Эрл Гарднер - The Case of the Lonely Heiress

Della Street said indignantly, “Why, the dirty...!”

Mason, grinning broadly, said, “It shows the danger of judging people by the way they look. He sat there and played dumb and let us tell him all of our plans.”

“Just where does that leave us?” Della Street asked.

“Temporarily,” Mason said, “it leaves us behind the eightball.”

“And what do we do now?”

“Return to the office,” Mason said, “and start Paul Drake doing a lot of leg work. And the next time we meet a ‘dumb’ cop, Della, we’ll forget the broken nose and cauliflower ear, and look him over to see if he has a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging from his watch chain. Let’s go.”

The two Endicott brothers and the one sister had moved into the big mansion home which had been left them under the terms of George Endicott’s will.

Years ago the house had been one of the show places of the city. Now it was an anachronism, a big wooden-gabled structure with side porches, spacious grounds, shade trees, lawns, summer houses, terraces, winding walks and sunken pools. It seemed more a museum than a dwelling.

Mason turned his car in at the driveway, which, together with the big garage, had been constructed as a modern improvement. The hard-surfaced driveway cut through in a businesslike straight line past the winding walks which followed the contours of the terraced grounds.

The lawyer stopped his car under the protecting portico of what had once been a shelter over a carriage entrance. He climbed three stairs and rang a bell which jangled sharply in the dark bowels of the ancient house.

Mason rang a second time before he heard slow steps, and then the door was opened by a man whose bald head, fringed with white hair, whose sharp, piercing eyes, beak-like nose and thin lips gave him the appearance of a reincarnated predator.

“I would like to see any one of the Endicott family,” Mason said.

“I’m Ralph Endicott.”

Mason handed the man his card. “I’m Perry Mason, a lawyer.”

“I’ve heard of you. Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you.”

Mason followed Endicott in through a gloomy, paneled passageway redolent with the splendor of a bygone age.

His guide opened a door and said, “Won’t you step in here, please, Mr. Mason?”

This room was thoroughly in keeping with the rest of the house, a large, spacious library, in the center of which was a massive mahogany table on which were three huge table lamps. The shades, some four feet in diameter at the bottom, were composed of heavy leather, and the clustered lamps on the interior poured forth illumination upon the huge table and sprayed light out through the openings in the tops of the shades.

Three chairs had been drawn up at this table. Two of them were occupied, and the third, which evidently was where Ralph Endicott had been sitting before he went to answer the bell, was pulled slightly back from between the other two.

The two people who looked up at Mason’s entrance had a certain family resemblance.

Reflected light from the big reading lamps on the table splashed illumination on their faces and etched them into white brilliance against the somber background of booklined shelves.

“Mr. Mason,” Ralph Endicott said, “permit me to introduce you to my brother and sister. Mrs. Parsons, may I present Mr. Perry Mason, a lawyer. And this, Mr. Mason, is my brother, Palmer Endicott.”

“Good evening,” Mason said, giving his most cordial smile. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

The others bowed coldly.

“Won’t you be seated, Mr. Mason?”

“Thank you,” Mason said.

Ralph Endicott drew up a chair from Mason directly across the table from where the others were sitting, then walked around to take his place once more in the third chair between the other two.

Mason had a chance to size up the brother and sister while Ralph was seating himself.

Palmer was a thin-faced, bushy-haired individual, somewhere in the seventies. He had about him a look of perpetual skepticism. Lorraine Endicott Parsons quite evidently lavished care upon herself, such care as could be given in home treatments. She sat haughtily erect in stiff-backed, uncompromising truculence. Her face had begun to sag, but her chin was up; her hair was frosty white, and there was the cold ruthlessness of self-righteous respectability in her posture. There was about all three of them an appearance of shabby gentility which added to the over-all family resemblance. Clothes were dark in color, old-fashioned in cut, and well worn.

“Just what do you want, Mr. Mason?” Ralph Endicott asked.

“I’m a lawyer,” Mason said. “I’m representing interests adverse to you. You have a lawyer, Paddington C. Niles. I tried to call him. His secretary said he was on his way here. I don’t want to talk with you until he arrives.”

“What do you want to talk about?” Ralph Endicott asked.

“Rose Keeling is dead. I want to ask you about circumstances which may have led to her death or...”

“Rose Keeling dead!” Mrs. Parsons interrupted with cold disbelief. “She can’t be dead. That would greatly embarrass us. Are you certain of your facts, Mr. Mason?”

She regarded him as though she expected him to wither and crawl under the table under the impact of her disapproving stare.

Mason said, “She’s quite thoroughly dead. Someone stabbed her as she stepped out of the bathtub. I’m investigating that murder, and time is precious. I’d like to know whether any of you have been in touch with her recently. All I want to know is whether you saw her today, whether she phoned you and, if so, when.”

Ralph Endicott said slowly, “This, of course, was the thing we had to fear.”

Mrs. Parsons said, “A creature who had stooped to taking advantage of a man’s incompetencies and depriving his relatives of what is justly theirs, would stop at nothing.”

“Meaning?” Mason asked.

“I am making no specific accusations.”

“That sounded like an accusation.”

“You are free to interpret my remarks any way you wish.”

“May I ask whom you’re representing?” Palmer Endicott inquired.

Mason shook his head. “My client is not willing to have an announcement made at the present time.”

“I take it you’re not representing the authorities. There’s nothing official about your investigation.”

“Not in the least,” Mason said. “I want you to have your lawyer, and I want to know if any of you had been in touch with Miss Keeling earlier in the day. That’s all I want to know.”

“Why?”

“Because a murder has been committed. I’m trying to get the time element straightened out. I want to know when she was killed. And I’m anxious to find out the latest hour at which she was alive. I think she may have called one of you today. I don’t give a hang about the nature of the conversation. I only want to know the time of the conversation. Your lawyer’s supposed to be here. I want him present. Where is he?”

“He’s coming,” Ralph Endicott said. “When we heard your ring we felt certain it was Mr. Niles. He’s due here for a conference. That’s why we’re sitting in the library.”

Mason said, “I want to see him. I...” He broke off as the electric bell boomed a summons through the house.

“That will be Niles now,” Mrs. Parsons said with calm conviction.

Ralph Endicott pushed back his chair, said, “Excuse me,” went to the door and returned in a few moments with a florid-faced man in the fifties who beamed optimism and geniality.

“Mr. Niles,” Ralph Endicott said as though presenting two fighters in the ring. “Mr. Mason.”

“How are you, Mr. Niles,” Mason said, shaking hands. “I’m glad to meet you.”