The Case Of The Howling Dog pm-4

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  "All right," said Perry Mason. "I want evidence to show all about that dog. I want witnesses who can come here and testify about him. I want witnesses who have known that dog from a pup. Go to Santa Barbara. Get the neighbors who would have heard the dog if he'd ever howled at night. Get affidavits from them. Some of them we'll want as witnesses. Spare no expense."

  "All over a dog?" asked Paul Drake.

  "All over a dog," Perry Mason said, "who didn't howl in Santa Barbara, but who did howl here."

  "The dog's dead," the detective reminded him.

  "That doesn't affect the importance of the evidence," Mason said.

  The telephone rang. Mason picked up the receiver.

  "One of Mr. Drake's detectives on the line, and he wants to report to him at once," Della Street said. "He says its important."

  Perry Mason turned the receiver over to Paul Drake.

  "One of the men with some more information, Paul."

  Drake slid over to the edge of the chair arm, lifted the receiver to his ear and drawled a lazy "Hello."

  The receiver made swift metallic noises, and a look of surprised incredulity came over Drake's face.

  "You're sure about that?" he asked at length.

  The receiver made more noises.

  Drake said, "I'll be damned," and hung up the telephone. He looked at Perry Mason with eyes that still showed startled surprise.

  "Know who that was?" he asked.

  "One of your men?" asked Mason.

  "Yes," said Drake, "one of my men who's covering the police headquarters, picking up tips from newspaper reporters, and all that stuff. Do you know what he told me?"

  "Naturally," said Perry Mason, "I do not. Go ahead and spill it."

  "He told me," said Paul Drake, "that the police have positively identified the gun that was found in Foley's house; the gun that killed the police dog and Foley."

  "Go ahead," Mason said. "How did they identify it?"

  "They identified it by tracing the numbers and getting the report on sales. They've found out definitely and positively who bought that gun."

  "Spill it," Mason said; "go ahead and tell me. Who bought it?"

  "The gun," said Paul Drake slowly, his eyes watching Perry Mason's face in concentrated scrutiny, "was purchased in Santa Barbara, California, by Bessie Forbes, two days before her husband ran away with Paula Cartright."

  Perry Mason's face became wooden. He stared at the detective in expressionless appraisal for nearly ten seconds.

  "Well," said Drake, "what have you got to say?"

  Perry Mason's eyes half closed.

  "I'm not going to say anything," he said. "I'm going to take back something that I did say."

  "What?"

  "When I told you that at the proper moment I could bust that case against Bessie Forbes wide open."

  "I," said Drake, "am doing a lot of mind changing, myself."

  "It's all right," Mason said slowly. "I still think I can bust that case wide open, but I don't know."

  He picked up the telephone, placed the receiver to his ear with a slow, deliberate motion, and when he heard Della Street's voice, said, "Della, get me Alex Bostwick, the city editor of The Chronicle. Get him on the line, personally. I'll wait."

  The expression of surprise gradually faded from Paul Drake's eyes, and his face resumed once more its look of droll humor.

  "Well," he said slowly, "that hands me a jolt. I'm commencing to think you either know more about this case than I thought you did, or else that you're crazy like a fox. Maybe it was a good thing Mrs. Forbes didn't rush out and make a lot of explanations to the police."

  "Perhaps," Perry Mason said softly, then turned to the telephone. "Hello... this Bostwick? Hello, Alex, Perry Mason talking. I've got a hot tip for you. You always claimed that I never gave you tips so that your men could dig up a scoop. Here's one that's a pippin. Have a reporter go out to 4893 Milpas Drive. It's the residence of a man named Arthur Cartright. He'll find a housekeeper there who is deaf and cranky. Her name's Elizabeth Walker. If your reporter will draw her out, he'll find that she knows who murdered Clinton Foley... yes, Clinton Forbes, who lived at 4889 Milpas Drive, under the name of Clinton Foley...

  "Yes, she knows who did the killing...

  "No, it wasn't Bessie Forbes. You get her to talk...

  "All right, if you insist. She'll tell you that it was Arthur Cartright, the man for whom she works, and who has mysteriously disappeared. That's all. Good-by."

  Perry Mason slid the receiver back on the hook and turned to Paul Drake.

  "God! Paul," he said, "but I hated to do that."

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE room in the jail, set aside for conferences between attorneys and clients, contained no furniture other than a long table running the length of the room, flanked with chairs on either side. Midway along the table, stretching entirely through the table to the floor, and up to a height of five feet above the table, was a heavy wire screen.

