The Case Of The Howling Dog pm-4

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  "What," asked Paul Drake, "was the idea?"

  "The idea in what?" Mason wanted to know.

  "The idea in having me call the men off."

  "I simply had everything that I wanted, and I didn't want the men to be found in the neighborhood."

  "What was happening in the neighborhood?" Drake inquired.

  "I don't know," Perry Mason said. "I didn't even know anything was going to happen, but I thought it might be a good idea to have the shadows called in."

  "Listen," said Drake querulously, "there's a lot about this thing you're not telling me."

  "Is that so?" asked Perry Mason, lighting a cigarette. "I thought you were supposed to find out things to tell me; not that I was supposed to find out things to tell you. Are these the two men who were on the job?"

  "Yes. The man on the left is Ed Wheeler, and the other one is George Doake."

  Perry Mason looked over at them.

  "What time did you boys go on?" he asked.

  "Six o'clock."

  "Both of you were there all the time?"

  "Most of the time. One of us would go and telephone every fifteen minutes."

  "Where were you fellows? I didn't see you when I came up."

  "We saw you all right," said Wheeler with a grin.

  "Where were you?" Mason repeated.

  "We were quite a distance from the house," Wheeler admitted, "but we were where we could see everything that went on. We had night glasses, and we were out of sight. There's a vacant house half way down the block, and we were in a room in the vacant house."

  "Don't ask how they got in," said Paul Drake in his slow drawl. "That's a professional secret."

  "All right," Mason said, "we'll each of us keep our professional secrets. What I want you boys to do is to tell me exactly what happened."

  Ed Wheeler took out a leather-backed notebook from his coat pocket, thumbed the pages and said, "We went on duty at six o'clock. At about six-fifteen, the housekeeper, Thelma Benton, went out."

  "Did she go out the front door or the back door?" asked Mason.

  "Out the front door."

  "All right, where did she go?"

  "There was a man called for her in a Chevrolet car."

  "Get the license?" Mason asked.

  "Sure. It was 6M9245."

  "What kind of a car - coupe, sedan or roadster?"

  "A coupe."

  "Go ahead. What next?"

  "Then things were quiet. Nobody came and nobody left, until seven twenty-five. It was really a little past that - almost seven twenty-six, but I called it seven twenty-five. A Checker taxicab came to the place, and a woman got out."

  "Did you get the number of the cab?"

  "I didn't get the license number. The cab number was painted on the side of the car, and was easier to get than the license number, so I got that."

  "What was it?"

  "86-C."

  "There's no chance that you're mistaken on that?"

  "None. We both of us had night glasses and we both of us checked it.

  "That's right," rumbled the other detective. "We're positive about the license numbers and all that stuff."

  "All right, go on," said Mason.

  "A woman got out and went into the house, and the cab went away."

  "And it didn't wait?"

  "No, it didn't wait. But it came back after twelve minutes. Evidently, the woman had sent the driver some place, and told him to do something and then come back."

  "Go ahead," Mason said. "How about the woman? What did she look like?"

  "We can't tell exactly. She was well dressed, and had on a dark fur coat."

  "Did she wear gloves?"

  "She wore gloves."

  "Did you see her face?"

  "Not plainly. You see, it was dark by that time. The street light showed the taxicab pretty plainly, and that made a shadow right where the woman got out. Then she walked rapidly up the walk, to the house, and went in."

  "Did she ring the bell?"

  "Yes, she rang the bell."

  "Was she a long time about getting in?"

  "No, she went in in just a minute or two."

  "Looked as though Foley had been expecting her?"

  "I don't know. She went to the house and paused for a minute at the front door, and then went in."

  "Wait a minute," said Mason. "You say she rang the doorbell. How do you know?"

  "I saw her bending over by the door. I figured that was what she was doing."

  "Couldn't she have been opening the lock with a key?"

  "Yes, she could have done that," said Wheeler. "Come to think of it, maybe that's what she was doing. I figured at the time she was ringing the bell, because that's what I expected her to do."

  "Is there any chance the woman could have been Thelma Benton?"

  "I don't think so. When Thelma Benton left she was wearing a different kind of coat. This woman wore a long black fur coat."

  "How long was she in there?" asked the lawyer.

  "She was in there fifteen minutes - maybe sixteen minutes. I've got the cab marked as driving away right after she went in. Then the cab came back in twelve minutes, and the woman left at seven forty-two."

  "Did you hear any commotion? Dogs barking, or anything?"

