Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

“What’s the address of the service station?”

“On the corner, four blocks down the boulevard from your apartment.”

“I’m coming right down. Wait there,” Mason said.

“What’ll I do when you get here?”

“Just follow my lead,” Mason said. “I’ll size him up. Tell me about him.”

“He has steady, blue eyes, with a far-away squint, a weather-beaten face with high cheekbones, a drooping mustache, about fifty-five or maybe sixty, gnarled hands, stoop shoulders, long arms, slow-moving, and has a single track mind. Sort of simple, but obstinate and sullen when he gets suspicious. I think he’ll believe anything you tell him, if you can make it sound plausible. But I was so excited and — well, he’s getting terribly suspicious. You’ll have to get down here right away or he’ll walk out on me.”

“On my way,” Mason promised, and hung up.

He switched out the lights, went down in the elevator, crossed the street and waited in the shadows to make certain he wasn’t being followed. Having convinced himself on that point, he walked rapidly for three blocks, and paused long enough to once more be certain no one was on his trail. Then he walked to the all-night service station where an attendant in white uniform was just finishing tightening the bolts on the left hind wheel of Mason’s car.

Mason walking up to Della Street, apparently without noticing the man in his late fifties who sat at her side, raised his hat, said, “Good evening, Miss Street. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”

Della searched his eyes for a signal, hesitated a moment, then said, with some show of feeling, “Well, you certainly were late! If it hadn’t been for finding a nail in this tire I couldn’t have waited.”

“Too bad,” Mason said. “I was unavoidably detained. You know, I told you I could get you an audience with Mrs. Shore. But, you see, she’s...”

He broke off, apparently seeing, for the first time, the man beside Della.

Della said, “It’s all right, this is Mr. Lunk. He’s working out at the Shore place as a gardener. He wants to see Mrs. Shore, too.”

Mason said, “Mrs. Shore is at a hospital. She was poisoned. She says she took poison by mistake, but that isn’t what the police think, and they’re making it a matter for police investigation.”

“Poison!” Lunk ejaculated.

Della Street registered dismay. “Can’t we see her? Mr. Lunk says his business is terribly important.”

Mason said, “We can try at least. I thought everything was arranged, but the way things have turned out...” He shifted his position so he could watch Lunk from the corner of his eye. “You see,” he went on, “with a police guard on the premises, the minute we tried to see her, they’d begin asking us questions.”

“I don’t want no police,” Lunk burst out. “I’ve got to see Mrs. Shore personally and private.”

Mason raised his eyebrows. “You say you work there?”

“I’m the gardener.”

“Live there?”

“Nope. I come to work on the street car and go home on the street car. I lived there for a while. That was years ago. She wanted me to stay on, but I can’t stand having a darned Oriental snooping around. I want to be by myself and be private-like.”

“Oriental?” Mason asked.

“Yeah. That houseboy she’s got. I don’t know why she hasn’t fired him long ago. To tell you the truth, I’ve been looking for the FBI to come around and... Well, I guess I ain’t goin’ to say nothin’ more.”

Mason didn’t press him, but nodded sympathetically. “Well, as I understand it, if we can fix things so we can see Mrs. Shore without the police grabbing us, you want to see her. Otherwise, it can wait. Is that it?”

Lunk said, “It can’t wait.”

“That important?”

“Yes.”

Mason gave the matter thoughtful consideration. “Well, let’s go down and see if the coast is clear.”

“Where is she?”

Mason said, “She’s in a hospital.”

“Yeah, I know. But what hospital?”

“I’ll drive you there.”

Mason eased the car past the street intersections. “At this hour of the night, you don’t ordinarily meet anyone on these intersections, but if you do meet someone, he’s driving like the devil. You can get smacked at an intersection as easy as not.”

“Uh huh.”

“So you’ve been working for Mrs. Shore for some twelve years?”

“Yes, goin’ onto thirteen.”

“You knew her husband then?”

Lunk glanced at Mason sharply, saw nothing except an expressionless profile as Mason’s eyes held steady on the road ahead.

“Yes. One of the finest men that ever set foot in a garden.”

“So I’ve heard. Peculiar about his disappearance, wasn’t it?”

“Uh huh.”

“What do you think about it?”

“Who? Me?”

“Yes.”

“Why should I think anything about it?”

Mason laughed. “You do think, don’t you?”

“I’m paid for gardening.”

Mason said, “It’s an interesting family.”

“You know ’em?” Lunk asked. “All of ’em?”

“I’ve met some of them. I’m doing some work for Gerald Shore. How do you like him?”

“He’s all right, I reckon. He ain’t like his brother Franklin, though, about the lawn and flowers. He don’t seem to care much about ’em, so I don’t see much of him . Mrs. Shore gives the orders — except when that damned Jap tries to horn in. Know what that heathen devil was trying to do just a little while ago?”

“No.”

“Get her to go take a trip for her health. Wanted the whole family to get out and let him give the house a thorough cleaning inside and out. Guess he wanted to take three or four months doing it. Wanted her to go to Florida and take the niece with her. And I happen to know he’d been talking with George Alber about it. May have been Alber’s idea. You know him?”

“No.”

“He’s the fair-haired boy child right now. Seems like the old lady liked his daddy — or he liked her — ain’t sure which. I do my work and want to be left alone. That’s all I ask.”

“How is Komo? A pretty good worker?”

“Oh, he works all right, but you always have the feeling that his eyes are staring through your back.”

“You said you lived at the Shore place for a while. Have any trouble with Komo while you were living there?”

“No fights — nothing open. My brother was the one that had the trouble with him.”

“Your brother?” Mason asked, taking his eyes from the road long enough to flash a quick glance at Della Street. “You had a brother living there with you?”

“Uh huh. For about six, seven months.”

“What happened to him?”

“Died.”

“While you were living there?”

“Nope.”

“After you moved, eh? How long after?”

“Week or two.”

“Sick long?”

“No.”

“Heart trouble, I suppose?”

“No. He was younger than me.”

Della Street said soothingly, “I know just how he feels about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it, do you, Mr. Lunk?”

“No.”

Della Street went on rapidly, “It’s that way when someone near to you passes away. It’s a shock. Your brother must have been smart, Mr. Lunk.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, just little things in the way you describe him. He seems to have been a man who wasn’t taken in by anybody. That is, the Japanese houseboy didn’t fool him any.”

“I’ll say he didn’t!”

“It must have been rather hard to start doing the work by yourself after having had your brother help you in the garden.”

“He didn’t help me. He was there visiting. He hadn’t been well for quite a while — not able to do any work.”