamis jumped in the car, smiled at him, then adjusted her skirt revealingly.

“Thank you, Mr. Mason.”

“Not at all,” the lawyer said. “The reward was ample.”

Mason walked around to the other side of the car, tossed the brief case in the back and climbed in behind the steering wheel.

Glamis, looking straight ahead, said, “You have a brief case that’s exactly like Dad Gilman’s.”

“I guess all brief cases are pretty much alike,” Mason said casually as he started the car and backed down the driveway.

Glamis said, “I’m afraid Muriell’s been holding out on me, Mr. Mason. She hasn’t told me anything about you. Have you known her long?”

“It depends on what you mean by long,” Mason said. “Time is relative.”

“Indeed it is... So you’re interested in woodworking?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a shop of your own?”

“I’m thinking of installing one.”

“I’m quite sure Muriell has never mentioned you,” Glamis said.

Mason said nothing.

“Somehow you’re not the type that one associates with afternoons of dillydallying.”

“I was neither dillying nor dallying,” Mason said.

“My, you have a very adroit method of being evasive, Mr. Mason. Did it ever occur to you that I’m pumping you for information?”

“Are you?”

“Certainly I am. I want to know more about you. I want to know what makes you tick. Muriell isn’t the playgirl type and you’re... there’s something purposeful about you, something substantial. You’re not a playboy. You have some objective in life and you’ve come very close to achieving that objective — whatever you do, you’re tops.”

“Character analysis?” Mason asked.

She was studying him frankly as Mason drove through traffic.

“Character analysis,” she said. “I like it. Sometimes I’m rather good at it. You’re not a doctor... and you’re not exactly the banker type. You’re a professional man of some sort.”

“Well,” Mason said, “since you derive so much pleasure from speculating about my occupation and character it would be a shame to deprive you of that pleasure by telling you anything.”

“You’re being delightfully evasive, Mr. Mason,” she said. And then added after a moment, “And it isn’t going to do you a particle of good because when I get out I’m going to look at the license number on your automobile and then I’m going to trace the ownership and find out just who you are.

“You’re some sort of a professional... Oh, good heavens, of course! You’re a lawyer.”

Mason said nothing.

“Mason. Mason,” Glamis went on. “Well, bless my soul! You’re Perry Mason!”

Mason simply kept on driving.

“And you don’t give me the slightest credit for putting two and two together,” Glamis went on. “You are acting very, very mysteriously, Mr. Mason. Now why in the world would you be out there, calling on Muriell of all people! And then when I catch you calling on Muriell, why should you be so evasive?... And that is Dad’s brief case you’re carrying, isn’t it?”

Mason said, “As an attorney I would object to the question on the ground that it called for several answers.”

“All different?”

“I don’t think it’s necessary to specify that in making an objection based on those grounds,” Mason said.

Glamis inched up closer to him on the seat, put her left arm over the back of the seat so that the hand was touching Mason’s right shoulder. She squirmed around, drawing her legs up in under her, then glanced down at her skirt and said, “I suppose I should be a little more modest — in the interest of safe driving,” and pulled the skirt down.

For several seconds she studied the lawyer’s granite-hard profile frankly and with a curiosity she made no attempt to conceal.

“Now, what in the world would you be doing out in Dad’s workshop?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” Mason said, “I gave you a true answer when I said I was interested in woodworking.”