The Case of the Velvet Claws pm-1

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Della Street asked: “Can I get in touch with you anywhere?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll get in touch with you,” he said.

  He drew the letter toward him and scribbled on the margin. She hesitated for a moment, then walked around the desk so that she could look over his shoulder.

  Perry Mason wrote on the letter:

  He took a blotter, blotted the note, and handed it to Della Street.

  “Have that attended to right away,” he said, “so that I can sign it before I go out.”

  She took the letter casually. “Very well,” she said, and left the office.

  Perry Mason turned to the woman. “I’ve got to know something about how high I can go on this thing,” he told her.

  “What would you consider reasonable?” she asked.

  “Nothing at all,” he said crisply. “I don’t like to pay money for blackmail.”

  “I know,” she remarked, “but you must have had some experience.”

  “Spicy Bits,” he told her, “will charge everything they think the traffic will bear. What I’m trying to get at is how much will it bear? If they want too much I’ll try stalling them along. If they are willing to be reasonable, I can handle it quickly.”

  “You’ve got to handle it quickly.”

  “Well,” he said, “we’re getting away from the question. How much?”

  “I could raise five thousand dollars,” she ventured.

  “Harrison Burke is in politics,” he told her. “From all I can hear, he isn’t in politics for his health. He runs with the reform crowd, and that makes his patronage all the more valuable to the other crowd.”

  “What are you getting at?” she asked him.

  “I’m getting at the fact that Spicy Bits probably won’t consider five thousand a drop in the bucket.”

  “I could raise nine or perhaps ten,” she said, “in a pinch.”

  “It’ll be a pinch,” he told her.

  She bit her lower lip between her teeth.

  “Suppose something turns up and I need to communicate with you without waiting for the ad to be published in the paper?” he asked. “Where can I get in touch with you?”

  She shook her head swiftly and positively.

  “You can’t. That’s one thing that we’ve got to have understood. Don’t try to reach me at my address. Don’t try to telephone me. Don’t try to find out who my husband is.”

  “You’re living with your husband?”

  She snapped him a swift look.

  “Of course I am, otherwise where would I get the money?”

  There was a knock at the outer door of the office, and Della Street thrust her head and shoulders into the room.

  “I have that matter attended to so you can sign the letter any time you want, Mr. Mason,” she said.

  Perry Mason got to his feet, looked meaningly at the woman.

  “All right, Mrs. Griffin. I’ll do the best I can.”

  She arose from her chair, took a step toward the door, paused, and looked at the money on the table.

  “Do I get a receipt for the money?” she asked.

  “You do if you want it.”

  “I think I would like to have it.”

  “Of course,” he said, meaningly, “if you would like to have in your purse, a receipt made out to Eva Griffin for a retainer, and signed by Perry Mason, it’s quite all right with me.”

  She frowned, and then said: “Don’t make it that way. Make a receipt to the effect that the holder of this receipt has paid you the amount mentioned, as a retainer.”

  He scowled, scooped up the money with his swiftly competent hands, and beckoned to Della Street.

  “Here, Della,” he said, “take this money. Give Mrs. Griffin a ledger page, and make a receipt to the effect that the account listed in our ledger, under that page number, is credited with five hundred dollars. Mark on the receipt that that amount is by way of retainer.”

  “Can you tell me what your total fees will be?” asked the woman.

  “It’ll depend on the amount of the work,” he said. “They’ll be high, but fair. And they’ll depend on results.”

  She nodded, hesitated a moment, and then said: “I guess that’s all I have to do in here.”

  “My secretary will give you the receipt,” he told her.

  She smiled at him. “Good day.”

  “Good day,” he said.

  She paused at the door of the outer office, to turn and look back at him.

  He was standing with his back to her, his hands thrust in his pockets, looking out of the window.

  “This way, please,” said Della Street, and closed the door.

  Perry Mason continued to stare out at the street for some five minutes. Then the door from the outer office opened once more, and Della Street came into the office.

  “She’s gone,” she said.

  Mason whirled to face her.

  “Why did you think she was phony?” he asked.

  Della Street stared him steadily in the eye.

  “That woman,” she said, “spells trouble to me.”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “To me, she’s five hundred dollars cash for a retainer. And another fifteen hundred by way of a fee when I get the thing squared up.”

  The girl said, with some feeling: “She’s phony, and she’s crooked. She’s one of those well-kept little minxes that would double-cross anybody in order to take care of herself.”

  Perry Mason surveyed her appraisingly.

  “You don’t find loyalty in wives,” he said, “who pay five hundred dollar retainers. She’s a client.”

  Della Street shook her head, and said: “That isn’t what I meant. I meant that there’s something false about her. She’s concealing something from you right now; something that you should know. She’s sending you up against something as a blind proposition when she could make it easy for you if she’d only be frank.”

  Perry Mason made a gesture with his shoulders.

  “Why should I care if she makes it easy for me?” he asked. “She’s the one that’s paying for my time. Time is all I’m investing.”

