Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

They would have had to be the kind of women, though, who lose their hearts to photographs of motion-picture actors. Retouched photographs, Helen told herself. There was something of that artificial quality about George Alber’s handsomeness, as if some careful pencil had drawn the Greek straightness of the nose, given the eyebrows that precisely perfect line, sketched a little extra wave into the thick, brightly dark hair.

But the retoucher hadn’t taken quite enough pains on the mouth. It was too full-lipped, and the jaw was too prominent. They marred the picture a little, that chin and mouth; they let coarseness into it, and vanity, and a kind of ruthlessness that might easily be cruel.

“What’s this about the kitten’s going mad?” His voice was something like his face, Helen told herself. Retouched, so that instead of being just right, it was just a little too right to be real.

“The cook says it scratched you. Let’s see that hand.”

He reached for it. His fingers were long and strong and beautifully kept, but Helen didn’t like their touch. She jerked her hand away.

“My hand’s all right. And Amber Eyes wasn’t mad. He...”

“You can’t afford to take that for granted.” He wagged his head. “From what the cook says...”

“The cook got her information second-hand from Aunt Matilda,” Helen interrupted. “The kitten was poisoned.”

“Poisoned!” Alber exclaimed.

“That’s right.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely.”

“But I can’t understand that.”

Gerald Shore, opening the left-hand car door and sliding out from behind the steering wheel, said dryly, “There’s no particular reason why you shouldn’t be able to understand it. Pellets of poison were embedded in several particles of meat and fed to the animal by someone who wanted to make a very thorough job of killing the kitten. I don’t know how I can explain it to you anymore plainly.”

George Alber apparently failed to notice the sarcasm. He said, smiling, “I didn’t mean that I couldn’t understand what had happened. I can’t understand why.”

Gerald said, “The answer is obvious. Someone wanted the kitten out of the way.”

“But why?” George Alber persisted.

It was that question which suddenly impressed Helen. She turned to her uncle, her forehead puckered into a frown. “Yes, Uncle Gerald, why should anyone want to poison Amber Eyes?”

Gerald Shore dismissed the subject, rather brusquely Helen thought.

“You can’t account for the psychology of an animal-poisoner. People go along and drop poisoned bits of meat into yards. The veterinary says they’re rather prevalent in certain sections of the city.”

Helen watched George Alber’s eyes lock with those of her uncle. There was, she realized, a certain innate combativeness about the younger man which made him advance under fire rather than retreat.

“I doubt very much if the kitten could have been poisoned in that way,” he said. “One scrap of meat, perhaps, yes. But several scraps — well, I doubt it.”

Gerald Shore, on the defensive and somewhat nettled by finding himself in that position, said, “Several scraps of meat might have been tossed into the yard within a space of a few feet. I see no reason why a kitten couldn’t pick them up.”

George Alber turned back to Helen. “When was the kitten out last, Helen?”

She said, “I don’t know, George. I can’t remember that it went out after three o’clock.”

“Could it have picked up the poison then?”

“The veterinary says that it must have been administered within a few minutes of the time of the first spasm, not very long before we got it to the hospital. That’s all that saved the kitten’s life.”

Alber nodded slowly as though that merely confirmed some idea which he had had in mind all along, then said suddenly, “Well, I’ll be on my way. I only dropped in. Be seeing you later. Sorry about Amber Eyes. Take good care of him.”

“We will,” Helen said. “We’re going to let Tom Lunk keep him for a few days.”

George Alber walked across to the curb where his car was parked, jumped in, and drove away.

Gerald Shore said with an intensity of feeling which came as somewhat of a surprise to his niece, “I definitely and distinctly dislike that man.”

“Why, Uncle Gerald?”

“I don’t know. He’s too — too damned assured. You can take it in an older man, but what the devil has he ever done to warrant his assuming such a cocksure air? How does it happen he isn’t in the Army?”

“Defective hearing in his left ear,” Helen explained. “Haven’t you ever noticed he always turns so his right side is toward you?”

Gerald snorted. “It’s his profile. Notice the way he holds his head. Trying to ape the pose of some matinee idol in the pictures.”

“No, he isn’t, Uncle Gerald. That’s unfair. It’s on account of his hearing. I know that for a fact. He tried to enlist.”

Gerald Shore asked abruptly, “When does Jerry Templar go back to camp?”

“Monday.” Helen tried not to think how near Monday was.

“Does he know where they’re sending him?”

“If he does, he isn’t telling.”

They were at the door of the house. Gerald pushed it open for her, but he didn’t follow her in.

“I’ve got some things to see to uptown. You’ll have to get down to Mason’s office on your own.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ll have to start pretty soon, too, and you won’t be back in time for dinner, so you’d better say you’re having it with me. That’ll satisfy Matilda and let you give Mason all the time he wants. He’ll want plenty, unless I miss my guess. And I’ll be waiting for you outside the Castle Gate at nine.”

He shut the door before Helen could remind him again that Uncle Franklin had very positively told her that nobody except Perry Mason was even to know about that appointment at the Castle Gate.

Perry Mason had that peculiar, confidence-inspiring magnetism which is so frequently found in tall men. In repose, his features and his manner had the weathered patience of hard granite. It was only in times of stress that his irrepressible personality flooded through. Before a jury, for instance, he could summon the skill and grace of a finished actor. His voice was a responsive instrument that accompanied and emphasized his words. His questions held a razor-edged sharpness which cut through the clumsy falsehoods of sullen, stubborn perjurers. In critical courtroom crises he was a fast-moving, quick-thinking force molding men’s minds, playing on their emotions, out-thinking his antagonists’ dramatic, persuasive, agile, yet never forsaking the fortress of deadly logic which buttressed every contention.

Della Street, Mason’s secretary, unlocked the door of the lawyer’s private office, and entered to find Mason seated in the swivel chair back of his desk, his long legs elevated, the ankles crossed on a corner of the big desk.

“Well, here I am,” she announced, taking off her gloves and slipping out of her coat.

Mason said nothing until she emerged from the cloak closet having deposited her hat and coat. Then he said, “Della, virtue has been rewarded. I told you this morning that we shouldn’t clutter up our minds with that equity case, even if there was money in it. Eight hours later we get this .”

“There was a ten-thousand-dollar fee in that equity case,” Della said frostily. “What’s in this?”

Mason grinned. “It’s an adventure that will make you feel ten years younger.”

“Most of your cases make me feel ten years older!”

Mason ignored her. “This has none of the dull, routine angles that drive me to drink. It sparkles with bizarre mystery, adventure, romance. To put it another way, it’s cockeyed crazy and doesn’t make any sense at all — one hell of a swell case.”