Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Reluctant Model

“What about filing the suit?” Mason asked.

“We’re filing the suit at one o’clock this afternoon,” Hollister said. “Our client is very much annoyed over the statement attributed to Mr. Durant, and your affidavit by Maxine Lindsay covers the situation perfectly. We are asking damages in an amount of twenty-five thousand dollars. Mr. Olney places a very high valuation on this particular picture and feels that the statements made by Durant not only reflect on the value of the picture, but on his judgment as a businessman. Furthermore, our client has gone all the way and has alleged in his complaint that the statements were made deliberately and with malice, and has asked for another twenty-five thousand as punitive or exemplary damages.”

“I’ll be glad to be present,” Mason said. “I take it I may bring my secretary, Miss Street?”

“Certainly.”

“We’ll be there. I’m glad you’re going ahead with the suit.”

“We don’t like to play cat’s-paw for other people,” Hollister said tartly. “Of course the real cause of action is one that Rankin has against Durant.”

“I take it,” Mason said, “Olney is able to compensate you for your services in the matter.”

“Quite able,” Hollister said.

“All right,” Mason told him, “we didn’t bring you in as a cat’s-paw, we handed you a piece of legal business. I take it I’ll meet you at two o’clock?”

“I’ll be there,” Hollister said.

“I’ll look forward to meeting you then.”

The lawyer hung up and turned to Della Street who had been monitoring the conversation.

“To thunder with all this business of sitting in a musty old office, Della, browsing through the files of antiquity in order to find out the course of legal reasoning which has actuated judges in determining litigation. Let’s leave the office at one, drive leisurely down to the Penquin Yacht Club, board the palatial yacht of Otto Olney, look at the picture in question, and imbibe several cocktails; after which we can have dinner and perhaps engage in a little dancing, just by way of exercise.”

“I take it,” she said, “that my presence is necessary as a part of the business in hand.”

“Oh, quite necessary,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t think of being there without you.”

“Under those circumstances,” she observed demurely, “it would seem only right that I should call the client who has the three o’clock appointment with you and tell him that a matter of urgent business has necessitated postponing the appointment.”

“Who is it, Della?”

“The man who wanted to see you about the appeal in that case of his brother — the one where the brother’s attorney failed to object on the alleged misconduct of the prosecutor.”

“Oh, yes,” Mason said, “I remember now. That is an interesting case but there’s no great hurry about it. Ring him up and tell him that I’ll see him at twelve-thirty instead of at three, or he can have the appointment tomorrow. Take a look at the appointment book and see if you can fit him in, but we definitely can’t let anything interfere with appraising the art work of Phellipe Feteet. As a matter of fact, the description of the man’s technique interests me a lot.”

Della Street smiled as Mason picked up a pile of urgent mail she had stacked on a corner of his desk. “Nothing,” she observed, “leads you to tackle routine matters with greater energy or more enthusiasm than the prospect of getting away from the office and running head-on into adventure.”

Mason weighed the accusation for a moment, then gleefully acknowledged the accuracy of her observation. “We need a little adventure, Della. Let’s get through with this damned bunch of routine stuff, then go have a ball.”

With which, the lawyer plunged into the pile of mail.

At ten minutes to one, Mason and Della Street entered the lawyer’s car, stopped briefly at a roadside drive-in for lunch, then went on down to the Penquin Yacht Club, made inquiries as to the location of Otto Olney’s yacht and shortly thereafter were escorted aboard a trim craft which looked like a miniature ocean liner.

A tall, tired-looking individual in his late forties, wearing a yachting cap, a blue coat and white trousers, came forward to greet them. “I’m Olney,” he said, glancing at Perry Mason, then letting his eyes shift approvingly to Della Street.

“Perry Mason,” the lawyer told him, “and this is Miss Street, my confidential secretary.”

“How do you do, how do you do?” Olney said, shaking hands. “You’re a little early. Would you care to step in and make yourselves comfortable? Perhaps a drink?”

“We’ve just eaten,” Mason said. “It’s a little early for a drink but I’d like to look at the painting. I had some conversations with your attorneys about the case.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Come in and take a look.”

Olney led the way into a luxuriously furnished main salon, dominated artistically by a painting showing women stripped to the waist grouped under the shade of a tree while just behind them in vivid sunlight naked children romped against a background of riotous color.

“The idea of saying that picture’s a fake!” Olney exclaimed. “That’s up in the headhunters’ country, back of Baguio, and Phellipe Feteet is the only artist who was ever able to get the spirit of the thing. Just look at the depth in that picture! Look at the texture of the skin on those women! Look at the expressions on their faces, and then look at that sunlight. You can just see it beating down. You want to get back into the shelter of the shade of the tree and sit with the women.”

Mason, startled, said, “Why, that’s one of the most unusual paintings I’ve ever seen!”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Olney exclaimed. “I’m a fan of Feteet’s. The guy had something no one else ever has developed and I’d like to buy more of his paintings if I could get hold of them at anything like a reasonable price. I’m satisfied they’re going to be tremendously valuable someday.”

“I should certainly think so,” Mason said. “Those women — the colors — the background — there’s so much depth to the picture.”

“You can get depth if you can get a shaded foreground with a sunlit background,” Olney said, “but very few people are able to achieve it. Most of the pictures showing sunlight are pale, insipid things with a sort of pastel sunlight. It looks as though you were looking at a colored photograph taken on a hazy day.

“But Feteet had the knack of making the shade cool and comfortable and having it dominate the foreground so that the vivid coloring of the background suggests a type of sunlight that— Ah, here’s Miss Kenner. I want you to meet her.”

Olney went forward to shake hands with a serious-eyed, quite good-looking woman in her mid-thirties who gave him her hand and said casually, “Hi, Otto. What is it this time?”

“This time,” Olney said, “you are going to get a surprise. But I don’t want to announce it until some of the other people get here. Ah, here’s Hollister now.”

Hollister, a bundle of dynamic energy, closely knit, quick-moving, brief case in hand, boarded the yacht and was introduced to Mason and Della Street. Then after a moment a group of newspaper reporters appeared, accompanied by photographers with press cameras, and last, Lattimer Rankin came stalking majestically across the landing and aboard the yacht.

“Where’s Maxine?” Olney asked.

“I thought it better for her not to come,” Hollister said. “We have her affidavit and there’s no use having her interviewed by the press when we can use her affidavit, which speaks for itself.”

For a moment there was a flicker of disappointment on Olney’s face. Then he said curtly, “Okay, you’re the attorney.”