  Della Street said, slowly: “Are you sure that time is all you’re investing?”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “the woman’s dangerous. She is just the kind of a little minx who would get you into some sort of a jam and leave you to take it, right on the button.”

  His face didn’t change expression, but his eyes glinted. “That’s one of the chances I have to take,” he told her. “I can’t expect my clients to be loyal to me. They pay me money. That’s all.”

  She stared at him with a speculative look that held something of a wistful tenderness. “But you insist on being loyal to your clients, no matter how rotten they are.”

  “Of course,” he told her. “That’s my duty.”

  “To your profession?”

  “No,” he said slowly, “to myself. I’m a paid gladiator. I fight for my clients. Most clients aren’t square shooters. That’s why they’re clients. They’ve got themselves into trouble. It’s up to me to get them out. I have to shoot square with them. I can’t always expect them to shoot square with me.”

  “It isn’t fair!” she blazed.

  “Of course not,” he smiled. “It’s business.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I told the detective that you wanted her shadowed as soon as she left the office,” she said, abruptly getting back to her duties. “He said he’d be there to pick her up.”

  “You talked with Paul Drake himself?”

  “Of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have told you everything was all right.”

  “Okay,” he said, “you can bank three hundred out of that retainer, and give me two hundred to put in my pocket. We’ll find out who she really is, and then we’ll have an ace in the hole.”

  Della Street went back to the outer office, returned with two hundred dollars in currency, which she handed to Pe
rry Mason.

  He smiled at her.

  “You’re a good girl, Della,” he said. “Even if you do get funny ideas about women.”

  She whirled on him. “I hate her!” she said, “I hate the very ground she walks on! But it isn’t that. It’s something more than the hate. It’s sort of a hunch I’ve got.”

  He planted his feet wide apart, thrust his hands in his pockets, and stared at her.

  “Why do you hate her?” he asked, with tolerant amusement.

  “I hate everything she stands for!” said Della Street. “I’ve had to work for everything I got. I never got a thing in life that I didn’t work for. And lots of times I’ve worked for things and have had nothing in return. That woman is the type that has never worked for anything in her life! She doesn’t give a damned thing in return for what she gets. Not even herself.”

  Perry Mason pursed his lips thoughtfully. “And all of this outburst is occasioned just because you gave her the once-over and didn’t like the way she was dressed?” he asked.

  “I liked the way she was dressed. She’s dressed like a million dollars. Those clothes she had on cost somebody a lot of money. And you can bet that she wasn’t the one that paid for them. She’s too well-kept, too well-groomed, too baby faced. Did you notice that trick she has of making her eyes wide when she wants to impress you? She’s practiced that baby stare in front of a mirror.”

  He watched her with eyes that were suddenly deep and enigmatical. “If all clients had your loyalty, Della, there wouldn’t be any law business. Don’t forget that. You’ve got to take clients as they come. You’re different. Your family was rich. Then they lost their money. You went to work. Lots of women wouldn’t have done that.”

  Her eyes were wistful once more.

  “What would they have done?” she asked. “What could they have done?”

  “They could,” he remarked slowly, “have married a man, and then gone out to the Beechwood Inn with some other man, got caught, and had to get a lawyer to get them out of the jam.”

  She turned toward the outer office, keeping her eyes averted from him. Those eyes were glowing. “I started to talk about clients,” she observed, “and you begin to talk about me.” And she pushed her way through the door and into the outer office.

  Perry Mason walked to the doorway and stood there while Della Street went over to her desk, sat down at it, and slid a sheet of paper into her typewriter. Mason was still standing there when the door of the outer office opened and a tall man, with drooping shoulders and a head that was thrust forward on a long neck, came into the outer office. He regarded Della Street with protruding glassy eyes that held a perpetual expression of droll humor, smiled at her, turned to Mason and said: “Hello, Perry.”

  Mason said: “Come on in, Paul. Did you get anything?”

  Drake said: “I got back.”

  Mason held the door open, and closed it after the detective had gone into the private office.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Paul Drake sat down in the chair which the woman had occupied a few minutes earlier, raised his foot to the other chair and lit a cigarette.

  “She’s a wise baby,” he said.

  “What makes you think so?” asked Perry Mason. “Did she know you were tailing her?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Drake. “I stood by the elevator shaft, where I could see her when she came out of the office. When she came out, I got in the elevator first. She kept watching your office to see if anybody came out of it. I think she thought perhaps you’d send your girl to try and spot her. She seemed relieved when the elevator got down.

  “She walked to the corner, and I tagged along behind, keeping a few people between her and me. She ducked into the department store across the street, walked right along as though she knew exactly what she wanted to do, and went into the Women’s Rest Room.

  “She looked sort of funny when she went in there, and I had an idea maybe it was a dodge, so I hunted up an attendant, and asked him if there was any other way out of the Women’s Rest Room. It seems there are three ways out. There’s a way that goes into the beauty parlor. There’s a way into the manicuring room, and a way into the cafe.”

  “Which way did she take?” asked Mason.