  "No, we didn't. But we wouldn't have heard anything anyway. You see, we were a ways down the block. It was the best place we could find to watch. The chief told us that he wanted us to be absolutely certain we weren't spotted. We probably could have come up a little closer after it got dark, but during the daytime we'd have been spotted in a minute if we hung around the place. So we got in this house that was down the street, and used binoculars to see what was going on."

  "Go ahead," said Perry Mason. "What happened next?"

  "After the woman drove away, nothing happened, until you showed up. You came in a yellow cab, and the cab number was 362. You got in there at eight twenty-nine, according to my watch, and we don't know what happened after that. We telephoned in to Drake, and Drake told us to get off the job right away and come in to the place here, but as we were driving away, we heard a bunch of sirens, so we wondered if anything had happened."

  "All right," Mason told him, "don't wonder. It's not what you're paid to do. You're paid to watch, do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, then," Mason said, "here's what I want. I want you to round up that Checker driver, number 86-C, and bring him up to the place here. No, wait a minute, don't bring him up to the place. Get him spotted and telephone me here. I'll go talk with him myself."

  "Anything else?"

  "Not right away," said Perry Mason. He turned to Paul Drake.

  "You're moving heaven and earth to get a line on these people I told you about?"

  Drake nodded. "I think I've got something for you, Perry," he said, "but let's get rid of these boys first."

  "On your way," Mason told them. "Get down to the Checker office. Find out who's running 86-C, and get him spotted for me, then telephone the office here just as soon as you've got him spotted. Another thing, it might be a good plan for you boys not to listen to any gossip while you're on the job."

  "How do you mean?" Drake asked.

  "I mean," Mason said, "that I don't want these boys getting mixed into anything, other than being a couple of private dicks, working for day wages. Do you get me?"

  "I think I get you," said Drake. "You boys under stand?"

  "We understand," Wheeler said.

  "Get started then," said Mason.

  He watched the two men as they left the office, his face set and stern, as though carved from granite, his steady eyes containing a smoldering light in their somber depths.

  When the door had closed he turned to Paul Drake.

  "Paul," he said, "there was a telegram sent from Midwick to Clinton Foley. That telegram purported to have been signed by the woman who had posed as Foley's wife, and asked him not to do anything criminally against Cartright. I want to get a photostatic cop
y of that telegram. Do you suppose you can work it?"

  "It's going to be a job," Drake said.

  "Never mind how much of a job it is; I want you to get it."

  "I'll do what I can, Perry."

  "Get started on that now."

  Paul Drake reached for a telephone, paused a moment, then said, "I'd better go in another office and put that call through. Stick around, I've got something to tell you."

  "I've got lots to tell you," Perry Mason said, "only I'm not going to tell you right now."

  Drake stepped through a communicating door to an other office, closed the door behind him, was gone five minutes, returned and nodded to Mason.

  "I think I can fix it," he said.

  "All right," Mason said. "Now tell me what you've found out..."

  The telephone rang. Paul Drake made a gesture for silence, scooped up the receiver, said, "Hello," then listened.

  "Got the address?" he asked at length.

  He nodded his head, then turned to Mason.

  "Make a note of this, will you, Perry? There's paper over there on the desk, and a pencil."

  Mason walked to the desk, picked up a piece of paper, and held a pencil over it.

  "Shoot," he said.

  Paul Drake said in a slow voice, "Breedmont Hotel - B-r-e-e-d-m-o-n-t Hotel. Ninth and Masonic. Room 764, and the name is Mrs. C. M. Dangerfield, is that right?" He paused for a moment, then nodded to Perry Mason.

  "That's it, Perry," he said. "That's all."

  He slipped the receiver back on its hook.

  "Who's that?" asked Perry Mason.

  "That," said Paul Drake, "is the name under which Mrs. Bessie Forbes is registered at a hotel here in the city. Do you want to go see her? The room number is 764."

  Perry Mason heaved a sigh of relief, folded the paper and thrust it in his pocket.

  "Now," he said, "we're commencing to get some place."

  "You want to go see her now?" asked Paul Drake.

  "We've got to see that taxi driver first," Mason told him. "We'll have to get him up here now. There's no time for me to go to him."

  "Why is the taxi driver so important?"

  "I want to see that taxi driver, and see him first," Mason said. "Also I want to get a shorthand reporter to take down the conversation. I have an idea I've got to get Della Street back to the office."

  Paul Drake grinned at him.

  "You don't need to worry about that girl," he said, "she's back at the office. She telephoned in a little while ago to see if I'd heard anything from you, and I told her you'd sent in an S O S to pull the shadows off the Foley house, and that I thought it was something important, so she said she was coming down to the office and stick around awhile."

