Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

“All right,” Durant said, “let’s put it this way. I invited myself to sit down and since the newspapers have dignified Olney’s suit by having you and your secretary listed among those present at the press conference, I’m going to tell you that I’m not going to stand for all this.

“I understand that the only person who says I expressed an opinion is a former model who I have reason to believe is anxious to secure a lot of cheap publicity. Or perhaps I should express it the other way: who is anxious to secure a lot of publicity cheap.

“I would like very much to find out whether this person is the one who is back of all this uproar. I never told her or anyone else anything about the painting, except that I think I told this young woman that if anyone asked me to give an opinion on the painting, I would want to examine it most carefully. That’s what I would have to do before I could express an opinion on any painting.

“I’m not going to let this publicity seeker parlay a statement like that into a bid for newspaper notoriety.”

“I can’t tell you anything,” Mason said, “and I have no desire to discuss the matter.”

“Don’t discuss it if you don’t want to, you can just listen,” Durant said.

“And I have no desire to listen,” Mason said, pushing back his chair. “I’m trying to relax,” he went on, “from the day’s work. I am dining socially. I don’t care to discuss any business at this time and I have nothing to discuss with you.”

The lawyer got to his feet.

“I’m just telling you,” Durant said, “that any time any cheap trollop thinks she’s going to bounce her curves off my reputation as an art dealer in order to feather her own nest, she has a surprise coming.”

Mason said, “I’ve tried to be courteous about this, Durant. I’ve told you repeatedly I don’t care to discuss anything with you. Now, you can get up out of that chair and start moving or you’ve got a surprise coming.”

Durant looked at the angry lawyer, shrugged his shoulders, got to his feet, said, “And the same thing goes for you, Mr. Mason. I have a business reputation and I’m not going to have it cheapened by you or anyone else.”

Mason walked over, picked up the chair Durant had been sitting in, replaced it at the adjoining table, turned his back on Durant and again seated himself opposite Della Street.

Durant walked away after a moment’s hesitation.

Della Street reached across to put her hand over that of Perry Mason. Her fingers strong, steady, capable, gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Don’t look after him like that, Chief,” she said. “If looks could kill, you’d be your own defendant in a murder case.”

Mason moved his eyes back to Della Street’s face and then his own face softened into a smile. “Thanks, Della,” he said, “I was actually contemplating justifiable homicide. I don’t know exactly why he irritated me so much.

“Of course, I hate to have my evening interfered with by people who want to take short cuts on getting legal advice. I don’t like table-hoppers, I don’t like name-droppers.”

“And,” Della Street said, “you don’t like art experts by the name of Collin Durant.”

“Period,” Mason said.

“Well,” Della Street told him, “being virtually assured that you are now going to leave this place and not return until the notoriety connected with that gossip column has abated somewhat, do you think it would be a good plan for me to call the Drake Detective Agency and see what Paul knows, if anything?”

“It might be a very good plan,” Mason said, “to keep in touch with him.”

The lawyer reached in his pocket.

“I have a whole purseful of dimes,” Della Street said. “Drink your coffee and relax. I’ll be back in a moment with all the dirt from Paul.”

Della Street vanished in the direction of the telephone booth. Mason poured another cup of coffee, settled back and let the stiffness and tension flow out of his muscles as he contemplated the couples dancing, the people eating.

Della Street was back in a few minutes.

“What’s cooking?” Mason asked.

“Nothing on the front burner,” she said, “and nothing in the oven. But something is simmering on the back burner.”

“Such as what?”

“Maxine Lindsay.”

“What about her?”

“She called just a few minutes ago and insisted that she had to speak to you tonight, that she must get in touch with you.”

“What did Drake say?”

“He told her he couldn’t reach you, that you’d probably call in during the evening. Then Maxine said while she wanted to reach you she knew how busy you were and it might not be necessary to bother you if she could just get in touch with your secretary, Della Street.”

“Did Paul give her your phone number?”

“That’s right.”

“That means you’ll probably get a call late tonight,” Mason said.

“That’s all right, it won’t bother me any. What will I tell her?”

“Just see what she has in mind and tell her to stay put. Call her attention to the fact that I have an affidavit from her so she can’t change her testimony.”

Della Street nodded.

Mason said, “You know, Della, the law schools teach law. No one teaches anything about the facts to which the law is applied, or what to do about those facts. Yet when a young lawyer starts practicing law he finds that his problems for the most part don’t deal with law but deal with proof. In other words, they deal with facts.

“Now, let’s take this case for instance. Rankin was all steamed up. He wanted to file suit. He wanted to get his name in the paper. He wanted to put his own professional reputation out on the block and he had a perfect legal right to do so. If I had let him walk into that trap, however, he’d have been hung, drawn and quartered in the market place. Everyone would have remembered him as the art dealer who had been accused by another art dealer of peddling a phoney painting.

“Now, however, the shoe is on the other foot. Durant is on the defensive, Rankin is sitting pretty, and the ultimate result will be to enhance Rankin’s reputation — but we’re still up against facts.”

“Such as what?” Della Street asked.

“First,” Mason said, “we have to prove that the Phellipe Feteet Rankin sold Otto Olney is genuine.”

“That seems to have been taken care of all right,” she said.

Mason nodded.

“The next thing,” Mason said, “is to prove that Durant said the picture was spurious. We have a witness for that end of it all tied up, but apparently that’s where Durant is going to make his fight.”

“Well,” Della Street said, “Maxine was most definite in her statement — she can’t back up on her testimony now. I really made an affidavit. I tied her up, up one side and down the other.”

“That’s what’s worrying me,” Mason said. “If anything should happen to Maxine, we couldn’t use her affidavit as testimony. The only purpose of the affidavit is to keep her in line, to hold it over her head in case she should start getting vague and changing her testimony.”

“She won’t do that,” Della Street said reassuringly.

“And there’s one other thing,” Mason said.

“What?”

“Suppose she should marry Collin Durant?”

“Heaven forbid!”

“But just suppose she should,” Mason said.

“Well, there’s no use worrying about it,” Della Street told him.

“I don’t know,” Mason said. “There’s something fishy about this whole business. The lawyer in me is beginning to wave red danger signals all up and down the track.”

She said, “The lawyer in you makes you so skeptical that you’re always looking for the joker in the deck.”