  An attorney and his client could sit on opposite sides of the table. They could see each other's faces, hear plainly what was said; but they could not touch each other; nor could they pass any object through the screen. The visiting room had three doors. One of them opened from the jailor's office to the side of the room where attorneys were admitted; one opened from the jailor's office to the side where prisoners were admitted, and one led from the prisoners' side of the room to the jail.

  Perry Mason sat in a chair at the long table, and waited impatiently. His fingers made little drumming sounds upon the battered table top.

  After a few moments the door from the jail opened and a matron walked into the room, with Mrs. Forbes on her arm.

  Bessie Forbes was white-faced, but calm. Her eyes held a haunting expression of terror, but her lips were clamped together in a firm, determined line. She looked about the room, and then saw Perry Mason, as the attorney got to his feet.

  "Good morning," he called.

  "Good morning," she said, in a firm, steady voice, and walked over to the table.

  "Take that seat across from me," said Perry Mason.

  She sat down and tried a smile. The matron withdrew through the door which went to the jail. The guard peered curiously through the steel cage, then turned away. He was entirely out of ear-shot. Attorney and client were alone.

  "Why," said Perry Mason, "did you lie to me about the gun?"

  She looked about her with a haunted, hunted look, then moistened her lips with the extreme tip of her tongue.

  "I didn't lie," she said. "I had just forgotten."

  "Forgotten what?" he asked.

  "Forgotten about purchasing that gun."

  "Well, then," he said, "go ahead and tell me about it."

  She spoke slowly, as though choosing her words carefully.

  "Two days before my husband left Santa Barbara," she said, "I found out about his affair with Paula Cartright. I got a permit from the authorities to keep a gun in the house, went down to a sporting goods store, and bought the automatic."

  "What did you intend to do with it?" he asked.

  "I don't know," she said.

  "Going to use it on your husband?"

  "I don't know."

  "Going to use it on Paula Cartright?"

  "I don't know, I tell you. I just acted on an impulse. I think, perhaps, I was just going to run a bluff."

  "All right," he said, "what happened to the gun?"

  "My husband took it away from me."

  "You showed it to him, then?"

  "Yes."

  "How did you happen to show it to him?"

  "He made me angry."

  "Oh, then you threatened him with it?"

  "You might call it that. I took the gun from my purse and told him I'd kill myself before I'd be placed in the position of a neglected wife who hadn't been able to hold her husband."

  "Did you mean it?" Perry Mason asked, studying her from expressionless, patient eyes.

  "Yes," she said, "I meant it.
"

  "But you didn't kill yourself."

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "I didn't have the gun when it happened."

  "Why didn't you?"

  "My husband had taken it from me. I told you."

  "Yes," said Mason, "you told me that, but I thought perhaps he'd given it back."

  "No. He took it, and I never saw it again."

  "So you didn't commit suicide because you didn't have the gun?"

  "That's right."

  Mason made drumming motions with his fingertips on the table top.

  "There are other ways of committing suicide," he said.

  "Not easy ways," she told him.

  "There's lots of ocean around Santa Barbara."

  "I don't like drowning."

  "You like being shot?" he asked.

  "Please don't be sarcastic. Can't you believe me?"

  "Yes," he said slowly. "I'm looking at it from the standpoint of a juror."

  "A juror wouldn't ask me those questions," she flared.

  "No," Mason told her moodily, "but a district attorney would, and the jurors would be listening."

  "Well," she said, "I can't help it. I've told you the truth."

  "So your husband took that gun with him when he left?"

  "I guess so. I never saw it again."

  "Then your idea is that some one took that gun from your husband, killed the police dog and killed him?"

  "No."

  "What is your idea?"

  "Some one," she said slowly, "who had access to my husband's things took that gun and waited for the right opportunity to kill him."

  "Who do you think that was?"

  "It might," she said, "have been Paula Cartright, or it might have been Arthur Cartright."

  "How about Thelma Benton?" said Perry Mason slowly. "She looks like rather an emotional type to me."

  "Why should Thelma Benton kill him?" asked the woman.

  "I don't know," said Perry Mason. "Why should Paula Cartright have killed him, after she lived with him so long?"

  "She might have had reasons," said Bessie Forbes.

  "According to that theory, she would have first run away with her husband, then returned and killed Forbes."

  "Yes."

  "I think," said Perry Mason slowly, "it would be better to stick to the theory that Arthur Cartright killed him, or that Thelma Benton killed him. The more I see of it, the more I'm inclined to concentrate on Thelma Benton."

  "Why?" she asked.