  Perry Mason nodded his head slowly.

  "That," he said, "is the kind of cooperation that counts."

  The telephone rang again. Drake picked up the receiver, said, "Hello," listened for a moment, then nodded to Perry Mason.

  "The boys have located that cab driver, Perry," he said. "They haven't talked with him yet, but they've found out from the main office where he is. He just checked in with a report."

  "Tell the boys to go and hire the cab; to take it to my office and bring the driver up with them. Make some excuse to bring him up. Tell him they've got a trunk or a suitcase to bring down - anything to get him up there. And tell 'em to do it right away."

  Drake nodded, transmitted Mason's instructions over the telephone, hung up and looked at Mason.

  "What's next?" he asked. "Do we go up to your office and wait?"

  Perry Mason nodded.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE cab driver fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair, glanced at Perry Mason, then let his eyes slither away to the faces of the two detectives, then looked at Della Street.

  Della Street, perched on the edge of a chair, knees crossed, notebook held open on the desk, smiled reassuringly at him.

  "What's the idea?" the driver asked.

  "Just want to find out some information from you," said Mason. "We're collecting some evidence in connection with a case."

  "What sort of a case?" asked the driver.

  Mason nodded to Della Street, and she touched her pen to the notebook, streaming off a series of cabalistic signs from the point of the pen.

  "The case," said Perry Mason slowly, "was a case involving a neighborhood fight over a howling dog. It seems to have developed into complications. We don't know yet just how serious those complications are. I want you to understand that the questions I am about to ask you deal only with the neighborhood fight over the howling dog, and the resulting charges which were made back and forth."

  The cab driver settled back in the chair.

  "Suits me," he said. "My meter's running downstairs."

  "That's all right," Mason told him. "You get paid for the meter, and you get five dollars on top of it. How does that satisfy you?"

  "It will when I get the five dollars," the driver said.

  Mason opened a drawer in the desk, took out a five dollar bill and passed it across to the driver.

  The cabbie pocketed the money and grinned.

  "Now then," he said, "go ahead and shoot."

  "Around seven-fifteen, or perhaps a little earlier, you picked up a passenger who had you take her to 4889 Milpas Drive," said Perry Mason.

  "So that's it, eh?" said the cab driver.

  "That's it," Mason said.

  "What do you want to know about it?"

  "What did the woman look like?"

  "Gee, chief, that's hard to tell. I remember she had on a black fur, and she had some peculiar kind of perfume. She left a handkerchief in the car, and I smelled it. I was going to turn the handkerchief in to the Lost and Found Department, if she didn't say something about claiming it."

  "How tall was she?" asked Perry Mason.

  The driver shrugged his shoulders.

  "Can't you give us any idea?"

  The driver looked around him with a bewildered air. Perry Mason nodded to Della Street. "Stand up, Della," he said.

  The girl stood up.

  "Tall as this girl?" Mason asked.

  "Just about the same build," the driver said, looking Della Street over with appreciative eyes. "She wasn't as pretty as this girl, and she may have been a little heavier."

  "You remember the color of her eyes?"

  "No, I don't. I thought they were black, but maybe they were brown. She had a peculiar voice. I remember she talked funny. She talked in a high-pitched voice, and talked fast."

  "You don't remember very much about her, then?" said Mason.

  "Not too much, boss. She was the type of woman that you wouldn't - that is, that I wouldn't. You know how it is. There's lots of Janes gets in a cab and starts getting friendly right away. Well, she wasn't the kind that got friendly. Then there's lots of Janes that get in a cab and are on the make. They usually come through with some kind of a business proposition. This Jane wasn't on the make."

  "Notice her hands? Did she have any rings on?"

  "She had black gloves," said the cab driver positively. "I remember because she had some trouble fumbling around in her purse."

  "All right, you took her there, and then what did you do?"

  "I took her there, and she told me to watch her until I saw her get into the house. Then I was to go some place to a public telephone and telephone a number and deliver a message."

  "Go ahead," Mason said, "what was the number and what was the message?"

  "It was a funny message."

  "Did she write it out?"

  "No, she just told me and made me repeat it twice, so that I'd get it straight."

  "All right, go ahead; what was it?"

  The driver took a notebook from his pocket and said: "I wrote down the number. It was Parkcrest 62945, and I was to ask for Arthur, and tell him that he'd better go over to Clint's house right away, because Clint was having a showdown over Paula."

  Perry Mason glanced over at Paul Drake.
Paul Drake's eyes were suddenly thoughtful, and they stared at Perry Mason with concerned speculation.