Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Careless Kitten

“But nothing has been heard from him for...”

“That’s just the point,” Mason said. “Something has. He telephoned his niece today. She’s to meet him tonight. He insisted that I be present at the interview. I’m going to take you along.”

“Do I take a notebook?” she asked.

“By all means a notebook,” Mason said. “We’re going to have notes, so we’ll know everything that’s said, and be able to discuss the significance of the things that aren’t said.”

“But why doesn’t he get in touch with his wife and come back home?”

“That’s just the point. There was something mysterious about his disappearance, some talk at the time of his having run away with a younger woman. Apparently, he isn’t too certain of the reception his wife will give him.”

“She knows nothing about his being here now?”

“No. Franklin specifically instructed his niece to say nothing to anyone. She did confide in her Uncle Gerald, the one who telephoned me.”

“Is Matilda Shore the forgiving kind?” Della Street asked.

Mason grinned. “Definitely not, and reading between the lines of Helen Kendal’s story, I’d say she’s a most objectionable, peculiar character. What’s more, there’s an old love affair involved, too. The man is dead, but his son, George Alber, is the spitting image of his father and Matilda is very much attached to him. I gather that Gerald Shore views that relationship with alarm.”

“Why?”

“In young Alber,” Mason said, “she sees the image of the man whom she once loved. Her only living relatives being Gerald Shore and Helen Kendal, ordinarily, they’d be the beneficiaries under her will. Sometime ago, before young Alber read ‘Welcome’ on the mat, she intimated that they were not only her heirs but would inherit the entire fortune.”

“It is a fortune?”

“Yes.”

“Enter Alber!”

Mason grinned. “Enter Alber. Gerald Shore thinks he’s turning loose all his charm, and there’s no question about the fact that he has become a frequent visitor at the house.”

“Good heavens, you don’t mean that this woman of sixty-four is going to marry this...”

“Probably not,” Mason said. “But she wants her niece to marry him. And Alber seems to like that idea. Matilda Shore has become quite a despot, and she controls the purse strings. However, you haven’t heard all the ramifications of the case yet. Not only was there this mysterious telephone call, but a kitten was poisoned this afternoon.”

Della raised her eyebrows. “What has the poisoned kitten to do with the return of Franklin Shore?”

“Perhaps nothing, perhaps a lot.”

“In what way?”

“It was probably an inside job.”

“Why inside?”

“Because, checking up as best they can, the cat doesn’t seem to have been out of the house after three o’clock in the afternoon. The symptoms of poisoning developed right around five o’clock. The veterinary says the poison was administered not over fifteen or twenty minutes before the cat was brought to him for treatment. That was about quarter past five.”

“What kind of poison?” Della Street asked. “A kind that could have been administered to a human being?”

“That’s the rub,” Mason admitted. “Apparently, it was a strychnine poisoning. Strychnia has a bitter taste. An animal would swallow it if the poison were skillfully embedded in small balls of meat, because animals seldom chew. But a human being would have detected the bitter taste; particularly if the meat had been cooked.”

“And you want me to go with you tonight?”

“Yes. A man by the name of Leech is going to escort us to the place where Franklin is hiding.”

“Why’s he hiding?”

Mason laughed. “Why did he disappear in the first place? I’ve often wondered about that, Della. Why a man who was enough of a realist to keep selling stocks short during the years which followed the crash of twenty-nine, who was making money hand over fist, who had everything that he wanted in life, should suddenly disappear and take none of the money with him. ”

“Perhaps he’d been salting some away,” Della Street said.

“Not in these days of income taxes,” Mason pointed out.

“He might have falsified his books.”

“An individual with a smaller income might have done that, but Franklin Shore’s affairs were too complex. No, Della, we’re in the way of solving an ancient mystery. The solution is going to be interesting and may be highly exciting. You want to get the picture of Matilda Shore as Helen Kendal painted it. A morose, strong-minded woman with over a million dollars locked in her grasping hands, approaching the end of life, something of a Tartar, addicted to chirping lovebirds, a servant who has always posed as a Korean, but who acts, looks, and talks like a Japanese. She’s kept alive by one thing — the desire to be there waiting when her husband finally returns. Come on, Della, we’re on the trail of another adventure in crime!”

Della grimaced. “There’s no crime yet,” she pointed out.

“Well,” Mason said, walking over to the hat closet and whipping on his coat, “at least we have one attempted crime.”

“What’s that?”

“The kitten.”

“The case of the poisoned kitten?” she asked.

She slipped a notebook and half a dozen pencils into her purse, and then stood by the desk as though worried about something.

“Coming?” demanded Perry impatiently.

“Chief, have you ever seen a kitten eat?”

“Does a duck swim? Why?”

“A cat usually picks at its food. That kitten must have been terribly hungry to gulp down those balls of meat.”

“This kitten was just careless, I guess. Hurry up.”

“Very careless,” nodded Della. “I think when I open the file for this case I’ll call it ‘The Case of the Careless Kitten’.”

In Mason’s car, driving toward the Castle Gate Hotel, Della Street asked, “Did Franklin Shore put all of his property in his wife’s name?”

“Just about all, as I understand it. There were joint accounts in the bank.”

“How long before the disappearance?”

“It had been going on for three or four years.”

“Then if she wants to keep him from coming back, she could...”

“Couldn’t keep him from coming back physically,” Mason interrupted, “but she certainly could embarrass his come-back financially. Suppose the moment he showed up, she filed suit for divorce, asked for a property award, and all that out of what little property remains in his name? Get the sketch? She’d claim the other property was all hers.”

“You think that’s what she’s planning?”

Mason said, “He certainly has some reason for wanting me there at the conference. I don’t think he wants me to play tiddlywinks.”

They were silent for several blocks, then Della Street asked, “Where do we meet the others?”

“A block from the Castle Gate Hotel.”

“What kind of a place is it?”

“Second-rate, down-at-the-heel hotel, an outward front of respectability, but it’s a thin veneer.”

“And Henry Leech wanted Helen Kendal and you to come alone?”

“Yes.”

“Think he’ll object to the four of us?”

“I don’t know. There are some peculiar angles, and I want notes taken so I’ll know what is said, and what isn’t said... Up on the next corner is where we meet the others. Here’s a good parking place.”

Mason eased the car into the curb, switched off the lights and ignition, helped Della Street out, and locked the door. Two figures detached themselves from the shadows of a doorway. Gerald Shore came forward to shake hands. Introductions were performed in a low voice.