Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

Mason became a moving mass of arms and legs, pinching out the cigarette, kicking the covers off, grabbing the telephone. The dial whirred through a number.

Mason said, “Hello... Hello. That you, Gertie?... Where’s Della this morning?”

“No word from her, eh?... Let me talk with Jackson... Hello, Jackson. This is an emergency. Give it a right of way over everything in the office. Make out an application for a writ of habeas corpus for Della Street. Make it wide enough, big enough and broad enough to cover everything from rape to arson. She’s being detained against her will. She’s being examined concerning privileged communications, she’s held without any charge being placed against her. She’s abundantly able to furnish bail in any reasonable amount. Ask for a writ of habeas corpus and ask that she be admitted to bail pending the return and hearing on the writ. I’ll sign and verify it. Get going on the thing!”

Mason slammed up the telephone, peeled off his pajamas, splashed hurriedly into the shower, came out drying his body, jerking clean underwear out of a bureau drawer.

Drake sat curled up in the chair watching with a puzzled expression of growing concern while Mason hurried into his clothes.

“I have a six-volt electric razor in the glove compartment of my car,” Drake said. “If you wanted to drive uptown with me, you could shave in the car.”

Mason jerked open the door of a coat closet, struggled into his overcoat, grabbed his hat, pulled gloves out of his overcoat pocket, said, “Come on, Paul. What’s holding us back?”

“Nothing,” Drake said, uncoiling his double-jointed frame in a series of convolutions that would have done credit to a contortionist. “We’re on our way. Your office or the D.A.’s?”

“My office first,” Mason said. “When I talk with a D.A. I always like to be able to slap him in the face with a writ of habeas corpus in case he gets rough.”

“This bird getting rough?” Drake asked.

“Uh huh. Where’s that razor?”

Hamilton Burger, the district attorney, was a man with a huge chest, a thick neck and heavy shoulders. There was about him a suggestion of the massive strength of a bear. He was given to making unpredictable moves with the swiftness of a man who concludes his deliberations before taking action. Once he started to act, he threw himself into that action with a concentrated force that eliminated any possibility of re-examining the situation. Lawyers who had come to know him well said that once Hamilton Burger started charging, it took a brick wall to stop him. As one attorney had expressed it, “Once Burger starts moving, he keeps moving until he’s stopped, and it takes a hell of a lot to stop him.”

Mason knew that a reception had been prepared for him as soon as he entered the outer office of the district attorney. No assistant or trial deputy was assigned to interview him; but with the clocklike precision of a carefully-thought-out bit of campaign strategy. Mason was whisked down the corridor and into the district attorney’s office almost as soon as he had announced himself at the reception desk.

Hamilton Burger surveyed Mason with glittering, steady eyes.

“Sit down,” he said.

Mason took the chair across from Burger’s desk.

“Do you want to talk to me or am I going to talk to you?” Mason asked.

“I’m talking to you,” Burger said.

“Go ahead,” Mason told him, “do your talking first. I’ll say what I have to say when you’ve finished.”

Hamilton Burger said, “You’re unorthodox. Your methods are spectacular, dramatic, and bizarre.”

“You might add one additional word,” Mason said.

For a moment, there was a flicker in the district attorney’s eyes. “Effective?” he asked.

Mason nodded.

“That is the thing which bothers me,” Burger said.

“I’m glad to hear you admit it.”

“It doesn’t bother me in the way that you think, however,” Burger went on. “It simply means that if your spectacular, dramatic, swashbuckling methods continue to be effective, we’ll have every attorney at the bar trying to cut corners, playing legal sleight of hand to outwit the police. And heaven knows, one of you in this county is plenty .”

“If I beat the police to the correct solution of a crime, does that constitute outwitting the police?”

“That isn’t what I mean,” Burger objected. “It’s not our policy to prosecute the innocent. And understand this, Mason, I’m talking, not only about what you do, but about how you do it.”

“What’s wrong with my means?”

“You don’t try your cases in a courtroom. You don’t sit in your office and interview clients. You go tearing around the country, working by a catch-as-catch-can method of grabbing evidence, refusing to take the police into your confidence, and...”

“Wait a minute,” Mason said. “Do the police take me into their confidence?”

Burger ignored the question. “There have been times when I’ve co-operated with you because I thought you were cooperating with me. But it’s always been that same spectacular, flamboyant, pulling-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat business with you.”

Mason said, “Well, if the rabbit I’m looking for happens to be in a hat, why not pull him out?”

“Because you usually furnish the hat. You can’t justify a legal hocus-pocus simply because you eventually squirm your way out. Now I’ll quit talking generalities with you. I’ll get down to specific instances.”

“That would be fine.”

“Specifically,” Burger said, “last night you uncovered a valuable, vital witness in a murder case. If the police had had the testimony of that witness, they might have solved the case by this time. As it was, they were given no opportunity. You and your secretary whisked this witness out from under the noses of the police.”

“You mean Lunk?” Mason asked.

“I mean Lunk.”

“Go ahead.”

“You took him to a hotel and secreted him. You did everything in your power to keep the police from finding him. The police have found him.”

“What are they going to do with him?” Mason asked. “If he’s so valuable, let him go ahead and solve the case.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t that simple,” Burger said.

“Why not?”

“We’ve uncovered some evidence that up to now has been unnoticed in connection with Franklin Shore’s disappearance.”

“What?” Mason asked.

“Specifically, that ten-thousand-dollar check which was given to Rodney French may have been a forgery.”

Mason settled back in his chair, crossed his long legs. “All right, let’s discuss that.”

“I’ll be glad to hear your ideas on it,” Burger said with stiff formality.

“In the first place,” Mason replied easily, “Franklin Shore told his bookkeeper he had put through such a check.”

“I will correct you there,” Burger interrupted, consulting his notes. “The testimony of the bookkeeper as given ten years ago was to the effect that Franklin Shore said he was putting through such a check.”

Mason waved the point aside. “All right, suppose he said he was putting through that check. That establishes its authenticity. But if the check was forged, the statute of limitations has run out. At present, that check business can have no legal significance.”

Burger said, “The check could furnish a motivation.”

“For what?”

“For murder.”

“Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“If we had been able to get in touch with Lunk last night, it is quite possible we could have uncovered some very valuable additional evidence.”

“Do you want to be more specific?”