Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

She turned to face him, fighting back a wobbly feeling in her knees.

“You know perfectly well to what office I am referring,” Della Street said, managing to keep firmness in her voice.

Lieutenant Tragg was not in the least impressed. He announced, “I am referring to the office of the district attorney. And you may as well bring the kitten along. Not only does it seem to be too careless to be left alone, but it may be a bit of very significant evidence.”

Perry Mason soaked up slumber. The consciousness of broad daylight knifed its way through to his brain. He sat up in bed long enough to look at his watch, fling the pillows into a new position, and drop back with a sense of languid comfort. He started drifting comfortably down into the welcome warmth of nerve-healing oblivion... The ringing of the buzzer on his doorbell irritated him into consciousness.

Mason decided to ignore the summons. He turned over, frowning in the determination of his concentration... damn the doorbell anyway... probably someone wanting to sell something. Why hadn’t he shut it off... The bell again... well, let them ring. He wouldn’t pay any attention to it.

Again and again the bell rang. Mason found that his very determination to sleep was marshaling his faculties into wakefulness. He heard quick steps in the corridor, then knuckles banging imperatively on his door.

With an exclamation of irritation, Mason climbed out of bed, unlocked the door and jerked it open.

Paul Drake stood on the threshold, grinning at him. “How do you like it?” he asked.

Mason said, “Damn it. I don’t like it. Come in.”

Drake followed the lawyer into his apartment, selected the most comfortable chair, twisted himself into a pretzel of comfort, and lit a cigarette. “Nice place you have here.”

“Isn’t it,” Mason said sarcastically.

Drake said, “A little chilly. I’ll close this window. The breeze is coming in through there. Sunlight’s pouring in through the other one. It’s eleven-thirty, Perry.”

“What the devil do I care what time it is?”

Drake tried to blow a smoke ring, watched the blue clouds of smoke drift out into the shaft of sunlight, and said, “You’re always getting me up around the middle of the night, when you and Della have been out making whoopee — and seem to think it’s fun. Thought I’d interfere with your sleep just so you can see how it feels.”

Mason, pulling the covers over his bare toes, grinned at the poetic justice of Drake’s position, said, “It feels like hell,” and reached for a cigarette.

“Thought you’d like a report of what’s going on.”

Mason tapped the end of the cigarette, carefully moistened the end with his tongue, lit a match, and said, “As soon as I finish with this cigarette, I’m going to throw you out and go back to sleep.”

He placed the match to the end of the cigarette.

“Lots of things have been happening,” Drake said. “Those bullets all came from the same gun.”

“That’s nothing new.”

“Tragg’s turned the whole police force upside down. He’s working on every angle of the case, squeezing out every last bit of information.”

“I’m glad he is.”

“The doctors give Jerry Templar nine chances out of ten to pull through. He stood the operation in fine shape.”

“That’s good.”

“The kitten that was poisoned was taken down to the gardener’s house for safekeeping — chap by the name of Thomas Lunk.”

Mason said, “Uh huh.”

“Lunk’s disappeared. So has the kitten.”

Mason said, “Listen, Paul. I can keep abreast of the current developments by reading the newspapers. I wanted you to get some angles everybody didn’t know about, not trail along a few steps behind the police.”

Drake went on as though he hadn’t even heard Mason’s remark, “Chap by the name of George Alber seems to stand ace-high with Her Majesty, Matilda Shore. Seems as though Matilda thinks Alber and Helen Kendal should get spliced. Alber thinks so too. Alber’s going places. He’s going to amount to something in the world. He’s attractive and magnetic. Helen is throwing herself away on a man who isn’t at all worthy of her. Aunt Matilda may leave her dough to Alber if Helen isn’t a good girl.”

Mason sucked in a prodigious yawn. “You are very annoying at times, Paul.”

Drake looked at him with humorless eyes. “Do you find me that way?”

Mason knocked ashes off the end of his cigarette, snuggled back down under the covers.

“Matilda is out of the hospital and back at the house. Seems as though she’s made a will in which she’s tried to exert some pressure on Helen Kendal to make her marry young Alber. Alber apparently gets a very, very nice chunk of the Shore fortune one way or another. Either he gets it by marrying Helen, or, if Helen doesn’t marry him, he is taken care of very handsomely... Oh, yes, your friend Lieutenant Tragg is having the last few checks that went through Franklin Shore’s account carefully experted. A ten-thousand-dollar check to a man by the name of Rodney French seems to be the one he’s particularly interested in. Rodney French is being looked for by the police. He seems to have taken a little vacation for himself, commencing yesterday evening. He neglected to tell anyone just where he was going.”

Mason said, “Franklin Shore telephoned his bookkeeper he was putting that ten-thousand-dollar check through.”

“That’s right,” Drake said, grinning, “he did.”

“Well?” Mason asked.

“Tragg’s working on a theory that perhaps Franklin intended to put that check through, but pulled his disappearing act before he’d made out the check... That would make an interesting situation, wouldn’t it, Perry? Put yourself in the position of a man who is depending on a ten-thousand-dollar check from a chap whose name on the bottom of a check would have made it as good as a certificate of the United States Mint. Then the chap disappears and can’t be found, and you’ve already committed yourself to the things you’re going to do, on the assumption that check is going through.”

“Anything else?” Mason asked.

“Oh, yes. Tragg’s really working on that disappearance. It’s a shame he wasn’t in on it when it happened, but that was during the regime of our old friend, Sergeant Holcomb. Tragg’s going over all the unidentified bodies that were found around that time — getting the records out for an airing. He’s found one body. The description doesn’t check, however. He’s also checking up on all the suicides around Florida in 1932, and he’s checking up on some mining property Leech was interested in, also making a very close check on the finances of Gerald Shore as of January, 1932. A very, very resourceful chap, Tragg.”

Mason said, “Phooey! Tragg’s just a damned misanthrope.”

“Of course, he covers a lot of territory,” Drake went on. “Seems to think that kitten is rather an important factor in the entire situation.”

“The kitten, eh?” Mason observed.

“Uh huh. Interesting chap, Tragg. When he goes after something, he really gets it.”

“The kitten for instance?” Mason asked, very casually.

“Oh, of course, the kitten. He has that kitten up at the district attorney’s office.”

Mason sat bolt upright in bed.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Has the kitten up at the district attorney’s office. Don’t know just what he’s doing with it, but...”

“Where did he get it?”

“I don’t know. I pick up a lot of stuff from the newspaper boys, things that leak out through the police. He’s asking questions of the chap who does the gardening out there, man by the name of Lunk. He...”