  "Because," he told her, "she's going to be a witness against you, and it's always a good move to show that a witness for the prosecution might be trying to pass the crime onto somebody else."

  "You don't act as though you believed what I tell you," she said, "about the gun."

  "I never believe anything that I can't make a jury believe," Perry Mason told her. "And I'm not certain that I can make a jury believe that story about the gun, if they also believe that you went there in a taxicab; that you saw your husband's dead body lying on the floor, and made no move to report to the police, but that you fled from the scene of the murder and tried to conceal your identity by taking a room under the name of Mrs. C. M. Dangerfield."

  "I didn't want my husband to know I was in town."

  "Why not?" he asked her.

  "He was utterly cruel and utterly ruthless," she answered.

  Perry Mason got to his feet and motioned to the attendant that the interview was over.

  "Well," he said, "I'll think it over. In the meantime, write me a letter and tell me that you've been giving your case a great deal of thought, and that you want to tell your story to the newspaper reporters."

  "But I've already told them that," she said.

  "Never mind that," Perry Mason told her, as the matron appeared through the door leading from the jail. "I want you to put it in writing and send it to me."

  "They'll censor it before it goes out of the jail?" she asked.

  "Of course," he told her. "Good-by."

  She stood staring at him until he had left the visitors' cage, her expression that of puzzled bewilderment.

  The matron tapped her arm.

  "Come," she said.

  "Oh," sighed Bessie Forbes, "he doesn't believe me."

  "What's that?" asked the matron.

  "Nothing," said Mrs. Forbes, clamping her lip in a firm, straight line.

  Perry Mason stepped into the telephone booth, dropped a coin and dialed the number of Paul Drake's detective bureau.

  After a moment he heard Drake's voice on the line.

  "Paul," he said, "Perry Mason talking. I'm going to shift my guns in that murder case a little."

  "You don't need to shift them any; you've got them covering every point in the case now," Drake told him.

  "You haven't seen anything yet," Mason remarked. "And I want you to concentrate on Thelma Benton. She's got an alibi that covers every minute of her time, from the time she left the house, until she got back. I want to find a hole in that alibi some place, if I can."

  "I don't think there's any hole in it," Drake said. "I've checked it pretty thoroughly, and it seems to hold water. Now I've got some bad news for you."

  "What is it?"

  "The district attorney has found out about Ed Wheeler and George Doake, the two detectives who were watching Clinton Foley's house. They've got deputies out looking for them."

  "They got wise to those birds through the taxi driver," Perry Mason said slowly.

  "I guess so," said Drake.

  "The deputies found them?"

  "No."

  "Are they likely to?"

  "Not unless you want them to."

  "I don't want them to," said Perry Mason. "Meet me at my office in ten minutes, and have all the reports on this Thelma Benton."

  He heard Drake sigh over the telephone.

  "You're getting this case all mixed up, brother," Drake told him.

  Perry Mason laughed grimly.

  "That's the way I want it," he said, and hung up the receiver.

  Perry Mason caught a taxicab to his office, and found Paul Drake waiting for him with a sheaf of papers.

  Mason nodded to Della Street, took Paul Drake's arm and piloted him into the inner office.

  "All right, Paul," he said. "What have you found out?"

  "There's only one weak point in the alibi," the detective said.

  "What's that?"

  "That's this fellow Carl Trask, the gambler who showed up in the Chevrolet and took Thelma Benton from the house. She was with him at various places until eight o'clock. I've checked the times when they showed at the various places. There's a gap between seven-thirty and seven-fifty. Then they drifted into a speak and had a drink. Trask left shortly after eight o'clock, and the girl went to a booth and had dinner by herself. The waiter remembers her perfectly. She left about eighty-thirty, picked up a girl friend and went to a picture show. Her alibi is going to depend on Carl Trask's testimony from around seven-thirty to seven-fifty, and on the girl friend from eight-thirty on.

  "But we don't care about busting the alibi after eight-thirty. Between seven-thirty and seven-fifty is the time you want to concentrate on, and from all I can find out, that's going to rest on Carl Trask's testimony, and, of course, that of Thelma Benton herself."

  "Where does she claim she was?" Mason asked.

  "She says she was down at another speak, having a cocktail, but nobody remembers her down there. That is, nobody has yet."

  "If," said Perry Mason moodily, "she could find somebody down there who remembered her, it would give her a pretty good alibi."

  Paul Drake nodded wordlessly.

  "And," said Perry Mason slowly, "if she can't, it's going to be a weak spot, if we can impeach Carl Trask in some way. You say he's a gambler?"

  "Yes."

  "Any criminal record?"