Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

“Yes. But I... well, I thought I should tell you — under the circumstances.”

“You didn’t tell Matilda?”

“No.”

“Sure she hasn’t any suspicion?”

“No. I’m sure she thought I was talking to Jerry. And right after that she noticed the kitten was having spasms. Poor Amber Eyes! How could he possibly have got poison?”

“I don’t know,” Gerald said somewhat shortly. “Let’s quit thinking about the kitten for a moment and think about Franklin. This doesn’t make sense. Ten years’ silence, and then this fantastic stage play of a return! Personally I always thought he’d run away with that woman. I felt sure he’d left Matilda some note that she’d suppressed. I thought, as time passed without any word except that card from Miami, that thing probably hadn’t gone so well. I always considered the possibility that he might have committed suicide. He’d have preferred that way out rather than face the humiliation of an ignominious return.”

Gerald pushed his hands down more deeply into his pockets, stared out of the window. After a time he turned around and said to Helen, “When Franklin left, Matilda had a lot of the property in her name. If Franklin should show up he’s not going to have much left for himself. You and I will have nothing. Franklin’s my brother. He’s your uncle. We both hope he’s alive, but he is going to have to prove it”

Dr. Blakely came out from the operating room.

“Your kitten was poisoned,” he said to Helen.

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely.”

Gerald turned again from the window to regard the doctor gravely.

“What did you find?”

“Some poisoned meat had been administered but a very short time before the kitten was brought here. There were tablets of poison in the meat — perhaps more than one. I recovered a part of one tablet which hadn’t as yet fully dissolved. It had probably been embedded in a piece of meat, and the kitten’s digestive juices hadn’t thoroughly dissolved it.”

“Will... will he live?” Helen asked.

“Yes. He’s going to be all right now. You can come back and get him in an hour or two, but you’d better let him either stay here for a few days, or let some friend keep him. Someone very deliberately tried to poison your kitten. You probably have some neighbor who doesn’t like animals, or has some particular reason for disliking you.”

“Why, I can’t believe such a thing’s possible,” Helen said.

Dr. Blakely shrugged his shoulders. “Poisoned tablets packed in small wads of meat such as was given this kitten indicate the work of a deliberate poisoner. We have trouble with poisoners in various parts of the city; usually they’re after dogs. They prepare little balls of meat and toss them into a yard. The dog grabs them eagerly. It’s rather unusual that a kitten as young as this one gets such a big dose of poison.”

Gerald said abruptly, “You want the kitten to stay away from the house for a few days, Doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Is he out of danger now?”

“Yes. But I want to give him some further treatment — an hour or so.”

Helen said, “Let’s come back right after dinner and get him, Uncle Gerald. Then we can take him down to Tom Lunk — the gardener. He has a little bachelor shack that’s out of the neighborhood. Amber Eyes loves him and will be happy there.”

“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Dr. Blakely said.

Gerald Shore nodded. “All right. Come on, Helen, you’ve got a lot to do.”

Four or five blocks from the veterinary’s Gerald Shore pulled into the curb in front of a drugstore.

“That appointment with Perry Mason,” he explained. “I know him slightly, so I’ll telephone for you. It will be a miracle if we can catch him now. He’s a law unto himself as far as office hours go — and a lot of other things.”

A few minutes later he emerged. “In an hour at his office. That all right?”

Helen nodded. “Hadn’t you better come with me?”

“No. You’ll tell him the story better if you do it in your own way without having me there. I’m particularly anxious to see how he reacts to it — if he gets the same impression I do. I told him I’d meet you somewhere in front of the Castle Gate Hotel at nine.”

“What’s your impression, Uncle Gerald?”

He smiled affectionately, but shook his head. He concentrated on his driving for a moment, then turned to Helen. “You really don’t know whether that kitten was outdoors late this afternoon?”

“I’ve been trying to think, Uncle Gerald. I remember he was out in the back yard about three o’clock, but I can’t remember that he was out after that.”

“Who was at the house this afternoon?”

“Komo and Aunt Matilda and the cook.”

“Who else?”

Under the direct impact of his eyes, she felt herself coloring.

“Jerry Templar.”

“How long before the kitten developed those spasms?”

“Not very long.”

“Was George Alber there?”

“Yes, only for a few minutes. He came to see Aunt Matilda and then kept hanging around — until Jerry came — then I got rid of him in a hurry. Why?”

A muscle flickered in Gerald’s cheek, as if his jaws had tightened. “How much do you know about this — this devotion of Matilda’s to George Alber?”

“I know she likes him,” Helen said. “She’s always—”

“You don’t know what’s behind it, then? You don’t know that she almost married his father?”

“I never knew that. It... it’s hard to imagine Aunt Matilda as ever having been—”

“She was, though. Along in 1920, when she was forty or so, she was an attractive widow. And Stephen Alber was a good looking widower. George is a lot like him. It wasn’t any wonder to us that they fell for each other. It was a good deal more of a wonder when they had a quarrel and Matilda married Franklin. I always thought she did that mainly to hurt Stephen. It did hurt him, too, but he got over it. Married, two or three years afterwards. You probably remember when he was divorced, along about 1930.”

Helen shook her head. “It’s hard to believe anybody could ever have been in love with Aunt Matilda. And it’s even harder to imagine her being in love.”

“But she was. So much in love that I don’t think she ever got over it. I think she’s still in love with Stephen Alber. I think the biggest of her reasons for hating Franklin isn’t that he walked out on her. She knew he’d always hated Steve Alber, and I’m pretty sure that the thing she can’t forgive him for is what he did to Steve.”

“What did he do?” Helen said.

“Nothing, really. The bank did it after Franklin disappeared. But I shouldn’t wonder if he’d been getting ready to do it before he left. The big smash in ’29 hit Alber pretty hard, along with everybody else, but he managed to save some of the pieces. He hung on to them till along in ’32, just after Franklin left. Then the bank put on the screws. I shouldn’t wonder if Franklin had been intending to do it himself. He certainly didn’t like Alber. Anyway, Alber went under and never came up. Perhaps that wasn’t what killed him, but I guess it helped. And Matilda—”

He stopped. They were almost home. “I’m going with you tonight. I’ll be outside of the Castle Gate at nine.”

Helen hesitated. “Uncle Franklin said I mustn’t bring anybody except Mr. Mason. He sounded terribly in earnest about it.”

“No matter,” Gerald said. “I’m going with you.” His voice dropped a tone as he stopped in front of the house. “Be careful what you say. There’s George Alber.”

George Alber was coming down the steps. If he looked as much like his father as Uncle Gerald said he did, Helen thought, it was easy enough to believe that twenty-odd years ago Aunt Matilda — and plenty of other women, probably — had fallen rather hard for Stephen Alber.