  “She took the beauty parlor just about fifteen seconds before I covered it. I figured she’d simply used the dressing room stuff as a blind. She knew that a man couldn’t follow her in there, and she’d evidently figured it all out in advance. I found out this much, she had a car parked in front of the beauty parlor street exit, with a chauffeur sitting at the wheel. The car was a big Lincoln, if that’ll help you any.”

  “It won’t,” said Mason.

  “I didn’t think it would,” grinned Drake.

  Chapter 2

  Frank Locke had coarse, mahogany skin, and wore a tweed suit.

  His skin didn’t have the tanned appearance which comes from outdoor sports, but looked rather as though it had absorbed so much nicotine that it had become stained. His eyes were a mild brown, the color of milk chocolate, and absolutely without sheen. They seemed dead and lifeless. His nose was big, and his mouth weak. To a casual observer, he seemed utterly mild and innocuous.

  “Well,” he said, “you can talk here.”

  Perry Mason shook his head. “No, you’ve got this place rigged up with all sorts of dictographs. I’ll talk where I know that you’re the only one that’ll hear what I’m going to say.”

  “Where?” asked Frank Locke.

  “You can come to my office,” said Mason, without hope or enthusiasm in his tone.

  Frank Locke laughed, and his laugh was gratingly mirthless. “Now I’ll tell one,” he said.

  “Okay,” said Mason. “Put on your hat, and start out with me. We’ll agree on some place.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Locke, his eyes suddenly suspicious.

  “We’ll pick a hotel,” said Mason.

  “One that you’ve picked out already?” asked Locke.

  “No,” said Mason, “we’ll get a cab and tell him to drive us around. If you’re that suspicious, you can pick the hotel yourself.”

  Frank Locke hesitated a minute, then said: “Excuse me a moment. I’ll have to see if it’s all right for me to leave the office. I’ve got some things that I’ve been working on.”

  “Okay,” said Mason, and sat down.

  Frank Locke jumped up from behind the desk and left the room. He left the door open as he went out. From the outer offices came the clack of busy typewriters, the hum of voices. Perry Mason sat and smoked placidly. His face held that expression of absorbed concentration which was so typical of him.

  He waited almost ten minutes. Then Frank Locke came in, wearing his hat.

  “All right,” he said, “I can leave now.”

  The two men left the building together, hailed a cruising cab.

  “Drive around the business section,” said Perry Mason.

  Locke regarded the attorney with those chocolate brown eyes of his, which seemed to contain no expression whatever.

  “Maybe we could talk here,” he said.

  Mason shook his head. “I want to talk where I don’t have to yell.”

  Locke grinned and said: “I’m used to being yelled at.”

  Mason said, grimly: “When I yell, I mean business.”

  Locke lit a cigarette, with a bored air.

  “Yeah?” he said casually.

  The cab turned to the left. “There’s a hotel,” said Mason.

  Locke grinned. “I see it,” he said. “I don’t like it because you picked it out, and because it’s too near. I’m going to pick the hotel.”

  Perry Mason said: “Okay. Go ahead and pick one. Just don’t tell the driver where to go. Let him drive around and you can pick any hotel that he drives by.”

  Locke laughed. “Getting cautious, ain’t we?”

  Perry Mason nodded.

  Locke tapped on the glass. “We’ll get out here,” he said, “
at the hotel.”

  The cab driver looked at him with mild surprise but braked the car to a stop. Mason flipped him a fifty cent piece, and the two men walked into the lobby of the cheap hotel.

  “How about the parlor?” asked Locke.

  “Suits me,” said Mason.

  They walked across the lobby, took the elevator to the mezzanine floor, walked past the manicurist’s room, and sat down in chairs that faced each other, with a smoking stand in between.

  “All right,” said Locke, “you’re Perry Mason, an attorney. You’re representing somebody, and you want something. Shoot!”

  Mason said: “I want something kept out of your paper.”

  “Lots of people do,” said Locke. “What do you want out?”

  Mason said: “Well, let’s discuss procedure first. Are you willing to talk a straight money proposition?”

  Locke shook his head emphatically.

  “We’re not a blackmailing sheet,” he said. “We sometimes extend favors to our advertisers.”

  “Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Mason.

  “That’s it,” said Locke.

  “What would I advertise?” asked Mason.

  Locke shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t care,” he said, “you don’t need to advertise anything, if you don’t want to. We sell you the space. That’s all.”

  “I see,” said Mason.

  “Okay. What is it you want?”

  “There was a murder at the Beechwood Inn last night. That is, there was a shooting. I don’t know whether it was a murder or not. I understand that the man who was shot was trying to hold up the joint.”

  Frank Locke turned his dispassionate milk-chocolate eyes upon the attorney.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Mason continued: “I understand there’s some mystery about the thing. That is, the District Attorney is going to make quite an investigation.”

  Locke said: “You still haven’t told me anything.”

  “I’m telling you,” said Mason.

  “Okay. Go ahead.”

  “Somebody told me,” continued Mason, “that the list of witnesses that was handed to the District Attorney might not be complete.”

  Locke stared at him.